To Each According to His Faith
Righteousness Is Not Self-Righteousness
Reading and Affirmation for April
From the book The Beatitudes: Their Inner Meaning by Swami Kriyananda
To Each According to His Faith
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.
In the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 3, we read:
Everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
It is a common experience, shared by most people, that when a person errs he experiences a desire to hide that error from his conscience instead of holding it up for purification. Error clutches its misdeeds to itself, and resists correction, though it is only in the state of purity that we can achieve perfect freedom. It requires an act of will to offer that awareness up to the light, and to hold it there until one’s inner darkness is completely dissipated.
For every state of consciousness has its own attractive power. And the more we allow that attraction to act upon us, the more we attract to ourselves the objective circumstances and experiences natural to it. Our faith is the attractive power of our underlying state of consciousness. Goodness attracts goodness; it takes goodness even to see goodness. Evil attracts evil, and it takes evil even to see evil – that is, to take special note of its existence.
Whatever there is in you of darkness or light, offer it up to the heights. In the Supreme Light alone will we find salvation. Accept nothing less in yourself as your lasting reality. As the Bhagavad Gita says, in the twelfth Chapter:
Cling thou to me!
Clasp Me with heart and mind! So shalt thou dwell
Surely with Me on high. But if thy thought
Droops from such height; if thou be’st weak to set
Body and soul upon Me constantly,
Despair not! give Me lower service! seek
To reach Me, worshiping with steadfast will;
And, if thou canst not worship steadfastly,
Work for Me, toil in works pleasing to Me!
For he that laboureth right for love of Me
Shall finally attain! But, if in this
Thy faint heart fails, bring Me thy failure!
Thus, through holy Scripture, God has spoken to mankind.
Whispers From Eternity
95. Demand for Wisdom
O Spirit, Thou art I; I am Thou. Thou art wisdom: I am wisdom. Thou art bliss: I am bliss.
Paramhansa Yogananda
Inspiration from the Rays of One Light
“Everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God”.
John 3:20-21
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.
Psalm of David
Listen to the Psalm of David
Reflect, Meditate and Listen to Instrumental Music
Reflection from the Rays of the One Light
Peace Sangha
This week, I was inspired by the teaching:
“Everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God”.
John 3:20-21
These words brought to me an invitation to see God’s light as healing, a light that reaches the places within us that long to be healed. And in that quiet place, I felt intuitively guided to write another poem called “Where Her Light Finds You”.
Where Her Light Finds You
There are places inside us
We would rather keep hidden
Where old wounds sleep and settle as silence
Where fears are never voiced
Where we never learn to name our emotions
These are some of the shadows we carry
But Jesus does not call us into the light to strip us bare in shame
He calls us into the light
Because light is where healing begins
Darkness is where we hide
Light is where we heal
And when we come before God
Not rehearsed
But real
Something holy happens
When we whisper
“Here I am, Lord. Even the parts I don’t understand. Even the parts I don’t like. Heal me.”
He does not stand far off
He steps in close
He works with us, breath by breath, Love by Love
Touching what has been hidden, soothing what has been hurting
Freeing what has been found and stuck to the ground
Sometimes, healing arrives in ways we never expected
I dreamt of a woman who came up to me, who spoke truth into my spirit and told me I had trauma and wounds
She then said
“You hear the Lord.
Trust the Lord.
Keep trusting the Lord”.
Something in me shifted, healed
It felt real
Because healing begins in the unseen
In the quiet places,
Where God meets us
Before we even know how to meet ourselves
This is the journey into Her Beloved light
Before we even realise we are walking toward it
Not striving
Not performing
Just trusting in the Lord
God God God
Trusting in Her light is always rooted in Love
Aum Peace Amen
