The Holy Meeting Place

Much more than a central tenet of Judaism and Christianity, the Law of Love is (according to Course-Jesus) God’s most basic mandate that “Love creates itself, and nothing but itself.” The Law of Love further dictates that we receive what we give, as is clearly stated in the affirmation for Workbook Lesson 344: Today I learn the Law of Love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me.

Let’s think about this for a moment. If Love creates itself and nothing but itself AND we receive only what we give, then giving anything other than Love creates nothing. Ergo, the world we made by defying the fundamental Law of Creation is a whole lot of nothing. Being nothing, it can’t exist except in a dream, and what happens in dreams has no real consequences. Although Course-Jesus explains all of this time and again, it doesn’t really sink in until we fully accept that we are, in fact, dreaming the world we appear to be in.

Acceptance of this (spiritual) eye-opening fact is, however, only the first step. To return to Divine Reality, we have to “awaken in Christ” by honoring once again the laws of Love we sought to defy by projecting part of our mind out of the God-Mind Bubble.

Or, as Course-Jesus explains:

Awaking unto Christ is following the laws of love of your free will, and out of quiet recognition of the truth in them. The attraction of light must draw you willingly, and willingness is signified by giving. Those who accept love of you become your willing witnesses to the love you gave them, and it is they who hold it out to you. In sleep you are alone, and your awareness is narrowed to yourself. And that is why the nightmares come. You dream of isolation because your eyes are closed. You do not see your brothers, and in the darkness you cannot look upon the light you gave to them.

And yet the laws of love are not suspended because you sleep. And you have followed them through all your nightmares, and have been faithful in your giving, for you were not alone. Even in sleep has Christ protected you, ensuring the Real World for you when you awake. In your name He has given for you, and given you the gifts He gave. God’s Son is still as loving as his Father. Continuous with his Father, he has no past apart from Him. So he has never ceased to be his Father’s witness and his own. Although he slept, Christ’s vision did not leave him. And so it is that he can call unto himself the witnesses that teach him that he never slept. (ACIM, T-13.VI.12:1–13:9)

Confusing, isn’t it? What he means (I think) is that we witness the dream at two levels of awareness. At one level, we’re in physical bodies, moving around the worldly dreamscape. At another, we’re Souls in energy bodies, witnessing from “above the battleground” what our embodied “characters” are doing in the virtual-reality learning simulator the Spirit of Grace transformed the dream-world into.

You may well be surprised, but what we’re experiencing is, in actuality, the play-back recording of a dream that evaporated in the “Holy Instant” (of eternity) our Heavenly Father willed our mad, self-imposed exile to end. And that’s why God’s Great Awakening Plan can’t fail.

Capiche?

Let’s now look at what the Holy Bible tells us about the Law of Love. According to Microsoft’s AI Bing-bot, this fundamental edict is referenced in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 5:44 and 22:37-40, John 13:34-35, Romans 13:8-10, and Galatians 5:14.

Let’s begin at the beginning, with Deuteronomy 6:4-5, which supposedly takes the form of a “Sherma” — a Jewish prayer that reads as follows in the King James Bible:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is ONE. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your Soul and with all your strength. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them when thine sittest in thy house, and when thy walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them as a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be as fronlets between thine eyes; and thou shalt write them on the posts of thy house and upon thy gates.

Now, it just so happens that this particular Bible verse is the one our brothers playing Jews in the dream place inside the “mezuzahs” they nail to their doorways — to remind them of God’s Holy Law. So, they’re not going to appreciate me suggesting this translation is miles away from what Deuteronomy 6:4-5 actually communicates.

What follows is my reinterpretation of the original Hebrew:

Hear, Israel, the Holy Name of Elohim, the one Holy Name to love. The Holy Name of Elohim is the spirit within the heart of hearts; the divine life-force of the Logos in command of the eternal mind diligently teaching the Son to sing in the Temple-abode of the walking journey; to rest and arise in league with the miracle preserving the exalted (or banded) eye in the forehead — the door of return to the Temple’s upper chamber.

All of these symbolic references have meaning in more scriptural texts than the Holy Bible. The Holy Name, the Logos, the Heart of Hearts, the Temple, the Walking Journey, the Miracle, the banded eye in the forehead, the door of return, and the Upper Chamber are all aspects of God’s plan for our salvation. So, it’s hard to imagine my interpretation is baseless.

In Hinduism, the “banded eye” or “exalted eye” mentioned in Deuteronomy is the Tripundra shown above on the forehead of Lord Shiva. Rightly understood, Lord Shiva represents “the transcendent power of Brahman,” which IS forgiveness and/or atonement. This “Third Eye” or “Eye of Shiva” enables the “spiritual sight” or “holy vision” (in Course terms) through which we “see” (through Christ’s Vision or Shiva’s Vision) what Course-Jesus terms the Real or Forgiven World. And that “single-eye” (as per Bible-Jesus) is indeed “the door of return into the Temple’s Upper Chamber” (as I’ll explain in future posts).

Furthermore, Elohim is the Logos or Word of God, whose Holy Name is indeed the life-force or “Living Water” of God’s Saving Grace teaching the Souls in the dream to sing together inside the Temple of the “Walking Journey.” We make that journey by “walking in the Spirit” around the Wheel of Existence, Holy Circle, or Prabha Mandala discussed in previous posts.

I’m confident, therefore, that my translation of Deuteronomy has merit. What I can’t explain is why Jesus quotes the other version in Matthew 22:37-40, wherein he says:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great[est] commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

As I see it, there can be only three possible explanations. The first is that my translation is wrong, which seems unlikely in light of the many universal symbols referenced; the second is that Jesus cited the familiar translation of the Deuteronomy verse to make his point about the Law of Love; and the third is that Jesus never, in fact, said this. A fourth possibility might have been that Matthew’s account also was mistranslated, but I checked the KJV version against the original Greek and it’s pretty right-on.

It’s also very similar to what’s reported in Luke 10:27 — except that Jesus doesn’t actually quote Deuteronomy in Luke’s version of the story. The Pharisee who’s questioning him does. The Pharisee also quotes Leviticus 19:18 — the only Old Testament verse urging us to love our neighbor as our Self.

Here’s how the relevant verses read in Luke:

And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

He [Jesus] said unto him, “What is written in the law? how readest thou?”

And he [the Pharisee lawyer] answering said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.”

And he [Jesus] said unto him, “Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.”

But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”

And Jesus answering said, “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.

But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him. And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, “Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.”

[Jesus then said] “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?”

And he [the lawyer] said, “He that shewed mercy on him.”

Then said Jesus unto him, “Go, and do thou likewise.”

I retained the parable about the Good Samaritan because it, in fact, illustrates how we honor the Law of Love at the learning-teaching level of bodies helping other bodies. The keys are, as Jesus states in this parable, showing mercy and compassion toward all our fellow beings.

Let’s now see what Paul the Apostle (who was not one of the twelve disciples) writes about the Law of Love to the Romans and Galatians. In his letter to the Romans, he basically repeats Leviticus 19:18, when he says: “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law [of Love].” To the Galatians, he similarly writes: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

Let’s now look at two additional verses in which Bible-Jesus instructs us to love one another. The first is John 13:34-35, wherein he says: “A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another.” And the second is Matthew 5:44, in which he says, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Although these are more in line with what Course-Jesus teaches, they still say nothing about “giving to receive.” Giving to receive is, however, discussed in Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31 — the two “Golden Rule” verses.

This is, as it happens, an important distinction, because the Law of Love is indeed related to the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule dictates that we treat others only as we wish to be treated, while the Law of Love mandates that we give to others only the loving thought-gifts we desire for the “body” of Christ to which we belong.

The differences are subtle, but important. Rightly perceived, the Golden Rule governs behavior, while the Law of Love concerns the thoughts and intentions that motivate behavior. If, therefore, we follow the Law of Love to the letter, we’ll never have to “atone” for behaving badly or — added bonus — generate the Karmic “debts” that further indenture our Souls to Satan’s mind control.

But wait, there’s more … because the Bing-bot overlooked the series of verses wherein Bible-Jesus explains in detail what following the Law of Love should look like in everyday life. He provides those guidelines in Luke 6:27-38, which reads as follows in the KJV Bible:

But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.

Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.

And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.

And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.

And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.

But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

All of his instructions should be taken to heart. But for the sake of our current discussion, let’s focus for on the last verse concerning giving and receiving.

The KJV translation reads rather awkwardly to me — and that’s usually a sign that it isn’t quite right. So, I took the liberty of retranslating Luke 6:38 from the original Greek. Because many of the words had multiple meanings, both literal and figurative, it wasn’t easy to decipher. In the end, I went with this:

To give God’s gifts indeed gives to your Self the good that inspires your own sphere of influence to extract, stir up, and pour out God’s gifts in the Resting Place for the Self in your sphere of influence, which metes out what comes back to you in equal measure.

Marginally better, but only marginally. So, let’s see what Course-Jesus says on the subject. He says quite a lot, actually. Not surprising, given that what we give and receive in the Holy Resting Place are the “Miracles” mentioned in the Course’s title, as well as in Deuteronomy. And we do indeed “rest and arise in league with the miracle,” which opens the Soul’s Spiritual Eye — the mechanism for the True Perception or Holy Vision that enables us to pass through “the door” into the Upper World.

Or, as Course-Jesus affirms:

A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service you can render to another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. You recognize your own and your neighbor’s worth simultaneously. (ACIM, T-1.I.18:1-4)

Rightly understood, those “Miracles” are infusions of Grace the Holy Spirit provides to gently and gradually dissolve the truth-blocking “veils” or “dark glass” Satan placed over the “single-eye” of the Soul.

After reviewing all Course-Jesus says in the most obvious place — Workbook Lesson 108: To give and receive are one in Truth — most of which is about restoring Christ’s Vision — I elected to go with what follows from the Text.

To all who share the Love of God the grace is given to be the givers of what they have received. And so they learn that it is theirs forever. All barriers disappear before their coming, as every obstacle was finally surmounted that seemed to rise and block their way before. This veil you and your brother lift together opens the way to truth to more than you. Those who would let illusions be lifted from their minds are this world’s saviors, walking the world with their Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and freedom and release from suffering to everyone who needs a miracle to save him.

How easy is it to offer this miracle to everyone! No one who has received it for himself could find it difficult. For by receiving it, he learned it was not given him alone. Such is the function of a holy relationship; to receive together and give as you received. Standing before the veil, it still seems difficult. But hold out your hand, joined with your brother’s, and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and your brother, and the holy Self you share together.

(ACIM, T-22.IV.6:1–7:8)

Stated more plainly, what we “give” to our brothers in Christ at the level of thought, we LITERALLY give to our own Self — because, in Divine Reality, we are all the interwoven “pearls,” “sparks,” or “seeds” of the Logos, Purusha, Christ Mind, and/or Word of God. Elohim, Indra, or Allah, depending on your scriptural frame of reference. Thus, what we give in accordance with the Law of Love — through the Holy Relationship and/or “Covenant of Love” we share with those linked to us through the Atonement Matrix — spreads across Indra’s Net for everyone’s mutual benefit.

Just so we’re clear, when Jesus says “the Love of God” in the passage above, he means Divine Love, rather than the unholy emotional attachment the Ego Mind defines as “love.” Satan’s deceptive replacement for God’s Perfect Love includes self-love, familial-love, and romantic-love — all of which promote exclusivity, separation, and ego-body self-identification, rather than inclusiveness, unity, and Christ-Self Identification.

Or, as Course-Jesus explains in Workbook Lesson 127: There is no love but God’s:

No law the world obeys can help you grasp love’s meaning. What the world believes was made to hide love’s meaning, and to keep it dark and secret. There is not one principle the world upholds but violates the truth of what love is, and what you are as well. Seek not within the world to find your Self. Love is not found in darkness and in death. Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear Love’s Voice.

Unlike “special love” (as Course-Jesus terms Satan’s deceptive substitution), Divine Love excludes nobody from the embrace of its all-encompassing arms. Neither does it ask for or expect anything in return, because, in accordance with the Law of Love, Perfect Love comes to us experientially only when we freely GIVE it to others.

Or, to quote Course-Jesus again:

You cannot enter into real relationships with any of God’s Sons unless you love them all and equally. Love is not special. If you single out part of the Sonship for your love, you are imposing guilt on all your relationships and making them unreal. You can love only as God loves. Seek not to love unlike Him, for there is no love apart from His. Until you recognize that this is true, you will have no idea what love is like. No one who condemns a brother can see himself as guiltless and in the peace of God. If he is guiltless and in peace and sees it not, he is delusional, and has not looked upon himself. To him I say:

Behold the Son of God, and look upon his purity and be still. In quiet look upon his holiness, and offer thanks unto his Father that no guilt has ever touched him.

(ACIM, T-13.X.11:1-11) 

What he’s talking about here – and pretty much everywhere else in the Course – is the meditative practice of True Forgiveness, which takes place in what he alternatively calls the Holy Meeting Place, the Holy Resting Place, and the Golden Circle. And it is in that Sacred Circle of Light deep within our minds that we join together in the Holy Relationship that is the Covenant of Love.

That Holy Relationship or First Covenant exists eternally between God and His Creations. That sacred and unbreakable bond is reciprocal, all-encompassing, and all-inclusive. God loves the Sonship as ONE Creation or Being, and all the dreaming parts of that ONE Being love God just as much in return. We express that reciprocal love for our Creator, as Jesus explains in the Course AND the Bible, by loving the spark of God within our embodied brothers.

Or, to quote the prayer Christ provides in Workbook Lesson 246: To love my Father is to love His Son:

Let me not think that I can find the way to God, if I have hatred in my heart. Let me not try to hurt God’s Son, and think that I can know his Father or my Self. Let me not fail to recognize myself, and still believe that my awareness can contain my Father, or my mind conceive of all the love my Father has for me, and all the love which I return to Him. (ACIM, W-246.1:1-3)

This brings up an interesting point pertaining to the traditional translation of Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Would God command us to love Him? Would any kind and loving father do something so despotic and irrational? Is it even possible to command our children to love us? And who but a pathologically insecure bully would condemn their offspring to eternal damnation should they fail to keep such a free-will crushing command?

I sincerely hope you didn’t answer “yes” to any of those questions, because only the Devil — or someone under Beelzebub’s evil influence — would do anything so completely despicable and insane.

When Bible-Jesus extols us, in John 13:34, to “love one another as I have loved you,” he isn’t instructing us to love one another’s unreal and insane ego-body personas.

Let’s go back to what I was saying before my little sidebar. When Bible-Jesus extols us to “love one another as I have loved you,” he doesn’t mean to love one another’s unreal and insane ego-body personas. He means to love one another as the scattered particles of the One Son we truly are. We don’t get this, however, until we fully accept that God did NOT create the material world, the body, or the “false self” that identifies the world and the body as its home.

Neither do we “get” this as long as we buy into Satan’s big fat dream-imprisoning lie about family and friends being the only true source of happiness in the world. Family and friends are, in truth, the biggest sources of guilt, judgment, specialness, manipulative expectations, and grievances in the dream – the very “veils” the Devil employs to hide the Truth of our Being.

How Satan persuaded anyone who’s read the Bible that “family values” are Christian values is beyond comprehension.

How Satan persuaded anyone who’s read the Bible that “family values” are “Christian values” is beyond comprehension. Bible-Jesus suggests more than once that the “family” of the body and the “family” of the spirit are not the same thing at all. He states this most clearly in Matthew 23:9, wherein he says: “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.”

In case his meaning isn’t clear, allow me to explain: No man upon the earth is our father, because we are NOT the body our biological parents produced. Our only reality is the part God created. Ergo, our ONLY Father is in Heaven.

Now, it just so happens (uncoincidentally, as always) that today’s Workbook Lesson included the page answering the question: “What is the Christ?” And the answer Course-Jesus gives includes the following clarifying explanation:

Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind. This is the only part of you that has reality in truth. The rest is dreams. Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ, to fade before His glory and reveal your holy Self, the Christ, to you at last. (ACIM, W-pII.6.3:1-4)

If the Bible’s more your bag, consider how Jesus reacts to his body-family in Mark 3:31-35. In the KJV Bible, the relevant passages read as follows: 

There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, “Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.” And he [Jesus] answered them, saying, “Who is my mother, or my brethren?” And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, “Behold my mother and my brethren!” For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.“

As I’ve said before, everything in scripture is symbolic. Everything in the world also is symbolic, but let’s stick with the Bible for now. Let’s also revisit this passage in the original Greek, to see what it said before the Anglican translators got their paws on it.

Actually, we need only revisit the second part of the verse, wherein Jesus looks around at those seated about him. Because Jesus didn’t “look round about on them which sat about him.” He looked around “the Circle” (kukloi, in transliterated Greek) to indicate the Holy Circle where the Souls doing God’s Will join together in Holy Relationship to exchange Miracles of Grace. And it is those Souls who are indeed the true family of the Christ.

Here’s the bottom line: We can’t see the Divine Spark or Soul in anyone while looking at the body. To open “the eyes that see and ears that hear Love’s Voice,” we must go within and join together as Souls in the meditatively visualized Golden Circle.

Rightly understood, these charitable exchanges of loving thought are the separation-healing “Miracles of Grace” Christ’s “course” prepares us to “give as we receive.” These reciprocal thought-transactions are, as Course-Jesus tells us, the only real way to heal anyone of separation-mindedness. And separation-mindedness, as he further explains, is the root of EVERY problem we perceive in the world.

Before we can perform these mutual mind-healing “Miracles,” however, we have to hear the Holy Spirit’s “Voice” with our inner-ears and perceive everyone with the perfect equanimity and sinlessness we “see” through Christ’s Vision. We can NOT, in other words, perceive ANYONE as “more,” “less,” “different,” or “separate” than we are by ANY comparative measure the Ego Mind contrived to blind us to our SAMENESS or ONENESS with everything God created.

Or, to quote Course-Jesus:

You who would be content with specialness, and seek salvation in a war with love, consider this: The holy Lord of Heaven has Himself come down to you, to offer you your own completion. What is His is yours because in your completion is His Own. He Who willed not to be without His Son could never will that you be brotherless. And would He give a brother unto you except he be as perfect as yourself, and just as like to Him in holiness as you must be? (ACIM, T-24.V.8:1-4)

Boiled down to the crux: Everything God created = our only TRUE family

Stated more bluntly: To help or heal anyone in the true sense of the word, we must perceive and love everyone as the fellow Holy Creations they really are — NOT as the insane ego-body “characters” they play in the dream-drama.

Have I made my point?

I’ll say more about Miracles and how they work in future posts. For now, let’s get back to our definition of Perfect Love. In the following from the URText (the transcript of Christ’s original dictations), Jesus affirms some of what I’ve already explained:

Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergences and no distinctions. It is like itself, unchanged throughout. It never alters with a person or a circumstance. It is the Heart of God, and also of His Son. 

Elsewhere, he says:

Love knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total lack of limit IS its meaning. It is COMPLETELY impartial in its giving, encompassing ONLY to preserve and KEEP COMPLETE what it would give. In your tiny kingdom you have so little! Should it not, then, be there that you would call on Love to enter? Look at the desert, dry and unproductive, scorched and joyless, that makes up your little kingdom. And realize the life and joy that Love would bring to it, from where IT comes, and where it would return WITH you. 

In Workbook Lesson 127: There is no love but God’s, Jesus further explains the unworldly attributes of Perfect Love: 

Love cannot judge. As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. Its meaning lies in oneness. And it must elude the mind that thinks of it as partial or in part. There is no love but God’s and all of Love is His. There is no other principle that rules where Love is not. Love is a law without an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds Them Both forever as the same. No course whose purpose is to teach you to remember what you really are could fail to emphasize that there can never be a difference in what you really are and what Love is. Love’s meaning is your own, and shared by God Himself, and so are you unlimited as well.

In the Workbook for Students, the word “Love” appears in the headline affirmations of sixteen lessons. For a clearer understanding of the concept, I recommend you read and study them all.

• Lesson 46: God is the Love in which I forgive.
• Lesson 50: I am sustained by the Love of God.
• Lesson 67: Love created me like Itself.
• Lesson 68: Love holds no grievances.
• Lesson 127: There is no love but God’s.
• Lesson 189: I feel the Love of God within me now.
• Lesson 195: Love is the way I walk in gratitude.
• Lesson 229: Love, Which created me, is what I am.
• Lesson 246: To love my Father is to love His Son.
• Lesson 264: I am surrounded by the Love of God.
• Lesson 274: Today belongs to Love. Let me not fear.
• Lesson 293: All fear is past, and only love is here.
• Lesson 298: I love You, Father, and I love Your Son.
• Lesson 310: In fearlessness and love I spend today.
• Lesson 344: Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me.
• Lesson 350: Miracles mirror God’s Eternal Love. To offer them is to remember Him, and through His memory to save the world.
• Lesson 352: Judgment and love are opposites. From one come all the sorrows of the world. But from the Other comes the peace of God Himself.

As all this pertains to the Law of Love, the bottom line is this: To receive the LOVE we all so desperately crave, we must think ONLY kind and loving thoughts about our Creator and His Creations, as well as our own Creations (whatever they are).

Is this a tall order? Yes. Is it possible to achieve? It is indeed, with enough time, practice, focused effort, self-surrender, and willingness.

In case I haven’t been clear, we join in Holy Relationship by focusing our attention on Elohim’s “tonal song” or “Holy Name” in our minds. That “song” or “name” is the Living Water, through which we join minds to give and receive the healing power of grace. That “unstruck sound” is the Logos “singing” inside the Temple of our Higher Mind. This “echo” is what Course-Jesus variously terms the Call to Return, the Voice for God, the Song of Heaven, the ancient melody, the ever-present echo, and the Holy Spirit’s Voice, among other euphemisms for what is essentially the OM/AUM vibration much revered in eastern religions.

As explained, listening to that sound in the imagined Holy Circle of True Forgiveness is how we turn the Wheel of Time. The more of us who enter that Holy Circle to listen to Elohim’s song, the faster the Wheel turns. And the faster the Wheel turns, the sooner the dream of separation ends for everyone.

Course-Jesus tells us this a thousand times, in myriad different ways. Be thankful I’ve elected to quote just one of these instructive passages. The one I’ve chosen is from Workbook Lesson 123: I thank my Father for His gifts to me. To Christ’s words, I’ve added some parenthetical explanations, to make his meaning more evident.

We do not go alone. And we give thanks that in our solitude a Friend [the Red Ray, Logos, or Christ “on the throne”] has come to speak the saving Word of God [the OM vibration] to us. And thanks to you for listening to Him. His Word is soundless if it be not heard. In thanking Him the thanks are yours as well. An unheard message will not save the world, however mighty be the Voice that speaks, however loving may the message be.

Thanks be to you who heard, for you become the messenger who brings His Voice with you, and lets It echo round and round the world. Receive the thanks of God today, as you give thanks to Him. For He would offer you the thanks you give, since He receives your gifts in loving gratitude, and gives them back a thousand and a hundred thousand more than they were given. He will bless your gifts by sharing them with you. And so they grow in power and in strength, until they fill the world with gladness and with gratitude.

(ACIM, W-123.5:1–6:5)

I heard the inner-echo as a child, but forgot all about it until I started hearing it again about five years ago — while doing Paramahansa Yogananda’s Self-Realization correspondence course. Self-Realization Fellowship never was my primary path, but it proved a fruitful detour. It also answered a big question the Course didn’t seem to: What is the Name we share with God?

As Yogananda tells us in his SRF course and his book, The Yoga of Jesus, God’s Name is OM or AUM.  And as Jesus tells us in Workbook Lesson 183: I call upon God’s Name and on my own, many amazing things come to pass when we repeat that Holy Name SILENTLY in meditation. Yogananda also advocated for the silent chanting of the Holy Name, as did Patanjali, the Mahatma who authored the seminal Yoga Sutras.

Let’s now revisit my retranslation of the passage from Deuteronomy. If you’ve been paying attention, it should make much more sense:

Hear, Israel, the Holy Name of Elohim, the one Holy Name to love. The Holy Name of Elohim is the spirit within the heart of hearts; the divine life-force of the Logos in command of the eternal mind diligently teaching the Son to sing in the Temple-abode of the walking journey; to rest and arise in league with the miracle preserving the exalted (or banded) eye in the forehead — the door of return to the Temple’s upper chamber.

At the start of this post, I also mentioned Workbook Lesson 344, in which Jesus describes the Law of Love. The first thing he says is that the Law of Love is God’s, not ours. He then explains that, when in league with the Ego Mind, we try to acquire the worldly “treasures” we desire on our own, rather than in the giving-receiving cooperative partnerships mandated by the Law of Love. We strive, in other words, to appease our avarice for Satan’s temptations (i.e., money, possessions, worldly power, sexual lust and gratification, “special love,” etc.) through taking, buying, or self-interested willing, rather than by GIVING the THINGS OF GOD (Sat) — all of which are intangible — to our fellow Souls or brothers in Christ. Since Satan’s “treasures” are only vapor, all we gain in this unholy contract is a longer sentence in hell.

I should also mention that it’s the Law of Love — not the Law of Cause and Effect — that makes it SEEM as if we can generate real effects in the waterless desert. What we actually generate are the reciprocal “thought-gifts” we offer to the other fragments of the Christ we wrongmindedly perceive as separate from us. Because “thought-gifts” generated through ego-thinking can’t be shared universally, they are recorded by the Powers That Be for future reciprocal “giving to receive.” And that, my brother, is how we acquire the Karmic “debt” that binds our Souls to the cycle of rebirth.

We get what give, in other words, tit for tat.

The good news is that we can expunge these “debts” through the practice of True Forgiveness. True Forgiveness is, in fact, the ONLY way to clear the Karmic Record, short of receiving everything we gave through fear-based thinking over many lifetimes.

To fix the world, we need to fix our thinking — with the Holy Spirit’s help.

To practice True Forgiveness, we have to ask the Holy Spirit to shift our perception of the upsetting events in our lives. In reality, we’re simply getting back what we gave. As bad as it seems, it’s still a “gift” from a brother in Christ, who’s showing us — on the level of form — the kind of hell our thinking generates.

Another way of saying the same thing is that everything happening in the world mirrors our thinking. To fix the world, therefore, we need to fix our thinking — with the Holy Spirit’s help. That “help” comes to us as perception-correcting Miracles, which open the Spiritual Eye temporarily to show us the rightminded way to perceive the lesson.

I’ve prattled on long enough, so let’s end our discussion of the Law of Love here with one final quote from the Course. Just so we’re clear, the “witness to the Wholeness of God’s Son” referenced is Elohim.

What witness to the Wholeness of God’s Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? He is invisible in such a world. Nor can his song of union and of love be heard at all. Yet is it given him to make the world recede before his song, and sight of him replace the body’s eyes. (ACIM, T-26.I.4:1-10)

Thanks for visiting. I hope you found my insights illuminating. Om Hari Om.