Sunday Service Reading #3

From Rays of the One Light
Is God Present Even There, Where There is Darkness?

THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN, Chapter 1, makes a reference to the divine light that is obscure to the rational faculty, but that enlightens our higher nature: “The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” Reason recoils from this statement with innumerable questions. What is this darkness? Is it conscious, that it should comprehend anything? What sort of light would be capable of shining in darkness without transforming at least that part of the darkness in which it shines into light? Does this light shine only at night? And if so, why only then?

The solution is that, to divine sight, even daylight seems darkness. The sun itself, like the moon which shines only by reflected light from the sun, is but a kind of reflection of the cosmic light, which, being immaterial, is invisible to the eyes but which is the Great Source of all material reality.

In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda describes his youthful visit to Ram Gopal Muzumdar, the “sleepless saint,” who lived in the vision of that hidden light. “Around midnight,” Yogananda wrote,

Ram Gopal fell into silence, and I lay down on my blankets. Closing my eyes, I saw flashes of lightning; the vast space within me was a chamber of molten light. I opened my eyes and observed the same dazzling radiance. The room became a part of the infinite vault which I beheld with interior vision.

“Why don't you go to sleep?”
“Sir, how can I sleep in the presence of lightning, blazing whether my eyes are shut or open?”
“You are blessed to have this experience; the spiritual radiations are not easily seen.” The saint added a few words of affection.

This is the “light that shineth in darkness.” It has been described variously in the great scriptures. In the Bhagavad Gita, the eleventh Chapter, the devotee, Arjuna, is given an experience of the infinite state and exclaims in awe:

If there should rise suddenly within the skies
Sunburst of a thousand sunsFlooding earth with beams undeemed-of,
Then might be that Holy One's
Majesty and radiance dreamed of!

Thus, through holy Scripture, God has spoken to mankind.

VIDEO of Gyandev's Service on the Subject from 1-17-10

MP3 for Download or online listening of Gyandev's Service on the Subject from 1-17-10

VIDEO of Dr. Peter Van Houtens Service on the Subject from 1-18-09

MP3 for Download or online listening of Dr. Peter Van Houtens Service 1-18-09

VIDEO of Rick Bonin's Service on the Subject from 1-17-10

MP3 for Download or online listening of Rick Bonin's Service on the Subject from 1-17-10

MP3 for Download or online listening of Maria Warner's Service on this subject from 1-20-08

MP3 for Download or online listening of Asha's Service on this subject from 1-15-06

Long Readings from the 3 Volume Set:
Rays of the Same Light

#3: Is God Present Even There, Where There is Darkness?
("Where There is Ignorance, Is God Present" in the original book)

This passage is from the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 1, Verses 1-5:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."

Commentary

In the past weeks we have considered the first four of these Verses. Let us now consider the last: "And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."

How is it possible for the divine light to shine in darkness and yet make no impression on it — not even, as the Bible puts it, to be "comprehended" by it? Ordinarily, light and darkness exist in dynamic relationship to each other. The struggle between God's light on the one hand, and the darkness of evil on the other, provides one of the classic themes of spiritual literature. Yet here we find no suggestion of any such struggle. Darkness, in this passage — except in one or two creative translations — is not described as opposing the light. It is simply ignorant of the light's existence.

Moreover, the darkness here spoken of is not mindless. It possesses consciousness, otherwise the question of its comprehension or acceptance would not arise. Being darkness, however, it is incapable of "comprehending" the subtler reality of divine light.

St. John's reference here is not to Satan, but to the state of spiritual ignorance toward which Satan — an actual, universal force — ever seeks to draw souls. St. John is referring, rather, to the state of darkness, of ignorance itself. And he is suggesting that in man's unenlightened state of spiritual delusion, it is not possible to perceive, or "comprehend," the divine light.

To approach that light, then, we must rise above our ordinary human level of consciousness, and learn to live at that level in ourselves where God's light ever shines.

God's creation exists simultaneously on many different levels of manifestation. Even from science we know that there are realities far too subtle for us to perceive with our physical senses. The divine light — a reality beyond the perception of any physical science — forever surrounds us also. It cannot be overwhelmed or diminished by gross material realities, nor even related meaningfully to them on their own level of cosmic manifestation. For it occupies another level altogether.

By light, here, the Bible means the light of God, which is conscious. Thus, we may understand also that divine love is not understood, nor even touched, by human hatred. Divine joy is eternally above all human sorrow. Wisdom cannot be imagined, nor can it in any way be lessened, by ignorance. The way out of hatred, sorrow, and ignorance is by communion with God's inner light in our souls.

Ours is the choice. So long as we choose to live on a materialistic plane, we shall never behold the one true Light. So long as we choose to live selfishly, we shall never know divine love, for divine love is too lofty a reality to be comprehended on an ego level. So long as we choose those aggressive actions whose end is always suffering, we shall never know divine joy.

And yet, God's joy forever surrounds us. It dwells within us. It calls to us with longing in the silence of our souls, whispering eternally: "Reach out to Me. Claim Me for thy own!"

The ever-blissful Lord is never indifferent to our human griefs. His grace, however, awaits us on its own plane of reality. To know it, we, for our part, must reach up to it with devotion, in the deep silence of inner communion.

The darkness in us cannot comprehend the divine light. We must transcend our own inner darkness, if we would know the one true Light, which is God.

Thus, through the Holy Bible, God has spoken to mankind.

This passage is from the eleventh Chapter, the 12th Stanza:            

"If there should rise suddenly within the skies

Sunburst of a thousand suns

Flooding earth with beams undeemeddof,

Then might be that Holy One's

Majesty and radiance dreamed of!"

Commentary

The Bhagavad Gita here endeavors in words to express the inexpressible: the vision of God as Cosmic Light, as Cosmic Consciousness. Infinitely brighter God's light is than the light of countless suns crushed into one. Infinitely more majestic, more powerful is the Lord than the greatest majesty on earth; than the greatest power imaginable to man.

Unenlightened humanity, closing its eyes to higher truths, sees only darkness, and not the indwelling divine light. A small-minded person, confronted by greatness in anyone, judges what he sees according to his own pettiness. God, similarly, is imagined by many religionists as a sort of larger-than-life human being, possessing a man-like body, and subject to anger, jealousy, and similar human emotions.

Who indeed, can even imagine a conscious Being so great as to have brought into existence this vast universe, with its countless billions of stars and galaxies? Add to such a power the seemingly contradictory, because softening, quality of love, and describe that love as caring, separately and individually, for every creature in existence, and we have a concept that, for human beings, cannot even be clearly conceptualized.

God, the Scriptures say, is infinitely beyond mere human imagining. Those great saints who have communed with Him declare that only in such inner communion can the devotee find complete conviction, and eternal satisfaction.

As Paramhansa Yogananda wrote in Autobiography of a Yogi, the vision of God is "beyond imagination of expectancy." That cosmic consciousness, he said, is the only goal on earth worth striving for. It is an infinite love, which embraces every creature; a bliss ineffable, which calls to each of us to reclaim our eternal birthright in the Lord. Ultimately, there exists no other reality.

Thus, through the Bhagavad Gita, God has spoken to mankind.

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Longest Reading from the Book
The Promise of Immortality

#3 Is God Present Even There, Where There is Darkness?
("Why Is the Light "Incomprehensible" to Darkness?" in the original book)

“And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5)

This obscure verse suggests several apparent impossibilities: one, that darkness can comprehend anything at all; two, that, although able to comprehend, it cannot see; three, that light can shine in darkness without transforming it into light; and four, that darkness can even be expected to see and comprehend, rather than be seen and be comprehended: that it is a conscious agent rather than an object merely perceived.

How can the divine light, “shining in darkness,” make no impression on it? Earthly light is visible in darkness, certainly: sometimes blindingly so. We may not understand its nature or its source, but we cannot fail to perceive the simple fact of its existence. Here, however, darkness itself is described as doing the perceiving, and, even so, as incapable of perceiving something that should be supremely obvious to it.

What the Bible is describing here is consciousness itself. It is comparing the light of truth to the darkness of ignorance.

As a telescope can bring distant galaxies into view, so our ability to see the inner light depends on the power and clarity of our own mental “telescope.” And as a television set makes us aware of sounds and images that surround us always, but that are imperceptible to our senses, so our ability to perceive the inner light depends on how well we “tune in” to it. For the light, too, is with us always. Clear perception comes in calmness, when our thoughts and feelings are focused on the inner “universe.” The mirror of a telescope must be kept free of dust, and a television set must have a good antenna, placed properly to protect it from static interference. Human consciousness, similarly, must be cleansed of the “dust” of material desires, and protected from the “static” of mental restlessness. Otherwise, the calm inner light will remain both invisible and incomprehensible to it.

The single most prevalent theme in all spiritual literature is the contrast between light and darkness. The Bible doesn’t refer to it here as a struggle, but rather describes the darkness as a simple lack of awareness: not two opposing realities, in other words, but one reality, light, opposed by a lack of light: ignorance, incapable of even imagining that superconscious awareness to which it owes its very existence.

The darkness is Satanic delusion. It is a conscious, not a passive, urge, a deliberate will to seek ever-greater darkness. Its power lies in that very determination. It can exert control over us only to the extent that we accept it, and blind ourselves to the light of truth. “Sin” means error, simply: the error of a wrong understanding.

The light of wisdom shines calmly in the midst of ignorance. Dark ignorance, however, is incapable of imagining anything more luminous than itself. When confronted by wisdom, it wraps itself more closely than ever in its cloak of delusion. Nobility of character it views as merely ignoble. Generosity it sneers at as being selfishly motivated. Kindness it considers a mere shield for its own scheming intentions. Compassion it dismisses as hypocritical, while it boasts self-righteously, “Well, at least I’m sincere about my selfishness!” Darkened minds betray their lack of comprehension by resenting any suggestion that they are not already living in light.

The Bible explains in terms of degrees of comprehension the eternal struggle between demonic darkness, rooted in ignorance, and divine light. Darkness, though blind, is aware of something menacing it. Hatred, for example, though incapable of comprehending love, senses in love a power that might deprive hatred of all meaning. Ignoble motives cannot tolerate pure and noble motives. Instead, they imagine their very survival depends on opposing them. Spiritual ignorance doesn’t realize that light is the only life there is, and darkness, the only death.

If ignorance could rise out of its darkness into light, it would find life also. Alas, it identifies itself with that darkness, unaware that darkness is the source of all its misery. The darkened mind imagines, foolishly, that the farther back it huddles in its darkened cave, the more secure it will be. Darkness is a pseudo-light, a reflection from outside the cave on the rocks within, but it seems to those who are attached to it a very source of light.

In Shakespeare’s play “Othello,” Iago’s hatred is motivated by antipathy to Othello’s inherent nobility. Jealousy was Othello’s “tragic weakness.” Iago, playing upon it, persuades him that his happiness is threatened by his very generosity, which Iago describes as “naive.”

This is the response, always, of darkness to light. The darkness cannot comprehend the light, but it intuits it vaguely as an intrusion on its familiar shadows. It seeks justification by claiming, “Ignorance is bliss!” It equates lack of spiritual awareness with the false “freedom” of irresponsibility. Not interested in greater awareness, it looks upon that as merely a “burden” of greater responsibility.

The darkness described here is spiritual. Sometimes this darkness seeks social respectability, perhaps by joining some church congregation, but its interest, if so, lies in appearances. It considers spirituality itself quite unnecessary: an affront to propriety. For it enjoys the snug feeling of ego-consciousness. Limitless self-expansion, if offered for its serious contemplation, makes it recoil as if from an abyss. Even the simple religious counsel “Love all,” awakens the instinctive response: “What about me?”

The “menace” it fears is the one thing in existence, however, that can never do it harm! Light offers that fulfillment which people seek mistakenly in dark materialism.

Harmonious chords and beautiful melodies are no threat to cacophony. They simply rearrange the notes and make them pleasing to the ear. It is of course true that in beautiful music cacophony ceases to exist. Those who identify themselves with cacophony have an active dislike of harmony. There is, however, a relationship between harmony and discord, for both use essentially the same notes. Darkness, similarly, senses vaguely its affinity with the light, for both have in common the fact of consciousness. Darkness, however, resents any challenge to its present state of awareness, and considers any new outlook as foreign to itself, commenting on it, “I am quite satisfied with things as they are now, thank you!”

St. John’s reference in this passage is to the darkness of ignorance. Those who close their eyes to higher awareness cling stubbornly to their bedlam of desires and emotions. Only when they tire of this raging conflict do they dream of escape from pandemonium, and long for inner peace. The inner light dawns in time upon their consciousness. By steadily deeper attunement with that light, they attain the realization of God.

It is fitting that “comprehended,” in this verse of the Gospel, be put in the past tense, as opposed to the present-tense verb, “shineth,” for our lack of comprehension lasts only until our darkness has been dispelled by the light.

A beautiful passage in the Bhagavad Gita, in the poetic translation of Sir Edwin Arnold, puts it this way:

If there should rise suddenly within the skies

Sunburst of a thousand suns

Flooding earth with beams undeemed-of,

Then might be that Holy One’s

Majesty and radiance dreamed-of!

Brighter God’s light is than that of countless suns combined into one. Infinitely more majestic and powerful it is than the greatest earthly glory.

Unenlightened human beings, in their rejection of truth, enclose themselves in shrouds of darkness. They don’t see that the divine light is with them always, and offers the simplest possible solution to all their problems. Instead, they think to escape their misery by sinking to ever-more sunless deeps. They hope to dissolve their bewilderment in a vortex of increasing confusion. Finally, bruised and battered by suffering, they seek rest in God.

They cannot imagine Him, at first, as anything but a larger-than-life image of themselves, subject to all the emotions that afflict them also: anger, pride, jealousy, and the whole Pandora’s box of human weaknesses.

Nor is an anthropomorphic image so absurd, though their concept of an all-too-human God shows little spiritual sophistication. For it is difficult for anyone to imagine a conscious, infinite Being capable of manifesting the vast universe with its countless billions of galaxies, each one containing hundreds of billions of suns like our own. Add to this immensity the seemingly contradictory, because softening, quality of love, and describe that love as caring for each of us separately and individually, and we have a concept that is vast beyond all the powers of human imagination. We can only shelve this concept for a time, while we visualize infinity reduced to dimensions comprehensible to our human brains. Rare indeed is that seeker of Truth who feels no need to visualize God in some human aspect: the Divine Mother, Heavenly Father, or Eternal Friend.

The experience of cosmic consciousness was described by Paramhansa Yogananda as “beyond imagination of expectancy.” The mind must prepare itself for that experience. Fear of the light, born of egoic darkness, is something most people feel so long as they retain any hint of ego-consciousness. To know God is, every great scripture declares, the true goal of life. Our problem lies not in that goal’s distance, but in its very closeness to us. We, ourselves, are that goal! Ultimate Truth embraces everything in existence. It is ineffable bliss. To each of us it calls, “Reclaim your birthright in Infinity!”

Ours is the choice. As long as we choose to live in delusion, we shall never behold the light of Truth. As long as we choose to live selfishly, we can never know the light of pure love, untainted by any selfishness. As long as we are cruel or aggressive to others, we are doomed to experience suffering if only in our awareness that we lack joy.

Yet divine joy surrounds us! God’s light shines at the very heart of our spiritual darkness. It whispers to us in the inner silence, “Claim Me for thy own!”

The blissful Lord is never indifferent to us, nor to our needs. He is compassionate to us in our grief, but He awaits us in the light. For there alone lies salvation from suffering. To receive Him, we must seek Him within, in deep inner communion.

The dark corners we conceal in ourselves recoil uncomprehendingly from the merest flicker of light. If we would free ourselves from the “dire fears and colossal sufferings,” as the Bhagavad Gita calls them, of human existence, we must open the hidden chambers of our hearts to the purifying rays of God’s light. Concealing nothing from Him, we must pray unceasingly, “I am Thine alone!”

In that effort—seemingly, at first, so difficult!—life in God becomes increasingly easy. Embracing His light, the soul emerges at last from its ancient shadowland, and rises on radiant wings to the realization of itself as, forever, a child of the light.

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