(v.2, #17, published by The White Lodge, copyright 1980; lecture of October 21, 1965)
   "Before we even go into this subject very thoroughly, let us ask ourselves this question:  What is divine love?  'Oh,' you say, 'it's very simple.  It means the love of God, and God is love.  I've heard this since I was a little girl in Sunday School--that God is love.'  It is very simple, but let us now ask you this question:  Is it really as simple as people say that it is?  I think it may be simple--that is, the idea of divine love--but apparently people have different ideas of just what it is, and therefore it is not simple in the sense that there is no common denominator in the minds of most people as to just what divine love is.
   People often feel that any love, any feeling of kindness toward another person or even toward themselves, is divine love.  Some people feel that love for nature is divine love.  Now, mark you well, I did not say that it was not.  I did not say that divine love was not love for nature.  I did not say that divine love was not love for your fellowman.  It may well be all of these things in the right perspective, but I am sure you will agree that divine love must be more for the simple reason that God the Creator is more than the sum total of the parts of creation.  In other words, you have man made in his image, the Scriptures report.
   Fearfully and wonderfully made, our senses report to us, for as we examine the fabric of our physical body, the way it functions, we realize that it is a work of art in itself.  The inbreath of the atmosphere, the exhalation of impurity, the constant re-energizing and recharging of the body by the intake of food and air and water--these speak to us of divine love because divine love has wrought well in our body.  And today we're living in a time when people identify very much with their body.  Others, of course, who are more polarized along the line of the intellect, are perhaps more inclined to identify with the mind, and they think that their mind is very wonderful--and of course it is.  Still others are more inclined to identify with the power; so that's why we're going to talk on developing these three aspects of God:  developing divine love, developing divine wisdom and developing divine power.
   We have placed love first because love is the fulfilling of the whole law.  So then when we begin to ask ourself just what divine love is, we see that it is much more than just a feeling.  And perhaps we should start by saying what love is not--that is to say, what love is not exclusively.  It is certainly not just a feeling.  If it is just a feeling, it is the greatest feeling there is anywhere in existence, but it is not just a feeling.  It activates feeling--divine love does.  It animates, it inspires, it makes you feel good.  But divine love, strange as it may seem, can sometimes make the human feel just a little uncomfortable.  You remember that Jesus said:  'I AM not come to send peace on earth but a sword.'  So there we see a strange statement.
   He talked about a sword.  How can a man of God, a son of God, talk about a sword and say he's not come to send peace on earth but a sword?  We ask ourself that question and we have the answers before us, all around us, but many times we are not aware of the answers.  We see the answers, but we do not see them.  That which makes the human comfortable may not be divine love at all, but that which makes the soul comfortable may be divine love.
  In other words, we cannot say that divine love is tons of vegetables or food.  This is the harvest season.  We cannot say that divine love is just a lovely home to live in.  We cannot say that divine love is just a wonderful education or a great deal of money or many friends or a good husband or a good wife or fine children or a good reputation--although all of these things are desirable.  These things can be the product of divine love but let's be honest with one another:  people have a good home who have no belief in God whatsoever.  There are millions of people who do not believe in God who live in good homes and wear good clothes and have nice-looking children and drive nice cars and have status and a good job and security and they say they're very happy.  But they do not have divine love because they have no love for God whatsoever.  They'll admit this.  They don't even believe in God.
   So we see that if we look at the outer and say that this is divine love--which it really is--it has to be divine love when it is touched from within.  Almighty God, the infinite power--all of this--starts within and then works out.  So let us ask ourself again and again:  What is divine love?  We might even drop the 'divine' for a moment and ask ourself:  What is love?  I think that most people believe that love is a feeling that they have for someone else and that that is all that it is, but Jesus and Saint Paul gave us a great deal of insight on divine love.
   Jesus said of the commandments:  'A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.'  And he also said something to the effect that if thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself, that you shall fulfill all of the commandments.  Somehow or other, if we look very closely, we find that divine love and divine law are very close to one another.  The law of God by which he framed the universe is very close to divine love.
   You know the place in Revelation where it states that God measured the temple so many cubits this way and that way.  This of course is the architecture of the New Jerusalem and Jerusalem means:  J-e-r-u is 'new' and s-a-l-e-m or salem is 'peace'.  And so we read in that 'the new peace.'  The new peace, the ever new peace of God, is brought about by the architecture of heaven, and the architecture of heaven is reflected in law and law is love and love is law.
   Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, our emotional body has become entangled, and so we have come to think of divine love as a feeling.  It is a joyous feeling, we say, and we identify with the feeling of love just as men identify--and women identify too, both men and women--with the good feeling they get out of prayer rather than the subject to whom they are praying.  It is one thing--and I must in this lecture give you the honest facts because we are going to show how to develop divine love--but in order to develop it we must understand what it is and what it is not.
   People actually enjoy praying.  Some of the great yogis in India have said that people enjoy meditating on God because they get such a good feeling out of it and actually a lot of people enjoy not being burdened with any responsibility whatever and therefore they like to feel that their religion becomes a haven, a refuge for themselves where they can escape from the world.  And divine love to them is a haven, a place of refuge, somewhere they can escape from reality.
(to be continued)

   A Little Child by Jesus Christ

A little child shall lead them--/The eye so meek and mild--
A little child shall feed them,/ Where is the little child?
Right within you/ Golden man,/ His flaming image flashes,
Expanding now/ As son of man,/ Meteoric flashes!
The way ye know,/ The way to go/ Reveals in sudden flashes,
That to live you must forgive/ Man for sodden clashes!
Victory's gleam/ Will send a stream,/ Renewing each man's portion:
The dead shall rise/ Unto the skies/ And live in purest thought!
This life is real/ And will not steal/ The truth that I have brought--
My word abiding/ Now is hiding/ In the soul that God hath wrought.
This little child/ So meek and mild/ Is man whom God hath taught."