Being Truth and Light!

by Michael Ketterhagen

“Human beings are divine, infinite and perfect. The Creator has made us that way.”

--Swami Rama of the Himalayas

“So, God created humankind in his image,

in the image of God, he created them.”

--Genesis 1.27

“God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.”

--John 4.24

Well, if each of us is to truly be ourselves and if these statements above are true, then what do we do to fulfill our destiny as human beings?

We must focus on our spiritual nature and only adore and practice truth and light.

What does that mean? How does one practice being truth? How does one practice being light?

We think the truth, speak the truth and do the truth!

We think “light” thoughts, speak “light” words, and do “light” things!

I used to think that thinking the truth meant coming to some clear understanding of another and giving that clear understanding of that person a firm label, like extrovert, cynical, arrogant, selfless. I also used to let everyone know what I thought of them or what I thought about certain ways that they acted. I let them know my judgment, especially when it was “justified” in my mind, because they said something unkind to me.

I used to speak words of criticism, thinking that that was really helping the other, when in fact it was making things much darker and less helpful.

Practicing light in my life really meant being truthful and really clear about reality. I learned that behind every judgment of mine was a feeling and underneath that feeling was a need that was either threatened or feed. When I was angry with a person for saying something negative about me, I learned that underneath the anger was hurt and under that was my need to be liked by that person. So, the truth, the true light, would have been a statement like “I feel hurt when you call me ignorant because I need to know that you think I’m good and important to you.” instead of “You think you’re so smart, but you don’t know a damn thing.”

This is challenging work—thinking, speaking and acting truthfully so that it sheds true light on the situation, instead of making it darker. It is hard acting like we were created—divine, infinite, and perfect, a spirit of truth and light!

All we have to do is practice being truth and being light! We are very fortunate in that our Creator will not get upset with us if we keep working at practicing truth and being light because we will be attempting to be like the Great Spirit. In fact, we are chips off of the Great Spirit, chips of Truth and Light! The Great Spirit rejoices when we attempt to be like it!

I pray to the divinity within you!