LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING 2

“The illusion of love” is not just that which supports any idea of separateness, but also the whole “falling in love” thing as well. We do “fall in love,” but if we “fall in” we can also “fall out.” 

Simple explanation—falling in love is an interesting process when our ego barriers drop away for a time, and we begin to see the the other person as “perfect, the man or woman of my dreams.” Wonderful feeling, even if it is an illusion, I hope you have all experienced it at least once. The problem is that I’m not really “in love” with another person, I am projecting onto the other person all the positive qualities I desire.

(Scott Peck in The Road Less Travelled describes falling in love as being a “mild form of insanity.”)

When my ego decides to come back into the picture, which it inevitably does, this “perfect” person disappears and… well, depending on the people involved, there are varied consequences.

Enough of that—back to Real or Unconditional Love—the only Love that truly exists.

“Imagine right now that you stand on a street corner and you see people pass by you and you see them in their worth as a Created Being. You can understand this. There is a Creator and he made everybody, so consequently everyone must have some worth attached to him or her and you bear witness to this. So you see yourself standing on the corner, watching people pass, and you acknowledge that they are all a Created Being.”

As with many of you I was reminded of that marvelous reflection by Thomas Merton.  

This is an expanded reflection of his experience.

"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.

We are in the same world as everybody else, the world of the bomb, the world of race hatred, the world of technology, the world of mass media, big business, revolution, and all the rest. We take a different attitude to all these things, for we belong to God. Yet so does everybody else belong to God. We just happen to be conscious of it, and to make a profession out of this consciousness. But does that entitle us to consider ourselves different, or even better, than others? The whole idea is preposterous.

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And I suppose my happiness could have taken form in the words: 'Thank God, thank God that I am like other men, that I am only a man among others.' 

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake.

I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other. But this cannot be seen, only believed and 'understood' by a peculiar gift."

From Conjectures of A Guilty Bystander:

I find it fascinating that the guides should create an exercise so similar to Merton’s experience.

The message above is so simple and clear, I’m not going to clutter it up.

I just want to pull a few more prayers/affirmations from the section we covered this week.

“I am now intending to lift in my frequency where I can benefit from the higher perspective of each man and woman created in the image likeness of their Creator. And I can see them as perfect beings manifested in perfection by the love of the Creator.”

“I set this intention now. I am seeing all before in the image and likeness of God. I am seeing the Christ in all of my fellows. I am witnessing the divine perfection that is created in every man and woman that I encounter.”

“I am Word through my intention to realize myself as my perfect being incarnate. And I stand now before my fellow man and I allow myself to be seen as perfect, as a perfect creation manifested in a body. And I do this now with the support and with the guidance of the powers, the teachers, and the guides that are supporting me on this journey. I do this with the intention to be made manifest as myself as the frequency of the Christ. I am Word through this intention. Word I am Word.”

“I am Word through those I see before me. Word I am Word.”

I would encourage us all to create our own affirmations/prayers with the Word I am Word form. You can fit them to any situation or circumstance.

May all beings be at peace. May all beings be free of suffering. Word I am Word through this intention. Word I am Word.