Have you recently found yourself coming very close to ‘running on empty’ and consequently declaring that, “I really need to stop and recharge my batteries”?
Just as e-vehicles and smartphones need regular recharging because they do not have an unlimited power supply, so our personal lives can easily enter the red zone and reach a point of depletion where the ‘low battery’ sign flashes its warning. It would be wonderful to shift from a dependency on batteries to a source of energy that is continuously available and reliable. In today’s environmentally aware world, more people are now switching to solar power and placing photovoltaic cells on their roofs to avail themselves of the free energy of the Sun. In light of this trend, we may wish to consider what it would take to have our individual lives powered by the ‘inner Sun’ – the Soul – thus bypassing the need for batteries.
So how do we install solar power at a personal level?
It has long been understood that through the practice of daily meditation, a bridge of resonance can be established between the Soul and the personality that fashions a channel through which the Power of the One Life can flow and circulate. This is what the Ageless Wisdom teaching refers to as the building of the ‘antahkarana’ or ‘rainbow bridge’ that connects Heaven and Earth inside us. Granted, there may be the occasional overcast day caused by clouds of doubt and despair that temporarily obscure the rays of the Soul from reaching us on Earth but once a reliable resonant relationship has been established and fully entered into with our Essential Self, there is always sufficient light and energy to keep us going – even on the darkest of days.
How do we begin living a more Soul-directed life? Mother Nature is a wonderful guide and teacher and She holds a vital and simple clue. Even the flowers here in the Meditation Mount gardens are wise enough to turn their faces towards the sun to track, receive, and absorb its life-giving energy. Likewise, in our spiritual quest it may require that we too develop similar heliotropic tendencies and turn our faces towards the shining countenance of the Soul – the inner spiritual sun – in order to receive the generous gifts of its warmth, illumination and limitless power.
The rainbow bridge that connects the subtle and temporal aspects of our personal universe of Self needs to be constructed with refined substance in order to transport the higher energies. We build this needed bridge to the ‘inner Sun’ each day by invoking and embodying the qualities of the soul through all that we think, say and do to provide the requisite materials.
The ‘antahkarana’ is akin to a suspension bridge between two states of consciousness that relies on connecting cables made from the finest materials available within us. We spin the vital threads that make up these cables with the tensile and tender substance of our own being – like a spider weaving a web from the threads contained inside itself.
I see the ‘antahkarana’ as a subtle correspondence of the Golden Gate Bridge that connects us with our solar sovereign Self. Once the Light of the Soul is harnessed and emanates through all we do each day, then we in turn become a source of illumination and encouragement for those around us. By living the qualities of the soul – such as compassion, joy and gratitude – and by responding to the compelling call to serve the Common Good, we shift our focus and point of reference from the material world of forms to that of the subtle realm of the ‘indwelling life’.
When this radical reorientation occurs, we become ‘causal’ and ‘generative’ and not merely reactive to circumstances. It is then we start to emit light rather than just absorbing it. The Soul-infused personality, like the sun, now simply radiates and unconditionally transmits its blessings – asking for nothing in return.
Many people have experienced a deep sense of an inner illumined core of being that transcends their physical, emotional and mental faculties. Like any relationship, it takes time, patient listening and compassion to develop a meaningful rapport with this inner source of identity and to make it the locus of our personal life. I find it useful to strengthen this ‘sensed reality’ and ‘inner knowing’ by periodically repeating an affirmation that is part of Meditation Mount’s spiritual lineage.
More radiant than the Sun,
Purer than the snow
Subtler than the ether
Is the Self,
The Spirit within my heart.
I am that Self,
That Self am I.
To become a soul-centered ‘solar presence’ requires that we go through a radical process of transformation and not merely a cosmetic change where the outer form is simply painted and polished. Cosmetic change is akin to sticking a couple of wings on the back of a caterpillar and unconvincingly calling it a butterfly. We are describing a process of profound change that only occurs once the old forms break down and dissolve. Back to our friend the butterfly. The caterpillar goes through a natural transformational process which begins by it morphing into the pupae and undergoing the total dissolution of its old form. Inside this new green soup phase, we are told there are imaginal cells that carry the original pattern and promise of the butterfly.In fact, these cells were already present in the early caterpillar and are now alive inside the soup and thus they guarantee that the pending new form will reflect and resemble the original promise hidden in the secret heart of its essential nature.
It is a similar process inside the art of imagining a new model of society. The imaginal cells of Truth, Goodness and Beauty that have always lived inside the collective heart of our humanity are the guarantee that, in the end, we will be able to grow the consciousness and the capacity to construct and birth a society that delivers fully on the deep promise of this ancient holy trinity of attributes.
At Meditation Mount we tune into these imaginal cells that permeate and suffuse the One Soul of Humanity and through the power of focused group thought, imagination and a loving and caring heart, we seek to fashion the memes of a preferred and promised future. We promote a radical rebuilding of society, based on a spiritually-rooted set of guiding Principles and Pathways, through the regenerative power of group Creative Meditation. This is the heart and soul of our mission in the world.
Imagine what kind of world will flower when we acknowledge that each person and each aspect of creation contains a spark of the Creator (Principle of Essential Divinity) – affirming that all life is sacred and is to be honored and respected.
Let us dare to declare that a new model of right living will finally emerge when Love flows freely throughout our lives (Principle of Goodwill) – duly demonstrating this spiritual force as the lifeblood and true currency that gives value to all relationships as well as forming the glue that holds all things together in loving coherence.
Imagine what will it be like to live in a society where everything and everyone is perceived and held to be an integral, intimate and interdependent part of one seamless web of Life (Principle of Unanimity).
This dream of a preferred future will naturally be precipitated and manifested on Earth when the Soul becomes a source of inspiration and the light of its love dispels the obscuring clouds ignorance, separateness and self-centeredness. At the heart of our Inner Sun burns the Fire of Love – the atomic nucleus and central core of our essential nature – that, when activated, shines forth as our gift to Life.
“The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”
~ Teilhard de Chardin
Michael Lindfield
Board President