Let Each Shine By Their Own Light

Sometimes it can be difficult to resist the impulse not to put people in a box. For most of us, sizing people up and then applying the labels we feel best characterizes them is such an ingrain habit that parting from this tendency requires an extraordinary amount of diligence and attention from us. For my efforts, along this line, I try to stay mindful of the truth that not only do people have the capacity to change, that people actually do change and are in fact constantly changing all the time. Nothing in the universe stays the same from one moment to the next. Everything is in perpetual motion. All souls are in growth. Still I find it wise not to expect more from another person than what past experience has shown me to be typical for them. My reason for this, however, is not cynicism. My reasoning is I’d rather set myself up to be pleasantly surprised when and if expectations are exceeded, than set myself up to be grossly disappointed, annoyed, aggravated or whatever have you, if expectations fall short. Because while I recognize that it is indeed true that all souls are in growth, I can also appreciate that the rate at which that growth is developing may, perhaps, be exceedingly slow.

We’re all in different places. And over time I have come to realize that it is not my job to try to make others conform to the life outlook I would have for them. It is a modern truism that people are going to do, what people are going to do; and I, in my experience, have had to come to terms with the fact that I have absolutely no control over another person. I have come to realize that the only person I do in fact have control over, and this control is absolute, is me. So while I may and most certainly do influence other people, I’ve learned from experience that it is best not to use this influence in an effort to intentionally manipulate another. The job of changing other people is not my place. People must be inspired to change out of the lessons learned from their own experience. Everybody has their own lesson plan in life. And God, that All imbuing, All wise, All loving, indelible presence within each of us is both the beginning and the end realization of all these plans. Everything emerges from a single Source. And in the end, All things resolve back to this Source. Nothing, truly, goes off course. Nothing is ever really lost to love and goodness. Even those things which, from our limited point of view, seem to have gone astray, are actually exactly where they need to be in the Grand scheme of things.

God, being infinite, demonstrates His limitlessness through the diversity we see playing out in the universe. So even though goodness, and love, and wisdom, etc. is the ultimate Truth, demonstrations of every degree of even ultimate qualities must be played out in life. If this were not so, infiniteness would in fact be limited. In other words, not only must goodness have expression in life, but evil (which is merely a lesser degree of goodness) must be expressed as well. The same is true of love and hate, wisdom and ignorance, power and impotence, and on and on. It is part and parcel of the principle of polarity. Everything has its opposite. And all opposites are identical in nature, varying only in degree. Like and unlike are essentially the same. And even though all qualities are not absolute, all qualities are valid expressions of The One (infinite God).

So my advice to myself has been: be supportive of those who reach out for a hand from you, but recognize that it is not part of your life’s work to go on a crusade to change those who choose to follow a path which is not in agreement with yours. Live and let be. Know that it will all come to good in the end. We are all in different places in life, and that’s exactly as it should be because we, in our infinite diversity, reflect the infiniteness of The One (God).

All is One. This is not merely a metaphysical axiom; it is indeed the underlying Truth of Reality. Despite the appearance of life being divided (as in you have a separate identity from me, or this exists independent from that), nothing and no one in the universe truly exists apart from anything else. Unity is the foundation of Reality. All is One.

Everything in the universe is an expression of one underlying thing - Life. And as Life is a thing of infiniteness, Life may and does express Itself in infinite ways. But even while Life’s expressions are many, there is only One Life. You, me, him, her, that and this are all different expressions of the same identity. We are all expressions of One Life / One Spirit / One Being. The diversity you perceive about you is not evidence of life’s miscellaneousness, but is in fact a testament to the One Life’s boundlessness. Life is magnificent! You are the unique embodiment of one form and practice of a Life expression; just as I am another unique embodiment of one form and practice of a Life expression. This screen you are now reading these words on is yet another unique embodiment of one form and practice of a Life expression; and that tree outside your window (and yes even the window and everything in between too, including the “empty space”) are also unique embodiments of one or another form and practice of a Life expression. Life is everywhere and Life’s expressions are limitless. And while you may embody a different expression of Life than the expression of Life I embody, the essence of both of us is exactly the same. The entire universe emanates from a single source. All of what we perceive in life is immanent in One Being.

I, as a unique expression of The One, state the above view of Reality as fact because I know and understand this idea to be an absolute Truth. But you, being another unique expression of The One, are free to reach your own conclusions. Each (expression of Life) is free to choose its own understanding; this is the basis of freewill. Since we all share the same identity, and this identity is boundless, there can be nothing else in existence but this One thing (which some call Spirit, some call God, some call the Absolute… and here I have mainly termed Life). By whatever name It is called, this underlying principle, which is the essence of All that exists, enjoys absolute freedom because there is nothing else in existence but It. Therefore, there is nothing else in existence which may counter It. And we, being different expressions of this thing which enjoys absolute freedom (the children of It, so to speak), by extension enjoy something which we call freewill. And it is by your respecting the freewill of All of Life’s expressions that you honor the infiniteness of Life, that you honor the infiniteness of your true and fundamental nature.

The honoring of freewill is the basic inspiration behind the title of this blog. Let each shine by their own light. It’s a paraphrase of a quote which I like coined by an early twentieth century mystic who went by the pseudonym Yogi Ramacharaka, “Permit each man to think according to his own light.” Each expression of Life will ultimately arrive at a clear and absolute understanding of Its Real nature, but in our honoring of the boundlessness of this Real nature, it is not up to you or I to dictate the course another expression of Life is to follow in reaching its Self realization. To do so would be to impinge upon another’s freewill. And in this violation, the thing honored is not the limitlessness of Reality, but rather the limitations of illusion. No one and nothing has the power to impose limits on that which has no bounds. And there are definite consequences which will play out in the experience of those who try to subvert this law. This is not a consequence in terms of a punishment, but rather a consequence which is merely an effect that follows a cause. In other words, it’s not personal, it’s simply spiritual law. Each must shine by his own light. And each must follow his own path to realize the presence of this light within him. Because this is the only way the grandness of Life (in all of infiniteness) may truly be reflected.