# Chain: Divine Love Without Knowing > *Divine Love can be received without conscious knowledge of it* **The argument it traces:** Conscious understanding is not required → the soul can long for God on its own → souls of all beliefs already receive it, often faintly → the seed may open more fully later, even in spirit **5** messages · **14** supporting · main statement not yet chosen --- ## Foundation ### 2019-01-31 - [[2019-01-31 How Can a Person Receive Divine Love Without Knowing About It|How Can a Person Receive Divine Love Without Knowing About It?]] The thread's question answered directly, "why and how a soul may receive the Divine Love without the conscious understanding of its mechanisms and protocols to receive this gift." Understanding helps but is not required, "It does not require that the mind has the specific understanding of these mechanisms and laws pertaining to receiving of the Divine Love. Though it is helpful," because "The soul on its own accord can long for God and receive this gift as long as the mind does not obstruct this intention expressed by the soul." Other beliefs do not bar it, "the opportunity to receive God's Love is not restricted by this"; many already hold some of the Love, "often not to a great degree"; and the seed may open later, "Many come to this understanding when they find themselves in the world of spirit... the seed has been planted and the experience lingers within the soul and therefore a door may be opened in the future." Anchor. ## Elaboration ### 2016-05-25 - [[2016-05-25 Do Not Judge the Natural Pathway|Do Not Judge the Natural Pathway]] Draws the social consequence of the thread's claim: "look to the soul... a soul that is receptive to God's Love, yet in their minds has a different definition of what this is, is still a soul on the Divine Path nonetheless." The Foundation, [[2019-01-31 How Can a Person Receive Divine Love Without Knowing About It|2019-01-31-af-augustine]], settles what is true of the receiving soul; Alec Gaunt turns it into a rule of conduct: set aside judgment of another's stated beliefs and read the soul instead. Worth weighing when the anchor is chosen. ### 2016-09-02 - [[2016-09-02 Natural Love and Divine Love|Natural Love and Divine Love]] The misattribution account of why recognition fails: not ignorance of doctrine but indistinguishability, "it is difficult to delineate between the mind, the natural love, and soul experiencing the Divine Love"; the unknowing is misattribution, not absence, with the diagnostic case stated (a visitor who "does have Divine Love within him, yet he does not clearly understand the differences between what resides within his soul and the understandings of the love that is of the natural kind") and the remedy, yearning "innocent as a child," called "the beginning of true faith, true soul awakening." Closest member [[2019-02-05 Feeling the Love|2019-02-05-af-keea-atta-kem]]. Build note: same spirit as the Foundation, [[2019-01-31 How Can a Person Receive Divine Love Without Knowing About It|2019-01-31-af-augustine]], asking the same question; both could stand as Foundation-section members with the anchor chosen at build, as with [[Chains/Who Jesus Was|Who Jesus Was]]. ### 2016-11-27 - [[2016-11-27 Drawing Many Kindred Spirits|Drawing Many Kindred Spirits]] Where [[2016-09-02 Natural Love and Divine Love|2016-09-02-af-augustine]] is about a soul not recognizing what is already in itself, this one is about two souls recognizing it in each other. Augustine places people without the teaching inside the light without qualification, "Though they may not share your perspective, your clear understanding of the mechanisms of Divine Love, nonetheless they are in the light and know the light, and are drawn to the light," and makes the recognition mutual and immediate, "there will be deep within you and deep within the others an acknowledgement of this common spiritual light and love." He attributes the drawing together to the Law of Attraction and to God's Will. ### 2019-02-05 - [[2019-02-05 Feeling the Love|Feeling the Love]] Adds the felt-experience dimension to the thread the Augustine Foundation (2019-01-31) frames in terms of understanding: one may receive the gift without consciously *feeling* it, not only without comprehending it. "For those who do not feel the inflowing of the Divine Love within their souls, this does not mean that they are not receiving this Love, for indeed they are." Names the mechanism - the soul's sincere yearning brings the Holy Spirit's response, "the law in action, the Law of Love" - and promises that those who cannot yet feel it will in time be given "some powerful experience, some form of awakening" that confirms the Truth. Distinct contribution: shifts the thread from receiving the Love without knowing it to receiving it without feeling it, and supplies the reassurance pastorally. --- ## Also touches on this *These messages restate or echo the idea rather than carry it forward, so they sit alongside the thread rather than in it.* - **2015-10-26** [[2015-10-26 Guidance about Our Choices in the Flow of God's Love|Guidance about Our Choices in the Flow of God's Love]] (sighting) - By implication, if belief is irrelevant to the soul connection, "for belief is of the mind and this, in time, you will see is irrelevant," then holding other beliefs cannot bar a soul from receiving. - **2016-04-02** [[2016-04-02 Jesus' Ministry and the Teachings of Divine Love|Jesus' Ministry and the Teachings of Divine Love]] (sighting) - "first they must know and understand what it is that they yearn for", the why-teach complement to the without-knowing doctrine. - **2016-08-17** [[2016-08-17 The Minds of Men Hunger for the Reality that Words Create but the Soul Hungers for Love|The Minds of Men Hunger for the Reality that Words Create but the Soul Hungers for Love]] (sighting) - The embrace extended across the two paths, "whether they be on the Natural Path or the Divine Path. This does not matter." - **2016-08-28** [[2016-08-28 Pray for the World Healing Centre|Pray for the World Healing Centre]] (sighting) - Admission to a building ("all peoples, all races, religions, creeds, and sects"), not reception of the Love; adjacent at search level only. - **2016-09-02** [[2016-09-02 I Am Your Brother|I Am Your Brother]] (sighting) - The longing-suffices premise, "every soul open to this great blessing of the Divine Love will receive this gift, for in their longings, in their great desire to be with God in love, to be with God directly, they will be blessed". It carries the chain's second step, that the soul can long for God on its own, but not its first, since the souls described are already open and desiring rather than unaware. - **2016-09-04** [[2016-09-04 God's Love Is the Key|God's Love Is the Key]] (sighting) - "Some of you had no clear understanding of why" they came, set against others who "were firmly guided and clear in their intentions". The unknowing here concerns the motive for attending rather than the reception of the Love. - **2016-10-19** [[2016-10-19 Divine Love Creates a Bond with the Father|Divine Love Creates a Bond with the Father]] (pattern) - The bond as a thing formed and then load-bearing, "in this the bond is created with God and that bond creates within you a great and deep strength, opens your awareness to many deep truths, brings meaning and purpose to your lives". Several threads touch it, [[Chains/Divine Love Without Knowing|Divine Love Without Knowing]] on reception, [[Chains/Prayer Soul Longing|Prayer Soul Longing]] on the practice, [[Chains/Soul Faculties|Soul Faculties]] on what opens, but none holds the bond itself as its object. Too thin to pen on one short message. - **2016-10-26** [[2016-10-26 Be Open to God's Touch|Be Open to God's Touch]] (considered and set aside) - The opening line describes people arriving from different backgrounds with a shared longing, "so many who've come from different perspectives, understandings yet have a soul longing to come together." That is a gathering across traditions, which is a different thing from receiving the Love without knowing what it is, so it is not evidence for this chain. - **2016-10-29** [[2016-10-29 The Soul Longs for God's Love|The Soul Longs for God's Love]] (witness) - A distinction that helps the chain and could easily be misread as contradicting it. Andrew separates being embraced from knowing you are embraced. The embrace "is always present, always there... It is more a soul must discover that this possibility exists always," while "to be embraced by God in a conscious way is to know your own soul." So knowing does not cause the embrace; it changes whether you experience it. Worth quoting alongside his harder line, "those who turn away, who are ignorant of the facts... do not receive this embrace," so that line is not read against the chain. - **2016-12-01** [[2016-12-01 Sowing Seeds of Truth|Sowing Seeds of Truth]] (witness) - The seed that opens later, often in spirit, here planted by those who share the truth: "you may not receive the reaction or the appreciation in the moment from those who you speak to and give to these truths but a seed is planted, something has changed, a shift, an opening. In time, often when that particular soul progresses into spirit, they are reminded of this truth because that truth has made a lodging within their souls." The seed here is truth heard rather than Love received, which is where it differs from [[2019-01-31 How Can a Person Receive Divine Love Without Knowing About It|2019-01-31-af-augustine]]. - **2016-12-02** [[2016-12-02 A Prayer for Those on the Path of Love|A Prayer for Those on the Path of Love]] (witness) - The hunger that does not know itself, "bringing that gift of Truth to those who hunger and know not what they hunger for," the same claim as [[2017-05-11 Jesus Speaks of the Pentecost|2017-05-11-af-jesus]], "They don't even know their own thirst." - **2017-05-11** [[2017-05-11 Jesus Speaks of the Pentecost|Jesus Speaks of the Pentecost]] (witness) - The thirst that does not know itself, "who walk in a land without the waters of life, dry and parched. They don't even know their own thirst, they don't know where to turn." - **2017-08-21** [[2017-08-21 Only the Soul Can Know God's Love|Only the Soul Can Know God's Love]] (considered and set aside) - The message does not support an Elaboration for this thread. Matthew is addressing people who are praying for the Love and receiving it, and his subject is how the reception is known and misdescribed, not whether it can arrive without knowledge of the doctrine. The nearest ground is "belief is of the mind" ([[2015-10-26 Guidance about Our Choices in the Flow of God's Love|2015-10-26-af-faith-nyquist]]), which this message does not enter. - **2019-04-01** [[2019-04-01 We Are Not So Different|We Are Not So Different]] (sighting) - Yogananda "knew of this Love too but within the confines... of Hinduism."