Section 11 - Part A:

 The Secret of Love  

I said in earlier Parts of this Course that all living things show the duality of male and female. We will now proceed to a further consideration of this fact, in the hope that you may take advantage of it in working out the supreme happiness which comes only to those who have found the ideal love relationship.  

Like the consideration of everything else in the universe, a proper discussion about love must begin with the Universal Mind; and this takes us back to the ancient wisdom which regarded God as both male and female. The female phase of the Universal Mind has no power of initiation, no power to beget, but has unlimited power only to take the ideas of the male phase, conceive and bring them into objective existence.  

In the beginning the male phase of the Universal Mind formed mental images of suns, planets and abounding life, and the female phase acted on those mental images in such a way as to bring them into reality. We see that same general distinction in all realms of human life, the mental and economic realms as well as the physical. The male starts the life process. The female conceives and gives birth. The male invents and initiates. The female gathers, conserves and imparts order to that which is invented and initiated. The man designs and builds the house and the things that go into it and are used in connection with it. The woman takes these things and assembles and arranges them so as to make the house a home.  

Woman can understand all that man learns and invents, so that she may be educated in all the arts, sciences, professions and industries. But the rule is almost universal that she does not push on and invent and initiate new things. There has never been a female Buddha, nor Confucius, nor Socrates, nor Edison, nor Ford.

This is nothing to the discredit of woman. She gave birth to all these great men, and so nurtured, trained and directed them as to be largely responsible for making them what they were. And in the lives of nearly all of them she stood by and played her powerful silent role of counsellor, comforter, lover and intuitive inspirer.  

Woman displays one powerful function which man almost totally lacks, namely, intuition. She "just knows" a great deal of things which she has never learned, and which man has to dig out by a reasoning process. Her intuitions are often more accurate than man's reasonings, but not always, for she sometimes drops back into the Realm of Error, and "something tells" her a lot of things that are not true. All too often these falsehoods accuse her husband or someone else who loves her. So again, we find the "devil" lurking close beside the Way of Life, seeking whom he may deceive and destroy (1 Pet. v. 8). And once again it is not the "horned and hoofed devil", but a phase of the Universal Mind which is in every human being. 

Female Mentality and Fountain of Wisdom  

Because the female mentality is not so cluttered up with the processes of reason as is the male mentality, the woman's whole mental life lies nearer to the subjective phase of mind, and she is in closer and more constant touch with the Fountain of Wisdom - closer to a recollection of all that has ever come to the race through learning and experience. This is the source of her intuitions. That is why she "just knows" so many things. The danger of these intuitions is that the Realm of Error lies so close behind the Fountain of Wisdom, and unless she knows the truth about these things, she is liable to drift into the Realm of Error and be deceived. She is liable to believe a lie and follow a life of misery. If woman could only know and always remember that true intuitions come in the form of wordless thoughts, and that messages from the Realm of Error come in the form of worded thoughts, she could make her gift of intuition a powerful asset in winning for herself the love and happiness which she so earnestly craves.  

We are now running a little ahead of our story. Let us return to the Universal Mind for a fresh start. It has already been said that all life is divided into two sexes, but that is not the beginning of the division. Even in the mineral kingdom we find the same division, not into male and female, but into positive and negative. In Part B of Lesson Seven we noted that in the vegetable kingdom true sex appeared, and was the formula and method by which a few coarse forms of vegetation were evolved into many finer forms. It was also the formula and method by which a few primitive animal forms were evolved into many finer forms. Men are still evolving new and finer forms of both vegetable and animal life through scientific breeding. What Luther Burbank, the veteran plant breeder, did in producing new and better species of plants, others have done and are doing in producing new and better species of animals, new and better horses, dogs, cows, pigs, sheep, fowls, and so forth. All these improvements and variations are produced through the use of sex - by the cross-breeding of different species. 

It seems in order at this point to say that sex is not merely a physical device for reproduction. It is that, of course, but it is not a device for reproduction on a level scale, nor on a downward scale from some mythical perfect creation in the past. It is a device for reproduction on an ever-ascending scale, in which each generation is just a little finer, wiser and better than the preceding generation. It is that, and vastly more. It is a cleavage - a division or split - of the male and female phases of the Universal Mind into individualised forms for the purpose of self-evolution within every person and the working out of a supreme individual happiness.  

The Father-Principle and the Mother-Principle  

Woman is not simply a female man. She is an individualised expression of the female phase of the Universal Mind, with mental qualities and equipment at least as different from the mental qualities and equipment of the human male as her body is different from his. Fundamentally, he is a seeker after truth by the light of Reason, while she is a seeker after love by the light of intuition. The two have certain mental qualities in common, just as they have certain physical qualities in common, but deep down in their inner selves they are radically and fundamentally different. He is the Father-Principle in human form. She is the Mother-Principle in human form. Each realises the "halfness" of himself or herself, and each is seeking wholeness through permanent mating. What a pity that so few actually find what they seek! But we have plenty of time, and we are all the while improving and coming closer to the happy realisation of the ideal.  

The division of the human race into two sexes gives only a partial explanation of human love, for people of opposite sex do not always fall in love with each other, while in some cases persons of the same sex fall in love with each other. In fact, love is the rare exception rather than the rule. Of all the hundreds of women a man may happen to know, he really loves only one of them and possibly none. Among the women of his acquaintance there may be many who are beautiful of face and form, intelligent, educated and of mature personality. Yet not one of them arouses in him the passion called love. Then, by chance, he may meet another woman, less beautiful and accomplished, and fall madly in love with her almost at their first meeting.  

There is a mental component of love - a spiritual quality, if that sounds better. Here, too, we see paradoxes. For a man may have no love at all for any number of gentle, refined and highly intelligent women, and fall desperately in love with a baby-faced "doll". Love can come only when the mentalities of the two parties are mutually complementary of each other - the mentality of each must be largely made up of traits and characteristics not in the mentality of the other. Yet even this difference of mentality does not ensure love. Such opposites do not always fall in love with each other.

The Human Aura  

While love is based partly on the attraction of sex, and partly on beauty of body and mind, the final determining factor is the human aura – channels, called nadis / chakras x 7  (Intersections). Here again we come across an outcropping of the ancient wisdom. For many centuries a few people from time to time have been aware of the existence of the human aura, as is shown by many ancient paintings of saints with haloes about their heads and often surrounding their entire bodies. This was long supposed to be just an imaginative creation, intended by the artist as a mere compliment to the subject of the painting. All down the years there have been occasional men and women who claimed to be able to see the human aura; but this has been generally regarded as a form of sensory hallucination.  

Now, however, the human aura has been scientifically demonstrated as a fact, and the matter has been reduced to such a state that some people who are naturally sensitive have seen the aura during the following experiment. "nvo small clean panes of clear glass and a two per cent. solution of dicyanin dye in grain alcohol were all the apparatus required. A few drops of the dye solution were poured upon one of the pieces of glass, and the other piece of glass was pressed down on it. A dark room or a dark night was the only other requirement. The pieces of glass were held before the eyes, and the subject looked through them at a human being in darkness. If the subject was at all "psychic" he or she could see the aura - a flickering, pulsating light playing around the body, and ranging in extent from a few inches to many feet.  

We know that the aura is vastly different in size, shape and movement in different individuals, and that it materially changes in the same individual with changing conditions of health and states of mind. In the physically weak and mentally negative it is weak and limited in extent. In the physically strong and mentally positive it is strong and extensive. The dicyanin fluoroscope shows that it contains several colours, with probable changes in colour around different portions of the body.  

Nervous Energy  

The aura is not strictly magnetic - in the sense that the word "magnetism" is applied to the mineral kingdom. And yet in another sense it is magnetic. Doctors speak of "nervous energy as being the force by which the brain sends its messages to the different muscles and organs of the body - the force which in the body takes the place of electricity in the telephone. We know that when electricity is moving along a wire the wire is surrounded by a "magnetic field" - that is, there is a sheath of magnetism surrounding the wire. If another wire is strung so as to run within this magnetic field, it picks up some of this magnetism and converts it into electricity again, so causing an "induced current" in the wire.  

In the same way the flow of nervous energy over a nerve-line produces a field of nervous energy along and around the nerve. Millions of these fields of nervous energy blend together in a single human body to form the larger field of nervous energy which is called the aura.

When two people come close enough together for their aurae to contact, there is either a harmonic or a discord which they both sense immediately. If their aurae are harmonious, each will feel that he or she is in pleasant company. If they are of the same sex, they are likely to become warm personal friends. If they are of opposite sexes, they will become friends or fall in love, depending on the degree of harmony. If the aurae are discordant to each other, each will feel that he is in unpleasant company, and there can be no friendship nor love. If forced to remain in close contact, they will develop mutual dislike which may run into bitter hatred.

The Key to the Secret of Love  

So, we find the key to the secret of love. It is the basic attraction of opposite sex, plus the attraction of beauty, plus the attraction of harmonious aurae. At a glance these conditions seem to be easily met, so that there ought to be a lot of real and ideal love in the world. But we know that such love is rare, and that the conditions are not so easily met as they seem at first glance. The difficulty is encountered in the aura, which varies almost as much in different individuals as the physical appearance of human beings varies. Therefore, perfect harmonics are rare and partial discords common. The ideal love relationship is the exception, with discord and disillusionment entering into a good many marriage relationships.  

Another difficulty arises from the fact that each human aura changes with all changes of mental attitudes, so that even the ideal love relationship sometimes is less than ideal through changes in the interests and mental habits of the parties.  

Unless our whole system of society is radically changed, we cannot abolish our present form of marriage, which is designed to foster and protect the family-unit of society. And yet we have come to a point in human evolution at which marriage is causing more broken hearts, ruined lives, neurotic disorders and personal maladjustments than all other causes combined. I have had hundreds of opportunities of looking behind the scenes and seeing the sordidness and misery, of which the world knows little, because pride and a sense of duty never allow them to come into the light of the divorce court.  

In the U.S.S.R a loose kind of mating system was instituted which could be ended at the will of either party, with numerous state-owned and state-operated abortion hospitals and children's homes. This rather crude method of dealing with the vexed problem of marriage was not generally looked upon with favour by the people of other countries, and in the 1930s it had to be considerably modified, even in strictly communist Russia.  

Certain American sociologists have advocated a marriage terminable at the will of either party at any time before the birth of a child, and the provision to the newly-married couple of full information about and practical means for the prevention of conception. This American plan was called "companionate marriage" and was also highly and widely disfavoured - especially by those who regard marriages as being made in heaven, and those who believe that "love's supreme caress" should never be used for any purpose than the creation of children.  

It is not the purpose of this Course to try to solve the marriage problem as a whole, nor either to commend or condemn any effort to solve it. The purpose here is to do everything possible to help you to solve your own love problem, and to come into the perfect love relationship which is the supreme desire and crowning happiness of every normal human being.  

If you are unmarried and lonely you should include an ideal love relationship in your list of things necessary to give you "success" that you were recommended to draw up in Lesson Eight. You should often think such thoughts as these: "I am love, because I am part of God, and God is love"; "I now know ideal love, and through the Universal Mind I now call to my true love, who will receive the call and come to me or draw me to him or her"; "Because I am love, and show love, I am attracting love to me all the time". After mentally dwelling on these thoughts when going to bed at night, you should go to sleep hearing the ticking of the clock say: "I am growing more attractive every day - I am growing more attractive every day". Here, as elsewhere, you should make the most of what you have. You should try to improve your personal appearance, and should brighten your mind by reading good books and literary and news reviews.  

Keep the Love-Fires Burning  

There is nothing in the idea that there is a "one and only mate for every human soul". There are hundreds of possibilities of finding the true mate. Besides, the "one and only mate" of today may become intolerable within a few years from now, unless both mates consciously and intelligently co-operate in keeping the love-fires burning. One who understands and applies the teachings of this Course need have no fear of unmarried loneliness or married unhappiness, for all things you need will come to you in due course, including the ideal love relationship.  

Married unhappiness presents a far more complicated and serious problem. It would present no real problem at all if there were no children involved. The soundest and most practical advice that can be given to childless couples who have drifted into a cat-and-dog existence is to go their different ways. But when there are helpless and innocent little children, it is a different matter.  

As a rule, divorce involving children blights every life it touches -the lives of the divorced parties, the lives of their children, the lives of the parties they remarry, and the lives of the children of such remarriages. And yet, in thousands of cases it is the only escape from an intolerable situation. In the life of the average human being there is nothing else quite so hopelessly dead as a dead love. But if both parties could be sane and reasonable, even a dead love could be resurrected. However, a large proportion of the population are mentally "off colour" in one or more respects. They have a tendency to hold bitter and violent hatreds against the person to whom they are married. They are more or less functioning in that part of the subjective phase of mind called the Realm of Error, which is a hot-bed of all kinds of dark suspicions and false beliefs concerning one's spouse in particular and everybody in general.  

How to Strike the Harmonic of Love  

If those people could only know and apply the truths set forth in this Course, they could get out of their unfortunate condition, and still find love and happiness. If you happen to be one of those whose marital happiness has gone on the rocks, and if there are children involved, I suggest that you carefully search your inner consciousness to find out how much of the fault is yours, and especially to find if you have harboured or expressed any dark or unlovely suspicions that might have come from the Realm of Error. I also suggest that you call the attention of your estranged partner to the teachings of this Course, and propose that you study the Course together. If both of you are able to make such a joint study, it will bring both of you to a new and better understanding and to mutual respect, and perhaps to a renewal of your love. If your estranged partner is not interested in this Course, then an effort should be made to interest him or her in some other system of thought, teaching or life, in which there can be real mutual interest. For by thinking along the same lines and being interested in the same things, your respective aurae may be so changed as again to strike the great harmonic of love.

It is always better to lock the stable door before the horse has bolted. An ounce of preventive is worth a pound of cure. A stitch in time saves nine. It is easier to keep love alive than to breathe life into it after it is dead. Nothing is so effective in keeping love alive as mutual interests. It is a terrible mistake for the husband to live his own life, have his own interests, mingle with his own friends, and stay apart from the life, interests and friends of his wife. He should take and show an active interest in the affairs of the home, in the children, in the fashion magazines. His friends should also be her friends. Likewise, the wife should take an interest in her husband's work, in his sports and recreations, in his hobbies, and in his friends. If he is interested in something scientific, she should make it her business to learn at least a conversational smattering of knowledge about it. If he is interested in politics, she should know something about politics, politicians and political issues. Husbands and wives should read aloud to each other and discuss what they have read. If the wife likes to play bridge, the husband should learn to play. If the husband likes golf, the wife should also learn to play, and should join him occasionally in a trip round the course.  

Too many husbands and wives "evolve away from each other". Their interests and thoughts take different courses, their mental attitudes gradually change, and their aurae likewise change so that the harmonic of love first shows a slight discord, and finally all harmony is gone.  

If the unhappily married parent will first learn and then apply the teachings of this Course, using the methods described here, the chances are strong that he or she will not only renew the first love, but will also come into a new and much happier love.

We have had enough of superstition, including the superstition that "marriages are made in heaven". Now that we know the truth, let's use it - let's act upon it, and move on to a higher, happier and nobler plane of life.