What is Love?
The ego and God see it differently
Posted by aplecompte on February 18th, 2009
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life
I don't know
Landslide Stevie Nicks 1973
The dictionary says that “Love is a feeling of affection and caring toward another person. It arises in relation to certain partners, family members, and sometimes to others as ‘altruism.’” So we think love is selective. There are people to whom it does not apply.
A current definition of altruism is: “paying a cost to help another individual and never receiving any kind of benefit.” My Course discernment antennae start to hum: that sounds like sacrifice.
A Course in Miracles says that love is neither selective nor sacrificial. Love is of God and “is beyond what can be taught.” We can’t understand love because the ego thought system that made the world and thinks our thoughts is based on fear, love’s opposite, seeking to confirm itself. We can’t generate loving thoughts by ourselves yet because they come from the opposite paradigm. In order to have a loving thought we have to deny what our ego mind is telling us. We acknowledge that we are stuck in false perception and appeal to the Holy Spirit to help us see peace instead.
The Holy Spirit’s purpose is forgiveness. To forgive is simply to see the ego’s thought as false. When the ego thought is denied, a loving thought is present that shifts our whole perspective. It is a miracle. The nature of God’s thoughts is oneness. Loving thoughts result in joining with others. With the experience of miracles we recognize the innocence and goodness of others, which is the truth of who they are, and hence the truth of who we are. As we practice the forgiveness process, one thought at a time, we experience more and more joy and freedom. Each loving thought moves us closer to our home in God.
Tags: Forgiveness, Love
