Beyond the Obstacles: Becoming Radiant

An important aspect of becoming light is how we treat ourselves and other people. My guides say that it is important to treat ourselves with kindness. We need to learn what it is like to be well treated in order to look after our own needs. We are asked to find happiness, to strive for balance, and to look for ways of drawing more goodness into our lives. When we are negative toward ourselves, we get caught up in emotions that drain our strength and make us feel unbalanced. One thing we must realize is that we do have choices. It is up to us to be more open with others and to communicate our feelings with kindness and consideration. Some of us have a tendency to give up our own needs in favor of another’s, then to get angry at the other person. In this case, what do we gain by sacrificing our needs? If giving something up makes you angry with another, it is better to be kind to yourself first. Kindness to yourself generates kindness to others. In this way we become light. A black star doesn’t give light, but a bright star first has light within, for its own needs, then its radiance warms its neighbors. Radiating light takes effort, so...

When you look at yourself, do so with light, see yourself as light. Tell yourself that you are becoming light. Let yourself be sure that you are becoming light. You achieve a level of light by letting time pass slowly. This enhances your becoming light. Becomingness is inherent in the way you perceive yourself. You are more likely to get what you want if you visualize it. Light sees light and becomes light. You will become what you see. Light doesn’t venture forth into the darkness by its own volition; you force it forward by pressing outward. You enhance the truth by becoming the truth.

We are in training for a greater role in the universe. Part of our preparation is to visualize ourselves growing to become more than we are now. When we are children, we visualize ourselves as adults, and when we become adults, we have become what we imagined. Our aspirations help us achieve.

Many of us suffer from low self-esteem. Some of us see ourselves as a kind of biological machine; sometimes we see our surface reflection in the mirror and we believe that is all there is.

You are not just an organic machine with some spiritual, theoretical possibilities.

We can misguidedly believe that we are just a collection of moving parts, and forget that we are a part of the whole universe, inseparable from the whole. In this lies the emptiness we often feel.

I came to consciousness in North America in the 1960s, when the prevailing idea was that God was dead and that we might be more akin to robots than anything else. The same period saw an influx of Eastern mysticism; it filled part of the gap, but it was mixed with cultural and political issues until all that remained was another vacuum. During that time of confusion, my own suffering became very real; but out of the turmoil arose – for myself and many others – a new spiritual sense, a new faith that shone more brightly than the systems that preceded it.

A Chinese proverb says that we should not ask to live in interesting times, but it’s too late. We are living through times of great change – greater than our ancestors could have imagined. It must mean something on a larger scale. I believe that the light is still coming in, as if through a crack in the shade, and that the light yet to come is too bright for us to imagine now. If all we ever see are shadows, we believe the world is made of shadows. We are in danger of missing the truth in our lives, of putting our faith in surface reflections, of seeing only the shadows. It is worth the effort to take the time to be quiet, to listen, to look into our hearts through guided meditation.

To see what you really need to see – to see the truth, the nature of what is – you must do more than open your eyes and look around you. What is seeing? Seeing is becoming. In your reality, there is a tendency to go outside yourself, to abandon you are is in order to become someone else. How can you become when you step outside yourself, outside your true nature, and look all around where you are, what you are, where you are coming from? It is when you open your heart that truth will pour into you. To look inward is to see reality, because reality presses forth from within.

In our relationships with others, we often have trouble understanding our feelings, reading reality. It takes effort and discipline to overcome our tendency to misjudge or misread ourselves and others. When we take time to go within, it becomes easier to see the forces that motivate us. Jealousy and anger often mask underlying emotions such as feeling rejected or unwanted. However, we can move beyond ourselves by opening our spiritual window and letting the light in. By believing that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves – a positive force that wishes to help us and become part of us – we exchange our essence with the essence of God. We gain light and lose darkness, and our radiance benefits everyone around us.

We have more power in the universe than we have been led to believe: we are all parts of the force that created the universe, we are all creators.

The teaching reads as follows:

We create light through thought. Light is brought into the world by thought. You make it happen, for you are consciousness. You are the beginning of all happenings. You are what makes the universe; therefore you make it happen in your life, for yourself. Consciousness creates the universe, and your consciousness creates your life within it. Your consciousness creates the universe you are living in. You are a part of the all-that-is, therefore your light creates you. You create the light, and the light creates your personality. You create matter itself, you have made what you are; and you can create disease by rearranging molecules, by saying what you need. We send light as an enhancement to your own.

Clearly, we must take responsibility for ourselves at all levels. Just as illness comes from within us, so must healing. We can’t blame anything or anyone else. I believe we can solve our problems by taking responsibility for ourselves and what happens to us. Even if it isn’t clear how something that happened could have been our fault, it is useful to ask ourselves, “In what way could I have been responsible?” This works well in solving problems in relationships, when often we blame our partner and they become defensive, but if we take responsibility, they will become more sympathetic. Taking responsibility, when it is appropriate, makes us free, because it relieves us of a burden.

In order to find the light that enhances us, we can tune ourselves in to the guides and the universe.

Completely unburden yourself from within; let it all go until there is nothing left but light. All the darkness escapes from you: the darkness, the doubt, the inability to comprehend. When you shed light on them, the answers appear. They are always there, because answers create the universe. That’s why the universe exists – because there are answers for everything. Without answers there would be no universe. Without answers we would disappear, leaving nothing but doubt. Darkness encloses us when we are in doubt. If you are listening, you will find the answers, for they come all the time; they are always there to be found, because the universe is made of answers.

Truth, all-there-is, is the answer to all questions.

This is the ultimate optimism, isn’t it? We feel that we live in a vast and mostly black universe. Yet even in this view of things there is cause for celebration, since the blackness is not really emptiness, but a measure of potential; and it is more human than we would have thought.