In my study of the laws, I’ve documented a conceptual map of how God's Being flows down through the universe to create meaning.
Yet this map only has meanings in terms of how it exists within us right now; we are the embodiment of both the physical and the metaphysical in the immediate terms of our existence.
We're tasked with attempting to experience the action of all the laws within us. Every single one of them, up to the highest law, acts with us at one time or another and in one way or another – in essence, all of them together, all the time.
We're tasked with attempting to experience the action of all the laws within us. Every single one of them, up to the highest law, acts with us at one time or another and in one way or another – in essence, all of them together, all the time.
One might compare this to a series of lights along the highway; all of them shed light upon us, but the further away a given light is, the less its light contributes to the total amount of light around us. In the same way, the laws most proximate to our level exert the most force on us. When it comes to the level of laws like the Holy Trinity, the highest law of creation, its force on this level is quite faint. Human beings gather together in congregations and communities in order to concentrate the force of higher law. This is one of the principles of spiritual work in groups. If a group or a community concentrates a sufficient amount of spiritual gravity within its effort, all of it comes under a stronger influence from the higher law they are working to invoke. This is also an ancient principle, which was mistranslated and incorporated into fairytales and fantasy, where it's called magic.
The idea of magic is tremendously appealing to people, but the idea that it can substantially affect one's material conditions is wrong. The conditions it substantially affects are spiritual ones; and, in an inversion of our usual understanding, those conditions are much more important than any material ones that surround us.
The idea of magic is tremendously appealing to people, but the idea that it can substantially affect one's material conditions is wrong. The conditions it substantially affects are spiritual ones; and, in an inversion of our usual understanding, those conditions are much more important than any material ones that surround us.
In the deep tradition, it's my responsibility to work to concentrate spiritual force as much as possible within my own sphere of effort.
This means that I need to stay very close to the inward flow of Being, and the place within me of my own creation.
In that secret, most intimate place, which Meister Eckhart called the highest place and the residence of the soul—and, yes, even a glimmering of God's light—one's Being is so close to the divine that a sensation of it can enter if one is present to it.
This means that I need to stay very close to the inward flow of Being, and the place within me of my own creation.
In that secret, most intimate place, which Meister Eckhart called the highest place and the residence of the soul—and, yes, even a glimmering of God's light—one's Being is so close to the divine that a sensation of it can enter if one is present to it.
One is, in other words, empowered to approach this most distant inner light and receive some of its benefit.
This takes place, paradoxically, in an inner place of darkness. The light that shines in this place is the light of God’s Being, and it is not a natural light.
May your heart be close to God,
and God close to your heart.
Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.
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