The Twin Powers

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Our Inner Light

 

The road to develop ourselves, the one that allows the inner light we all possess to shine through lies not through walking the path itself, nor through developing our objectivity and clarity of sight, accepting responsibility for our lives, focusing our attention, or seeking knowledge. These are all admirable qualities, they are all important and needed; however, their service is aid in allowing the light. Our efforts in these areas, refines a different aspect in us. They give us strength, wisdom, courage and develop our will and mental house. While these qualities are not the core ones we must possess to allow the inner light we all possess to shine forward I will examine them briefly so that we can come to the point where we can look at the qualities I am referring to.

One does not choose to grow; our lives guide us along that path. For some it may seem natural, an extension of who they are, for others it seem to be forced upon them in reaction to circumstances and yet for others still it may build slowly over the years until they simply find it has become second nature. Regardless of which way it comes to us, what is important is what one does with the choice.

 

The world is busy being active. It is distracting, at times confusing, and seems to try to drag us along with it whether we like it or not. To go a different way requires we develop strength. We need strength of character and more importantly, the strength of will to work on ourselves when others are so focused on doing things. One must have the strength to do what they need to do, even when others do not. We need strength to be able to accept that we have weaknesses and areas of growth, regardless of whether others see them or not, or whether they care or not.

We surely need strength to become honest with ourselves. We know we are supposed to be honest, but no one teaches us how. In fact, at times, life appears to show us that dishonesty “pays” better. It is not that tough to be honest when others know the truth and lying can make matters worse. Honesty is harder when we could get away with it or see gain in it and no one will be the wiser.

 

 

The aforementioned are tests of character. To be successful at them one has to have a reason for their honesty or there would be times when we are not. It is harder if we simply believe it to be the right way to be than if we know it to be the right thing. This begs the question “why is it the right thing?” Sure, it could be the result of our background where it was the rule. Perhaps we simply set a standard for ourselves, whether our own or one we have come across in life, and we refuse to waver. This still does not answer why and it remains a question to consider. We can learn a great deal about ourselves by seeking to answer this question.

Nonetheless, we must work on our honesty moment by moment, as we are unlikely to see our misconceptions and untruths if we do not. Our diligence in these areas will help our strength grow and flourish. For having courage means being able to face ourselves even more than something external.

Wisdom is a challenge, as it has numerous elements. That said, we do not develop wisdom by seeking it out there somewhere; rather we grow into it from within. The first step is accepting that our perception is only as good as our minds allow. This harkens to this quote from Star Wars, made my Obi-Wan-Kenobi, “your eyes deceive you, don't trust them”. Our minds are our best friend or our worst enemy, and the difference lies in recognizing that we are the one who chooses. It is hard to be wise when we remain separate from the world around us or our level of honesty is low. Both of these make us an enemy to ourselves.

One cannot truly be objective when the mind focuses on personal needs. Our needs become the lens through which we view the world. This is a skewed view of reality. To get past it, it is not sufficient to vanquish personal needs, we must begin to factor others needs into our equation. We see others more clearly, when we recognize they have needs, that we should accept their needs as real to them and empathize with them.

Honesty is critical in this for objectivity is difficult to obtain when are continually lying to ourselves. These lies tend to remain hidden in the non-conscious aspects of our mind, in areas that do not generally show themselves. In order to find them we must go looking for them or be very observant to notice them. When we start to see the full view of our experiences, a strange and wonderful thing begins to happen. We find that we know what we can do to make things better for everyone; we find ways to work in cooperation with the world around us instead of independently. We establish our wisdom on this foundation.

 

 

The road lies along the hardest path of all, yet in truth it is the easiest. Our courage is what keeps our steps on the road we have set for ourselves; they will carry us far if we take the time to let it blossom in us. One cannot go far without it. We can find our courage by nurturing ourselves, by seeing the value we have and what we have to offer and by not letting others sway us from our path. To be courageous means one must have something they hold dear, something not volatile. Courage requires a reason to be courageous and it can start with an idea that we believe in. By standing for something rather than against something, we build our courage on strength not resistance. This is a key factor to remember.

Courage also requires a sense of and belief in self. This is not the belief that we are more important, greater or stronger than others are for this is the perspectives of ego. No, the courage I refer to cannot come from “I”, it is courage tempered by a belief in or knowing that there is something greater. It must come from the heart and not the mind. It is harder to be courageous when the purpose is not worthy, so our honesty is a factor in building our courage as well.

 

 

Inherent in all of us is will. We all have it to some degree for we would not be here without it. People often believe that will is something that helps us to withstand challenges to fight on, to be brave, even strong and courageous. Certainly, without will strength is hard to muster and courage elusive to obtain. Yet will is neither courage nor strength. Will, often defined as a mental faculty, is not part of our mind; it is part of our inner self that flows from the one source of “All”. One does not think, “Will”, one simply has it. Will is not will power, for this is the power to resist, something based in control. Yes, there is an element of will in exerting will power; however, will power is a product of our thinking mind. In addition, exerting will power takes strength, but it is mental strength not inner strength. Ones will can be broken if it is source is our mind rather than our inner spirit. It is easy to mistake the two, I tend to use the thought that “will-power is something you focus on, will is something you summon from within yourself”.

Of all the qualities I refer to today, will is arguably the hardest to develop. Strength and courage are attributes that surface when needed, will is an indelible quality. We build our will up through surety in ourselves, from total acceptance of what we truly are rather than what we have come to think we are. Earlier, I asked a question about courage; ask yourself a similar question of your will.

 

 

Of all the attributes I have mentioned, getting our mental house in order is both the hardest and easiest to do. It is hard because our mental house is enormous. Filling our mental house are countless thoughts, including our ideas and our beliefs. They are interconnected and dependent upon one another. I spoke about this in “The Webs We Weave”. The strongest thoughts we have are typically the oldest or those with the strongest emotional energy. These become like the bricks and mortar of our mental house. We identify us through our thoughts about us and so changing that, changing the bricks and mortar seem like an impossible task; though it is not.

Unlike some of the other aspects, our mental house reveals itself continually in our lives. Our beliefs lead us to choices and actions; we can then examine these and the outcomes that follow. Our thoughts can be a twisted tangle of conflicting ideas and notions, yet we can still find the strands of each and by various means pursue them to unlock them. Again, honesty is an important element.

Our mental house is the source of much of what we manifest in our lives. The law that governs cause and effect (sometimes misnamed as the Law of Attraction) simply states that action and reaction are equal and opposite. There is more to this law; however, for this discussion this statement will suffice. When we exert our will, we must be careful not to do so from our mental house. Essentially, exerting control in this manner makes will personal and leads to degradation for personal will is an illusion.

 

 

At the start of this essay, I mentioned that all of the above attributes help us to allow the inner light to flow through us. Interestingly enough, the qualities one must possess or develop, to allow the inner light out are simple ones. At the same time, we do not obtain them easily, for they require one to step outside themselves or perhaps more aptly, expand their notion of self. The attributes I mentioned are devotion and love.

Devotion may seem odd at first, but consider it. Earlier I suggested a question; if you have contemplated it, you will likely have encountered the thought of devotion in some form. What carries the intent to follow something that others do not, something that puts you outside the mainstream if not our devotion to it? We need this quality just as this quality relies on our courage, our strength and our will. If one is not devoted

We have so many thoughts and notions, desires, needs and wants that to get anywhere one has to have a measure of commitment to it. All of these thoughts form a tangled web and in order to untangle it we must be willing to have no sacred cows. To do this our thoughts must have something that unifies them, that in a way demands they all serve the same purpose. Devotion can be such a force for us.

There will always be competing thoughts without devotion to something that is in greater than us for when we are truly devoted to something greater than us nothing within us is more important than it. This frees attachments, looses the thoughts bound in opposition or conflict. Rather than completing, they begin to cooperate.

 

 

When we act because we think something is good or loving we are not expressing the light within, we are expressing it through the lower self, through our personality. Personality is something developed within a life and cannot express the unconditional love of which I speak. Devotion to something greater than ourselves, in this case that which allows us to exist at all, elevates us from our lower emotional self towards our higher aspects.

We cannot be devoted without something to fuel, it, in a sense something to be devoted to. Therefore, the second aspect to allowing our inner light to shine is what fuels our devotion. That something is Love. Few words are as misunderstood as love. Love I commonly associated with “I”. That is to say, “I love someone” or “I love something”. This type of love is ego based. It is personal, and not universal. If you believe that you love something, and feel emotional hurt of some type without whatever it is you love, then what you are feeling is not love. There may be a sliver of love in there, but it has become wrapped in personal needs.

 

 

Where does love come from? I would venture to say that the absolute most truthful answer to that question is likely beyond our grasp at present. We do know it exists, we feel it in our lives if only fleeting glimpses. We have such glimpses when we rise above our own needs and freely give to another without though or consideration for self.

Love is a mysterious quality to be sure, yet there are ways to consider it that are simple, eloquent and in many ways sufficient for our needs. I will share a quote from “The Cosmic Doctrine”, in relation to lower desires, those of the personality:

“In the lower Hells he burns with desire until the possibilities of desire are burnt out. Desire then remains only as an abstract idea and is part of the individuality. He then dies to the lower desires but continues to live in the higher desires.

These in their turn he learns to be finite and mortal, he finds them to constitute barriers between himself and his Father ‘whose face he would behold’, and he desires to escape from them. He would no longer love with the personal love which loves a person, but the higher manifestation of love which itself is love and loves no person or thing but is a state of consciousness in which all is embraced.”

Love is unifying, not divisive. Love is not personal; love is not biased or directed. Love is. There is one truth in all, a truth that lies hidden behind the walls of personality that are the walls of our mind. So long as we live in our minds, we cannot experience love as it really is. Our minds are conditional and love has no conditions. One cannot fall into love nor attach themselves to others due to love. One is love. Our minds separate us from this by giving the appearance of personal will and hence love becomes a personal thing. This is understandable, but restrictive and keeps us separate. To allow the inner light to shine through we must let go of personal love and become love that is not bound by conditions or which has reasons or any other form of mental construct associated with it.

In a previous essay, I included a quote from “The Inner Life” by C.W. Leadbeater. It is a very important quote not just to read, it is something to contemplate. I reiterate it here because it is one of the best statements of what love is that I have come across in all my reading.

“God is Love, but Love itself cannot be perfect unless it has those upon whom it can be lavished and by whom it can be returned. Therefore He put forth of Himself into matter, and He limited His glory, in order that through this natural and slow process of evolution we might come into being; and we in turn according to His will are to develop until we reach even His own level, and then the very Love of God itself will become more perfect, because it will then be lavished on those, His own children, who will fully understand and return it, and so His great scheme will be realised and His Will will be done”.

 

I am not separate from you; I can only build walls in my mental house that create the illusion of separation. To be love one must take down the walls that separate us from ourselves. This has the result of taking down the walls to those around us and in so doing we start to allow the inner light through. Love clears the clouds from our mind and that inner light becomes free to shine. This does not mean everyone will see it, au contraire, few will see it, but they will know it at the non-conscious level and will gravitate towards it. Possibilities that never existed will open up and every step you take will be full of wonder.

You may wonder why I included devotion. I did so because though alignment with the universal love is the key to unlocking our true self it is passive unless we are devoted to it. Love cannot sit on a shelf; it is not something we pull out at moments of convenience. Love must be lived, and reflected in everything we do. It comes with it a deep appreciation for our very being let alone the wonders of the Cosmos we see around us. Only through love and devotion to something greater than us can that inner light shine through into the manifest universe.

Love and devotion are not requirements to obey. They are simply the way and if one would unfold their inner awareness and allow that inner light we all possess to shine through it must be part of their path. One can dance around this idea and think that they do love and they are devoted to it. Again, love is not something we do it is must be what we are and our devotion must not be to our love, but to loving.

Speaking for myself, I have learned that love is not an ability to acquire; it is something we allow ourselves to express. My background did not include love as I see it now. It was dutiful love and while it was always there underlying its expression, perhaps assumed would be a good way to refer to it, it was rarely unconditional. For the longest time I misunderstood love, and likely still do though I understand it better now than ever in my life.

I came to it in part because of something my father believed in, something he called the Protestant work ethic. He stated it this way “it is not what society owes you that matters, it is what you owe society”. It is reminiscent of JKF’s inaugural address where he stated, “Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country”. The more I thought about this the more I realized how none of us can truly exist alone. Sure, we can survive, if we have the skills and live off the land and so on, but this is more like existing than living. I also realized that I could not live alone, that I “needed” others. This caused me to start taking down some of my walls back when I was barely out of my teens. I have gradually become devoted to the idea of service to others in part because of my meditations on this simple statement.

 

 

It comes easily to me in my teachings and what I share in the area of spiritual growth for this was a condition that I needed to overcome to be able to do so. Bringing that same love to everyday, to every moment in my life is a harder challenge. It is not the love of others that I find challenging, as for whatever reason expressing my love for others has always been natural for me, easy if you will. I find it easy to see past the veneer others wear to see the deeper connection I have with them and the connection to the All we share. The hardest love to become one with is to love ourselves for we see our own faults and mistakes so clearly. While we can be clear of judging others, we also know that they will judge us. This can be very painful especially when it is true. We resist it in part because we see it through the mind and not the heart.

All we can do is to try to love without conditions, to be devoted to it. We need our courageous, strength and will to power it, and we need work on our mental house to allow it and our wisdom to guide it. The inner light within all of us is bright indeed, and it can be immensely powerful not only in our lives, but in the world around us. They say that we should be the change we want to see in the world, just substitute love for this and we can empower that change too!

 

 

© 2011 Allan Beveridge

References:

The Webs We Weave

Last Updated on Tuesday, 01 January 2013 11:42