Inner  Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

 

Inner Work


For the Week of November 14, 2022


The Sacred Field

(Love in All the Worlds: 4)

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There is a world beyond consciousness, the world of Sacred Light. This is not just a realm of spiritual light, but a realm within the Sacred. In our material world, one needs to open deeply, behind surface appearances, to be in contact with the Sacred, to feel the sacredness of nature for example. But the higher world is first and foremost a holy place. Here there is no longer any question of separateness, of my I in opposition to your I, of my being as separate from your being, of whether my self-centered egoism has any substantial reality. Here all serve the same reality, all participate in the same sacred field, all share the same fundamental identity, as put so eloquently in Acts 17:28: "For in him we live, and move, and have our being."

Yet within this shared identity, each individual retains their own uniqueness, which reflects the uniqueness of the Divine. Sharing an identity while remaining unique seems like a paradox due to the limitations of our logical minds, bound as they are to space and time. But the Sacred transcends our minds.

Here we all share this one planet, this Earth. We are this Earth. Looking from orbit or from the Moon, we are all Earthlings. The Earth is the overriding and most important aspect of our identity. It is where and how we live. We are utterly dependent on it. Our bodies are formed specifically to survive and thrive on this Earth. We are each a tiny part of it, a part that nevertheless reflects and embodies the whole. These same statements apply to our relationship to humanity as a whole and to the biosphere. We are each unique particles of those wholes as well.

Yet we deny it, to ourselves and to each other. We mistake our uniqueness for separateness, our individual center of perception for independence. This is like one of our eyeballs declaring its independence: reasonable from its own viewpoint and importance, but absurd from the wholeness of the body.

In the World of Sacred Light, the whole is undeniable. Indeed, the main impediment we face in opening to that world is our assumption of and attachment to separateness, to smallness. The price of admission to that world is to leave our self-centered egoism behind. Our inner work for that is to notice our egoistic impulses when they arise, see them for what they are, see that they are not who we are, let them go, and always to act in accord with our conscience.

Beyond that, we pray. We open our heart and soul to the sacred. We connect with the sacred: not as someone separate from it, but as the bearer of something sacred within us that belongs to that world. We make explicit the inalienable link between the sacred within us and the great World of Sacred Light.

Through that doorway, through that link, we enter the light of love and compassion. As children of our common creator, your success is my success. Your pain is my pain. Your experience is my experience. We both serve the one great reality that encompasses all. The heartfelt brotherhood and sisterhood of all humanity, near and far, known and unknown, form the backdrop of every encounter with another human being. We give with humility and love, and we receive with gratitude.

The world of light is here within each of us. Can we open our heart and soul to that in each other?


     

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