Agape in GERALD JAMPOLSKY’s “Love is the Answer”

Because Gerald Jampolsky is a psychiatrist who is deeply inspired by A Course in Miracles, the places in his book, Love is the Answer, where he discusses the spiritual meaning of love, ‘agape’ is used.

“Within the belief system of agape, we see that the purpose of our relationships is to remember who we are and that the essence of each of us is agape. Rather than focusing on individual difference, agape focuses on the similarities and the things that we, as spiritual beings, each have in common.

“As we choose the belief system of agape, rather than the belief system of the ego, we once again discover that happiness is our natural inheritance and our natural state of being.

“Agape looks at the world very differently. From the standpoint of the spiritual self, which is pure agape, the purpose of our relationships is to experience a joining with one another and to remember that agape is the only true reality there is. 

“Agape sees relationships as opportunities for learning and as challenges for our personal growth. Rather than having us see relationships as fearful and dangerous, it helps us see them as possibilities for agape and learning and that through them we might see the face of God in the other person, reminding us of our own holiness.

“Agape is changeless. It asks no questions and makes no judgments. It is always gentle and tender. It is always unfolding, extending, and expanding beyond all limitations. 

“How do we transform? The answer can be found in the ‘Bridge of Forgiveness.’ The foundation for this bridge is built on the very soil of agape, where no one can do anything that is unforgivable. As we cross this bridge we discover that everyone is deserving of our total agape, and we can learn to let go of the blocks of our ego perceptions so that we can once again have agape for each other, ourselves, and the source of all life unconditionally.

“To walk across the Bridge of Forgiveness is to walk the most important Bridge in the Universe, the bridge that can lead us to agape, peace, and happiness beyond our wildest dreams. Though our egos will do their very best to distract us from seeing it, the Bridge of Forgiveness is always there, inviting us to cross it, guaranteeing us that in so doing, our relationships will be healed and we will experience more agape and peace than we have ever before imagined.

“The journey across this bridge is filled with boundless joy and hope, as we rediscover the agape and forgiveness that always abides in the heart and that heals all our relationships.”

Agape in GERALD JAMPOLSKY’s “Love is Letting Go of Fear”

In keeping with my practice of interpreting modern writing with the biblical tradition of distinguishing the different meanings of love, for those places where Gerald Jampolsky uses ‘love’ in a spiritual way that the meaning is ‘agape,’ the word was changed in the following quotes.

“By choosing agape more consistently than fear, we can change the nature and quality of our relationships. We choose to see others as extending agape or being fearful and calling for help in the form of agape. With this new perception, it becomes easier to give both total agape and acceptance to the other person and therefore to experience inner peace at the same time.

“Agape is the total absence of fear. Wouldn’t our lives be more meaningful if we looked to what has no beginning and no ending as our reality? Only agape fits this definition of the eternal.

“All fear is past and only agape is here.

“Throughout the day, whenever you are tempted to be fearful, remind yourself that you can experience agape instead.

“Throughout the day, whenever you are tempted to see yourself as victimized, repeat: Only my agape thoughts are real. “We all manufacture our own dust and static that serve only to interfere with seeing, hearing, and experiencing agape within ourselves and others.

“To give is to receive — this is the law of agape. Under this law, when we give ‘our’ agape away to others, we gain, and whatever we give we simultaneously receive. The law of agape is based on abundance; we are completely filled with agape all the time, and our supply is always full and running over.

“The law of agape is that you are agape, and that as you give agape to others, you teach yourself what you are.

“Without the [false] belief in separation, we can accept our own healing and extend healing agape to all those around us. 

“We feel vulnerable when we believe that the fearful past is real and forget that our only reality is agape, and that agape exists this instant. When we see no value in recycling [the ‘garbage’ of the past], we remove the blocks to our being free to forgive and share in agape now. Only in this way can we be truly happy.

“Feel the peaceful bliss and know that the function of agape is to unite all things unto itself.

[EPILOGUE:] “Let us recognize that we are united as one Self and illuminate the world with the light of agape that shines through us. Let us awaken to the knowledge that the essence of our being is agape, and, as such, we are the light of the world.”

Agape in ANTHONY DeMELLO’s “The Way to Love”

Even though Anthony DeMello never uses the word ‘agape’ in his book, The Way to Love, because he is a Jesuit priest, in those places where he uses ‘love’ in a spiritual way that the meaning is ‘agape,’ the word was changed to ‘agape’ in the following quotes. The clear illustration for why I can make this change is shown in the following first quoted paragraph.

“God’s kingdom is agape. What does it mean to share agape? It means to be sensitive to life, to things, to persons, to feel for everything and everyone to the exclusion of nothing and no one. 

“Very few people understand what agape is, and how it arises in the human heart. Agape springs from awareness.

“Agape is already there within you. All you have to do is remove the blocks you place to sensitivity and it would surface.

“What is agape? It is a sensitivity to every portion of reality within you and without, together with a wholehearted response to that reality.

“When you are tapping into agape you find yourself looking at everyone with new eyes; you become generous, forgiving, kindhearted, where before you might have been hard and mean. Inevitably people begin reacting to you in the same way and soon you find yourself living in a loving world.

“This is the first quality of agape: its indiscriminate character. That is why we are exhorted to be like God, ‘who makes his sun to shine on good and bad alike and makes his rain to fall on saints and sinners alike; so you must be all goodness as your heavenly Father is all goodness.’

“And here is the second quality of agape — its gratuitousness. It gives and asks nothing in return.

“The third quality of agape is its unselfconsciousness. Agape so enjoys the acts of sharing agape that it is blissfully unaware of itself.

“Agape simply is, it has no object.

“The final quality of agape is its freedom.

(THE ART OF LOOKING:) “Every time you find yourself irritated or angry with someone, the one to look at is not that person but yourself. The question is not, ‘What’s wrong with this person?’ but ‘What does this irritation tell me about myself?’ To understand all is to forgive all.

“The first act of having agape for another person is to see this person as the reality as he or she truly is. And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping your desires, your prejudices, your judging, your memories, your projections, your selective way of looking — to ruthlessly flash the light of awareness on your motives, your emotions, your needs, your dishonesty, your self-seeking, your tendency to control and manipulate.

“When you first experience this kind of sensitivity you are likely to experience terror. For all your defenses will be torn down, your dishonesty exposed, the protected walls around you burned.

“It is in such an act of seeing with agape that true sensitivity and awareness is born.

“If you ever allow yourself to truly see with agape, it will be the death of your false self. And so your false self will try desperately to blunt that sensitivity because its defenses are being stripped away and it is left with no protection and nothing to cling to  — it is threatened unto death.

“But in the death of the false self is freedom, peace, serenity, joy — the most delightful, exhilarating experience in the whole world.

“To drop your conditioning, your prejudices and projections, your needs and attachments, your concepts and categories, and the labels you’ve learned in order to learn to see is arduous enough. But seeing calls for something more painful still. The dropping of the control that society exercises over you; a control whose tentacles have penetrated to the very roots of your being, so that to drop it is to tear yourself apart.

“If you refuse to do this you will miss out on the experience of agape, you will miss the only thing that gives meaning to human existence. For agape is the passport to abiding joy and peace and freedom.”

Agape in LOUIS SAVARY & PATRICIA BERNE’s “Kything: the Art of Spiritual Presence” (second post)

The book uses ‘kything’ to put forth a very basic communion-between-persons skill that can be used to establish spiritual presence between and among people. [The word was used in A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle, who got it from Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary of 1856] In the 18th chapter, ‘Kything and Jesus Christ,’ direct quotes are used from the places in the New Testament where ‘agape’ is used on the original Greek, so quotes start there then expand to other quotes where ‘love’ used in a spiritual way is changed to ‘agape.’

“Nor does Jesus exclude from the indwelling anyone who has agape for him and believes in him. ‘Any who have agape for me will be true to my word, and my Father will have agape for them; we will come to them and make our dwelling place in them’ (Jn 14:23). John’s First Epistle is also filled with assertions of this mutual indwelling: ‘No one has ever seen God; but as long as we share agape with one another, God will live in us and God’s agape will be complete in us.’ (1 Jn. 4:12-13)

"In his book The Descent of the Dove: A Short History of the Holy Spirit in the Church’, Charles Williams recognized the permanent mutual indwelling of God in us, us in God, and us in each other (in Christ). Williams called this mutual indwelling 'co-inherence,' and saw it as the central reality of Christian life.

"This spiritual and sacred presence enables the person to know and have agape for God directly and immediately. Williams asked the next logical question. Is there also a spiritual and sacred way for believers to know and share agape with each other directly, spirit-to-spirit?"

"Kything is a beginning of the ‘discovery’ Williams called for, the development of a technique not only to make this indwelling of God in persons and persons in God more conscious, but also and perhaps more importantly for our day, to facilitate the exchanges of agape in mutual indwelling that Christians are called upon to make with each other in Christ. “I give you a new commandment: Share agape with each other. Just as I have shared agape with you, you also must share agape with one another. By this agape you have for one another everyone will know that you are my disciples” (Jn 13:34). The world will recognize the presence of Christ by his followers’ ability to be present to each other, spirit-to-spirit.

"Jesus showed his agape by indwelling in his friends, making his spiritual home in them. In turn, he wanted his friends to share agape with each other by co-inhering in each other as well as in him. Ultimately for the Christian, to kythe with agape is to participate in the divine life.

"Agape urges us to live for all the members of the Body of Christ (2 Cor. 5:15), and to please the Lord in all things. In this common agape sharing, available to conscious experience through kything, we are willing to put ourselves in another’s place, to suffer for them, to console them, to rejoice with them, in a word, to live in them.

"Mystical prayer is essentially an experience of unity with God and God’s creation. Kything is a gateway to mystical experience and can certainly foster deeper prayer states. When you kythe you transcend separateness without losing your identity. When you kythe you enter into a state of agape and spiritual union.

"As a spiritual energy agape is the ability to be unconditionally loving. In this sense, agape is a prerequisite to deep kything, for the conditions and expectations we place on others or ourselves when ordinarily we love often keep us or distract us from the depth of communion of which we are capable."

Agape in LOUIS SAVARY & PATRICIA BERNE’s “Kything: the Art of Spiritual Presence”

Again, the word ‘agape’ is not used, but the subtitle is a clue that ‘kything’ can be interpreted as ‘sharing in the flow of agape,’ so whenever ‘love’ is used in that spiritual understanding, the word was changed to ‘agape.’

"By its very definition, kything is an agapic presence. Agape in its fullest sense leads to union, it creates a freely-established bond between you and the person with whom you share agape.

"The ability to forgive is really part of the spiritual energy of courage. The need for forgiveness surfaces when a relationship has been harmed. It takes courage to recognize and acknowledge the negative feelings caused by the other person and then take a further step, namely, to begin replacing these negative feelings with trust, compassion, caring, and working together. In order to go forward together successfully, it is also important that you accept the other person’s limitations of character and establish an agape relationship with that person as he or she is, not with the person you wish he or she were.

"Even after you have forgiven the other person, fear and mistrust as psychological feelings may still be present in you and need to be dealt with, but the spiritual energy of courage is a senior force that can carry you beyond your fear and anger in order to help re-create the broken relationship in a healthy, reality-based way.

"In forgiving people, you look beyond their offense and see their larger goodness. In having agape for them for their wholeness and their greater purpose in life, you can view their moment of brokenness as a step on their journey.

"In kything with such persons, you connect primarily with their spirit, their essence, their wholeness. You are in touch with a dimension of them that is much larger then their failures and hurtful actions.

"People have called cosmic consciousness by different names such as the unitive experience, the oceanic experience, divine perspective, the big picture. The point is that this spiritual energy gives you the capacity to look at your life and the world from a perspective that is much more cosmic in scope than your ego. Cosmic consciousness involves seeing your life not merely from the present moment but from a transcendent moment. When those with whom you kythe invite you to look at your life from the perspective of eternity, the way God looks at it, they are calling forth this spiritual energy in you. You can feel an integral part of a magnificent, living totality. When kything, it is this cosmic perspective, the unity of all things, that is seen as most important. The focus is on the network of relationships rather than on individual uniqueness. Because kything occurs in the domain of spirit, past, present, and future are equally in existence and available to my spirit.

"Ultimately, both sharing agape and kything are designed to help you transcend your limits and become consciously and spiritually one with the cosmos. The process of getting to that level of maximum consciousness is the challenging and rewarding work of spiritual growth. It is the work of a lifetime."

Agape in MADELEINE L’ENGLE’s “Walking on Water”

Although Madeleine L’Engle describes the problem with translating ‘agape’ as ‘charity’ in the King James translation or ‘love’ in the modern translations, she never uses the original word ‘agape,’ but in those places in her memoir, “Walking on Water,” where she uses ‘love’ in a spiritual way that shows the meaning is ‘agape,’ the word was changed to ‘agape’ to keep in the original biblical tradition.

      "In 1 Corinthians 13 there is shattering power. It is not a vague, genial sense of well-being that it offers us but particular, painful, birth-giving agape. 

      "How to translate that one word which is the key word? ‘Charity’ {the translation in the King James Bible} long ago lost it original meaning and has come to mean a cold, dutiful giving. And ‘love’ is now almost entirely limited to the narrower forms of sex. Canon Tallis suggests that perhaps for our day the best translation is the name of Jesus and that will tell us everything about agape we need to know. 

      "God gives agape to us because we are his children, because we are. The more we feel that we ought to be loved because it is our due or because we deserve it, the less we will truly feel the need for God’s agape; the less implicit will be our trust; the less will we cry out, Abba!

      "For each one of us there is a special gift, the way in which we may best serve and please the Lord, whose agape is so overflowing.

      "It is a listening, agape, and many artists who are incapable of this in their daily living are able to find it as they listen to their work, that work which binds our wounds and heals us and helps us toward wholeness.

      "The disciples, like the rest of us, did not deserve God’s agape, nor their Master’s. How must Jesus have felt when he was forced to realize that his disciples, whom he had called to be with him all the way, would not stand with him at the end? And yet, despite the fear and unfaithfulness of his followers, Jesus’ agape never faltered, for it was not dependent on the merit and virtue and the qualifications of those to whom he gave agape.

      "Following Christ has nothing to do with success as the world sees success. It has to do with agape. So does the Bible. God’s agape for people. All of us.

      "In moments of mystical illumination we may experience, in a few chronological seconds, years of transfigured agape."

Agape in TODD OUTCALT’s “Common Ground”

Although Todd Outcalt, in his collection of international wisdom quotes, never uses the word ‘agape,’ but in those places where he uses ‘love’ in a spiritual way that the meaning is ‘agape,’ the word was changed to ‘agape’ in the following quotes.

"Prayer is, at least in part, built on the foundation of agape, devotion, and humility that leads us closer to the divine.

"The Parable of the Good Samaritan is about practicing the very heart of God by demonstrating God’s agape through action, not lip service. Concern for others should cross boundaries. Take us out of our comfort zones. Make a new day possible.

"If we see God as merciful and benevolent, then the whole of our lives may be oriented around this divine gift. In the divine mercy, we ourselves may become merciful. As the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart once wrote, 'The seed of God is in us … and now the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree and a hazel seed grows into a hazel tree. A seed of God grows into God.'

"There may be moments in life when we may be called upon to extend agape in ways we never imagined. Sometimes sacrifices are required. Sometimes we must trade one priority for another. A heartfelt compassion can move a person to strange acts of kindness.

"When spiritual gifts go unused, they atrophy and become useless. And if we attempt to keep all the blessings of God for ourselves, they waste away and cannot be of use to others — which is their intended purpose.

"In the Sufi faith, Jesus holds a place of deep reverence and emulation, even devotion, and it was Jesus who demonstrated having agape for all of God’s creations. Empathy is often regarded as a purely human trait, but in a Sufi story about Jesus, we see agape extending to even a beast of burden.

"Although John Donne once said that “no man is an island,” we tend to live as if isolation and individualism are the greatest good — even the highest goal — in life. In this age of individualism and privacy we can become obsessed with our own happiness and security. But the more we focus on ourselves the more miserable, it seems, we become.

"Agape can be described, defined … even ignored. But agape experienced is a great power and a remarkable teacher. Agape moves us."

"One truth about agape which has withstood the test of time: Agape is the greatest power.

Agape in Marianne Williamson’s “The Gift of Change” (second post)

Again, in those places where Marianne Williamson uses ‘love’ in a spiritual way that the meaning is ‘agape,’ the word was changed to ‘agape’ in these continuing quotes from The Gift of Change.

      “Agape is our spiritual reality, untarnished by anything that has happened in the material world. A new commitment to agape is rising up from the depths of our humanity, and its power is changing us on a fundamental level. Recognizing who we are — that we are agape, that we are as God created us — is the most important thing we can do in any instant.

      “In God we are infinite agape, and agape is the one and only force that hate and fear cannot withstand.

      "So… regardless of who ridicules us, it’s important that we continue to celebrate agape — not only the good feeling it brings, but also its actual power to heal all things. On the level of true solution, agape is the answer no matter what category of human experience.

      “The answer is that agape is inside us, just waiting to be unleashed. The darkness is an invitation to light, calling forth the spirit in all of us. Every problem implies a question: Are you ready to embody what you say you believe? Can you reach within yourself for enough agape, strength, forgiveness, clarity, serenity, patience, and faith to turn this around?

      "As we block agape’s power to change our own lives, we block its power to change the world. As we release the fear-based thoughts we’ve been taught to think by a frightened and frightening world, we see God’s truth revealed: that who we are at our core is agape itself. And miracles occur naturally as expression of agape.

      "Agape is to fear as light is to darkness: in the presence of one the other disappears. As we shift our perceptions from fear to agape (sometimes in cases where it’s not so hard and ultimately in cases where it takes spiritual mastery to do so) we become miracle workers in the truest sense.

      "We don’t learn agape, which is already etched on our hearts; we do, however, begin to unlearn fear. And with every change we make from blame to blessing, we pierce the veil of illusion that separates us from the world we want.

       "When we mentally identify with the realm of the spirit, we see endless agape, unlimited possibility, and the oneness of all things.

      "It’s hard to stay loving in a loveless world. And yet, with God, it’s possible. When we spend more time working to view life through agapic eyes, and less time trying to figure out why we’re unhappy to begin with, then our lives transform much faster.

      "We are here because we have a mission: to be the agape that is missing in a loveless world and thus reclaim this darkened world for light.

      "God is present within us, in any moment, to help us return our minds to agape.

      "Agape extended is the key to happiness; agape withheld is the key to suffering. The agape I seek can only be found as I extend my agape to others, then peace comes fairly easily.

      "We were born with a natural desire to extend ourselves in agape, yet the thinking of the world then trains us to think unnaturally.

      "All of us are on a spiritual path, but some people simply don’t know it. All of us, individually and collectively, are being forced by circumstances to remember who we are in relationship to agape itself.

      "The truth is that our fundamental happiness stems not from anything that happens in the material world, but from agape.

      "Total agape seems like a very tall order until we consider the reality that total agape is what we are.

      "As we drop the layers of fear and illusion that have hardened around our psyches, we are left with the agape with which we were endowed at our creation.

      "The birth of [our awareness of] our better selves [is] a gradual and continuous process, as in any given moment we either listen to the ego or we listen to agape. Which ever we listen to is what we will become. And whatever we become is the world we will inhabit. We can live in fear, or we can live in agape. And every moment, we decide.

      "The real joy of living emerges from the experience of our true being — when we detach from other people’s projections onto us, when we allow ourselves permission to dream our greatest dreams, when we’re willing to forgive ourselves and others, when we’re willing to remember that we were born with one purpose: to give agape and to receive agape.

      "In our time and through our efforts, we are called to a great vision: to think the thoughts of a world at peace, infused with total agape. For until we think the thoughts of peace, peace will not be ours. We will end war not because we hate it so much; we will end it by loving peace so much more. We will love it so much we will try to live it in our own lives.

      "We know there is a world of agape that lies beyond what we see, and we were born to make it manifest. If we apply ourselves body and soul to the task, then one day — right here on earth — we will experience an illumined world.

      "Crossing the bridge to a better world begins with crossing a bridge inside our minds, from the addictive mental patterns of fear and separation, to enlightened perceptions of unity and agape."

Agape in Marianne Williamson's "The Gift of Change"

Because of how important spiritual love (which I changed to 'agape' in accordance with biblical tradition) is to the writings of Marianne Williamson, I divided the quotes from her book, The Gift of Change, into 2 postings:

      "Agape is the only absolute reality, which never changes and never dies. Dwelling in that which does not change, while things around us are changing all the time, is our key to inner peace.
      "Many of us believe in a powerful agape, an awesome agape so aligned with God that it will change all things.

“Every encounter is a holy encounter if we use it to demonstrate agape.

“God’s agape is everywhere, but if our eyes aren’t open to see it, we miss out. Our problem is rarely a lack of agape so much as a mental block to our awareness of its presence.

“A new movement of agape is rumbling underneath the surface today. Martin Luther King said we have a “glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of agape into the veins of our civilization.” And all of us can participate in this process. Every single moment, with the nature of our thoughts, we can add to agape’s storehouse in a way that blesses the world.

“Martin Luther King did not stand for sentimental love or popular love or convenient love. God’s agape is often none of these things. And if we are to truly honor Dr. King’s memory, we must strive our best to do as he did — to take a stand for agape even in the face of hate and ridicule.

“The notion that a great wave of agape will be the salvation of the human race is an idea whose time has come. And our willingness to be part of that wave gives a transcendent purpose to our lives.

“A new world awaits all of us, as our minds are healed by agape.

“In any situation there is a focus to our perception. God would have us extend our perception beyond what the physical senses perceive, to the agape that lies beyond. For when we see that agape, we can call it forth.

“We either have faith in agape that is eternally true or faith in the illusions of the ego.

“Agape is not just a feeling; it is a force. And it is a force that is ultimately more powerful than violence of any kind.

“Our barriers to agape represent a cosmic force, ensconced within the human psyche in a dark and insidious way — holding dominion — temporary though wicked — over the mental functioning of the child of God.

“Through God’s Holy Spirit, God will outwit our self-hatred and return our hearts to agape.

“Once we find the agape within ourselves, calling it forth in our relationships comes much more easily. 

“To God, we are all loved ones. And when we learn to have agape for each other as God’s agape for us all, we will prepare the table for the what we most want.

NEW MIND = “God can dismantle our thought system based on fear and replace it with a thought system based on agape.

“Our holiness — God’s agape within us — is the only way humankind has ever transcended darkness, and it is the only way we ever will. If we can rise above fear in our life and live the agape within us — if that drama is reenacted enough times by enough of the world’s people — then we will pierce the cosmic darkness and tip the world in the direction of light. The movement of the universe is always in the direction of ultimate agape.

“And together, you will change the world.”