The Living Substance of Light

The recent Vivid light festival in Sydney treated visitors to marvellous and interactive light creations all around the city and harbour – a reminder of the wonder of what we know as “light” – and we are only just at the beginning of our journey into its true realms. It can be so easy to take light for granted when it is ever pervasively present in a multitude of forms and degrees of radiation from brilliant sunshine to the twinkling of distant stars. We may even appreciate, only too fleetingly, the more subtle forms and processes of light as it enlightens mind, lifts the heart or shines through a smile. It has definite presence and impact and yet seems so abstract as to appear formless. But scientists have revealed that light is both a particle and a wave – it is both substance and radiance. We are told that:

…light and substance are synonymous” The Rays and the Initiations, page 174

and that:

People should recognize that Light is a living substance. They should understand that ascent is the one direction destined…” Heart, sloca 469

We have discovered that light is both form and formless. So, by its very nature, it is the bridge between the seen and the unseen, between the known and what is yet to be known. We are told:

Actually, the Invisible World is quite visible when the eye is unobstructed. You do not need mediumistic phenomena to sense the Light of the Highest World; indeed, you can ascend only to the Highest. That is why all the ruses of lower magic, relying as they do on force, pale in comparison with the first light of the heart. Though not many people know the fires of the heart, these torches must provide light for all…” Heart, sloca 20

In a scene from the film, The Hobbit, the wise elf, Galadriel, Lady of Lorien, translucently appears to speak with the wizard, Gandalph (sometimes telepathically) as though from deep recesses of enlightened understanding. Gandalph speaks of the potential of light in simple daily living: “Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folks, that keep the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love…” She replies: “If you should ever need my help, I will come.” then disappears softly leaving us with a sense of her continuing presence in more subtle ways. The subtlety of this scene lifts and lightens the story at this point before returning to the darkness of conflict and fear but we are left with the understanding that everyday kindnesses build an enlightened resilience through which light radiates into the world from the most exquisite, lighted realms.

Such glimpses help our eyes, our perception, to adjust to a greater degree of light. When we have been accustomed to a darkened room and then step out into sunlight we need time for our eyes to be comfortable with the brightness. We could return to the darkened room to ease the pain, yet the beauty radiating through the glorious sunshine draws us on and we approach it by gradually reducing protective veils until we are fully resonant with its brilliance. The key to progress is where we focus our consciousness – backwards into the gloom or forwards into the greater Light of the One, illuminating the planetary home in which we live, radiate and so distribute that light.

The Agni Yoga writings tell us that:

The Fiery World is reflected in the earthly consciousness as something contrary to all everyday concepts. Imagine a man who has slept through all sunrises; he knows only the sunset and the evening shadows. But if he is once awakened at dawn by an earthquake, he runs out of his house and stands astonished before the rising light, never hitherto seen…” Fiery World I, sloca 600

and:

Just as the sun is the heart of the system, the human heart is the sun of the organism. There are many sun-hearts, and the Universe represents a system of hearts; that is why the cult of Light is the cult of the heart. To understand this abstractly means to leave the heart out in the cold; but as soon as the Light of the sun-heart comes alive, the need for the magnet’s warmth will make it shine forth like a true sun…” Heart, sloca 62

Where we focus our sight conditions the degree of our receptivity to more Light. If we focus mainly on the dark forces at work in the world, then our capacity may be lessened. If we focus on the realms of light and try to accustom our view to that brightness we will heighten our capacity to see that light – in everything! The effect of darkness may then be known more as a distant echo in the greater luminosity of the light in which the true heart sees.

Physical health experts have been known to say that “we are what we eat”. And so just as we may feed and nourish our physical presence in the world, so we need to nourish the light body that animates it. As the subtle body grows a stronger presence with the flow-through of light, enlightenment and refinement, so it radiates more brightly in the world. Past habits and patterns of self-centredness and material-based values dissolve in the rising of the sun-heart through which the central spiritual sun shines. In this way we build and sustain a lighted presence (form) which enlightens (radiates) all that come within its aura.

Our light is a ray of the One Light at the heart of Life and is given us to weave those forms that best radiate and reveal it through all the worlds. How do we create and build with light? Our thought is the means – what we can envisage is an instant creation of thought using light. How much more clear and true are these forms when not veiled by the mask of the personality! In Testimony of Light by Helen Greaves, the author’s friend transmitted telepathically to her after death (as she had done when living) and was able to describe her impressions of the other side of the veil (and vale) of death:

This is a world of thought indeed! So is the earth plane, you will say, from which I have just graduated. Only there, thought is slower in action because all vibration, and hence all results or effects, are slower, and one has a façade, a persona with which to mask thought. …Here one seems to be naked. There is no mask even for thought, one’s inmost thought, and sometimes I shudder at the realisation that our fellows here can read us, as we read books illustrating character and thought and action on earth. Here, one’s thoughts return to one like boomerangs, potent and immediate in their effects. As a thought, negative or positive, comes into mind, it is crystallized into immediate action. In the human mind a negative thought can creep in and insinuate itself between all one’s good intentions, lying, apparently dormant. Then it becomes a nucleus attracting to itself thoughts of similar content until it takes on a semblance of force through emotion; later the results, physical, material or spiritual, are manifested. …But in this new life, the potency of thought is stepped up into a frequency which permits of no side-stepping. The effects are immediate. Here the thought-pattern is determinate of one’s welfare, one’s progress, one’s happiness and joy. As one thinks, so one is…in environment, appearance, and in company! …We have to learn to live in this new frequency; to guard the doors of one’s mind; to anticipate the boomerang action of negative emotions…This is the way of life on these planes and every soul must assimilate the Way before proceeding onwards into planes of even higher frequencies. This is light and darkness as we know it; the day and night of the soul…”
“…Here is the old answer again. Light and yet more Light; Light of understanding, of knowledge, of wisdom and true perception to penetrate this fog of illusion in which the mass of mankind still wanders.”“Testimony of Light by Helen Greaves

And as Dr Eben Alexander describes in his book, Proof of Heaven.

Up there, a question would arise in my mind, and the answer would arise at the same time, like a flower coming up right next to it. It was almost as if, just as no physical particle in the universe is really separate from another, so in the same way there was no such thing as a question without an accompanying answer. These answers were not simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ fare, either. They were vast conceptual edifices, staggering structures of living thought, as intricate as cities. Ideas so vast they would have taken me lifetimes to find my way around if I had been confined to earthly thought. But I wasn’t. I had sloughed off that earthly style of thought like a butterfly breaking from a chrysalis.”Proof of Heaven by Dr Eben Alexander

The radiatory power of light instantly creates:

…the expression of the creative faculty is radiation and magnetism. These bring to its possessor the material for creation and a magnetic capacity which arranges in due form and beauty that which radiation has evoked. Creativity is a consequence of a particular state of mind and a specific state of being; it signifies a point in evolution wherein the disciple is definitely radioactive. He can no more help creating in some form or another than he can help living.” Discipleship in the New Age II, page 539

To think through the heart draws all into the light of its embrace:

…illumination that comes through joy and love is stronger than any insight that comes through suffering. Yet, people insist that it is suffering that purifies humanity.
Why is it that man is not capable of utilizing the higher path to illumination? The answer is simple: suffering is sown by man himself in the earthly world, and it partially penetrates into the Subtle World. But pure joy and love live in the Fiery World, and are seldom experienced by man. During the coming evolution people will realize where their treasure lies, and will turn to this panacea of light.
Among the new scientific achievements will be the discovery of the power of the emotions of love and joy. Humanity must steadily grow closer to these impelling forces of light, and understand that any thought of joy has healing power. Even amidst sorrows one can find signs of love and compassion. Let these signposts help the weary traveler. Scientists must learn how much the rhythm of joy opens the gates to an influx of psychic energy. Science should demonstrate how the power of joy heals.
The ignorant will say that such advice is not practical, because humanity is drowning in suffering. Only such people would choose to sink into darkness rather than turn to the quest for Light. Only such people would say that man can never learn to utilize the energy of thought.
One must strive ardently toward the renewal of life. Everyone can think of heroism, of joy, and of exalted love. Everyone can gain the power of the healing remedy and spread these emanations in every direction.
The Thinker said, “Sorrow is transitory, joy is everlasting. Love the Light and love the Beautiful.” Thus did the Thinker direct His disciples to the simplest solution.” Supermundane IV, sloca 732