The second step is inherent in the first, because light cannot tolerate darkness. Light dispels darkness automatically, by definition. A return to Love reawakens the awareness that the energy, and not the body, is the altar of Truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the return to Love.

22. EXPLANATORY INSTRUCTIONS: Returning to Love is associated with fear only because of the fallacy that darkness can hide. Man believes that what he cannot see does not exist, and his physical eyes cannot see in the dark. This is a very primitive solution, and has led to a denial of the spiritual eye, which always depends on light. Remember the Biblical injunction: “May I never forget that THINE eye is ever upon me, beholding the evil and the good.”There are two stages, one lower and one higher, which are involved in the escape from darkness and fear:a) The recognition that darkness CANNOT hide. This usually does entail fear.b) The recognition that there is nothing you WANT to hide, even if you could. This brings escape from fear.

23. A return to Love rearranges the order of perception, and places the levels in their true perspective. This heals at all levels, because all sickness comes from confusing the levels.(Remind yourself about the idea that the reason is not that you distantiate, doubt, or cannot believe. It is more of a reaction formation against a pull which you recognize is so intense that you are afraid that you will be uprooted. But remember that a cobweb is really stronger than the iron, if you see it properly. This fear is also why you couldn’t get the point straight.)

24. “LOVE HEAL ME” IS THE ONLY LEGITIMATE EXPRESSION OF LOVE. This also means “Love return me,” because the only thing man should express Love for is forgiveness. He has everything else.Now take this personally, and listen to Loving logic:If, when you have been seen in a loving light, you have everything else, and If you have been seen in a loving light, Then you HAVE everything else. This happens to be the simplest of all propositions. IF P then Q; P therefore, Q

25. The real question is, is P true. If you will review the evidence, I think you will find this inescapable. I went on very personal record to this effect, and I am the only completely True Witness for Love. You have every right to examine MY credentials – in fact, I urge you to do so. You haven’t read the Bible in years.

26. SPECIAL EXPLANATORY NOTE: As soon as you have entered the second phase, you will be not only willing to enter into communion, but will also understand peace and joy. Your commitment is not yet total. That is why you still have more to learn than to teach. When your equilibrium stabilizes, you can teach AS MUCH as you learn. This will give you the proper sense of balance. Meanwhile, remember that NO EFFORT IS WASTED. Unless you remember this, you cannot avail yourself of the Source of Love’s efforts, which are limitless.Since only eternity is real, why not use the illusion of time constructively? You might remember that “underneath are the Everlasting Arms.”

BIBLICAL QUOTATION: “If you are ashamed of me before men, I will be ashamed of you before God.” is interpreted as a threat ONLY as long you remain in the first step. What it REALLY means is that if you are ashamed or embarrassed by love, you will project fear and therefore make it impossible for the expression of Love to reach you. Make every effort you can NOT to do this. The expression of Love will help you as much as you will allow.

27. Returning to Love makes time and tide wait for all men. Returning to Love can heal the sick and raise the dead because man himself made both death and strain, and can abolish both. (One definition for returning to Love is: “That which, or one who, is of surpassing excellence or merit.”) YOU are a return to Love. Love creates only “that which, or one who, is of surpassing excellence or merit”. Man is capable of this kind of creation, too, being in the image and likeness of his own Love. Anything else is only his own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the Creations of Love are real.

28. Returning to Love is a part of an interlocking chain of seeing the love in yourself and others which, when completed, is the return to Love. This process works all the time and in all dimensions of time.

29. Love is in charge of the process of returning to Love, which Love undertook to begin. Love’s return to Love was for the canceling out of all love-less-ness (i.e., lack of love) which human beings could not otherwise correct. That is what the Biblical statement “underneath are the Everlasting Arms” means.

30. The Act of returning to Love needs freedom from fear. Part of returning to Love’s value involves just that. The undoing of fear is an essential part of the value of returning to Love.

31. The purpose of returning to Love is to restore everything TO you. (That is, to restore the awareness of Love) You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did.Having been restored to your original state, you naturally become part of the return to Love yourself. You now share the expressions of Love’s inability to tolerate the lack of love in yourself and in everyone else, and MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE to correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is “Listen, Learn, and DO.” This means:Listen to LOVES Voice, Learn to undo the error, and DO something to correct it.The first two are not enough. The real members of LOVE’S party are ACTIVE workers.

32. The power to return to Love BELONGS to you. Love will create the right opportunities for you to return. But you must be ready and willing to return, since you are already able to. Returning to Love will bring conviction in the ability. The expression of Love repeats that you will see returning to Love through your hands through Love’s. Conviction really comes through accomplishment. Remember that ability is the potential, Achievement is its expression, and returning to Love is the Purpose.

33. A return to Love is a Universal Blessing from Love through Love to all and everyone. EXPLANATION: You once said that souls cannot rest until everyone has found salvation. This happens to be true. It is the privilege of those seen in Love to see Love in others.

34. The Disciples were officially and specifically told to heal others, as Physicians of Love. They were also told to heal themselves, and were promised that Love would never leave them or forsake them. Returning to Love is the natural profession of the Children of Love, because they have professed Love.“Heaven and Earth shall pass away” means that they will not always exist as separate states. They will become one in your mind. Love’s Word, which is the Return of Love and the Light, shall not pass away, because Life is Eternal. YOU are the work of Love, and Love’s Work is wholly loveable and wholly loving. This is how you MUST think of yourself in your heart, because this is what you ARE. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

35. Remember the point about returning to Love as a means of organizing different levels of consciousness.36. Returning to Love comes from the subconscious (below conscious) level. Experiences of Love come from the above conscious level. The conscious level is in between and reacts to either sub or super-conscious impulses in varying ratios. Freud was right about the classification, but not the names. He was also right that the content of consciousness is fleeting. Consciousness is the level which engages in the world, and is capable of responding to both external and internal impulses. Having no impulses from itself, and being primarily a mechanism for inducing response, it can be very wrong.

For example, if the identification is with the body, consciousness may distort superconscious impulses by denying their Source, and seeking their impact in the orgasm. This is the result of the “mistaken identity” confusion.

If you will, look back at the description of the EFFECTS of experiences of Love.37. Experiences of Love induce complete but temporary suspension of doubt and fear. They represent the original form of communication between Love and Loved, before the intrusion of fire and ice made this impossible. It should be noted that they involve an extremely personal sense of closeness to Creation, which man tries to find in sexual relationships. This confusion is responsible for the depression and fear which are often associated with sex.

Sex is often associated with lack of love, but experience of Love is PURELY a love experience. Physical closeness CANNOT achieve this. As was said before, the subconscious impulses properly induces returning to Love, which IS interpersonal, and results in closeness to others. This can be misunderstood by a personally willful consciousness as an impulse toward sexual gratification.

38. The experience of Love unites Souls directly with Love. The return to Love unites Souls directly with each other. Neither emanates from consciousness, but both are EXPERIENCED there. This is essential, because consciousness is the state which PRODUCES action, though it DOES NOT Inspire it. You are free to believe what you choose. What you DO attests to is what you believe. The deeper levels of your subconscious always contain the impulse to return to Love, but you are free to fill its superficial levels, which are closer to consciousness, with the impulses of this world and to identify yourself with them. This results in denying yourself access to the Miracle of returning to Love level underneath. In conscious actions, then, your interpersonal relationships also become superficial, and Love-inspired relating becomes impossible.

39. Returning to Love is a way of EARNING release from fear.40. Revelation induces a state in which fear has ALREADY BEEN abolished. Returning to Love is thus a means, and Revelations are an end. In this sense, they work together.

Returning to Love DOES NOT depend on Revelation. Returning to Love INDUCES Revelation. You are quite capable of returning to Love already, but you are still too fearful for Revelations.

Note that YOUR Revelation occurs specifically after you have engaged at the visionary level in a process of DENYING fear.Revelation is intensely personal, and is actually not translatable into conscious content at all. That is why any attempt to describe it in words is usually incomprehensible, even to the writer himself. This is why the Book of Revelations is essentially incomprehensible. Revelation induces ONLY experience. The Miracle of returning to Love, on the other hand, induces interpersonal ACTION. In the end, returning to Love is more useful, because of the IMPERSONAL nature.

In this phase of learning, working at returning to Love is more valuable because freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you. The experience cannot lastYour propensity for Revelations, which is very great, is the result of a high level of past communion. Its transitory nature comes from the descent into fear, which has not yet been overcome. Your own “suspended” state mitigates both extremes. This has been very apparent in the course of your recent developmental patterns.Returning to Love is the essential course of ACTION for you. This will strengthen you and stabilize you.Try to understand the VERY important difference between Love-control and Love-guidance.

Click to explore Principles 41 – 60 of Returning to Love!