For the Love of God

When my brother, who is not a student of A Course in Miracles, heard that I was leaving my house-cleaning business to be a mentor for students of the Course a couple of years ago, he made some comment about my “love for people”. I clarified with him that I do not love people. He laughed because he thought this was odd. Then why am I doing what I am doing? This is a common misunderstanding. I have never, and still do not, “love people”. Certainly, I have loved individual people, but I am not a “lover of humanity” as a whole. This is not only a personal statement, but a spiritual one as well. In my mind, to “love humanity” means “to love the projections of the personal mind”, and only the personal mind does this. When I come from God, I love God, not “people”.

I was horribly co-dependent when I first became a student of the Course. I thought it was my job to “fix” or “rescue” others. This was very draining, and a drag on all of my relationships. I didn’t understand the Course very well, and I read into it an affirmation of my co-dependency. This was an obstacle to my practicing the Course for a long time because I was afraid of being totally drained. As the Course says, the personal mind associates love with sacrifice, and so it associates God, Which is Total Love, with total sacrifice. Boy, did I believe that! But in time I opened my mind to understanding what the Course is really saying. The quote below illustrates this perfectly (weakness here refers to the personal mind; strength to God in your mind):

“It is your weakness that sees through the body’s eyes, peering about in darkness to hold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes that cannot see and cannot bless.

Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. It unites with light, of which it is a part. It sees itself.” (W-92.3-4)

The Course freed me from any guilt I may’ve harbored for not “loving humanity”, and from my personal mandate to “save” it. If anything, it justified my dislike of the politics and drama of human relationships by explaining their cause, and explaining that they will never change. Eventually, of course, dislike also fell away and was replaced by detachment. It’s not possible to either love or dislike what I can see is only a false idea in my own mind! “Humanity” is nothing. I do not need to condemn it or save it, but released it from my mind so that I can love as God loves. God knows only God, and so God loves only God. When I behave Lovingly it is not because I love the object toward which I extend Love, but because I know that I am Love. It is Love’s Nature to extend Itself, and It extends Itself to Itself. This is What “Oneness” means; this is What “God” means.

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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.

Comments

Jeremy Finkeldey said…
And, you also serve and help others to wake up to the Course, to be of service to the good (read "God") in everyone, to escape from ego-influence, and to realize their already existing Oneness with God. No?
~Jeremy
12:20 PM
ACIM Mentor said…
No.

Anyway, that may be how it appears in the "story" but it's not what is going on in me. Eventually, through practicing the Holy Instant, I found that I can no longer give meaning to a "story" for the world and also recognize the world is not real. Any story I have for the world keeps me in ego. So I just live in the present with the Holy Spirit, and do whatever I do, and take no thought for it. Or, anyway, that is what I am learning to do!
1:19 PM
Roeland said…
Liz, I feel very much the same way as you do.
Thank you for your honesty in sharing this.
However, in the Course there is much attention to loving ones brother.
In a way I feel guilty because when I go out of my door I tend to avoid people. Also all the ego plays in this society scares me.
Somehow I feel I should love my brother more then I do...........
And I feel guilty because I lead a secluded life and do not mix with people easily.
12:16 AM
ACIM Mentor said…
Roeland, the first thing that you have to understand is the context in which the Course was written. Helen and Bill were in a reciprocal Holy relationship, where each was experiencing the same thing at the same time. "Your brother" in the Course, for them, meant each other. The lessons were very specific to them; we must generalize them for ourselves. Read beyond the surface of the words. What is the Course's central teaching? Thoughts do not leave the mind of the thinker. There are no "others" to love; there is only your Self beyond all appearances to love.

If you are avoiding others out of fear, Roeland, then you are not experiencing detachment. Note that I pointed out that even my dislike of the world fell away. It's meaningless. Remember, the world is neutral; how you perceive it is your choice. You are walking around in your own projections! What you are fearing is what you are choosing to see. It's not really there at all. When you find yourself frightened by someone or something in the world, step back and recognize that what you are seeing are your own thoughts. Just observe them, let them go, and then get in touch with the Love within you, Which is What is really here. In time, you will find fear falling away.
8:00 AM
Roeland said…
Thank you a lot
8:54 AM
Jeremy Finkeldey said…
So if there are no "others" to love and Roeland is walking around in his own projections then there is really no Liz telling Roeland about his projections because "Liz herself" is really only a projection of Roeland's - so it's just Roeland telling Roeland about his own projections. And, another projection of Roeland's - "CBM himself" - tapping on this keyboard (another projection of Roeland's even though Roeland can't actually see the keyboard) to send a message to Roeland and Liz and all Roeland's other projections (if they are paying attention) to try and figure this Oneness thing out.... right?
3:25 PM
ACIM Mentor said…
Well, it's more like, CBM, Roeland, and Liz are projections in one mind - the dreamer-of-the-dream. On top of that, CBM, Roeland, and Liz do add their own projections onto CBM, Roeland, and Liz. That's why the Course has us first recognize our personal projection (seeing a personal past in everything, for example). After you've got the hang of doing that, it dawns on you that everything is either a projection of the personal mind, or an extension of God from your mind (when you choose to see Christ instead of a body). The content of the personal projections stops being relevant because you recognize that all they are, are projections; the details don't matter. Then you start to get the idea that, just at there is really only One Spirit, there is really only one ego, too, though its deception is that it takes many forms. Now you are really beginning to understand that you are the dreamer-of-the-dream,not the dream figure. And it is here that you can really make the choice between Truth and illusion, because as long as you were only a dream figure, you thought that you were in someone else's dream, and you felt powerless.
5:21 PM
Jeremy Finkeldey said…
Excellent! Thank you very much. That clarifies quite a bit for me. Also, I have a lot to learn about this Course.
~Jeremy
7:38 PM
Jeremy Finkeldey said…
My "favorite revelator", Emanuel Swedenborg, whose works I have been studying for decades says something similar in his book "Divine Providence." I have it in my notes under "PROJECTION, DIVINE (and human)." Here it is:

PROJECTION, DIVINE (and human)
"... The Divine cannot regard anything but what is Divine, and it cannot regard this anywhere but in things created by itself. That this is so is evident from this fact, that no one can regard another except from what is his own in himself. He who loves another regards him from his own love in himself; while he who is wise regards another from his own wisdom in himself. He may indeed see that the other either loves him or does not love him, and that he is wise or that he is not wise; but this he sees from the love and from the wisdom in himself. Therefore he conjoins himself to the other so far as the other loves him as he loves the other, or so far as the other is as wise as himself for thus they make one...." (Divine Providence 53:1)

Liz, You are making a big difference in my understanding of the Course. Thanks.

~Jeremy
8:02 PM
Hal Seeley said…
What I find as an interesting exercise is to allow myself to accept that what Liz wrote and any follow up comments by others, is what I wrote. I do this in the context that we are one. (At Liz's web site home page you can link to "Understanding One Mind") Doing this helps me to dissolve the separation perception I hold of my brother because I am actually my brother.

As I sit here writing this comment there is a very annoying barking and howling coming from a small puppy chained up next door. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me see past the annoying sound and the answer is that I am barking at myself! And so I am choosing to be annoyed at myself. The solution is to understand why I am choosing to be irritated and decide whether or not I want to continue.
6:36 AM
Jo Chandler said…
Liz,
Your clairity about God and the Course blow my mind. When I first read this latest post, For the Love of God, I thought, Gee, that seems cold and detached.

Fortunately, I have learned to listen to my unrest when I read something, so I took the time to think about what you were actually saying, and I was transformed.

I have been on a forgiveness journey and have been practicing all of the forgiveness lessons in the Workbook, as well as listening to your comments about the special relationship. Still, my forgivness of my "special relationship" continued to fall short. Then, as if an answer to a prayer, LOL, comes your commentary.

Liz, I can see plainly now that I don't love people. I love God. And by understanding that that is the only love there is, the need for forgiving my special relationship has fallen away. OMG. I can't express in words what is taking place in me, but then words are only symbols. I have a hunch you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Jo
10:19 AM
dear beloved said…
What does this mean?:

"Thoughts do not leave the mind of the thinker."
10:32 AM
ACIM Mentor said…
Dear Beloved, it means that if you perceive it, it's in your mind.
10:45 AM
jandvig said…
Liz: Thank you for your light and teaching. I'm still a bit stuck here .... yes, Love only extends Itself to Itself. But I'm still feeling like this whole "idea" the Zeitgeist Movement is proposing (have you read about it?), although proposed in the world of illusion, seems to be a step in the direction of bringing our minds to join as One, ultimaetly leading to the final dissapearance of the world. Maybe I'm feeling that this has already happened, and it's resonating strongly with my personal mind. I asked the Holy Spirit for guidance and you appeared. Thank you.
Janet
6:10 PM
ACIM Mentor said…
This may be what you were saying, Janet, but our minds are already One; they don't have to be joined. When you come from the Oneness, then you realize that there is no world to be saved. In other words, you are not in a world; the world is only an idea in your mind. When your attention is focused on the world, then it is focused on nothing, which is why you inevitably feel empty and unhappy. But when your attention is focused on Oneness, then you know that you already have Everything, and nothing needs to be done.
8:22 PM
jandvig said…
I asked the Holy Spirit again this morning upon awakening, and before reading your reply. I opened my book to p.124:
(the ego) "Forced therefore, to detach itself from you, it is willing to attach itself to anything else. But there is nothing else. The mind can, however, make up illusions, and if it does so it will believe in them, because that is how it made them."

The ego is a genius. The Zeitgeist Movement is a perfect way to keep me attached to the world.

Liz, thank you again for being a light in my mind. In love,
Janet
7:28 AM
yvonne Gardner said…
I have been a student of the course in miracles (on & off) for several years. I am in process of letting go of a special relationship that I have been involved with for over 17 years. My former partner has hired a lawyer because their are money and estate issues to be sorted out. I am working at letting go with love and not personalize the betrayal. However, after building a life together and now have myself in a position to I need to find a place to live, source of income (I worked at her company) and deal with periods of grief. What does the course say about taking care of myself financially (ie hire a lawyer) and allowing the holy spirit to sort this out?
7:22 AM
Anonymous said…
Thank you.
6:20 AM
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