The Flame of Enlightenment

by Bruce Magnotti

Tao Te Ching 52

That which creates the universe
is the Mother of the world
By knowing the Mother
one knows her children
By knowing her children
one comes to know her
Such is their unity
That one does not exist without the other

Fully embrace your life
and you will share in the glory of creation
The Mother herself will be your guardian
And all her creation will be your guide...

The sun in all its glory
Reveals but a passing world
Only the inner light can illumine eternity
Only that light can lead us back home

Have faith
Follow your own shining
Be aware of your own awareness...

This is called "The Practice of Eternal Light"

As one deific being encounters another in relationship the effulgence of god is manifest.

God is the source of all life; is life itself, expressed through sentience. As being itself, god unfolds through each conception; each germination.
To seek god is wandering afield. To strive toward perfection is denial. The process of enlightenment is returning, remembering, awakening, existing, expressing.

Romans 1:20

The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made - even the eternal power and godhood.

Krishnamurti

"We are going to face the truth of things, not live in delusions. With delusions it is very difficult to observe.
If you are deluding yourself and not facing actualities, then it becomes impossible to look at oneself as one is.
But we like delusions, illusions, every form of deception, because we are frightened to look at ourselves.
To look at ourselves very clearly, accurately, precisely, is only possible in the mirror of relationship;
that is the mirror we have. In the mirror of relationship you see what you are, if you allow yourself to see what you are."

Here is how I perceive it. The initial sensation is a feeling of emptiness, loneliness, boredom, a deficiency.
We are uncomfortable with this sensation and we attempt to escape, to fill the emptiness with some thing from the outer world. This does not work and so we get the impression that the world is imperfect.
The activity, substance, ideal that we use to "complete" ourselves does not fit, does not actually fill the emptiness.

Almaas

"People will do anything to not feel the hole. They believe that if they get close to a hole, it will swallow them up.
When we stop defending against feeling a hole, the actual experience is not painful. We simple experience empty space, the feeling that there is nothing there. Not a threatening nothingness, but a spaciousness, an allowing."

Krishnamurti

"When one is confronted with the fact of loneliness, with that immense anguish, the vast emptiness of existence, then one will see whether that emptiness is a reality or merely the result of naming, of terming, of self-projection.

Because, by giving it a term, we have condemned it, have we not? We say it is emptiness, it is loneliness, it is death, and these words, death, loneliness, emptiness, imply a condemnation, a resistance, and through resistance, through condemnation, we do not understand the fact."

"You call it loneliness and run away from it; and the very running away from what is is fear."

And so we are advised to experience the sensation. In the running away from the sensation of emptiness we arrive at a place which is far from ourselves, far from our godhood. No wonder, then, that we believe we have to search for god.

It is my own personal experience that if I do not try to escape from, or cover up, or try to fill in this deficiency; if I look at it, invite it, experience it, the sensation becomes a spark a small flame, a sensation of warmth.

I am beginning to think that if I can remain close to this small flame, that it will grow and consume me, all of me that is not god. What is left will be my true nature.