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“Love is the most powerful ability we have.”
Barbara DeAngelis, Ph.D., author of “How Did I Get Here”? says,“Lessons in Love” can provide you with simple yet powerful words of inspiration to open your heart and renew your spirit.”
The Essential Instruction of Life
We are designed to operate, live and grow in the presence of love—at every stage and every age of life.
The Practice of Love
“Love serves us as we serve each other.”
If we practice love from moment to moment, from day to day and year to year—love becomes our life. With practice, love becomes what we breathe, think and do—a state of mind and a way of being.
Our compassionate practice affects our family, friends, work and play. With love, unfavorable outcomes diminish and things begin to work out well… this is the law of love. This is how Creation works with us.
Our works of love can be experienced as one act in unison with the Creator. As we nurture, develop and tend to the Divine of ourselves; the Divine of all that exists cooperates with our living.
How to Find Love
“Having love in our life is not a matter of luck—the presence of love is the consequence of personal action.”
Real love, of any type, usually does not happen by chance. In a manner similar to how we become physically fit, a life of love is something that requires commitment, work and practice over time.
If we want love and happiness in our lives with consistency and strength, we have to practice love and happiness with consistency and strength.
What Is Love?
“Love is the Universe in motion.”
Love is not something to search for, capture or find—love is something we already have. Love is the greatest power of every man, woman and new child born.
To give and receive love is our greatest need; and the presence of love, in perfect form, satisfies all other need.
Love is not always about acting “nice.” Authentic love is about the presence of sacred intent during difficult times and troubled circumstances. Authentic love is making the right choice for the long term and living through the uncertainty of the short term in reasonable peace.
Love is always about what is inside us and the choices we make. Using our power of choice, we can act and think our way toward a Universe of Love. As we become a predominate place of compassion within ourselves, a Universe of Love outside of us is formed. Yet this Universe has always been there and has always been what it is… love.
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The Answer of Love
“Love is the ultimate act of fulfillment—filling ourselves, each other and the world.”
Directly or indirectly, love is the answer to just about everything.
Most of us do not even suspect the powerful role love plays in our lives. Many of us have had such a limited definition or experience of love that we could never imagine it to be the force that rules the universe. Simply stated, love is what makes things work. Love holds the universe together.
Love and understanding are the major lessons of life. Humanity and life are at their zenith, full power and dominion when living the utmost in love and understanding.
We do not become fully functioning, fully realized humans without the Force of Love solidly within us.
The depth of love goes far beyond the romantic: Everything in existence can be loved and fit within a loving context. We are all One in love.
We often hear “God is love.” To some, God must be more than love. A better understanding may be that love is far more than most of us know.
Love can and does perform miracles, but the miracles are quite natural within the Laws of Love.
Love is more than we know. It gives us more than we can imagine, and it needs us for its expression. Our gift is that God gave us the potential to be great givers of love. With love we have great transformational power. We are truly Creatures of Love waiting to find ourselves.
Much of our disappointment, frustration and lack of progress in life is a call from our soul to look inward. Too much progress and activity in the wrong direction can take us away from who we really are. Our life has a way of breaking down
The Nature of God
“All of Creation is giving us life.”
With humility and clarity of thought, we are able to experience ourselves as the nature of God. But how are we able to do this? We do this, have this experience and knowledge, by living honestly and authentically as who we are.
To possess this type of authenticity and personal power, we must begin to know our selves well. A step in this direction can be made by imagining what it would feel like to be all love? First, this type of love is not exclusive—it accepts everyone and everything. This love sees all people and appearances as worthy and brilliant. This love does not judge or divide, does not see one person as more important than another person.
When we don’t recognize well the sacred nature of ourselves, each other and the world; when we do not see each other in the magnificence of who we are—we falter, fail and suffer. We lose direction, criticize and condemn. We see hope in places where there is no hope, and see hopelessness in situations where the best of hope exists.
In a world of sacred perspective, everyone is brilliant and wonderful… a beautiful sight. Every person-when seen through perfect eyes-is worthy of love, respect and acceptance regardless of their past or appearance. Is this fair or just? The God in us is the essence of fairness, the essence of all things just; but this justice operates only in love.
Fairness takes place when we act with fairness, and justice is the outcome of love. Justice is the return to balance. The sacrifice required to get to balance is the sacrifice of hate, envy and geed; and the sacrifice of retaliation-a sacrifice of anything that is not love.
It is easy for most of us to love a lovable person. The demand of getting to a place of balance and love is that we love the unlovable with all our heart, mind and soul until all persons are loved. The world, then, takes a turn. When a critical mass of love is achieved, the nature of Creation changes. We become more ourselves, and the Creation behaves in a kinder way.
The Truth Is Simple
The truth offers no maze of complexity, and can be understood by the simplest of minds. The truth is all inclusive, nothing is left out. The way of truth is well illuminated and does not hide.
Truth offers a simple path that can be followed by anyone. The path takes us together to a way of life that is generous and open for all.
As we follow our path, we become the path. We become simplified and clarified as we know our truth. Our sacred act is helping others to the truth of who they are, and the way to truth is through love—the love of everyone and the love of the whole of Creation.
Love and understanding are the dialog of truth. The words of truth are spoken through love. Love is the blood, the bond and the body of truth. The truth is a good feeling, once we have it. The pursuit of truth, however, may be difficult and hard.
Truth informs us. Truth teaches us. Truth reveals the present that always is. Truth brings us to who we truly are.
No Blame in Love
If we do not act with love, act in love and act as love—mistakes happen: suffering, hardship and calamity occur. We start to blame others and ourselves. Yet there is no blame in love.
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Life Is A Gift
To those who are happy, life is a gift. To those who are unhappy, life is a curse. To most of us, life has been both. Truly, however, life is a gift. This is a fact we can meditate upon every day. To do this, go where it is quiet and realize that life is a gift, a precious gift full of delights where we are required only to love ourselves and others, in order to receive.
Just think, for a few minutes, the next time you are unhappy or upset; think of life and all the gifts that you have, start counting them off. List them on paper or in your mind… all of your gifts. Can you see with your eyes? If you can, look upon something beautiful. Can you hear? If you can, listen to something that gives you joy. Do you have friends? Treasure them. Can you talk? If you can, say something with positive intent.Can you pray? Pray for a solution, a solution of love.
Feel life! Feel it inside you and all around you. Focus on the feeling of being alive! If you can do this, you will feel the excitement and love of all life.Realize how lucky and fortunate you are to be part of life. Realize that you are part of everything in Creation, and it is all alive as the love of God. And all of Creation is helping you live your life, and you are helping all of Creation be alive. (Continued…)
Authentic Love
By acting forth in the authentic love of who we are, we begin to live well. As we synchronize our heart with all hearts, our love with all love and our lives with all of life—the miraculous becomes an everyday occurrence.
Control
Sometimes the circumstances of our life are beyond our control, but how we react to those circumstances is up to us. For example, we may become disabled due to an accident or disease. How we react to the disability is up to us and our relationship with a Higher Power. Do we become angry and resentful, or do we ask our Higher Power to help us meet our needs in this disabled condition?
If we ask for help, we will get it; but help often comes slowly through hord work. Gradually our reactions to our circumstances change, then we are more accepting and at peace. Ideas come to us on how we can be productive and helpful. We slowly, gradually, find answers and a way out of misery to a happy and useful life.
Ultimately, we and our Higher Power can change not only our reactions to circumstances, but circumstances themselves. If we truly serve God with a love-filled heart, Creation will serve us. As we fill God’s will and do God’s work, our life works for us, and we dwell in abundance. We have all that we need. The secret is discovering the will of God through our heart and recognizing how we are to share this will with God.
Miraculous Events
Miraculous events are a hint of how life was designed to act. But we must act in love, compassion and grace for the miraculous to become common place.
What Makes Us Most a Gift
What makes us most a gift is the quality and power of choice we exercise. As a human being, our greatest quality is that we choose what we become.
However, we must first become aware of the breadth and depth of our power of choice. We literally choose our destiny. It may be unconscious at first. It may be unconscious our whole life, but choice is laying there waiting for us to take it.
Choice is our greatest gift. Choice is our road to freedom. When used fully, it is the path to our heart. Why is this? It is because our true nature is bliss, love and happiness.
Have no Fear
It appears, at times, that fear rules the roost on this planet. Fear causes fights and war. It causes us to act when we should not–and to remain still when we should act. Fear is the root cause of most of the harm that we do to others and ourselves.
There is healthy fear such as the fear of being too close to a fire, but it is the unhealthy fear that we are concerned with here. One of the greatest and most destructive fears is concerned with our self-concept. We are literally afraid of who we are; we are afraid we are not good enough, that we are not talented, handsome, pretty or popular to a sufficient extent. Our greatest fear may be that we are unloved; and that if anyone truly knew us, they surely would not like or love us.
We acquire most of these fears in childhood, but they do not go away. They are expressed in different ways when we are adults. One way is to act in abuse of our children, a frightening thought; but it happens all the time. This is not just physical or sexual abuse; there are neglect and emotional abuse where our children are hurt with words, lack of attention, and by having their sense of security taken away.
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The fear-based aspect of behavior is very interesting: fear causes us to self-destruct. It causes us to self-destruct because its nature is directly opposed to our inner process of self, which is love. We may try to hide it, our need for it, our feel of it… but love is what we seek, what we crave and what we are in constant need of. If we act and feel on a basis of fear, we distort our True Self and counter the inner and outer process of live at work in life.
Fear and its function in war are obvious, but there are some subtler ways fear can direct our lives. Fear can make us afraid to make commitments, so we go from partner to partner, never satisfied and growing more lonely and unhappy as the years pass. Fear can throw us into a state of progressive isolation, where we cease to feel the loving source of life, as it stills to a numbness inside ous. The ability to experience pleasure is lost… and the losing fight begins.
Fear also can fuel driving ambition. It is fine to become president of your company if it is truly you, if it is a natural extension of who you really are. However, if you are climbing the ladder of success out of fear, you may get hung up. You may get stuck in the climb to success, wrongly placed on the ladder, however hight with true reward replaced by a growing feel of insecurity. If you are acting out of love–from a place of love, to a place of love–you are pursuing your true vocation, one that will make you happy, secure and fulfilled.
The fear reaction of blind ambition, brings with it a quality of inadequacy. Feeling inadequate, you can hurt others and yourself. Instead, act out of your own Self, your true self-interest, which is the full force of love, coming out of who you really are. Everyone will benefit. Everyone gains when you act out of love. However, when you act on the fear of inadequacy, you will act in a manner of disregard for other people’s feelings and welfare, because you will not see the others, you will not feel or sense a need of them. You may cause harm to someone in order to make yourself look better. This can be a very obvious act of violence or a very subtle thing such as an action veiled in legitimacy… but meant to hurt, or a backhanded compliment that calls attention to something good while also calling attention to something bad.
Be aware of fear. Be aware when you are acting out of fear. This is not as easy as it sounds. We may be in the habit of acting out of fear and not know it. Are you cynical? Do you ever feel insecure? How do you act? When you get angry, do you hurt people or yourself?
Anger can be a legitimate emotion, not necessarily bad, but it depends on what you do with it. If you use your anger for constructive change or catharsis, this can help. Remember, however, anger is often fear-based, so be careful with it. Do not hurt yourself or others. On the other hand, do not be a doormat and let people walk all over you. Do not let yourself become so afraid of other people that you do not get a chance to live your life. Be assertive when you need to, but do not become obnoxious.
Live your life with love in mind. Always think of how you can react with love. You may not be perfect, but try to make progress. Your life will be much more fulfilling. Love. others, and love yourself. Let this be your basis of action.
Do not forget to ask for help in loving others and life. Create a good support system that you can use in figuring and resolving feelings. Professional help is not out of the question if you need it. Your Higher Power can be your best guide if you let it, so ask for help. Love others and yourself and be happy. However, do not be afraid to be afraid to b unhappy at certain times. This is part of life for most of us. For the most part, however, be happy and love!
God Is Light
In literature, God is often portrayed as light. In personal revelations, God’s presence is often described as intense white light. Light appears to be a metaphor, or more likely, a real aspect of God. We can use this light of God in our lives, especially in prayer and meditation.
The light of God is always within us and around us. The light is warm, nurturing and sustaining. It is our Life Force.
We can feel the light around us.
The light of God is part of us and ours to use. Our first use of the light can be for ourselves. In our imagination, we can see this light all around us. We can feel the light caring for us and protecting us. We can feel the light warming our hearts.
The second use of the light can be as a gift to others. We can see others we love, who need healing, surrounded by this light of pure serenity. We can see it healing our loved ones.
Next, we can see the light of God surrounding our homes, our community and the world. We can feel the peace of the light and see it solving world problems.
Most of all, we can just live with the light; let it bathe us in peace and serenity. We can live and learn with the light of God.
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Recognize Your Holiness
Before we go too far in helping others, we need to recognize our own Divine Holiness. We need to feel and understand that every inch of who we are, from head to toe, is Sacred and Divine. We must know, in all humility, that we are very special, all of us. We need to see our actions and bodies as divine instruments. We need to know and see our own perfection, so we can see and nurture it in others.
John F. Harrigan, Jr. p 171
We are truly Divine, created in the likeness and image of God. Creation is our true domain where we are meant to live and excel. Creation is not a place where we are meant to suffer and learn the lessons of life though pain. We are meant to live and learn in goodness with our Father or our Mother within us. This is our true purpose and design.
We are all given by God a divine purpose: this purpose is to help others and shine forth God-to share God and our holiness with each other.
We are better helpmates, playmates and friends when we feel and recognize our good, our divine and holy origin.
The Secret
The secret and most powerful force on earth is love. How many of us really believe this? We may feel love has not done much for us, so how could it be so powerful? The power of love may be an experience we have yet to see. This is why it could be called a secret, yet it is always there for us to use and experience.
The secret of love is almost too simple to be believed, yet it is real. The divine love within ourselves can heal the wounded; and bring vast and incredible changes to our lives. Love is the language of life. Love supports and holds the world together. Love is why we are here.
Get to know love in your life. Let it in, feel it. Share it, and tell people that you love them, if you do. Love is sort of a group thing. It grows if you share it and give it away.
Love is more than we know.
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