Is God Present Even There, Where There Is Ignorance?

Blessed Are the Inwardly Free

Reading and Affirmation for January

From the book The Beatitudes: Their Inner Meaning by Swami Kriyananda

Truth is one and eternal. Realize oneness with it in your deathless Self, within.

The following commentary is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda.

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 suns

Flooding 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.

Whispers From Eternity

87. Worship of God as sacred Joy found in Meditation

O Father, from joy I came; for joy I live; in joy will I melt again! Thou art sacred, perennial joy. Thou art the joy I seek. Thou art the everlasting joy of the soul. Teach me to worship Thee through the joy born of meditation. Balance my worship with good action, and teach me to shun all false pleasures which, siren-like, call to me through my misguided senses.

Paramhansa Yogananda

Inspiration from the Rays of One Light

We will take these meaningful words into our meditation together for deep reflection and contemplation. But firstly, we will listen to the beautiful Psalm of David, sung by Mary Kretzmann.