There is a beauty in the stillness that sometimes comes in the darkness and feeds the soul.
This is the light of God’s Presence, which shines with the light of the soul. When one speaks of enlightenment (and one should only do so rarely and reluctantly) it is this deep light of the soul that one speaks of. It isn't like the light of the sun. The light of the sun reveals the material world and creation; and so we see by it. But the light of the soul brings us seeing from within. It brings an encounter with life itself; it brings understanding.
This vision from within is not a seeing of the eyes or an understanding of the intellect. It's a personal contact with the divine, which lies deep in the darkness from which all truth emerges. Souls are fortunate to be born at all; and we’re even more fortunate to have the capacity for receiving this inward flow of divinity.
No matter how difficult our life and how extraordinary we may foolishly think our own troubles are, the support of Divine Love and Wisdom for our Being exceeds our difficulties many times, by many measures.
Even our greatest confusion, our deepest misapprehension, and our most troubling doubt are effortlessly laid to rest by this Love and Wisdom.
As I sit here this morning, I’ve cracked the window and I’m listening to bird song, which has become a perfectly balanced counterpart to the theme of silence I touch on each morning in this diary. What greater truth and beauty could be offered to us than the song of birds? They seem to be familiar and ordinary, yet they represent an unimaginably great force tamed by evolution and meteorite in such a way that terrifying ancient creatures of the earth such as Tyrannosaurus rex are transformed into tiny things of air and music.
The kings of former worlds are become messengers of joy.
It's an allegorical reminder of the way the dragons in us need not necessarily be slain; our lower nature can be lifted up into the intelligence of something much greater than ourselves.
These, of course, are only my thoughts. Already, although they have sound form and good meaning, they begin to part ways with truth, a subtle thing that is always diminished in one way or another when it meets the words that try to speak of it. Truth and love are forces with shapes so mysterious, so vast, that one can never comfortably wrap them in the thin paper of ideas.
These forces are light that help the soul see; and the soul—if and when we sense its breath in us— sees with the light of truth, not with the light of the sun and in the world of things. When it sees, it peers across the void of darkness that underlies all Being and all existence, and acknowledges the presence of God.
God stares back across that same void towards his creation with an incomprehensible, invisible, indestructible, and unshakable love.
We are rooted in that love. Most of us has forgotten that; and yet its essential quality is still held within us in suspension, in a perfect, dark, and secret place that knows only love itself. There may be many mysteries; and there may be many keys to unlock the doors that lead to them. Yet caution is advised; because in the search for mystery, I tend to become distracted by things of life, and I think that the mystery lies in them, not in Being.
There is only one door and one key. The door is the door to the kingdom of heaven which is within us; and the door can never be unlocked from our side. God alone holds the key; and He uses it as He sees fit, and only within the context of our deepest need. (We do not have the right to come and go within the Lord’s house as we please.)
If we wait quietly, and often, sometimes we may hear footsteps on the other side of the door.
This takes much persistence, prayer, and great attention. There are moments, in the middle of the night, when the door cracks open just a tiny bit and a whisper is heard.
In a moment like that, the whole universe and everything that lies beyond it are contained in a single moment of exchange.
Attend; the sacred waits for us with love.
We may have forgotten it; but it never forgets us.
This is the light of God’s Presence, which shines with the light of the soul. When one speaks of enlightenment (and one should only do so rarely and reluctantly) it is this deep light of the soul that one speaks of. It isn't like the light of the sun. The light of the sun reveals the material world and creation; and so we see by it. But the light of the soul brings us seeing from within. It brings an encounter with life itself; it brings understanding.
This vision from within is not a seeing of the eyes or an understanding of the intellect. It's a personal contact with the divine, which lies deep in the darkness from which all truth emerges. Souls are fortunate to be born at all; and we’re even more fortunate to have the capacity for receiving this inward flow of divinity.
No matter how difficult our life and how extraordinary we may foolishly think our own troubles are, the support of Divine Love and Wisdom for our Being exceeds our difficulties many times, by many measures.
Even our greatest confusion, our deepest misapprehension, and our most troubling doubt are effortlessly laid to rest by this Love and Wisdom.
As I sit here this morning, I’ve cracked the window and I’m listening to bird song, which has become a perfectly balanced counterpart to the theme of silence I touch on each morning in this diary. What greater truth and beauty could be offered to us than the song of birds? They seem to be familiar and ordinary, yet they represent an unimaginably great force tamed by evolution and meteorite in such a way that terrifying ancient creatures of the earth such as Tyrannosaurus rex are transformed into tiny things of air and music.
The kings of former worlds are become messengers of joy.
It's an allegorical reminder of the way the dragons in us need not necessarily be slain; our lower nature can be lifted up into the intelligence of something much greater than ourselves.
These, of course, are only my thoughts. Already, although they have sound form and good meaning, they begin to part ways with truth, a subtle thing that is always diminished in one way or another when it meets the words that try to speak of it. Truth and love are forces with shapes so mysterious, so vast, that one can never comfortably wrap them in the thin paper of ideas.
These forces are light that help the soul see; and the soul—if and when we sense its breath in us— sees with the light of truth, not with the light of the sun and in the world of things. When it sees, it peers across the void of darkness that underlies all Being and all existence, and acknowledges the presence of God.
God stares back across that same void towards his creation with an incomprehensible, invisible, indestructible, and unshakable love.
We are rooted in that love. Most of us has forgotten that; and yet its essential quality is still held within us in suspension, in a perfect, dark, and secret place that knows only love itself. There may be many mysteries; and there may be many keys to unlock the doors that lead to them. Yet caution is advised; because in the search for mystery, I tend to become distracted by things of life, and I think that the mystery lies in them, not in Being.
There is only one door and one key. The door is the door to the kingdom of heaven which is within us; and the door can never be unlocked from our side. God alone holds the key; and He uses it as He sees fit, and only within the context of our deepest need. (We do not have the right to come and go within the Lord’s house as we please.)
If we wait quietly, and often, sometimes we may hear footsteps on the other side of the door.
This takes much persistence, prayer, and great attention. There are moments, in the middle of the night, when the door cracks open just a tiny bit and a whisper is heard.
In a moment like that, the whole universe and everything that lies beyond it are contained in a single moment of exchange.
Attend; the sacred waits for us with love.
We may have forgotten it; but it never forgets us.
Go. and sense, and be well.
Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.
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