The Living Universe - Duane Elgin [41]
Jewish mysticism has ancient roots, and the Kabbalah is the body of oral teachings and texts that describe the direct experience of God. The most common metaphor with which the Kabbalah speaks of the divine is “light without end.”7 Before this world came into being, the “light without end” was present everywhere. Not only does the Kabbalah view the universe as a creation of divine light but it also views light as the carrier of consciousness. Consciousness permeates the universe, and human consciousness is a part of the larger field of divine consciousness and light.
Islam also celebrates the mysteries and splendor of light. In the Koran we read “God is the Light of heaven and earth” (24:35). Islamic sages taught that an inner light is contained within the visible luminosity of physical light. This “light in itself” or “Light of Lights” derives from a deeper, unnamable source; it not only makes things visible, it also makes them knowable.8 The Sufi poet Rumi expresses this beautifully.
The lamps are different,
but the Light is the same.
One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind,
endlessly emanating all things.9
In Buddhism, awakening experiences are often described with phrases such as “enlightenment,” “self-illuminating awareness,” “seeing the light,” and “self-luminous recognition without thought.” Buddhists also speak of a “clear light” (Prabhasvara) infused with wisdom, love, and creative power that permeates the universe with its shimmering presence. The clear light that infuses and sustains everything is a luminous presence, outwardly transparent and inwardly permeated with qualities such as openness and joy. The luminous energy at the foundation of reality is sometimes described as the “mother clear light.” The luminous awareness we realize in meditation is sometimes called the “offspring clear light” or “child of the clear light.”10
Other spiritual traditions also describe a light that infuses the world with both physical illumination and wisdom. In the Tao Te Ching, the sacred text of Taoism, we find the following passage describing the way of a wise person: “. . . the sage is devoted to the salvation of all human beings, without rejecting anyone. He is dedicated to saving things, without abandoning anything. This is the practice of the clear light.”
The revered poet Walt Whitman wrote about the colorless light at the foundations of reality: “ineffable light—light rare, untel-lable, lighting the very light—beyond all signs, descriptions, and languages.” In seeing this light at the foundation of all things, Whitman said he knew the universe did not consist of dead matter but was entirely alive. Andrew Harvey, a contemporary religious scholar and mystic, writes: “Divine Light is what is animating this universe. Light is what is creating everything. . . . Everything that we are, everything that we see, everything that we know is the Light dancing and playing—the Light knowing itself in a thousand different disguises.”11
When reading these many descriptions of the nurturing “light within light,” I am again reminded of lying on the living room floor of our farmhouse as a child and absorbing the changing textures of light’s loving presence. If we look gently at the ordinary things in life—a piece of tile on a floor, the surface of a desk—and don’t press upon them with our seeing but simply receive what is before us patiently and with soft eyes, we can sometimes see an infusing and permeating clear light—a dancing liquid of delicate, transparent luminosity. Like heat waves rising from the Earth in the summer, although faint and insubstantial, we can discern delicate, rippling, shimmering waves of light that are the source and womb of material existence. We live within a field that is thick with energy and aliveness.