Shining the Light

Written on February 18, 2008 by Tom Stine


As I have progressed along my spiritual path, I have felt at times as if I am being led to a better and better understanding of how the spiritual journey works. I started out, only naturally I suppose, wanting primarily to “feel better” both mentally and physically. As time has passed, I have moved a little away from that original goal toward feeling more and more as if I want to be helpful to others. Don’t get me wrong; I have always wanted to help. But the feeling I have now is a bit more selfless, a bit more “other focused” rather than self focused. It is, to say the least, a wonderful feeling.

But more importantly, what I am beginning to see is exactly what I read in A Course in Miracles years ago. Namely that the key to me “feeling better” is to freely and completely give to others because, as the Course would say, I only know what I have as I give it away.

If I want to feel happy, to feel love, to feel joy, these are the things I must give to others. And it must be a free gift with no expectation of return. Giving to get something back doesn’t work. But giving out of love always works.

Lester Levenson, the creator of the Sedona Method, talked about the discovery he made during the process of awakening that he underwent. Lester said that he realized that he was only truly happy when he was loving someone, when he was giving his love to another. And the more he practiced this giving of love, the freer and happier he got, until he experienced what is typically referred to as enlightenment. He woke-up by loving. He gave, and he was healed.

For me, this beginning step of truly giving is synonymous with an experience I have had off and on for a number of years. When I used to meditate, I would at times see a “light” in my mind’s eye, shining brightly just above my field of “vision.” This light wasn’t a worldly light, because I only saw it in my mind when my eyes were closed. As time has gone on, I have begun experiencing this sense of “light” more frequently, until now I can sense it in my mind’s eye at will. It especially is noticeable when I release using the Sedona Method or meditate by sitting in silence. When I release or meditate, I can feel my awareness shift to this light and the sensation I have is one of releasing into the light. The feeling I get is one of very clearly letting go of “myself” into this light, which is completely equivalent, at least to me, of letting go through loving or by the power of love. The light I perceive and the love I feel are one and the same.

Love and light seem to go hand in hand. They are one. The light that shines in our awareness is usually obscured by the vast quantity of subconscious junk that fills our minds. A Course in Miracles spends a lot of time discussing the contents of the subconscious mind, if you care to know more. But as we let go of these blocks to the perception of the light, we can experience greater peace, love and joy than we have ever known. The love that we give to anything by releasing our feelings about it is real, it is true, and it could even be described as holy.

 

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Guru Quotes

But beauty, real beauty, ends where intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of a face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don’t think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful.

—Oscar Wilde

Intelligent practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not. And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that.

—Charlotte Joko Beck

Q: Since all is pre-ordained, is our self-realization also pre-ordained? Or are we free there at least?

A: Destiny refers only to name and shape. Since you are neither body nor mind, destiny has no control over you. You are completely free. The cup is conditioned by its shape, material, use and so on. But the space within the cup is free. It happens to be in the cup only when viewed in connection with the cup. Otherwise, it is just space. As long as there is a body, you appear to be embodied. Without the body you are not disembodied — you just are.

—Nisargadatta Maharaj

So the most important thing to realize is this: Your life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary. Outer purpose concerns doing and is secondary…. Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet – because it is the purpose of humanity. Your inner purpose is an essential part of the purpose of the whole, the universe and its emerging intelligence.

—Eckhart Tolle


Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of a Soul, Self or Atman. According to the teachings of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. It is the source of all troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world.

—What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula

The disappearance of this fundamental question [How do I know the state of an enlightened one?], on discovering that it had no answer, was a physiological phenomenon, a sudden ‘explosion’ inside, blasting, as it were, every cell, every nerve and every gland in my body. And with that ‘explosion’, the illusion that there is continuity of thought, that there is a center, an ‘I’ linking up the thoughts, was not there anymore.

—U.G. Krishnamurti

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