light

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We Are Light

And now, hearing from another corner about that which we already know.

Tao & Zen
Your body is composed of atoms that are billions of years old, that were born long ago in stellar clouds and the hearts of stars. The energy in those atoms is spinning light that can trace its beginnings to the dawn of the Universe. And that’s just what Science “knows.”
The great masters of numerous spiritual traditions tell us that we are in truth the Field of Consciousness that has created all things, inhabits all beings. This is our deeper Self & Source, core spiritual identity, a hidden “truth” we share with every other person, animal, river, flower, cloud, galaxy, butterfly and tree.
What the mystics of history call “waking up” is when we come back and align with (tune into) this deeper sense of identity. Which is not really “identified” with the limited story of any one person, object or thing.
Spiritual practices like yoga, meditation, chanting and prayer can help us to align in that way. Help us let go of identification with our social thoughts and limited ideas of identity. Help us to go deeper, and return to Source…
~Christopher Chase

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind become still.
All things in the Universe rise and fall
while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish
and then return to the Source.
Returning to the Source is stillness,
which is the Way of Nature.
~ Lao Tsu ~
Tao Te Ching
The Way of Waking Up – Alan Watts

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What We Have

“Being with him when he died was something I will never forget. His bravery. His happiness. His acceptance. It was a colossal experience for me. Changed my life completely in a way that I had not expected. I expected to feel sad and lost. But I felt the opposite. Just, like, ‘Boy, this is it. This is all we have. Right here. So you’d better pay attention.’”

Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed

  • Posted by Ravenous Butterflies

This certainly set off a firestorm of controversy. Not the photo but the words by Anderson. Predictable things: How can she say that?! Of course there’s more than now…Heavenly, etc., Still miss my wife and I loved her for many more years than…Who is she kidding? No grief and loss? Angry rhetoric that somehow people thought was appropriate rather than trying to understand. I find those sorts of things amazing. It’s never a matter of seeking what she came to experience, but rather a diatribe about a belief system—one’s own. Oi!

Of course there were also many who believed they understood what she had to say, with or without a Heaven to come. All of a measure of one’s own life, and death.

So, she wrote of how they came to be, how their minds entangled and how they could imagine no others than each other.

How when it came time for him to die to this earth he was in ecstatic conversation with The Other, communicating in Tai Chi symbols, his hands dashing madly about in front of him, a Light that grew and emanated, and a smiling countenance that made his face seem on fire.

This gave me chills of light, of joy. A death to Celebrate, as some are.

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The Light—The One

And for today, some enlightening topics. Or in the spirit of this, I guess we should say only One Topic. I have always found it fascinating or uplifting that all of the greats say the same thing.

And, as from another of our most beloved:
Nikola Tesla – Everything is the Light
(Excerpt from an incredible interview that the scientist gave to the magazine “Immortality” in 1899)
Journalist: “You said that I am, like every being, the light. This flatters me, but I confess, I do not quite understand.”
Tesla: “Why is it necessary to understand, Mr. Smith? Just believe. Everything is light. And remember, there is no one who has existed and who has died! They transformed into the light, and as such exist still. The secret lies in the fact that the light particles restore their original state.”
Journalist: “This is the resurrection!”
Tesla: “I’d rather call it: return to a previous energy. Christ and several others knew the secret. I am looking for a way to preserve human energy. I have not sought it for my own sake, but for the good of all. I believe that my discoveries make people’s lives easier and more bearable, and channel them to spirituality and morality.”

“Whether you worship Christ, Krishna, Kali or Allah, you actually worship the one Light that is also in you, since it pervades all things.”

~ Anandamayi Ma
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Into The Abyss

“One thing that comes out in myths, for example, is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.”

~Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Quote via @SophiaCycles1

Sounds simple, but it isn’t. It seems at every juncture along our paths, we have a tendency to want to stay put. Stop. Not just that, but the going gets rough, plodding, overwhelming. Into the black and the muck and the mire, so much at that dark Awful that insanity is just a breath away. Think of our pal Fritz who couldn’t make it out, and if anyone should have it’s he. Myths are easy. Living them is another matter.

It’s all through the tunnel—the Birth Canal, the Bardo, the Nightmare. It occurs to me then that we might distrust this deathbed seeing of the light, for everything says the Darkness comes first. Even the story of The Christ and his travels, didn’t he do a stopover in Hell before returning? Any way you look at it, it’s not easy. Let’s hope the prize is worth it.