Teachings of Christ Mind

Good evening … or since we have started so late, good morning. And welcome to everyone who is joining us on the internet.

Tonight, we’re going to be talking about Love.

The Bible quotes me as saying, “As I have loved you, love one another.”¹

How have I loved you? With patience … with inspiration … with long-suffering … and with persistence.

The other things, the first things I mentioned are relatively easy to do. But the last one – the persistence – is the one most everyone gets hung up on and has the most difficulty with.

Now what is Love? Love is looking into your brother’s eyes. There it is – that relationship, that involvement – looking into your brother’s eyes and remembering God. It isn’t looking into your brother’s eyes and getting frustrated with him because of how crazy he is or how inconsistent he is or how hateful he is or how careless he is or how he screwed you over a year ago. Mind you, all of those things will tend to get in the way, but the function is that of looking into your brother’s eyes and remembering God.

Now this is not a new subject. But the tendency to be distracted from this familiar subject occurs frequently with everyone. And the necessity is to find a way to no longer be distracted from being the Presence of Love – from wishing to be the Presence of Love and wishing to see the Presence of Love.

Now, in the Course it says:

Not surprising considering the fact that the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind, of course you SHARE in His function.

… is what?

Healing is the evidence of Love, the evidence of looking into your brother’s eyes and resolutely, patiently, persistently remembering God.

… that’s the function of Creation.

And His is healing.

When you faithfully fulfill your function of remembering God when you look at your brother or sister or any aspect of your world, your mind is whole – healed – and that wholeness blesses you and your brother together.

“Oh-h, but my brother’s not worth it! He’s not worth the effort it will take me.” Yes, but is your clarity worth having? Is your peace worth having? Is your recognition of your brother’s divinity, which will override all of the justifications you have for not wanting to put forth the effort, worth having?

I realize that sounds sort of selfish but there’s nothing selfish about wanting to be sane – to be of single Mind – not to be conflicted and in a state of war within yourself, where you’re maintaining that which cannot possibly heal you or your brother.

You know, if healing isn’t occurring, it’s because you think there is some other alternative. Oh yes, your brother must be willing to be healed! What’s the old joke, “How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light-bulb?”

I’m sorry, I forgot … this is Paul … I’ve lost the track there . . .

There are all kinds of excuses that can arise that will seem to justify abandoning the willingness to look into your brother’s eyes and remember God. One is, that he doesn’t want to change, another is, that his will is stronger than yours and you can’t possibly succeed, or you lack the persistence or clarity to be able to follow through and become single of purpose, even though it is fully your intent to Wake up, to engage in the holy instant, to listen for the Holy Spirit’s Guidance.

You see, if healing isn’t occurring it’s because you are not single of mind yet.

Nothing else will heal but Love. Any other means you try to employ to correct a situation that calls for correction will not heal. You can try being kind. You can try being nice. You can try being loving, whatever the current definition of loving might be at any given moment. But when you do any of those things without being joined with That which is your right Mind – the Holy Spirit – will be nothing but a rehearsal of an act devoid of the Meaning of being infilled with the Father’s Love, which has been revealed to you by the Holy Spirit and which renders your behavior divinely Meaningful and therefore, healing.

So there is no alternative to persistence.

“Oh-h, but I’ve been loving. I’ve been asking the Holy Spirit over and over and over and the situation has only gotten worse. I must be doing something wrong.”

In fact, most of the explanations you will come up with will be brought up by your ego and will be at your expense. And I will simply discourage you further until you finally hit the bottom of the barrel and you genuinely let go. And you genuinely with all of your heart and with all of your humility ask the Father, “What is the truth here? How can I see my brother as the holy Son of God and not as what I’ve thought he was, not what I am convinced he is. Father, I acknowledge that my perspective is not healing and cannot be healing because I’m not joined with you. And I am going to join with you steadfastly without interruption because I no longer believe that there’s any other alternative, viable or unviable, real or unreal.”

It is sometimes agonizing to try to be the presence of That which heals. And it makes you self-conscious, as I’ve said before, in a negative way – self depreciating. But the necessity is to forget about yourself and give your attention to your brother, knowing, even if its intellectual knowing, that right there where the bastard is, is a holy Son of God who couldn’t appear to be a bastard if God wasn’t right there being what that brother truly is, in spite of what he thinks he is and in spite of what you might believe he is.

And you are going to stand with that with commitment. Patience is recognizable as Love when nothing else is being employed. And no other options are being held behind your back, just in case loving doesn’t work.

As I have loved you, love one another. Love one another … love one another … love one another. Let those words ring, let them echo through your day. Love one another … love one another … love one another. That’s what you are here for.

Love one another. In the process be intelligent, being the Presence of Love does not mean becoming stupid. It doesn’t mean overlooking what needs correction and letting bad behavior continue – letting what needs to be healed continue.

And so use intelligence so that you are not abused in the name of Love while you are persisting in love. This is important.

Love one another … love one another … love one another. Love one another enough not to allow what stands in the way of healing to persist, such as abuse or bad behavior. But remember this: When the Love that you are being the expression of is rejected, when it is not received, it doesn’t mean that you have to bring something else into play, such as coercion or force or logic or any other method of manipulation, like anger or fear. There are no options to love. There are no alternatives to love.

If you have allowed yourself to be used in the process of your extending love, be Love enough to say, “No!” without anger, without emotion, without all of the results of the fear that love will not be enough.

Sometimes working out problems is very laborious. I mean that when you are consistently and persistently employing the two-step and practicing the holy instant and things seem to get very complicated because you’re able to interpret all of the factors that are coming into play to make it difficult. But here’s the one factor that is the only factor making it difficult, and that is, that you have been hoodwinked into believing that there is an alternative to loving your brother as I have loved you. And that one divisive thought has split your mind, and of course, that is the definition of conflict.

And the answer is not the manipulation or the coercion of your brother or sister, but the bringing of your mind back into alignment with the one and only thing that heals: Love … and refusing to abandon it – I was going to say, no matter what. And yet that involves an assertion of will, “No matter what, I’m not going to do this.” No, that’s not it. You want to do it without interruption because you know that there’s nothing else that works.

This doesn’t take force then or coercion. It takes the steadfast turning of your attention to the Father, “Father, what is the truth here?” or, “Holy Spirit, what is the truth here? Help me see what my function is on earth in terms of healing here, because together that is our function here. And you know what? I want to Wake up. And I do not want to continue in the dream of suffering. And so, I will persist in finding the way to be the Presence of Love, because I find no value in anything else.

“Help me … help me! Help me love my brother. Help me do what puts me in the position of being the unconflicted Presence of That which heals, of That which is Whole, of That which is the presence of harmony that flows freely from me to everything, in recognition of the Father in it.

“I do not want to be conflicted, and I no longer want to believe that my brother is making me be conflicted. I want to remember that the only thing that works is Love. And I want You to help me Father, or Holy Spirit. I want You to help me experience Love and remain steadfastly in It with patience and gentleness … with fearlessness.”

No matter how complicated things seem to get, no matter how many endless strings of spaghetti there seem to be, the answer is always simple: Abandon the spaghetti. Turn your attention to the Father or the Holy Spirit. Have one goal: To remember how to be willing to be the avenue through which Love finds expression and make no room for anything else to find its way into expression through you.

Love is the Answer, and Love is the Royal way. Hold steadfastly to this truth and don’t become discouraged when it doesn’t seem to be doing any good … because it’s the only thing that does heal.

Remember this and you will not take any useless side trips away from the singular intent of finding God in your brother’s eyes.

I love you very much with singleness of vision, singleness of purpose, persistence, commitment. And as I am loving you, love one another. It’s the Answer.

I look forward to being with you next time.