Love is…..

[Bradly]

I hope we can discover and share here the many teachings we have found in the Revelation about the source, nature, power, and purpose of love.  I have begun to believe that love is the “secret sauce” for mortals to be led to a less self-centered existence than our natural material born state of being.  It is a bridge to lead us to the Spirit guide within.  It fosters faith as a functional truth for our aspiration.  To be loved and to give love changes us regardless of our knowledge or beliefs or station or intelligence or education or current morals and ethics or culture or personal religious progress.  Love has a transformative power…power to change us in profoundly important ways.  Love leads to that and those which are more important to us than ourselves, to that which is bigger than ourselves, and I think, it leads us Godward even without our knowledge, acceptance, or belief in that reality.  Love is key to the transfer of our seat of identity from material attachments to soul building.  Love changes motives, intentions, priorities, choices, and acts of free will by every single mind once affected (or infected) by love.

Facts and truth are important to the speed and acceleration potential in spirit progress and the enlightening of mind and growth in soul.  But love, by itself, is more than sufficient to lead any and all to God within and to his spirit within all others.  Love is….powerful, delightful, pervasive, ever expanding, the solution to all problems and challenges of the mortal mind and vicissitudes of life, the path to Paradise, and …….. the very presence of God.  It is the most fundamental element in all of creation.  And it is available to all of creation….even us tadpoles.

I look forward to this discussion about what “Love is….” to you and the many quotes of text which teach us about this universal force!  Peace.

 

[Bradly]

(40.1) 2:5.9 The Father’s love follows us now and throughout the endless circle of the eternal ages. As you ponder the loving nature of God, there is only one reasonable and natural personality reaction thereto: You will increasingly love your Maker; you will yield to God an affection analogous to that given by a child to an earthly parent; for, as a father, a real father, a true father, loves his children, so the Universal Father loves and forever seeks the welfare of his created sons and daughters.

(40.2) 2:5.10 But the love of God is an intelligent and farseeing parental affection. The divine love functions in unified association with divine wisdom and all other infinite characteristics of the perfect nature of the Universal Father. God is love, but love is not God. The greatest manifestation of the divine love for mortal beings is observed in the bestowal of the Thought Adjusters, but your greatest revelation of the Father’s love is seen in the bestowal life of his Son Michael as he lived on earth the ideal spiritual life. It is the indwelling Adjuster who individualizes the love of God to each human soul.

(43.3) 2:7.10 The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness. Such a new and righteous vision of morality will attract all that is good in the mind of man and challenge that which is best in the human soul. Truth, beauty, and goodness are divine realities, and as man ascends the scale of spiritual living, these supreme qualities of the Eternal become increasingly co-ordinated and unified in God, who is love.

[Bonita]

GOD’S LOVE IS . . .

• universal
• by nature a Fatherly affection
• the dominant characteristic of his personal dealings with his creatures
• all-embracing of truth, beauty and goodness
• the real and eternal source of the Son’s mercy
• the secret of beneficial association between personalities
• the greatest thing in the universe
• the desire to do good to others
• truly contagious and eternally creative
• the essence of religion and the wellspring of superior civilization
• dynamic, it can never be captured
• alive, free, thrilling and always moving
• the rule of living within the kingdom
• the greatest of all spirit realities
• the supreme relationship
• the greatest relationship in the universe
• never self-seeking
• cannot be self-bestowed or self-contained
• the outworking of the divine and inner urge of life
• what impels men to seek salvation
• the ancestor of all spiritual goodness
• the essence of the true and the beautiful
• the true guide to real insight
• the highest motivation which man may utilize in his universe ascent

[Bradly]

“Love is not God…..but God is love.”  Love flows throughout the universes like an electrical current, it has no power without current or flow or expression or exchange or by giving.  One cannot merely receive love for that love to be true or real or have any power.  I think it was the Boys (Beatles) who sang “The love you get is equal to the love you give.”  or something  to that effect.  The most fascinating thing to me about love is how powerful it is and how pervasive, completely available to all and to any regardless of all social and personal factors, despite tragedy, poverty, et al.  Even ruthless brutes can find and give love:

(1098.2) 100:4.5 In the mind’s eye conjure up a picture of one of your primitive ancestors of cave-dwelling times — a short, misshapen, filthy, snarling hulk of a man standing, legs spread, club upraised, breathing hate and animosity as he looks fiercely just ahead. Such a picture hardly depicts the divine dignity of man. But allow us to enlarge the picture. In front of this animated human crouches a saber-toothed tiger. Behind him, a woman and two children. Immediately you recognize that such a picture stands for the beginnings of much that is fine and noble in the human race, but the man is the same in both pictures. Only, in the second sketch you are favored with a widened horizon. You therein discern the motivation of this evolving mortal. His attitude becomes praiseworthy because you understand him. If you could only fathom the motives of your associates, how much better you would understand them. If you could only know your fellows, you would eventually fall in love with them.*

(1098.3) 100:4.6 You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day you learn to love one more human being. If each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality. Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man.

[Yourantiaman]

12 variations of how Love is expressed through history..

Whenever a person breaks a stick in the forest, let him consider what it would feel like if it were himself who was thus broken. Yoruba                                                                                We affirm and promote respect for the independent web of all existence of which we are a part.  Unitarianism
Do not wrong or hate your neighbour. For it is not he who you wrong, but yourself.  Native American
I am a stranger to no one and no one is a stranger to me. Indeed I am a friend to all Sikhism
Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful Buddhism
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man.  Judaism
And it harm none, do as ye will. Paganism
This is the sum of duty, do not naught unto others what you would not have them do unto you Hinduism
No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. Islam
Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Confusius.
And as you would that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise. Christianity
Love one another even as i have loved you. Jesus

With Light, Life & Love...

[Bonita]

Yourantiaman and all,

Did you notice that all of those variations on love you listed above are based upon the golden rule?  In order for that rule to permeate all major world religions, it must have antedated them all. The seven commands of Melchizedek and the seven commands of Dalamatia did not include the golden rule (although some commands are certainly related to it).  However, the seven commands of the Garden did include the golden rule.  Do you suppose that this idea had already permeated the psyche of men and women long before the evolution of these religions?

The golden rule has six levels.  The sixth level is the spiritual level and the level of fatherly love, the level where a soul learns to love others the way that God loves them.

6. The spiritual level. And then last, but greatest of all, we attain the level of spirit insight and spiritual interpretation which impels us to recognize in this rule of life the divine command to treat all men as we conceive God would treat them. That is the universe ideal of human relationships. And this is your attitude toward all such problems when your supreme desire is ever to do the Father’s will. I would, therefore, that you should do to all men that which you know I would do to them in like circumstances. 147:4.9

Here Jesus, the Father incarnate, tells us to love others the way he loves them.  Later on in his life he makes this statement to the apostles, “As I have revealed the Father, so shall you reveal the divine love, not merely with words, but in your daily living. I send you forth, not to love the souls of men, but rather to love men.” (191:5.3)

What do you suppose that Jesus meant when he said not to love the souls of men but to love men?  How does this tie into the golden rule?

[Bradly]

Thanks Bonita and Yourantiaman.  Found this which supports Bonita’s multiple levels of love that we will penetrate by experience:

(2096.5) 196:3.29 Religious insight possesses the power of turning defeat into higher desires and new determinations. Love is the highest motivation which man may utilize in his universe ascent. But love, divested of truth, beauty, and goodness, is only a sentiment, a philosophic distortion, a psychic illusion, a spiritual deception. Love must always be redefined on successive levels of morontia and spirit progression.

 

(2076.5) 195:5.14 In religion, Jesus advocated and followed the method of experience, even as modern science pursues the technique of experiment. We find God through the leadings of spiritual insight, but we approach this insight of the soul through the love of the beautiful, the pursuit of truth, loyalty to duty, and the worship of divine goodness. But of all these values, love is the true guide to real insight.

(1289.3) 117:6.10 All true love is from God, and man receives the divine affection as he himself bestows this love upon his fellows. Love is dynamic. It can never be captured; it is alive, free, thrilling, and always moving. Man can never take the love of the Father and imprison it within his heart. The Father’s love can become real to mortal man only by passing through that man’s personality as he in turn bestows this love upon his fellows. The great circuit of love is from the Father, through sons to brothers, and hence to the Supreme. The love of the Father appears in the mortal personality by the ministry of the indwelling Adjuster. Such a God-knowing son reveals this love to his universe brethren, and this fraternal affection is the essence of the love of the Supreme.

 

Secret sauce indeed!! 

[Bradly]

(1124.5) 102:6.3 The religionist of philosophic attainment has faith in a personal God of personal salvation, something more than a reality, a value, a level of achievement, an exalted process, a transmutation, the ultimate of time-space, an idealization, the personalization of energy, the entity of gravity, a human projection, the idealization of self, nature’s upthrust, the inclination to goodness, the forward impulse of evolution, or a sublime hypothesis. The religionist has faith in a God of love. Love is the essence of religion and the wellspring of superior civilization.

Love is…..

[Richard E Warren]

Bonita wrote:

…What do you suppose that Jesus meant when he said not to love the souls of men but to love men? How does this tie into the golden rule?

Seems like he’s saying to love even the unlovable parts. So the golden rule application is now self evident?

 

 

Richard E Warren

[Bonita]

Rick Warren wrote:

Seems like he’s saying to love even the unlovable parts.

We think alike Rick . . . you should be scared.  But did you know that the UB doesn’t use the word unlovable?  It’s as though being unlovable is not really possible or something.  Instead, they use the word unlovely, which I believe means someone is still lovable even though they haven’t attained loveliness yet.  I thought that was interesting.

It says in Paper 140 that those who are pure in heart and spirit-discerning can begin to exercise fatherly affection and even love the unlovely.  That would be hitting level six, the top of the golden rule scale.  And wouldn’t that also be a second miler, someone who returns only good for evil, a person who forgives seventy times seven?

Here’s that 6th level of the golden rule (the level of spirit insight) quote, just for reference:

6. The spiritual level. And then last, but greatest of all, we attain the level of spirit insight and spiritual interpretation which impels us to recognize in this rule of life the divine command to treat all men as we conceive God would treat them. That is the universe ideal of human relationships. And this is your attitude toward all such problems when your supreme desire is ever to do the Father’s will. I would, therefore, that you should do to all men that which you know I would do to them in like circumstances.(p1651)

[Bonita]

I was thinking about what Jesus might have meant when he said not to just love the souls of men but to <em style=”color: #000000;”>love men.   Wouldn’t loving both the lovely and unlovely parts of men include learning to appreciate their struggles as well their ultimate destination, salvation?  In other words, preaching the gospel is not enough.  Really loving men would also mean taking delight in sharing all their struggles and burdens.  Isn’t that part of the golden rule too?  I don’t think it’s enough to preach hope with words or books, but to give and share hope as well. But first, I imagine, you’d have to have realized the reality of hope for yourself.  

71:4.16  The appearance of genuine brotherhood signifies that a social order has arrived in which all men delight in bearing one another’s burdens; they actually desire to practice the golden rule.

Many people carry around a lot of useless baggage.  And I mean that metaphorically to symbolize erroneous ideas about life, relationships and the divine.  I like the image of offering to help people carry their baggage by giving them new hope.  It doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to take the baggage and carry it for them.  It means the willingness to share the burden caused by carrying it which might open up new perspectives on reality. People might come to realize on their own that they don’t need to carry as much baggage and just put it down on their own accord.  I know this has worked very well in my relationships with my sons.  Jesus did say that the truth will drive out error all by itself (141:6.2; 132:04).

[Richard E Warren]

Bonita wrote:

We think alike Rick . . . you should be scared.

Ha!! Not.

Bonita wrote:

We think alike Rick . . . you should be scared.  But did you know that the UB doesn’t use the word unlovable?  It’s as though being unlovable is not really possible or something.  Instead, they use the word unlovely, which I believe means someone is still lovable even though they haven’t attained loveliness yet.  I thought that was interesting.

It is interesting, which means telling a lie doesn’t make one a liar. And someone may think I have a crazy idea, but not think me crazy.

Side note to your quote, the UB also doesn’t anywhere use the words “unconditional love”, but does use unconditionally loving once:

1. Humanitarian fellowship — love. The purely animal mind may be gregarious for self-protection, but only the spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving…. ^{(2094.6) 196:3.7}

Richard E Warren

[Reader]

Bonita writes:

…did you know that the UB doesn’t use the word unlovable? It’s as though being unlovable is not really possible or something. Instead, they use the word unlovely, which I believe means someone is still lovable even though they haven’t attained loveliness yet… It says in Paper 140 that those who are pure in heart and spirit-discerning can begin to exercise fatherly affection and even love the unlovely.

Bonita, you bring forward a prime example of how ‘things of the spirit’ often sound a little strange at first blush, until we rally to divine meanings, by spiritual insight.

I think many of Jesus’ parables and sayings are constructed as surface paradoxes designed to invoke this ‘divine help’ in the listener’s mind. Of course, again, the insight is not always interpreted by finite mind in the direction Jesus would intend.

The teaching which recommends of purity of heart from Paper 140 is a case in point.  The word ‘purity’ has more than one sense, and I think the one intended by Jesus transforms the word ‘sight’ into a higher vision which ‘sees God’ in the sense that it ‘sees’ only the best in every person as a child of God (and therefore makes love possible amid otherwise unlovely circumstances.

 

[Bonita]

Rick Warren wrote:  Side note to your quote, the UB also doesn’t anywhere use the words “unconditional love”, but does use unconditionally loving once:

Oh yeah!  I remember that discussion on one of the other forums from years back.  I had forgotten about it.  Thanks for reminding me.  I remember being stunned by that realization.  My whole happy-hippy youth was based on the fact of unconditional love.  But by the quote, unconditional must mean a level of selflessness, and there is plenty about selfless love in the text.  I’m wondering if it is even appropriate to apply the word love to anything selfish.  And does anyone think that there are conditions put on divine love?

My inclination is to think that God’s love is selfless and outgoing in all of its manifestations.  His love is a quality and there are no conditions on quality.  But there are conditions on quantity, and those conditions would have to do with the capacity to love in return, to keep the circle of love going.

[Bonita]

Reader wrote:  The teaching which recommends of purity of heart from Paper 140 is a case in point.  The word ‘purity’ has more than one sense, and I think the one intended by Jesus transforms the word ‘sight’ into a higher vision which ‘sees God’ in the sense that it ‘sees’ only the best in every person as a child of God (and therefore makes love possible amid otherwise unlovely circumstances.

Superbly put, Reader.  It’s much like the golden rule levels.  You can look at the words pure in heart and interpret them in light of evolutionary morality.  I remember the first time I read that quote being stunned that the author had to mention something about sex attitudes.  I thought, “How unrefined!”  It had never occurred to me to interpret purity in such a way, but I suppose many do. I had always thought pure in heart meant sincere, authentic, genuine, without pretense or guile and always seeking God’s will.  Anyway, it does illustrate the many levels of interpretation, from the lowest material to the highest spiritual.  And that is what parables do.

4. “Happy are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Spiritual purity is not a negative quality, except that it does lack suspicion and revenge. In discussing purity, Jesus did not intend to deal exclusively with human sex attitudes. He referred more to that faith which man should have in his fellow man; that faith which a parent has in his child, and which enables him to love his fellows even as a father would love them. A father’s love need not pamper, and it does not condone evil, but it is always anticynical. Fatherly love has singleness of purpose, and it always looks for the best in man; that is the attitude of a true parent.

There’s another thing about parables that is applicable here.  Parables force the listener to be conscious, they snap the mind to attention. The mind thus aroused, they say, is the gateway to the soul, which is where spiritual meanings can develop.  It’s a cool trick I wish I knew how to do.

[Author]

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