I Build a Lighted House and Therein Dwell

At this time of year those of us in the Southern hemisphere are drawn inside our homes for warmth, comfort, and protection from the Winter cold. It is a time for inner reflection, and the keynote for the energies now flowing through the constellation of Cancer seem deeply relevant: “I build a lighted house and therein dwell”. We might ask ourselves what kind of house are we building in which to dwell and from which to look out upon the wider world? With what patterns of thought, emotional response and material attachments do we surround ourselves? To what extent do these patterns absorb our conscious attention and so build and strengthen walls between ourselves and others?

Many are beginning to ask themselves these questions, and some are finding the most beautiful answers. A recent post at https://nancywait.com/, illustrates how simply and honestly we can begin to penetrate the walls of habitual responses:

Drawing is dangerous. It shows you what you are seeing, how little or how much, or how skewed your perceptions might be. Writing is dangerous too, as it reveals what you know, and maybe what you didn’t know that you knew, and puts it in black and white on a page. This is a story of Light and Dark.
Last year when I saw signs of a mouse in my house I called the exterminator. This year my friend Mariette told me about the little mouse she found on her doorstep. He was taking his last few breaths. She wrote a poem about him for her blog and asked me to draw a picture. I wouldn’t have thought I’d feel such empathy for a mouse, but as I studied his little body, recreating it in light and shadow, the indefinable delicacy of his last moments moved me to tears.
They say we need more beauty in the world, but sometimes all we have to do is see the light that is already here. I saw it in this study of a mouse whose life was ebbing away…
It took me three months to come to terms with the experience … but these things have ramifications. Here I am, the kind of person who sees signs of a mouse and calls the exterminator. Whereas my friend Mariette …who was a hidden child of the Holocaust, whose family was exterminated in WWII, writes a poem about the beauty and sadness of a dying mouse and buries him in the garden to preserve his memory in the scent of flowers….”

(Mariette’s poem is at https://mindelesjourney.com/2023/02/13/tiny-mouse/)

What subtle web, or veil, do we weave about ourselves through which to view the greater whole, the vaster life? How thick a lens do we create? Do we see “through a glass darkly” (I Corinthians 13:12), or do we see with the piercingly bright and penetrating gaze of our own inner light, our own soul that sees the light behind all outer seeming? Our attention animates and empowers what we focus upon and makes it more “real” for us but can obstruct clear vision. We are so interconnected through time and space that together we weave great veils based on our limitations of understanding – both our own and those we inherit and share. The Tibetan Master tells us that:

These veils are as curtains over the windows of vision. They prevent realisation of that which lies beyond the room or area of average or mediocre experience, and they prevent the light from penetrating.
…[They] are not actually existing veils in the usual sense of that term. They are in the nature of opposing forces and energies which act as inhibitory factors to the aspirant as he seeks to make progress, and to the entire human family as it moves onward upon the Path of Evolution. … they are essentially physical forces, and although they are the result of man’s own effort and activity down the ages, they are largely unrealised, unseen obstacles to his progress.” The Rays and the Initiations, page 195

Just as our physical eyes take time to adjust to bright daylight after leaving a darkened room, so these veils have offered protective blindness while we build the capacity to absorb more light. The Tibetan Master explains:

In the early stages of evolution, blindness is natural, innate, unavoidable and impenetrable. For ages man walks in the dark. Then comes the stage wherein this normal blindness is a protection, but has also entered a phase wherein it can be overcome. …From the moment when a human being catches the first, faint glimpse of the ‘something other’ and sees himself in juxtaposition to that dimly sensed, distant reality, the blindness …is something imposed by the soul upon the hastening aspirant, so that the lessons of conscious experience, of discipleship, and later of initiation may be correctly assimilated and expressed; by its means, the hurrying seeker is defended from making too rapid and superficial progress.” [The Rays and the Initiations, page 197] “Thus the veils serve their purpose; blindness nurtures and protects, provided it is innate and natural, soul-imposed or spiritually engendered. If it is willfully self-induced, if it provides an alibi for grasped knowledge, if it is assumed in order to avoid responsibility, then sin enters in and difficulty ensues.” The Rays and the Initiations, page 200

In these times of great change and challenge, many human hearts are awakening to the light of the soul as it reflects through the home of the human heart. The oft quoted saying, “home is where the heart is,” is a deep truth, hiding in plain sight until we develop the eyes of the heart. As we begin to see clearly, so we build the lighted house, the Temple of Light, dedicated to the divine light that ensouls our world and shines through all walls and barriers. Christ spoke of our role in building the temple as recorded in these words:

The Star of Allahabad pointed out the way. And so We visited Sarnath and Gaya. Everywhere We found the desecration of religion. On the way back under the full moon occurred the memorable saying of Christ.
During the night-march the guide lost his way. After seeking I found Christ seated upon a sand-mound looking at the sand flooded by moon-light.
I said to Him, “We have lost Our way. We must await the indication of the stars.”
“Rossul M., what is a way to Us when the whole world is awaiting Us?”
Then taking His bamboo staff He traced a square round the impression of His foot, saying, “Verily, I say, by human feet.”
Then making the impression of His palm He also surrounded it with a square, “Verily by human hands.”
Between the squares He drew the semblance of a pillar surmounted by an arc.
He said, “Oh, how Aum shall penetrate into the human consciousness! Here I have drawn a pistil and above it an arc and have set the foundation in four directions. When, by human hands and human feet, the Temple shall be built wherein will blossom the pistil laid by Me, then let the builders pass by My way. Why shall We await the way when it is before Us?”
Then rising, He effaced with His cane all which He had drawn.
“When the Name of the Temple shall be pronounced then shall the inscription emerge. In remembrance of My constellation, the square and nine stars shall glow over the Temple. The sign of the foot and the hand will be inscribed above the Keystone.” Thus He Himself spoke on the eve of the New Moon.” Signs of Christ from “On Easter Crossroads, Legends and Prophecies of Asia”

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