Inner  Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

 

Inner Work


For the weeks of July 26 & August 2, 2021


Light for the Soul

(Creating Our Soul: 8)

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The transformative flow of sacred light, a very high spiritual energy, can help create our higher soul, or higher being-body, especially if it is combined with the conscious energy.

Being touched deeply by a work of art, a piece of music, a poem, nature, scripture, the purity of a child, and so on, all can open us to that creative and sacred energy. Such events can and do bring light into our being. We even experience the flow of that energy directly. However, this kind of opening tends to be haphazard and not repeatable, or at least not reliably repeatable.

Prayer, when it is a deep, heartfelt dive into the spirit, can bring light to us consistently. Indeed, what matters here is not whether we call it an act of prayer or use religious symbolism, words, or rituals, but that this occurs through an intentional opening. This kind of opening can be cultivated. Although not fully at our command, we can learn how to make ourselves available to it, how to reach beyond our own depths and invite the sacred light in. In that way, we can almost say that it becomes accessible to us. To be clear, we are not speaking about the Divine itself, which is well beyond even the sacred light.

To come to such a moment of opening to the sacred light, we look beyond ourselves and beyond our surroundings. It is not necessarily an act of going within, because in the realm we seek, the categories of inside and outside do not apply. But it is an act of going beyond our ordinary selves and our ordinary world into the sacred. Even a small opening into that allows us to be touched by the sacred, thoroughly and completely, every part of us.

How do we train ourselves to enter this? The first thing is to recognize our need and let it blossom into a sincere and total wish for that opening, for what lies through that opening to the sacred. The greater and more total that wish, the greater the opening can be. We need to engage the whole of ourselves: body, heart, mind, and will, nothing held back and not piecemeal, but all at once as a single unified being. We can be that and fully enter this sincere wish for the sacred, not as a general, future event, but right now in this moment.

The second thing is to know the way there, to know "where" to go. We can learn that from the spontaneous, haphazard openings, mentioned above, that come to us unbidden. These come neither from inside of us, nor from outside of us. Rather they are a gateway to a realm altogether beyond this visible, material world, beyond even consciousness. Nevertheless, such an opening does enable the sacred to enter our ordinary world, affecting our whole being, as well as our body, our heart, and our mind. It energizes our body, warms our heart, silences our mind, feeds our soul, and purifies our will. So our work here is to discover the way to that, from the hints we have in those openings that do come spontaneously, and by looking beyond everything, beyond consciousness. Where is that? What direction could that be? What is beneath and beyond the cognizant stillness in our center?

The third thing is to actually practice this opening. At first it is a trickle. Later, it can be a flood, soaking us through and through. We work at this through total prayer or meditation, or even through a direct act of will to aim ourselves toward that sacred light.

The fourth thing is to blend that energy of the sacred light with the conscious energy. One approach is to establish ourselves first in the cognizant stillness. To sit quietly, letting go of whatever inner or outer impressions arise, and sink into full presence in the silence. With this preparation, we turn our will toward the sacred beyond us. If the opening is there, the light flows into us blending with the silence, the conscious energy. This matters, because such an action gradually builds the higher-being body or soul in us.

The sacred is not indifferent. We can serve by bringing the light into us and thus into this world. For this week, please practice opening to the sacred light.


     

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