Over the last couple of months,
We've been exploring and building upon what could be termed a metaphysics of light,
Starting around the solstice,
When we talked about returning to the source,
And that sun within us,
That source of light,
Continuing with talking about the light of divine love,
And how that manifests.
Then we talked a bit about the atmosphere,
The energetic atmosphere that each of us creates from our thoughts,
From our state of consciousness,
From our being,
And how as we soften into our natural state of love,
Compassion,
And wisdom,
We begin to create an atmosphere of peace,
And of light,
And of love.
Then we talked about this idea of building upon that to bring forth the light,
To let it shine out from within us,
And that part of how we do that is by using the free will of the mind to surrender to the destiny of the soul,
And in so doing,
That softens the egoic attachments and tendencies,
And allows that filter of the mind to become clear,
So that that light can shine forth.
Last week,
We explored this idea of surrendering to the light more fully.
So,
In this metaphysics of light,
It's important to keep in mind that all of these conceptual constructs that we're using and building upon are merely fingers pointing to the moon.
They're concepts.
They are not the thing itself,
And they're designed to help guide our intention and our state of consciousness towards this true nature of love,
Compassion,
And wisdom,
And light that we all have within us.
Eventually,
These conceptual constructs will fall away at periods of time,
And we'll have that experiential moment of being completely immersed in the present moment,
Of experiencing ourselves as we are in the world as it is,
In a state of non-separation,
Not two,
Not one.
When we talk about surrender,
I mentioned that this is sometimes thought of as giving up,
And yet,
In a sense,
We are actually giving up something.
And when we are surrendering to the will of the soul,
What we are giving up is all of those defense mechanisms that we have constructed throughout our lives.
The surrender is a laying down of our arms,
And those defense mechanisms are all of those attachments and oppressions of the ego that create this sense of separation of a separate self that then gives rise to attachment and aversion.
And all of that ultimately is rooted in feeling,
And feeling of the mind,
And the mind of the soul,
And the mind of the soul,
And the mind of the soul.
It's rooted in fear,
Because we do not see the underlying reality that we are impermanent manifestations of this underlying unity and light.
And so this surrendering is a softening.
It's a humbling.
It's letting go of those defense mechanisms when they have their urge to arise and take control,
And to say,
Ah,
I see you,
But not this time.
And that's a continual practice.
But as we move towards surrendering those defense mechanisms as they arise,
This paves the way to true peace.
It allows us to find that peacefulness within.
It allows us to find that trust in the flow of life as we enter the river.
And as we do so,
As we give up those defense mechanisms,
Those armaments that we have constructed throughout our lives,
We find that love within us that we have always sought,
And that so many of those defense mechanisms were constructed to try to find outside of ourselves.
So often we're trying to find love from others to get that deep sense of love and acceptance that we so deeply crave.
But ultimately,
We have that within us.
It's just a matter of removing those obstacles to that experience.
So there's a quote from Rumi that I love that I'll share right now.
Your task is not to seek for love,
But to find and remove all the obstacles you have built against it.
And this is what Rumi is referring to.
We have all built these obstacles against love within us.
And that is all of those questions of the ego,
The attachments and aversions that are rooted in fear.
This dynamic is a fundamental struggle of being human,
Fear or love.
And ultimately,
It's our own choice.
Whatever we focus on,
We give greater strength and power to.
And so if we focus on our fears and get caught by those defense mechanisms,
We actually increase our likelihood of having more fear in the future.
The more we try to control circumstances and experiences and the world around us,
Even if we have a modicum of success in arranging the outer world in a certain way,
In our environment in a certain way,
We'll continue to have increasing amounts of fear of losing that control.
And so that underlying insecurity will grow.
The only way out of that cycle is to flip it.
And instead of focusing on those fears and trying to assuage the fears or get rid of them or control circumstances so that we think we won't have as much fear,
It's to surrender.
And focus on that love within us,
That trust.
And as we focus on that love,
The fear will diminish.
In this metaphysics of light,
I mentioned that this is a concept.
It's a conceptual construct that we use.
And so when we talk about light,
Light is one of the expressions or manifestations of how we perceive love.
And so that's why we say love and light.
And that's why so often there's been this focus on light as an expression of love.
You know,
And when we think about the archetypes and metaphors used across cultures,
There's often this idea of a battle of light and dark.
And that's just simply this battle of love and fear that is at the core of all of our hearts.
And so when we think about the idea of light and dark,
We think about the idea of the light as a force.
Sometimes this is termed as a battle of good and evil.
And while I can appreciate that construct,
I don't know that it is ultimately useful because so often when we use the terms good and evil,
It makes us think that it is designating an absolute quality of certain people,
That certain people are good and certain people are evil.
And that's simply not the case.
We all have both within us.
We all have light and dark.
We all have love and fear.
And we all have that struggle within us.
When people act in ways that we might term evil,
It just means that the fear has gained much more strength than the love.
It doesn't mean that it's an absolute essential quality of who they are.
It means that they have a lot of trauma.
And the way that's being expressed is creating more unnecessary suffering for others and the world around them as well as for themselves.
And so when we really understand this dynamic,
It makes it a little bit easier to be compassionate with people that do horrendous things.
It doesn't mean that we simply allow them to do those things because boundaries are important and there is a role for action.
But we can see that it is not necessarily an inherent aspect of who they are.
We can understand that they are already suffering.
This ongoing battle within us can be quite challenging.
And we all end up making mistakes.
We all have different challenges in finding and we all end up making mistakes.
We all have times when we let our egos and the underlying fears of the ego drive our words and our actions.
But as we practice and use these conceptual constructs to guide our intention towards coming back to focusing on that love and light within us,
It will change over time.
We'll make less mistakes.
We'll act more skillfully in our relationships and how we interact with the world around us as well as with ourselves.
We'll have less judgment and more compassion,
More wisdom,
And more love.
And so it's important to remember that the way to dispel darkness is by increasing the light.
As our egos soften and those accressions begin to dissolve,
The mind begins to function as a clear filter,
Giving us greater insight into the true nature of reality and of ourselves.
And as that filter of the mind becomes clear,
Our light is able to shine forth more brightly.
In essence,
We as individuals become embodiments and instruments of light and love.
You know,
One of the metaphors that Hazrat and Ayat Khan often uses is this idea of becoming an instrument.
And just like a musical instrument,
As we use our purity of intention and soften the ego and allow the mind to become clear,
We become clear channels for that divine light.
And just through doing that,
Through focusing on our own state,
Through taking responsibility for ourselves and our experiences and choosing to surrender our defense mechanisms and surrender to that light,
We become instruments for the divine.
And we bring forth that music,
That beauty,
That light into the world.
And just like that,
It ripples out from us and begins to impact and change others and the world around us.
So we use this idea of light as a conceptual construct to understand and perceive love.
And so we see this when we love someone or when others love us,
That there is this light that radiates from their eyes,
From their smile.
We even say that someone can light up a room.
And that occurs when they have no sense of self and it's just that love expressing towards others.
We can often see this with animals,
You know,
With Serena and Bella,
These two amazing,
Beautiful dogs.
There's times when they would smile and you can see the light radiating from their eyes.
And that's that pure expression of love manifesting in a way that we perceive it as light.
Part of the reason I wanted to talk a bit about this today is I recently had someone reach out who's been following meditations on Insight Timer.
And she said that she really loved her and she said that she really loved her and she said that she really loved her and she said that she really loved her and she said that she really loved her and she said that she really loved the talks at the beginning but when the meditations focus on visualizing or perceiving the light that that's something that she struggles with.
And I'm sure that she's not the only one.
And so I wanted to address that a little bit through understanding that this focus on the light is one of the routes into accessing that love within us.
Ultimately we are all different.
We are all unique.
We have different constitutions and histories and ways of perceiving.
And so some people are more visual,
Some people are more auditory,
Some people are more feeling or sense oriented.
And I believe this is in part why there are so many different meditative styles and practices.
Because there isn't one single meditation that is right for everybody all the time.
What matters is the intention and learning to work towards that love within us,
Allowing space for it to grow.
And so for people that are more visual,
This idea of focusing on the light may be very helpful and accessible.
For people that are not visual and may struggle with that,
When someone needs a meditation that has that visualization,
You can try to work with creating that,
Imagining it.
But if it's a struggle,
You can sit with that or you can move towards feeling that light within if it's easier to feel it.
But it's most important to be gentle with ourselves and to come back to the purity of intention of what we are trying to work with.
For today's meditation,
I thought I would work with accessing this sense of love and light within us through a different style,
Understanding that ultimately what we are working to do is to what we are working towards is the same even though it's a completely different meditation.
And so today we will do a metta or loving kindness meditation.
And in the metta meditation,
It's more of a feeling of love where we imagine someone that we love and we experience that feeling of love within us and then we begin to extend that to others.
As we do so,
It's actually growing that love and that light within us and bringing it forth.
It's bringing it into our atmosphere and beyond.
And it's like training a muscle.
All of these meditative practices,
When we first start working with them,
Can be challenging and it can be easy to have judgment arise or feeling like I'm not doing this right.
And that's where part of the practice is to have self-compassion.
You know,
When we were babies,
Moving into being toddlers,
Starting to learn to walk,
We fell many times.
And if after taking a step and falling,
We just decided I'm just no good at this whole walking thing,
I'm just going to stop trying,
We would never learn to walk.
We would never learn to run,
To skip,
To jump.
And so with these practices,
They're stages.
And as we practice and have compassion and keep working with them,
They begin to get easier.
It becomes more accessible to drop into those states and soon we're walking and running and jumping.
So if you will,
Please find a comfortable and stable posture for meditation.
You can be seated or lying down.
The most important thing is that you have a stable base beneath you,
Supporting you in ways that are not always right.
A stable base beneath you,
Supporting you in ways that allow you to let go of all unnecessary tension.
Once you arrive in your posture,
Begin to bring awareness to the natural movement of the breath.
Notice if it is long or short,
Choppy or smooth,
Shallow or deep.
Simply observe the natural movement of the breath in each moment as it is.
So you can begin abdominal breathing.
With each inhalation,
Allowing the abdomen to gently expand.
And with each exhalation,
Allowing the abdomen to gently contract,
Allowing the shoulders and chest to remain relaxed and still.
So use each exhalation to release any unnecessary tension or holding within the physical body.
So allow the awareness to gently scan through the physical body from the top of the head down to the bottoms of the feet,
The tips of the toes.
Using each exhalation to soften into yourself,
Into your experience of the moment.
So now bring to mind someone that you love.
It could be someone who has already passed on,
Someone who is in your life currently,
Could be an animal companion.
And as you bring that person into your awareness,
Feel that love you have for them.
Experience the felt sense of love within your body.
See this being in their wholeness,
Their struggles,
Their fears,
And their beauty and gifts and skills.
Notice how you love them in their entirety,
In their complexity,
In their wholeness.
Now bring to mind another being that you love.
And as you bring them into your awareness,
Feel that felt experience of love growing within you.
Notice how it softens you,
The more you allow that love to manifest.
See this person in their complexity and wholeness,
Their struggles and fears,
Their beauty and gifts.
Notice how your love allows you to accept them completely as they are.
Now,
Moving at your own pace,
Begin to bring more people,
More beings,
Into your awareness.
Those that you love,
Those that might be friends,
Those that you might have more of a passing acquaintance with,
Colleagues and co-workers,
People you have known throughout your life.
And allow this felt experience of love to continue to expand,
Enveloping all of them,
Seeing all of them as complex,
Multi-dimensional beings that have hopes and dreams that we may not know of and struggles and traumas we might not know of.
Allow this love to expand so you accept them completely as they are.
Notice that as you extend this love and accept others as they are,
One of the qualities of love is forgiveness.
It becomes easier to forgive others for their unskillful actions and moments and to realize that this is not an essential aspect of who they are,
But a manifestation of their underlying struggles and fear.
Now continue to extend this feeling of love to include those with whom you have had difficulty,
Who we might consider enemies,
Opponents.
And allow this love to extend and grow,
Allowing you to see them in their wholeness,
In their complexity,
Their difficulties and struggles,
And their unique beauty.
Feel how this love expands,
How you can feel it growing,
Permeating your entire physical being and the atmosphere around you.
Now bring to mind the earth as a whole.
Allow this love to expand,
To encompass the entire earth and all of its inhabitants,
All of the humans,
All of the animals,
All of the trees and plants,
All the rivers and lakes and oceans and mountains.
See the earth as one whole.
See it in its complexity,
Its diversity,
Its challenges and struggles,
Its beauty and gifts.
Now bring this love,
This gift of love to yourself.
Experience yourself in your wholeness and complexity,
Your difficulties and fears and challenges and pain,
And your beauty,
Your gifts,
All of the things that you bring into this world.
Hold yourself in your wholeness with this love,
Forgiving yourself for the unskillful moments,
Seeing how they are not who you are in your essence,
But merely a momentary manifestation of an underlying fear or defense mechanism.
Feel the softening that occurs as you hold yourself with love.
Return to the natural movement of the breath,
Noticing if it has shifted since the beginning of the practice.
Experience the felt sense of the body as a whole,
The solidity beneath you,
Supporting you and holding you up.
Become aware of the air around you in which you are immersed,
Not separate from,
Like a fish in water.
When you are ready,
Maintain an awareness and grounding in this love as you gently and slowly begin to open your eyes,
Taking in the world around you with a soft gaze.
There is a teaching story attributed to the Native American tradition in which a grandfather tells his grandson that within the deepness of his own body,
In which a grandfather tells his grandson that within the heart of each person,
There are two wolves fighting.
One wolf is angry and violent and selfish,
And the other is peaceful,
Full of love and light.
And the young boy looks at his grandfather and asks,
Which one will win?
And the grandfather responds,
Whichever one we feed,
We can choose to focus on the light and the love within us,
And in so doing,
That will grow stronger and it will clear away all darkness.
That which we often term or label as good is simply a manifestation of that love and light winning out over the darkness and fear within us.
As we move towards embracing ourselves in our wholeness,
The ego naturally softens and the light grows.
So be gentle with yourselves.
Have compassion and allow yourself to surrender to the light.
Thank you all for joining me today.
