There is no other love but the Love of God.
1. You may think it is possible that there are different kinds of love.
²You may believe there is one kind of love for this, and another for that; that some can be loved in one way and others in another.
³Love is one. I
⁴It has no separate parts and no degrees.
⁵It has no kinds and no levels.
⁶In love there are no divergences, and love makes no distinctions.
⁷It is identical to itself, and it is forever unchanging.
⁸It does not shift with a person or a circumstance.
⁹It is the Heart of God, and also the Heart of His Son. II
2. Those who believe that love can change do not understand what love means.
²They do not see that a changing love is impossible.
³That is why they think they can love at times and hate at others.
⁴And they also believe they can love some and deny love to others, without this affecting what love is.
⁵To believe this about love is not to understand it at all.
⁶If love could make such distinctions, it would have to judge between the righteous and the sinners, and perceive the Son of God as fragmented.
3. Love cannot judge.
²Because it is one, it sees all as one.
³Its meaning lies in Oneness. III
⁴And it escapes the mind that believes it can exist in parts or fragments.
⁵There is no love but the Love of God, and all love comes from Him.
⁶No principle governs where love is absent.
⁷Love is a law that has no opposite.
⁸Its very completeness is the power that makes all things one; it is the bond between the Father and the Son that makes Them forever the Same.
4. No course whose purpose is to teach you what you truly are could fail to emphasize that there is no difference between what you are and what love is.
²The meaning of love is your own meaning, and God Himself shares it with you.
³For what you are is what He is.
⁴There is no love but His, and what He is is all that truly exists.
⁵God has no limits, and therefore you are also unlimited.
5. None of the laws the world obeys can help you understand the meaning of love.
²What the world believes was made to hide the meaning of love, and to keep it in darkness and secrecy.
³There is not a single principle the world upholds that does not contradict the truth of what love is, and of what you are as well.
⁴Do not seek your Self in the world. IV
⁵Love is not found in darkness and in death.
⁶Yet it is perfectly evident to the eyes that see and the ears that hear His Voice.
6. Our practice today is to release your mind from all the laws you think you must obey, from all the limits you have imposed upon yourself, and from all the changes you believe are part of human destiny.
²Today we take the greatest step this Course requires to move toward the goal it sets.
³If today you gain the slightest glimpse of what love means, you will have made an immeasurable leap forward on the path to your release and saved yourself time beyond all measure in years.
⁴Let us then be glad to give a little time to God today, and understand there is no better way to use time than this.
7. Spend fifteen minutes twice today escaping from all the laws in which you now believe.
²Open your mind and rest.
³Anyone can escape from this world that seems to hold him prisoner if he ceases to value it.
⁴Value not its pitiful offerings nor its senseless gifts, and let the Gift of God replace them all.
8. Call upon your Father with the certainty that His Voice will answer you.
²He Himself has promised it.
³And He Himself will place a spark of truth in your mind each time you give up a false belief, a dark illusion about your own reality and about what love means.
⁴He will shine through all your idle thoughts today and help you understand the truth of love.
⁵He will dwell with you in loving tenderness as you allow His Voice to teach your clean and open mind the meaning of love.V
⁶And He will bless that lesson with His Love.
9. Today, the legion of years spent waiting for salvation in the future disappears before the timelessness of what you are learning.
²Let us give thanks today that we have been released from a future that would have been like the past.
³Today we leave the past behind, never to recall it.
⁴And we lift our eyes to a present very different from the past, where shines a future unlike the past in every attribute.
10. The world that has just been born is still in its infancy.
²And we shall see it grow strong and whole, to pour its blessing upon all who come to learn to set aside a world they once believed was born of hate, to be the enemy of love.
³Now all of them are freed along with us.
⁴Now all of them are our brothers in the Love of God.
11. We will remember them throughout the day, for if we would know our Self, we cannot leave a part of us outside our love.
²At least three times an hour, think of someone who walks with you upon this journey, for he came to learn the same lesson you must learn.
³And when he comes to mind, give him this message from your Self:
⁴I bless you, brother, with the Love of God,
⁵Which I would share with you,
⁶For I would learn the joyous lesson
⁷That there is no love but the Love of God,
⁸Which is your own, as well as mine and everyone’s.
I It is probably impossible to speak of love without saying something inappropriate. Perhaps that is why this Course—which is, ultimately, a Course on love—does not usually address that idea directly. In fact, it is quite explicit in stating in its very Introduction: “This is not a course in the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught.” (T-In.2:1)
And if it says that love cannot be taught, it is because it also cannot be learned. Love can only be, for love is existence itself. To love is to exist, and to exist is to love.
This Course also says that loving is one of the three functions of the Soul: “The true functions of the Soul are knowing, loving, and creating” (T-3.IX.1:2), because the three aspects of the One Being are Knowledge, Love, and Will. And this does not mean that from a strictly ontological standpoint they are three, for the three are One and the Same, just as God and His Son are. To formulate it in that way simply means that we have chosen to contemplate Being from this triple perspective.
Notice how Jesus—like many other teachers of the nondual paradigm—approaches the true concept He seeks to explain by means of the negative, that is, by explaining what the concept is not. Look at all the negative statements contained in this Lesson—have you seen how many? This is because Jesus, as He Himself declares, is the teacher of the ego: “Belief certainly does apply to me because I am the teacher of the ego” (T-4.III.7:4), for the ego can only “believe,” and it is familiar only with the negative—with what is not.
That you cannot be taught—and cannot learn—the meaning of love should not trouble you in the least, because, although your personal mind cannot grasp that concept, you can live it, experience it, and be it. In fact, when you do not live it, do not experience it, and do not be it, you are not living, not experiencing, and not being anything at all. Love is all that exists. Love is the only reality.
The “life” of the ego—that imaginary experience of the mind—is a most curious and astonishing phenomenon: it conceives illusions of reality by deeming the notion of absence to be “important.” It is obvious that what is missing does not exist, yet the mind is perfectly capable of forgetting that little detail and focusing exclusively upon it.
How does it do so? Why? For what purpose? All of these are meaningless questions—asked and answered by a deluded mind that entertained the idea of being separate from God. But since the impossible is not possible, it never happened.
Perhaps the only thing that may have some relevance for the personal mind is becoming aware that the imaginary world it believes it lives in is “built” out of absences of love—absences of reality. And it may also be helpful for that mind, which has not yet decided to stop dreaming, that its dream becomes more benevolent when it is devoted to supplying the love it believes is lacking in a given situation.
Each time you respond with love to an attack—an absence of love—you illuminate and straighten that story of pain, that fearful dream.
Remember: the power of love is absolute. There is no darkness that love cannot dispel, no circumstance it cannot heal.
This Lesson ends with a blessing: “I bless you, brother…” —and I bless you because I love you; because I love myself. My will is to love you because I know you, and now I know myself. And that is my fullness.
II In this Lesson, Jesus introduces a fundamental idea about love: love is one. It has no separate parts; there are no different kinds or levels of love. It does not change according to people or circumstances. Love is identical to itself and remains forever unalterable.
At first this may seem strange, for we are accustomed to speaking of different kinds of love—maternal love, romantic love, fraternal love. Yet all of this arises from an emotional view of love, not from the reality of what love truly is.
Love, as Jesus teaches it, is not an emotion. It is not an emotional response tied to memories or expectations. Emotions are effects, and love is cause. Love is an aspect of your being. It is what you are. It is the natural quality of the simple fact of existing.
You might understand it more easily if you look at it this way: to be and to love are inseparable. There are no different ways of being, just as there are no different forms of love. You are, and in that being, you dwell in love. Love is the living expression of your existence—the way the consciousness of being feels itself.
If you understand it thus, the statements of the Course read quite differently: it is not that there is a love for each thing, but that love is your essence—an essence without parts or differences, a perfect unity.
It is true that in this world we perceive love relationally, as an exchange or connection between beings. But that is simply an expression of the natural extension of being. Being, by its very nature, extends—and love is that extension.
Though here you still perceive separation and appear to dwell in a world of appearances, love remains what you truly are. Your being extends toward what you see as “others” because, in truth, all is one.
To help you recognize it more easily, you can remember that love is the state opposite to fear. In this world, where we tend to notice absences more than presences, it is often easier to recognize love through its absence: where there is fear—or hatred, which is the same—love is lacking.
Thus love, which is your true nature, could be described as an exultant state of infinite peace, completely opposed to any form of fear. It is not a fleeting emotion but a state of complete, constant, and eternal being.
III The quality of oneness—love is the epitome of simplicity, one of the very aspects of existence itself.
IV John 5:44 “How can you believe, when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”
V John 14:16 “And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever.”