"All you need is love!"
"All you need is love!"
How many times have we asked ourselves, "What is wrong with me? Can't I be totally loving?"
Do you see the problem with such a question?
Yes, there is the technical problem of using questions to keep oneself contracted in mental forms so as not to experience one's infinite Being. But do you see the deeper problem?
The fundamental problem is addiction to focusing on one's self.
We simply cannot experience what we really, really, really want to experience if we are focused on ourselves. Whether we call our ultimate goal happiness, peace, joy, enlightenment, love that passeth all understanding ... we will not experience it by looking at ourselves.
Happiness seekers write all the time: "I'm this and I'm that. These things are happening to me and those things are happening to me. I've tried everything and I've always been disappointed."
Well, is it any wonder? When has the disappointed one's focus ever been totally off himself or herself ... and totally on God?
One time a seeker approached an enlightened teacher and said, "Baba, please open my heart so I can love." The teacher answered, "You have it backwards. Go and love. Your heart will open."
Maybe we can borrow from this story for a paraphrase:
"Teacher, please open me up so I can be with God."
"You have it upside down. Be with God and you will open up."
"Master, please open me so I can experience God."
"You have it inside-out. Place all your attention on God ... all your attention ... and see what happens!"
Yes, the human condition is disappointing. Yes, focusing on human circumstances will always disappoint us. How could this not be? Do we think we can experience heaven by looking at hell? Do we imagine we can come to experience expansion to infinity by "working with" littleness?
Enlightened teachers are always saying, "It comes with surrender." Fair enough. Surrender of what?
Jesus, in his modern day revelation A Course in Miracles says it this way:
"God's teachers have learned how to be simple. They have no dreams that need defense against the truth. They do not try to make themselves. Their joy comes from their understanding Who created them. And does what God created need defense? No one can become an advanced teacher of God until he fully understands that defenses are but foolish guardians of mad illusions. The more grotesque the dream, the fiercer and more powerful its defenses seem to be. Yet when the teacher of God finally agrees to look past them, he finds that nothing was there. Slowly at first he lets himself be undeceived. But he learns faster as his trust increases. It is not danger that comes when defenses are laid down. It is safety. It is peace. It is joy. And it is God." (ACIM Manual for Teachers)
At this point we can imagine an innocent 5 year old child asking, "How do I surrender a dream by looking at it?"
Bingo! We surrender by taking our attention out of the dream altogether and placing our attention outside the dream.
Open Sesame! God is love!
Which means beyond the surface appearances we are love. So why would we look at surface appearances?
It might be well to remember two sentences from the very introduction of the Course taught by Jesus: The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. (ACIM Introduction)
Maybe it is time for an easy multiple choice quiz.
The blocks to the awareness of love's presence arise from:
If someone wants healing, the answer will come from:
It's the same old story. We only reach the top the mountain by looking up. If we stop and look back, we turn into a pillar of salt.
Many are acquainted with the famous lyrics from the Beatles: "All you need is love."
Maybe the Beatles made a correct identification but fell short of teaching us how. Maybe now it's time to be looking far above earth all throughout our days and singing the Beatle's tune but substituting the one idea which means the same but really lifts us Home:
1) Focusing on God?
2) Focusing on Love?
3) Focusing on the human condition?
1) Focusing on the problem?
2) Focusing on the pain?
3) Focusing on God?
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