The Light of the Soul in All Things

As with many essential aspects of our daily lives, we take the presence of light for granted and perhaps only rarely look at it as the marvellous mystery it really is. It is as familiar as breathing but if we focus the searchlight of our mind on it, we may penetrate into just how vast that mystery is. An opportunity for such a focus comes as 2015 is declared the United Nations International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies. That same year has also been declared the UN International Year of Soils. To a casual view, Light and Soil might appear to be at opposite ends of a spectrum of subtlety. And yet the same essential light and life throbs at the heart of a light photon or an atom of soil – and is apparent to eyes open to the radiant inner life empowering all things. Opportunities are offered for us to participate in meditative support for these UN Years through the Intuition in Service initiative. And further information about the 2015 International Years is available online including from Wikipedia and the UN Global Soil Partnership.

Light relates us to time and space. Its cycles mark the passage of our daily living and reveal the space in which we act it out. There is the tangible expression of light as it illumines the physical world – the cyclic pulse of day and night, sunlight, moonlight and starlight; the flickering dance of firelight, candlelight and lamplight; the creative harnessing of light through human artifice to bring electric light, LED light, neon light and laser light; and finally the celebratory explosion of light displays and fireworks to express shared joy in achievements and milestones in the progress of enlightenment. It relates us to a sense of “lightness” – the more earthbound our view the heavier we may feel, the more enlightened our sense of reality the lighter and more subtle becomes our experience of being.

We are bathed in light, its waves sweeping through us like rhythmic lighthouse beams guiding us to safe harbour through the dark night of illusion and past the rocks of false appearances. It is restorative, strengthening, refining, essentialising and synthesising. And eventually we wake from a half-blind partial view to see the light which shines in everything. Our eyes then open into vistas of being and indescribable beauty where every atom hums with light and adds its chorus to the great symphony of life that sings around and through us at all vibratory rates from the deep booming beat of the material world to the subtlest notes of spirit sounding the changes with the feather-light touch of almost imperceptible exquisiteness. The radiant light of divinity shines through all and is expressed through the light of the Soul in all things. The Tibetan tells us of that which:

…serves to demonstrate…the oneness of the tiniest unit with the one great informing Life, and shows the integral beauty of the scheme. The life of the greatest cosmic Lord of Love pulsates in infinitesimal degree in the heart of His tiniest reflection, and for this reason the atom man can likewise say ‘I too am God; His Life is mine’… Naught in time and space can hinder, for every form being simply an expression of energised life, tends to serve every other form… When the glory of a man’s inner God is seen, when his radiance shines forth then will it be said of him as of those who have preceded him along the Path: ‘Then shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings.’(The Bible, Malachi 4:2) from A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, pages 1115,1116,1123

While we see and respond to the beauty that radiates through the natural world, the time is coming when we shall also see the light form of every atom as it cycles in and out of material presence. The physical form will appear eclipsed in the radiance and quality of its inner light structure seen in the glorious beams of its interrelationship with all else. Tones of light will range from dim to effervescent explosions and new hues of colour will glow in the great tapestry of lighted being. And the glory of the Sun’s great Heart will pulse through every thread. This fiery future is foretold in The Agni yoga writings:

I entrust you to testify about the Fiery World as existing, and with all the attributes of existence. Fiery blossoms are distinguished by their radiance, but they may be compared in structure with roses; small vortical rings form, as it were, a combination of petals. Similarly, ozone, in the higher state, reproduces, as it were, the odor of evergreens. Also, the radiance of auras is like cloud arches, and rays are as streams and waterfalls. Thus, in the higher forms the wise one will find likenesses of earthly images. He will not see the earthly existence as abased thereby, for in all states of being the foundation of energy is the same. The wise one will not seek a precise counterpart of God in an earthly body, for only the fiery body will preserve the same sparks as the Higher Beings. Should it not be pointed out in schools wherein we are like God…?” Fiery World II, page 179.

In this lighted Life, with its rhythmic ordering manifestation, we participate not as substance to be moulded but as a co-creative force, as an intelligent, active element. As this realisation permeates we see things “in a new light” which reveals an underlying order. Glimpses of this new way of seeing our world are demonstrated in the patterns of nature based on Fibonacci numbers delightfully revealed in the video, Doodling in Math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant, or the seeing of casually observed visual patterns as music shown in the film, Birds on the Wires.

These are some of the many demonstrations of an implicit order with its subtle layers guiding the flow of light and life. A greater hand, eye, mind, intention is at work. And we human beings are able to see this guiding intention. Rather than the momentary movement of substance, we can see instead the temporary effect and reactive adjustment of the material world being directed through the emergence of each new era, each new step in the unfolding expression of God. It is the divine Plan we can see shining through the material world where the Principle of Limitation operates to regulate time and space according to the direction of that unfolding Life. Paradoxically this limitation yields the potentially infinite variety of expression. The greater the variety and diversity, the greater the expression of the synthesis of all life – it is a matter of our point of view, of being, of identity.

Sameness and synthesis are vastly different in essence and expression. A diversity ordered by an underlying synthesis leads into ever expanding realms of life while sameness and regimentation lead eventually to dissolution as the inner life is curtailed and cut short. We can observe that multi-nationals, corporations and institutions begin to crumble when their sustaining source becomes fully exploited and choked dry. At the same time the creative diversity of individuals and groups is beginning to flower as they realise the limits of larger controlling interests and withdraw, or are led by circumstance, into alternative, collaborative ventures that co-operate more sensitively with the wider environment – such as the simple solar-powered LuminAID inflatable lamp or Window Socket.

Values and priorities shift from amassing what old thinking considered “wealth” and move towards sharing the abundance already so perfectly available from the greater natural world – when we work with and for it. New ideas and creative applications of technology are spreading as people take the initiative and responsibility for their lives and for the greater Life of the planet. The future is emerging and one might say:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (I Corinthians 13:12)

Such is the human potential in process of being revealed and as described in this commentary from The Light of the Soul:

He has arrived at the point at the heart of his being. From that point of pure spiritual realisation, he can increasingly work in the future. Through practice, he strengthens that realisation, and all life, work and circumstances are viewed as a passing pageant with which he is not concerned. Upon them, however, he can turn the searchlight of pure spirit; he himself is light and knows himself as part of the ‘Light of the World,’ and ‘in that light shall he see light.’ He knows things as they are and realizes that all which he has hitherto regarded as reality is but illusion. He has pierced the great Maya and passed behind it into the light which produces it and for him mistake is in the future impossible; his sense of values is correct; his sense of proportion is exact.” The Light of the Soul page104

Seeing through the material forms:

…does not mean the wasting away of the forms but the steady refining and transmutation of the matter with which they are constructed so that they become so purified and clarified that the ‘Light of God’ which they have hitherto hidden, can shine forth in all its beauty in the three worlds. This can be demonstrated as literally true upon the physical plane, for through the work of purification and the control of the life currents the light in the head becomes so apparent that it can be seen by those who have supernatural vision, as radiations extending all around the head, thus forming the halo so well known in pictures of the saints. The halo is a fact in nature and not just a symbol.” The Light of the Soul page. 229

The yogi knows himself to be light, a point of fiery essence… he can focus that light on any object he chooses and come ‘en rapport’ with the light which that object is hiding. That light is then known to be one in essence with his own light-centre, and comprehension, communication and identification then become possible” The Light of the Soul page 250

We see what we are ourselves; we become aware of that in other forms which is developed in ourselves. We fail to see aspects of life because as yet in ourselves, those aspects are undeveloped and latent… The moment we contact our own soul and live by its light we see the soul of our brother, become aware of his light and our entire approach to him is changed… Herein lies the clue to our limitations. Herein lies the promise of our success. Latent faculty, when developed, will reveal to us a new world. The hidden powers of the soul when brought to full expression will make us aware of a new world and reveal to us a scheme of life and a kingdom of being hitherto negated by us, because not seen.” The Light of the Soul page 408