Tag Archives: unlit light

be light, light, light – full of light!

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Right on cue, as I ponder putting this blog out to cyber-pasture, WordPress tells me that its “stats are booming” or that another handful of readers have subscribed to receive notifications of new posts, or someone emails me with their appreciation.  As some of you know, these days I post my own writing and poetry over at echoes from emptiness; inevitably, that blog tends to get more attention.  Yet I’m told the resources on this blog are valuable for those interested in the mystery of our shared primordial awareness – This Unlit Light.  So I guess I’ll keep on posting – albeit erratically.  Today’s offering is a little cluster of light-themed quotes glowing in harmony with Tatiana Plakhova’s astonishing graphics. (Do watch the video full-screen!)

Tatiana Plakhova, Complexity Graphics

 

God
pours light
into every cup,
quenching darkness.

The proudly pious
stuff their cups with parchment
and critique the taste of ink
while God pours light

and the trees lift their limbs
without worry of redemption,
every blossom a chalice.

Hafiz, seduce those withered souls
with words that wet their parched
lips

as light
pours like rain
into every empty cup
set adrift on the Infinite Ocean.

– Hafiz

Tatiana Plakhova - Flowerwings

 
[Physicist David] Bohm suggested that the explicate order is extracted from the implicate order in a similar way in which a holographic image is extracted from a series of swirls and shadings into a three-dimensional image when illuminated by laser light.

The illumination that extracts the physical universe from the implicate order is the light of consciousness.

In this model the act of observation draws ‘in-formation’ out of the implicate order and manifests it in the explicate order. Bohm was keen to use the term in-formation rather than information. By this he meant a process that actually ‘forms’ the recipient.

– Anthony Peake, Infinite Mindfield

We are constantly in the midst of light. We are surrounded, bathed, and nourished by it. This miracle we call light can transform. It can teach, reveal, evoke, and heal. It speaks in many voices.

We tend to see light as something that makes form visible, but light reveals much more. It reveals us.

In the subtle, soft undulations of a snowscape illuminated by an overcast sky, in the rare presence of a backlighted, towering, ancient oak, both subject and photographer are revealed. Light makes visible invisible.

– John Daido Loori, Making Love With Light

Tatiana Plakhova - Complexity Graphics

 

What we understand to be phenomena

are but the magical projections of the mind.

The hollow vastness of the sky

I never saw to be afraid of anything.

All this is but the self-glowing light of clarity.

There is no other cause at all.

All that happens is but my adornment.

Better, then, to stay in silent meditation.

– Yeshe Tsogyal

Quoted in Advice from the Lotus-Born

That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality — your soul, if you will — is as bright and shining as any that has ever been. Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Teresa’s. Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists; come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.
– George Saunders, speaking at Syracuse University

Tatiana Plakhova - Light Beyond Sound

 

Even the sense of ‘I am’ is composed of the pure light and the sense of being.
The ‘I’ is there even without the ‘am’.
So is the pure light there whether you say ‘I’ or not.
Become aware of that pure light and you will never lose it.
The beingness in being,
the awareness in consciousness,
the interest in every experience
— that is not describable,
yet perfectly accessible, for there is nothing else.

– Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That

In a dream I am walking joyfully up the mountain. Something breaks and falls away, and all is light. Nothing has changed, yet all is amazing, luminescent, free. Released at last, I rise into the sky … This dream comes often. Sometimes I run, then lift up like a kite, high above earth, and always I sail transcendent for a time before awaking. I choose to awake, for fear of falling, yet such dreams tell me that I am a part of things, if only I would let go, and keep on going. “Do not be heavy,” Soen Roshi says. “Be light, light, light – full of light!”

– Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard

Video and graphics by Tatiana Plakhova
complexitygraphics.com

 

where the light begins

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Peter Zumthor - Bruder Klaus Chapel

 

As we turn towards our yearly habit of ritualising the New Now, let’s pause for a breath or two and be reminded of our sacred mission.
Jan Richardson: Where the Light Begins
 

Perhaps it does not begin.
Perhaps it is always.

Perhaps it takes
a lifetime
to open our eyes,
to learn to see
what has forever
shimmered in front of us

the luminous line
of the map
in the dark

the vigil flame
in the house
of the heart,

the love
so searing
we cannot keep
from singing,

from crying out
in testimony
and praise.

Perhaps this day
will be the mountain
over which
the dawn breaks.

Perhaps we
will turn our face
toward it,
toward what has been
always.

Perhaps
our eyes
will finally open
in ancient recognition,
willingly dazzled,
illuminated at last.

Perhaps this day
the light begins
in us.

 – Jan Richardson, from Circle of Grace, Wanton Gospeller Press

Jan Richardson’s website

Circle of Grace on Amazon

Image and source: Peter Zumthor – Bruder Klaus Field Chapel.
For more information about this extraordinary sacred space see archdaily.com

Gratitude to Claire Beynon for sharing this timely poem on Facebook.

give us light, o light of lights

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Arti - Light

 

Jyoti Jyoti Jyoti Swayam
Jyoti Jyoti Jyoti Param
Jyoti Jyoti Jyoti Arul
Jyoti Jyoti Jyoti Sivam
Vaama Jyoti Soma Jyoti
Vaana Jyoti Jnaana Jyoti
Maaha Jyoti Yoga Jyoti
Vaata Jyoti Naada Jyoti
Ema Jyoti Vyoma Jyoti
Eru Jyoti Veeru Jyoti
Eka Jyoti Eka Jyoti
Eka Jyoti Jyotiye

~

Light O Light of Self-Effulgence

Light O Light of Absoluteness

Light O Light of Gracefulness

Light O Light of Auspiciousness

Light of Siva, Light of Moon

Light Divine, Light of Wisdom

Light of Heaven, Light of Yoga

Light of Wind, Light of Sound

Light Delight, Light of Water

Rising Light, Vital Light

The Only Light, The Only Light

Give us Light, O Light of Lights

Arti Chant

The image and chant were posted by Tina Koskelo on her beautiful blog being silently drawn with the title Lighting of the Candle.  (Thank you Tina!)  It’s a perfect fit for this blog, which is an ongoing celebration of The Only Light, The Light of Lights.

The Light of Lights is ever-present and inescapable – it wears your name, sounds as your voice, feels your every feeling, thinks your every thought and performs your every deed. If you doubt this, just experiment with trying to separate any of these self-attributes (identity, speech, feelings, thoughts and deeds) from that which is aware of them. That Which Is Aware of them IS the Light of Lights.

Whatever forms your Yuletide observance take, may they be blessed with peace and harmony. May you turn towards the New Year with courage and unswerving awareness of your luminous immensity.

 

don’t be fooled. stand your ground

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Pema Deane. What a light she is! This piece was posted on her blog – The Vibrant Heart – with the title Stand Your Ground. I’ve included the sentence “Don’t be fooled” in my title because my experience emphasises how pointless it is to try to stand my ground unless I’m deeply cognisant of the fact that an erroneous belief – as Pema reminds us – is constantly trying to fool us into believing we are separate from the “ground of Self, of Presence, of Light.”

stand your ground - Pema Deane

 

Scenes and circumstances continue to play out in front of us, their one seeming objective being to convince us there is something wrong with us – that we are unlovable or we lack, that the love is over there, not here.

Don’t be fooled. Stand your ground. It is time to blow this whole, bad dream apart. Recognize whatever you’re seeing and reacting to is coming straight out of your mind, a mind that believes it is separate and whose only function is to keep that belief alive.

The scenes are a set-up. They are out to suck you into misery and to prove to you you are NOT the incredible Beauty that You are. You made it all up. This recognition is your lifeline. It is your point of authority over this dream of pain.

I am not denying the incredible amount of self-nursing, holding and releasing of pain that has happened over many years but when you have reached the point of being able to simply witness the shenanigans of ego, it is to honor that with all your heart. And it is a wonderful thing. You have endured countless lifetimes to come to this point.

So stand your ground. The ground of Self, of Presence, of Light. And let the movie show of separation roll on by. It has no power to touch YOU. Ever.

– Pema Deane

The Vibrant Heart

 

2016 : what I wish for you

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Kirlian Photograph of a Coleus Leaf

 

In reality there is only the source,

dark in itself,

making everything shine.

Unperceived, it causes perception.

Unfelt, it causes feeling.

Unthinkable, it causes thought.

Non-being, it gives birth to being.

 

It is the immovable background of motion.

 

Once you are there,

you are at home everywhere.

 

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

Beloveds, may you never, ever, leave home
no matter how far and wide you travel.

– miriam louisa

you are the light of the world

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You are the Light of the World

 

There is only one thing that stands in the way of our radiant true nature of innate unconditional happiness and peace and living light. It is our negative, self-defeating, insecure thoughts and beliefs, and the actions and behaviors that flow from such thoughts and beliefs.

We can habitually become so absorbed into such thoughts that they begin to take us over and define us and project them selves out into the world around us, as “us”. But we do not have to believe these thoughts. They do not really define who we are. They define who we have THOUGHT we are.

In reality, we are undefinable. We are a radiant light that spontaneously shines through us in a somewhat different way in each moment. How can THAT really be defined? 

But we can begin to question all these thoughts that block the light. Questioning them is itself, a powerful spiritual practice. This questioning will weaken these thoughts and beliefs and will eventually, dislodge them.

And when they begin to dislodge themselves and fall away, our true, radiant, peaceful and unconditionally happy nature can shine forth into a world that so desperately needs it! The source of this light is the same light in all of us. It is the same source in you and in me. But it shines through you and through me in an absolutely unique and wonderful way that can never be reproduced again.

If we don’t let this light loose in our world, it will be a great loss for the world and for us. We are here to shine, to radiate this light out into our world in our own unique way, so that those living around us can enjoy it and dance with it. And we are also here to simply enjoy the shining of that light ourselves! We too can dance with the light!

– Francis Bennett

Sourced from Francis Bennett’s Facebook Page; used with permission.

Francis Bennett was a Roman Catholic, Trappist monk for a number of years.

In 2010, while in the middle of a Church Service in his monastery in Montreal, Francis suddenly experienced what he has come to call, “a radical perceptual shift in consciousness”, in which he discovered the ever present presence of spacious, pure awareness. He came to see that this awareness is actually the unchanging essence of who he really is and always has been; the Supreme Self, talked about by many sages and saints from many spiritual traditions down through the ages. He also came to see simultaneously, that this vast, infinite sense of presence at the center of his being (and at the center of the being of everyone else on the planet) is actually not at all separate from the presence of God, which he had been looking for during his many years as a monk and spiritual seeker.

Francis is now living a “new incarnation” as a spiritual teacher in the contemporary, Non-Dual spiritual Tradition. Francis offers a blend of the Buddhist Traditions he deeply studied, the contemplative Christian mystical tradition which he lived during his many years in monastic life, as well as the Hindu Advaita-Vedanta teaching of Sri Ramana Maharshi, who has been a very profound influence on Francis for about the last 12 years or so.

Sourced from Francis’s website: finding grace at the center

Image source

my brilliant image

light will someday split you open

please take these offerings

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They often sneak up on me at this time of the year – a gaggle of words-wanting-shared. Yes, it’s birthday time – not a blog birthday, but another tick in the annual count for she-who-scribbles while her spacecraft steers itself around the sun…

Birthdays are a good time to reflect on one’s blessings, and to offer gratitude to our friends for their kindness and thoughtfulness. I always begin my birthday with a gesture of thanks to my mother, who not only gave me the miraculous opportunity for life, but also fostered, nourished and inspired the flourishing of that life in every way possible.

Now in my eighth decade, and delighting in life regardless of its curved balls, I feel to share some of the observations that have delivered me to this joy. It’s the best I can offer; may your mind and heart be able to receive.

Image source - https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/BoneStructure/

 

Life hurts.
But what you are never feels pain.

Everything changes.
But what you are remains unchanged, eternally.

You’re flat and exhausted and depressed.
But what you are is forever poised as equanimity.

You’re broke, stressed, squeezed dry, homeless and hungry.
But what you are is unaffected and impartial.

You’re smashed by disappointment, betrayal, abandonment.
But what you are is ever calm, accepting and unbroken.

You’re afflicted by physical and mental aberrations, abnormalities, imbalances.
But what you are never suffers for one second.

 

So what you are is clearly something with which you need to become very familiar. And it’s e-a-s-y to do so. You don’t need a formal introduction. You don’t need a manual or a map or a guide book. You don’t need to change your religion or your beliefs (although changes may well occur as a result). You don’t need a 12-step plan or a meditation practice.

What you are is more obvious and closer than the tip of your nose. It’s the one experience you can never escape, 24/7.

What would you call that? Your aliveness? Your awareness? Your presence? All these words come close, but none are ultimately true or exact. Why?

Because they aren’t yours. Or mine. Or anyone’s. Drop the personal pronoun, and there you are – radiant all-knowing alive presence. The Light of Knowingness, self-luminous, always-on, never-needing fuel or flint…

And that is what you are – free, fulfilled and flourishing as all you conceive, perceive and experience. All of it.

How wondrous that this is possible – that this primordial awareness is huge enough to hold the entirety of creation, excluding nothing – yet be unaffected and unmoved by any expression of its handmaiden, consciousness.

It is truly The Beloved, the Godhead of the saints and sages and poets.

And it is what you are.

 

Image source