Distorted Love

"You who were created by Love like ItSelf can hold no grievances and know your Self. To hold a grievance is to forget Who You Are. To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body. To hold a grievance is to let the ego rule your mind and to condemn the body to death. Perhaps you do not fully realize just what holding grievances does to your mind. It seems to split you off from your Source and make you unlike Him. It makes you believe that He is like what you think you have become, for no one can conceive of his Creator as unlike himself. Shut off from your Self, which remains aware of Its Likeness to Its Creator, your Self seems to sleep, while the part of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be awake. Can all this arise from holding grievances? Oh, yes! For he who holds grievances denies he was created by Love, and his Creator has become fearful to him in his dream of hate. Who can dream of hatred and not fear God? It is as sure that those who hold grievances will redefine God in their own image, as it is certain that God created them like Himself, and defined them as part of Him. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will suffer guilt, as it is certain that those who forgive will find peace. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will forget Who They Are, as it is certain that those who forgive will remember." -- A Course in Miracles

How interesting this passage from ACIM is... and of course, grievances have nothing to do with who, what, or where. It is all and always in our own dream, in our own mind, that we distort the very face of God and so distort our experience of the Love that we are.

The simple message here is that whenever we see any aspect of our lives as other than our Self, we have chosen the dream of separation and suffering. Whenever we see people, bodies, experiences, and situations and insist that they should be other than they are, we have chosen to remain asleep and dreaming of separation from the Love that is our One Self. And so we experience what seems to be an inability to experience love without grievances. Why wouldn't we be afraid of love like this... love that chooses this one over that one, love that wants to possess, love that wants its own way, love that judges and manipulates, love that is here today and gone tomorrow, love that embroils us in constant dramas and guilt and shame and suffering, love that demands we pretend to be what we are not in order to keep it? If such love really existed, it would be fearful indeed.

The good news is that what we have described is not love. It is simply the fear and guilt of the separated self masquerading as love. Distorted love is not fearful. It's simply not true.

Real Love, Divine Love, has never been absent. Real Love is Who You Are. When your personal distorted stories of love and relationship are dropped, even for an instant, what is revealed at the core of your Being is the ultimate Joy of Divine Love. It is complete, and has nothing to do with 'other' and everything to do with the Allness of Self. It is whole, and has never lost or been separated from any aspect of Wholeness. It is unrelated to bodies or egoic identities. It is untouched and innocent, the Face of God HerSelf. It needs no other because there is no other.

Divine Love created us like ItSelf. And never could there be in reality a place or time or situation or body or personality unlike or separated from what is True and Eternal. What could possibly exist outside of All? As ACIM puts it, "Nothing and Everything cannot coexist. To believe in one is to deny the other. Fear is really nothing and Love is everything."

Distorted love has been our experience up until now simply because our vision has been distorted. Our imagined separation from Love has been very fearful in our feverish imagination. But Beloved, distorted love is not now, and has never been, true. The Truth of Your Being is not now, and has never been, dependent on people, places, or things for love and approval. Only Divine Love is real. Only Divine Love is Who You Are.

"The opposite of Love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite." -- A Course in Miracles