Light examining light
LIGHT EXAMINING LIGHT
Self-examination is a vital part of any genuine spiritual path. It is a finesse art, and largely abused in many religious traditions. Self-examination is not self-flagellation; it’s not beating ourselves up nor inflicting strenuous moral regulations upon a hard-to-appease conscience.
Self-examination is the compassionate art of self-loving and spiritual refinement of character. Its an investigation into our interior condition to find where the Light of our True Being is both shining and where it is veiled by shadows.
Looking at our Light and holding our actions to its uncompromising goodness allows us to maintain a level of sincerity and authenticity in our faith and practice, without which we can be prone to illusion and indifference about our real condition.
Whether or not this “examine of conscience” (as it is termed in religious interior practice) is helpful or a harmful to spiritual growth has a lot to do with the SOURCE we use to examine ourselves. Using our wounded personas or our ego fabrications to look at ourselves with only breeds further wounds and more delusion. We need to look FROM OUR LIGHT if we want to be en-light-ened.
It’s the quality of the consciousness we examine things with that produces the quality of the outcome we want.
Light examining Light, is the motto of a healthy interior spiritual practice.
The art of being mindful of our interior states and condition is a work best accomplished by the highest part of our being – Spirit – and not by the ego with its plethora of wounded, broken or tyrannical personas. Hurt things, hurt things. Whole things, make things whole. This is the fundamental law within the art of spiritual examen.
The best way to remove any darkness is not to try and grasp it and throw it away. Darkness is substance-less. It is an absence, not a power. It’s using Light that we see Light, awaken Light and brighten Light. Light is the substance of our being. It is its own healing agent.
Self-examination, when done right, should make you fall in love with your interiority, not judge and punish it. It should captivate you with a most auspicious and joyful vision of life, not sadden it.
Recognize you are the Light.
Know it is the nature of Light is to shine.
Believe that where Light shines, things heal, revive and replenish without a great deal of strain or effort.
This is the art of self-examination: turn on your interior Light and bathe in its healing resplendence.
When you arise in the morning, practice arising in the Light of your Being too. And when you turn in at the end of your day, turn the Light on your interior and examine the kind of day you had—with its ups, downs and sideways stories. Let the Light restore your faith, joy and optimism: you are a Brightness of Truth.
Be bright upon your rising;
be resplendent upon your day’s ending.
Go from Light to Light and watch the darkness disappear over your soulscape.
The trajectory of divine life is the Eternal Light of a never ending Day.
~sOulwind
