After spending two weeks in sunny Palm Springs, I am reminded of the refreshing and renewing power the Divine Light of the sun, the Earth’s external source of fire. Even though the temperature is not in the 60s and 70s like in California, the sun here in Wisconsin is a powerful healer. It opens our pores. It blesses us with warmer feelings even though we might have to sit inside next to a window. But, it refreshes as well when we step outside, tucked neatly in our winter coats, hats and gloves.
That same light that blesses and renews us on the outside is available to us on the inside of us. It is the light of our divine essence which the Himalayan Yoga Tradition calls “prana.” That internal light, which is beyond thinking and imagining and beyond our physical sensing, leads us constantly throughout our day. We are rarely aware of its guiding life force. However, when we have learned to breathe seamlessly and effortlessly connecting our breath with our mind, we are taken deeper and deeper into our inner sanctum (the temple of the body).
Developing this skill of training our mind to connect with the breath, after grounding our breath in our body, takes time. It also takes patience to bring the mind under the control of our inner will power, not allowing it to wander and roam around “like a monkey,” which is a Buddhist definition of the way our mind usually operates. It takes faith in ourselves ability to become aware of that prana because it is beyond our rational faculty and our senses. It finally demands that we trust that the dark night of confusion and the pains of life are not the conclusion to our meditative efforts.
When we practice, have patience, are persistent in the routines that are asked of us as we sit every day in meditation, the light (our sun within) will shine, refresh and renew our whole being. That is the promise of the Vishoka Meditation tradition of Yoga and the meditative traditions of the Catholic monk John of the Cross and the Catholic nun Theresa of Avila, and the Buddha.
All have shown us the way to the light within.
I pray to the divinity in you!