The abstraction inherent in A Course in Miracles can feel crazy-making, but what can we do? We didn't write it, and nobody is making us read it. The real question is: what if the Course is correct? What if its emphasis on abstraction is the way to peace and happiness?
For example, Love is not a symbol but it can be symbolized. Its symbols are the forms in which it appears - people, places and things that we "love." But that's backwards. The forms are unreal; the abstraction is the reality.
Love Itself is pure, clear and true. You know it. It doesn't change or shift the way a symbol does.
Consider the purest love you know - probably a person, maybe a pet or a landscape. If the person is away at work, is your love correspondingly lower? That's a silly question, right?
Try this. If the person you love is dead - not on vacation, but gone - is the love gone too? Not just silly, almost offensive. I get it!
Can you see how the object of your love changes (people come and go) and the expression of your love changes (e.g., it's words, it's a hug, it's a memory) but the love itself does not change?
And can you also see how you didn't need to read a book or study a course or hire a teacher to learn how to love? You know. You always have. You always will.
But what is it that you know? Can you bottle it? Put it under a microscope? If you had to draw it, what would you draw? Not the symbols but that to which the many symbols point?
Love doesn't have a form. It can be symbolized by forms, but is not itself a form. Forms are limitations, and love cannot be limited.
It is not a crime against God or nature to desire a certain form of love - sex, soup, sangria by the fire. Whatever. But if we confuse the symbol of love (which is always the object, always the expression) with Love Itself then we are going to suffer. And others are going to suffer with us.
And there is another way.
The Love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another, because vision is still so dim. You can use your body best to help you enlarge your perception so you can achieve real vision, of which the physical eye is incapable. Learning to do this is the body's only true usefulness (T-1.VII.2:3-5).
Here is the thing. At a juncture in our ACIM practice, we have to start to give attention to Love Itself, and stop insisting it take this or that form. This is a kind of radical trust and honesty, a deep acceptance of what is and when we start to live that way, things can get . . . bumpy.
First, [Teachers of God] must go through what might be called "a period of undoing." This need not be painful, but it is usually so experienced. It seems as though things are being taken away, and it is rarely understood initially that their lack of value is merely being recognized (M-4.I.A.3:1-3).
People want to play the familiar game by the familiar rules. They like the illusion. Separation sucks but the devil you know is better than than the devil you don't, et cetera. We've all been there.
But our work now is not to linger there. Healing bears witness to Love Itself. When we stop insisting it assume this or that form then we will start to see it everywhere in all things because it is everywhere and it is all things. Love Itself cannot be contained.
And I get that that sounds like poetic nonsense, spiritual grandstanding, "you think you're so special, Sean," et cetera.
But you know I'm right! It's not a big secret. It's not complicated. It's just hard to practice because we are conditioned to the opposite - we think the symbol is the reality. But the reality is Love Itself and the symbols are just . . . well, they're nothing.
And yes, again, practicing this is hard. But it's essential. There is nothing else to do. What I am saying in this post is, try. Give attention to Love Itself, not its many symbols. When the symbols start objecting, that's ego. Keep practicing. Surf the rough spots with as much grace as you can manage, be grateful for the ones who stick around, and don't give up.
Love isn't a symbol but it can be symbolized. The symbols come and go, Love Itself does not. You know this. I am saying, get right with it. Make it your practice, and practice nothing else. What happens?
Love,
Sean
Sean I have to comment again on this post I recall something very similar to it. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. Another break through thanks to you,and there are no symbols to describe it. Thanks again Sean
Don't know what to say about this Sean,i just love it. As I ponder it I feel the love of god in me now just peace. Thank you Sean