Love
from The Game of Life,
by Florence Scovel Shinn
Every man on this planet is taking his initiation in love. "A new
commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." Ouspensky states, in
"Tertium Organum," that "love is a cosmic phenomenon," and opens to
man the fourth dimensional world, "The World of the Wondrous."
Real love is selfless and free from fear. It pours itself out upon the object of its
affection, without demanding any return. Its joy is in the joy of giving. Love is God in
manifestation, and the strongest magnetic force in the universe. Pure, unselfish love draws
to itself its own; it does not need to seek or demand. Scarcely anyone has the
faintest concept of real love. Man is selfish, tyrannical or fearful in his affections,
thereby losing the thing he loves. Jealousy is the worst enemy of love, for the
imagination runs riot, seeing the loved one attracted to another, and invariably these
fears objectify if they are not neutralized.
For example: A woman came to me in deep distress. The man she loved had left her for
other women, and she said he never intended to marry her. She was torn with jealousy and
resentment and said she hoped he would suffer as he had made her suffer; and added,
"How could he leave me when I loved him so much?"
I replied, "You are not loving that man, you are hating him," and added,
"You can never receive what you have never given. Give a perfect love and you will
receive a perfect love. Perfect yourself on this man. Give him a perfect, unselfish
love, demanding nothing in return, do not criticize or condemn, and bless him wherever
he is."
She replied, "No, I won’t bless him, unless I know where he is!"
"Well," I said, "that is not real love."
"When you send out real love, real love will return to you, either from
this man or his equivalent, for if this man is not the divine selection, you will not want
him. As you are one with God, you are one with the love which belongs to you by divine
right."
Several months passed, and matters remained about the same, but she was working
conscientiously with herself. I said, "When you are no longer disturbed by his
cruelty, he will cease to be cruel, as you are attracting it through your own
emotions."
Then I told her of a brotherhood in India, who never said, "Good morning" to
each other. They used these words: "I salute the Divinity in you." They
saluted the divinity in every man, and in the wild animals in the jungle, and they were
never harmed, for the saw only God in every living thing. I said, "Salute the
divinity in this man, and say, ‘I see you divine self only. I see you as God sees
you, perfect, made in His image and likeness.’"
She found she was becoming more poised, and gradually losing her resentment. He was a
Captain, and she always called him "The Cap."
One day, she said, suddenly, "God bless the Cap wherever he is."
I replied: "Now, that is real love, and when you have become a ‘complete
circle,’ and are no longer disturbed by the situation, you will have his love, or
attract its equivalent."
I was moving at this time, and did not have a telephone, so was out of touch with her
for a few weeks, when one morning I received a letter saying, "We are married."
At the earliest opportunity, I paid her a call. My first words were, "What
happened?"
"Oh," she exclaimed, "a miracle! One day I woke up and all suffering had
ceased. I saw him that evening and he asked me to marry him. We were married in about a
week, and I have never seen a more devoted man."
There is an old saying: "No man is your enemy, no man is your friend, every man
is your teacher."
So one should become impersonal and learn what each man has to teach him, and soon he
will learn his lessons and be free.
The woman’s lover was teaching her selfless love, which every man, sooner or
later, must learn.
Suffering is not necessary for man’s development; it is the result of violation of
spiritual law, but few people seem able to rouse themselves from their "soul
sleep" without it. When people are happy, they usually become selfish, and
automatically, the law of karma is set in motion. Man often suffers loss through lack of
appreciation.
I knew of a woman who had a very nice husband, but she said often, "I don’t
care anything about being married, but that is nothing against my husband. I’m simply
not interested in married life."
She had other interests, and scarcely remembered she had a husband. She only thought of
him when she saw him. One day her husband told her he was in love with another woman, and
left. She came to me in distress and resentment.
I replied, "It is exactly what you spoke the word for. You said you didn’t
care anything about being married, so the subconscious worked to get you unmarried."
She said, "Oh yes, I see. People get what they want, and then feel very much
hurt."
She soon became in perfect harmony with the situation, and knew they were both much
happier apart.
When a woman becomes indifferent or critical, and ceases to be an inspiration to her
husband, he misses the stimulus of their early relationship and is restless and unhappy.
A man came to me dejected, miserable and poor. His wife was interested in the
"Science of Numbers," and had had him read. It seems the report was not very
favorable, for he said, "My wife says I’ll never amount to anything because I am
a two."
I replied, "I don’t care what your number is, you are a perfect idea in
divine mind, and we will demand the success and prosperity which are already planned
for you by that Infinite Intelligence."
Within a few weeks, he had a very fine position, and a year or two later, he achieved a
brilliant success as a writer. No man is a success in business unless he loves his work.
The picture the artist paints for love (of his art) is his greatest work. The pot-boiler
is always something to live down.
No man can attract money if he despises it. Many people are kept in poverty by saying:
"Money means nothing to me, and I have a contempt for people that have it."
This is the reason so many artists are poor. Their contempt for money separates them
from it.
I remember hearing one artist say of another, "He’s no good as an artist, he
has money in the bank."
This attitude of mind, of course, separates man from his supply; he must be in harmony
with a thing in order to attract it.
Money is God in manifestation, as from freedom from want and limitation, but it must
always be kept in circulation and put to right uses. Hoarding and saving react with grim
vengeance.
This does not mean that man should not have houses and lots, stocks and bonds, for
"the barns of the righteous man shall be full." It means man should not hoard
even the principal, if an occasion arises, when money is necessary. In letting it go out
fearlessly and cheerfully he opens the way for more to come in, for God is man’s
unfailing and inexhaustible supply.
This is the spiritual attitude towards money and the great Bank of the Universal never
fails.
We see an example of hoarding in the film production of "Greed."The woman won
five thousand dollars in a lottery, but would not spend it. She hoarded and saved, let her
husband suffer and starve, and eventually she scrubbed floors for a living.
She loved the money itself and put it above everything, and one night she was murdered
and the money taken from her.
This is an example where "love of money is the root of all evil." Money in
itself, is good and beneficial, but used for destructive purposes, hoarded and saved, or
considered more important than love, brings disease and disaster, and the loss of the
money itself.
Follow the path of love, and all things are added, for God is love, and God
is supply; follow the path of selfishness and greed, and the supply vanishes, or man
is separated from it.
For example; I knew the case of a very rich woman, who hoarded her income. She rarely
gave anything away, but bought and bought and bought things for herself.
She was very fond of necklaces, and a friend once asked her how many she possessed. She
replied, "Sixty-seven." She bought them and put them away, carefully wrapped in
tissue paper. Had she used the necklaces it would have been quite legitimate, but she was
violating "the law of use." Her closets were filled with clothes she never wore,
and jewels which never saw the light.
The woman’s arms were gradually becoming paralyzed from holding on to things, and
eventually she was considered incapable of looking after her affairs, and her wealth was
handed over to others to manage.
So man, in ignorance of the law, brings about his own destruction.
All disease, all unhappiness, come from the violation of the law of love. Man’s
boomerangs of hate, resentment and criticism, come back laden with sickness and sorrow.
Love seems almost a lost art, but the man with the knowledge of spiritual law knows it
must be regained, for without it, he has "become as sounding brass and tinkling
cymbals."
For example: I had a student who came to me, month after month, to clean her
consciousness of resentment. After a while, she arrived at the point where she resented
only one woman, but that one woman kept her busy. Little by little she became poised and
harmonious, and one day, all resentment was wiped out.
She became radiant, and exclaimed "You can’t understand how I feel! The woman
said something to me and instead of being furious I was loving and kind, and she
apologized and was perfectly lovely to me.
No one can understand the marvelous lightness I feel within."
Love and good-will are invaluable in business.
For example: A woman came to me, complaining of her employer. She said she was critical
and knew she did not want her in the position.
"Well," I replied, "Salute the Divinity in the woman and send her
love."
She said, "I can’t; she’s a marble woman."
I answered, "You remember the story of the sculptor who asked for a certain piece
of marble. He was asked why he wanted it, and he replied, ‘because there is an angel
in the marble,’ and out of it he produced a wonderful work of art."
She said, "Very well, I’ll try it." A week later she came back and said,
"I did what you told me to, and now the woman is very kind, and took me out in her
car."
People are sometimes filled with remorse for having done someone an unkindness, perhaps
years ago.
If the wrong cannot be righted, its effects can be neutralized by doing someone a
kindness in the present.
"This one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind me and reaching
forth unto those things that are before."
Sorrow, regret and remorse tear down the cells of the body, and poison the atmosphere
of the individual.
A woman said to me in deep sorrow, "Treat me to be happy and joyous, for my sorrow
makes me so irritable with the members of my family that I keep making more Karma."
I was asked to treat the woman who was mourning for her daughter. I denied all belief
in loss and separation, and affirmed that God was the woman’s joy, love and peace.
The woman gained her poise at once, but sent word by her son, not to treat any longer,
because she was "so happy, it wasn’t respectable."
So "mortal mind" loves to hang on to its griefs and regrets.
I knew a woman who went about bragging of her troubles, so, of course, she always had
something to brag about.
The old idea was if a woman did not worry about her children, she was not a good
mother.
Now, we know that mother-fear is responsible for many of the diseases and accidents
which come into the lives of children.
For fear pictures vividly the disease of situation feared, and these pictures
objectify, if not neutralized.
Happy is the mother who can say sincerely, that she puts her child in God’s hands,
and knows therefore, that he is divinely protected.
For example: A woman awoke suddenly, in the night, feeling her brother was in great
danger. Instead of giving in to her fears, she commenced making statements of Truth,
saying, "Man is a perfect idea in Divine Mind, and is always in his right place, and
is divinely protected."
The next day she found that her brother had been in close proximity to an explosion in
a mine, but had miraculously escaped.
So man is brother’s keeper (in thought) and every man should know that the thing
he loves dwells in "the secret place of the list high, and abides under the shadow of
the Almighty."
"There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come
neigh thy dwelling."
"Perfect love casteth out fear. He that feareth is not made perfect
in love," and "Love is the fulfilling of the Law."
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