Lesson 246 • September-3
To love my Father is to love His Son.
Practice Instructions
See complete instructions in separate document. A short summary:
- Read the commentary paragraph slowly and personally.
- Pray the prayer, perhaps several times.
- Morning and evening: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind Meditation.
- Hourly remembrance: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind Meditation.
- Frequent reminders: Repeat the idea and then spend a quiet moment in meditation.
- Response to temptation: Repeat the idea whenever upset, to restore peace.
- Read the "What Is" section slowly and thoughtfully once during the day.
Practice suggestion: I suggest applying this idea specifically to people in your life throughout the day. Say, "To love my Father is to love His Son, [name]." You might want to add, "Let me not think that I can attack the Son and still know the Father."
Commentary
We can't love God without loving what He created. The Apostle John, in his epistles, said very much the same thing as today's lesson:
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. (1 John 4:20-21)
The "Son of God" in the Course refers not simply to Jesus, nor just to all our brothers and sisters; it also includes ourselves. The measure of the quality of relationship we have with God is the relationships we have with those around us, and with ourselves. Our love for our brothers and sisters reflects the love we have for God. "Let me not think that I can find the way to God, if I have hatred in my heart" (1:1). If in some way I am wishing harm to my brother, I cannot know God, nor can I even know my Self (1:2). And if I am, in my mind, diminishing myself, I who am God's own Son, I will be unable to truly know God's Love for me, or mine for Him (1:3).
The ego is a thought of attack; it believes it has attacked God and succeeded. And yet it sees that battle reflected in everyone around us, and projects its fear and its attack onto everything, often in subtle disguises, some even bearing the name of "love."
Let me be open to discovering the "little" bits of hatred that still lie in my heart-especially those directed at myself. There are far more than I would like to believe. The Text teaches me that uncovering the hatred within myself is "crucial" (T-13.III.1:1). It tells me, "You must realize that your hatred is in your mind and not outside it before you can get rid of it" (T-12.III.7:10). The scraps of hatred I clutch to me must be seen for what they are, and chosen against. With a deliberate act of will I need to say, "I choose to love Your Son" (2:4). The choice for love is the choice for God and the choice for my Self.
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