By Rev. LeRoy E. Zemke
Pastor, Temple of the Living God

“ O Father, when I was blind, I found not a door that led to thee. Thou has healed my eyes; now I discover doors everywhere: the hearts of flowers, the voices of friendship, memories of lovely experiences. Each gust of my prayer opens a new entrance to the vast temple of Thy Presence.”
Whispers from Eternity
Paramahansa Yogananda

“ In nature, there is a fundamental unity running through all the diversity we see about us. Religions are given to mankind so as to accelerate the process of realization of fundamental unity.”
Mahatma Gandhi

In this evocative journey we call life, we each take various roads toward our destiny’s delicate drumbeat. For one, it is the way of the warrior, another the peacemaker. One will serve as priest/healer and another will shape policies, lead a church, or manage a corporation, or rule a country, a nation, a continent. One will become a scientist, astronomer, or astrologer. And another will collect money (financier) and yet another will pick flowers to heal mind, body, spirit and soul. Others will gather children to teach them; to learn a skill, a language, an art or how to live in this remarkable world, how to become fully a man, a woman, and most of all what it means to be a human being.

The great challenge, as I see it, is not to become enmeshed or trapped by the outer physical world into which we are born, where we are encouraged to live as fully as possible. But to learn how to be an active and vital part of this human environment with all its ego snares, selfishness, and emphasis upon sensate experience and in the midst of all this make our unique contribution to life and allow the Light of God, the Sacred to flow fully through us.

Jesus the Christ once suggested that we are to walk in the world, but not to become caught in its ways, its drudgery, its temptations, its weight.

And how do we allow the Light of the Divine to flow through us … to honor us, to strengthen us, to grant us peace, healing, happiness and yet do/accomplish our real soul work in the world … to set in motion the task or purpose for which we have come into incarnation?

Some observations:

(a) The call of the outer world is absolutely necessary to enable us to take on the role we have internally (in our soul) agreed to accomplish in this lifetime. If we are to become a master builder (architect), we must apply ourselves to the study of architecture, associate with (maybe be with) architects, learn all the painstaking skills involved, face and overcome the various obstacles that may necessarily arise, experience the joy of accomplishment or the disappointment or sadness of failure associated with the profession. Only when we master the issues that are a very necessary and vital part to such a specific setting and its unique learning environment, can we be inwardly fulfilled to allow the Light of God to flow through us. The Light here referenced is our connection to Source!

(b) Limitations do not define us … they reveal us! A debilitating physical handicap, a life threatening illness, abusive families, crushing poverty, failures of every kind (physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically) serve to create an outer and inner environment that forces us to go deeper, beyond appearances to something in our very soul that can inspire us. Yes, the outer circumstances may be unbelievably difficult, even severe, pain filled and from all worldly, outer levels of evaluation, unfair, unjust and so difficult that we are forced to turn away, to see beyond the condition in our life that is so restrictive. When this happens, we begin to access a strength and a profound level of insight or knowing that can serve us and thus others, more than we previously thought possible. And with this discovery, we open to the life changing/transforming Power of the Divine.

(c) The work of the ego, I suspect, is to help build the container we call a body and the enormously complex environment we experience as feelings; to stimulate the development of mental, psychological capabilities and ultimate attainments of the mental realm in some useful goal, a career, a business, a specific training, a profession, or any worthy accomplishment we call into our life process.

The ego, much maligned and denigrated, is really a subjective component (psychologically speaking) of the self perceived below the surface of our outer day-to-day awareness. But it serves to toughen, to strengthen and to support our human and ultimately our soul’s journey. We must become willing to learn what the ego is attempting to teach us … how to deal with being male or female, how to access our creative abilities, how to stay focused in a very distracting world; in short, how to function with the challenges of our life, the physical issues, emotional instabilities and psychological material.

If we have an ongoing craving, such as for alcohol, for food, or drugs, or sex that becomes identified as an addiction, the exhausting ensuing struggle to overcome it is part of the ego’s work. The ego “holds” the body together as best it can to help keep us in the incarnation. Whatever it takes to gain control of the appetite the addiction represents will be found useful, and ultimately valuable to our soul because we will have begun to mine the inner gold, the learning or discovery, that is latent behind the addiction. Thus do we reach out to what we call God. We are led to find meaning, purpose, and peace.

Hence, the Light of the Divine can flow through us more unrestricted, more clearly, more abundantly once we cease the incessant struggle with that which has no lasting value or purpose..

(d) Some teachings imply the Divine Light is outside of us. It’s in Heaven …(in God’s hands) … or somewhere in outer space. Or it’s in a sacred object or place, cathedral, church, a stone, crystal or Holy Mountain. Or it’s contained in a Saint, a Master, an enlightened one, the Christ, the Buddha, a Mother Theresa of India, a Confucius of China. Yet Jesus is reported to have said, the kingdom of God is within you (me, each of us). Do not search for it elsewhere. The looking, searching, seeking effort, I believe, is useful in that we are slowly becoming conscious of the inner light through the search.

The inner light is, at best, a feeble metaphor for what is called the sacred power, the Light Divine. It is the power that transforms us when we change a long held behavior and surrender to God’s Will for us. It’s the power that heals an illness or disease. Men, women and children are equally able to receive it wherever they are in the world, because it, the Power, is already within. All that is needed is something to evoke, quicken or awaken within us. It is sometimes called the power behind miracles, at least as one way to put language to how a miracle occurs.

The Festival of Christmas, which is often called The Festival of Light, is symbolic of this inner light being reawakened on a yearly basis. In the world of flesh and form, we are ever in need of reminding that this light within is ever available to us. So the story of the Christ child’s coming, announced by heavenly messengers, brings to us again the awareness that we can receive this holy light if we open our hearts, our very souls to the eternal truth that the light (and love) of God is always being born and is ever available to us. Each of us must do our part to allow an opening within ourselves. This internal permission is the spark the Infinite has placed within the very core of our being that can become a fire. Once ignited, this light casts forth warmth, love and radiant light.

The heavens Thy praise are telling,
The earth declares Thy might,
But naught save Thine indwelling
Can show Thee, Lord, aright.
Where’er our eyes are turning,
Thy footprints we can see,
The light within us burning
Alone revealeth Thee
Anonymous