LESSON 67
March 8

"Love created me like Itself."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

Purpose: To experience the blazing light of your changeless reality, if only for a moment. To replace your definition of God with His Own and include yourself in His definition.

Longer: 1 for 10-15 minutes.

Repeat idea.
Then spend a few minutes adding relevant thoughts, such as: "Holiness created me holy. Kindness created me kind. Helpfulness created me helpful."
For a brief interval then try to let go of all thoughts.
Then, for remainder of exercise, try to reach past all self-images to your Self. If you get distracted, repeat idea. If this is not enough, add more relevant thoughts.

Remarks: The Self that Love created must be in you and able to be found. Be confident you will bring awareness of It nearer today, even if you feel unsuccessful.

Shorter: 4 or 5 per hour.

Repeat idea, think about them for a minute or less.

Remarks: Remember that this is not your tiny voice telling you this, but the Voice for God reminding you of the simple truth about you, replacing what you have told yourself.

COMMENTARY

The Course spends a disproportionate amount of space telling us what we are, how we were created like God, Who created us, and how that reality is "unchanged and unchageable" (2:1). Lesson 229 virtually duplicates today's thought: "Love, Which created me, is what I am." Review V has us repeat the thought, "God is but Love, and therefore so am I," every day for ten days. And then there are all the lessons on the theme, "I am as God created me;" three lessons with that direct topic (the only lesson given more than once in the same words, in 94, 110, and 162), several others in which the idea is repeated (132, 139, 237, and 260), and twenty review lessons (201 to 220) in which we repeat the words, "I am still as God created me," daily. Evidently the Course thinks this idea is worth repeating!

In fact, today's lesson tells us exactly why this thought is so important, and why repetition of it is so necessary:

"It will be particularly helpful today to practice the idea for the day as often as you can. You need to hear the truth about yourself as frequently as possible, because your mind is so preoccupied with false self-images. Four or five times an hour, and perhaps even more, it would be most beneficial to remind yourself that Love created you like Itself. Hear the truth about yourself in this." (Paragraph 5)

We need to hear the truth about ourselves as often as we can because we have taught ourselves a false self-image, and we have taught ourselves very, very well. "Teach only love, for that is what you are" (T-6.I.13:2) is one of the most famous sayings in the Course, and emphasizes the same thing: What we are is Love, because Love created us like Itself.

How many of us, if asked "What are you?" would find the word "love" springing immediately to our minds? For most of us, to think of ourselves as being love and only love is, to be kind, a stretch. We may think we have some love in us, but to think that Love is what we are? Not hardly. That's why we need to hear it as often as possible, why we need to repeat the idea today four or five times an hour or more (5:3) during the day. That's something like eighty times today, if we are awake sixteen hours.

Love is what I am. That is why I am the light of the world. That is why I am the world's savior, and why the Christ in everyone looks to me for salvation--because what I am is the salvation of the world. (1:2-5) How differently would I live today if I knew this about myself?

Notice that the lesson does not expect us to "get" this idea all at once. If we were expected to grasp it right away, we wouldn't have to repeat it eighty times. All we are looking for is to "realize fully, if only for a moment, that it is the truth" (1:6) Love is in us as our true Self, and we are attempting to get in touch with the Love within ourselves (3:2,3). We may not contact It directly today, but even the effort is worth it, although we may not feel we have succeeded: "Be confident that you will do much today to bring that awareness nearer, whether you feel you have succeeded or not" (4:4).

Some day, though, some time, we will succeed; perhaps even today. It's inevitable because we cannot hide forever from what we are, we cannot escape from what is within us. At some point it will happen: "You will succeed in going...through the interval of thoughtlessness to the awareness of a blazing light in which you recognize yourself as Love created you" (4:3).

"You were created by Love like Itself." (6:4)