Prema Jyothi April 2024
Newsletter of the Sacred Earth Community
Light illuminates the universe. The light that flows directly from the One, is brilliantly luminescent because it is emanating from the ocean of consciousness at the heart creation.
Spiritual Light is the divine energy or consciousness that illuminates one’s inner being. It plays a significant role in our personal transformation and growth. It helps us to connect with our inner selves and tap into our own source of wisdom and power, so we can transcend limitations and live our lives with greater purpose, clarity, and compassion.
This Divine light is always existing within but remains hidden while we are identified with the ego self. It takes patience and commitment to stop looking outside of ourselves for validation, safety, self-worth, acceptance, love and connectedness, and to turn to the light within. The journey of awakening to our true nature, allows this light to reveal itself in greater and greater levels. It expands our capacity to hold and elevate light and love for ourselves and others by incrementally stripping away layers of the ego self.
We can cultivate this expanding inner light through meditation and other spiritual practices and coming into deeper relationship with our own Divine nature. As unconditional love towards God, self and others expands, we begin to inwardly glow with a more radiant and resplendent light that will be seen by the spiritual eyes of others and will touch the hearts, minds and souls of humanity.
Let our Divine light shine so brightly that others are guided to God’s light in their own selves. This is the highest service we can do for humanity. Be God’s love. Be God’s light. – Savitri
The Buddhi - Doorway to Power and Deep Insight
I discovered the incredible power of the buddhi, or higher mind, when I was struggling to meditate at my first yoga training in India and wrestling with the ‘monkey mind’. Instead of continuing this war against the mind I started to feel deep gratitude for it, and everything it brought to my life. It would let me know when a river was too deep, or a road to busy, to cross. It served me in so many incredible ways. I bowed to it in reverence and immense gratitude.
Immediately I was transported into another state of consciousness, centred in the buddhi. A stream of golden light was radiating from the forehead, and all of nature, the river, trees and mountains, revealed the shining light of intelligence that is their true essence. The everyday mind was seated behind. The buddhi had revealed its true nature and moved me to a higher state of perception. It had also freed me from the blocks that were preventing me from feeling truly connected and happy in that moment.
During the recent pilgrimage to India, when we were close to coming back to NZ, again my mind began to pull me towards the past and the future. Suddenly I found myself in a pillar of light which was pouring through me. The lower mind dissolved, and I came to rest in the fullness of being. The buddhi had shone the light of wisdom on the mind and purified it. The everyday mind no longer tried to dominate but was seated in its rightful place.
We have the power within ourselves to transform and awaken to our true nature. When we are sincere, help will come from many directions, and the grace within will align with the intelligence of not just the shining light of the buddhi, but the illumination of universe itself. Nature is designed to carry us home! - Savitri
Returning to Source – Returning to light
On the spiritual path we seek to unfold our God like nature in our innermost being and this brings into more and more connection with omnipresent Divine light. This light is but the radiance of our own true inner essence, which reflects the eternal, divine cosmic light.
In a vast universe we are tiny particles of light returning to our source. The Divine energy or presence that pervades everything in the universe is full of light. We are waking in light. This is not a physical light, but a reflection of the infinite divine energy emerging from infinity.
On the spiritual path we seek to unfold our God like nature in our innermost being and this brings into more and more connection with omnipresent Divine light. This light is but the radiance of our own true inner essence, which reflects the eternal, divine cosmic light.
Vedantic scriptures repeatedly describe the glory of the inner light which is our true Self. The Bhagavad Gita prescribes a basic way to find this inner light. Concentration, withdrawing the mind from thought and directing it to the Atman – the shining Self within us all. God is known as the light of consciousness; Self-knowledge is total illumination. As Mundaka Upanishad states, by knowing the Self we find the inner light.
- Savitri
The Inner Light of Consciousness – Heart Light
As we have explored in this newsletter, the inner light reflects the Divine Light that is the radiance of consciousness. For many, that light is experienced deep inside the head, the so-called third eye (Ajna Chakra). However, as we progress further, and more deeply, on the inward journey we awaken to a new awareness or opening of the heart centre. This centre, called the Hridaya in Sanskrit, is located (or more accurately - intersects with the physical body) just to the right of the sternum, mirroring the physical heart. In the hridaya there is no separation and everything falls into oneness, into a radiance beyond all mental understanding. This can be termed the Heart Light. From the depth of the spiritual heart there is the most subtle and pervasive light that creates its own field and penetrates all the levels of creation.
The Heart Field
The awakened heart produces a field of heightened awareness. The more we centre ourselves in the heart, the stronger our being expands out from the body. This produces a sense of becoming larger than our bodies and also, we begin to ‘contain’ our surroundings within that field of awareness. This is accompanied by a strong blissful sensation, not just within the heart, but throughout the whole body.
The Heart Web
The Heart Web is simply the network of light that the Heart Field connects with. This network does not only span the planet, but all creation, across all levels: physical creation, astral creation; and causal creation[2]. It connects our light, the light of atma, with all other beings. Collectively we make Paramatma, the supreme One that is all and yet beyond all. Most often we connect with the planetary web. When our field is attuned the influence of the Great Rishis and Masters can be felt. It is also how these wise ones communicate across the planet and the cosmos.
- Satyavan
NB. The astral plane is the realm of being where souls have no physical bodies associated with them. These levels of being are not layered (i.e. it is not a vertical hierarchy but intersection with the physical plan in a very real sense).
The Causal plane is the level which contains the ‘blueprint’ for all of creation. There are great Masters who dwell in this plane only, ensuring that creation is stable, and preventing dissolution of all the other levels of existence, until the end of the Maha-Yuga (the cycle of the ages).
Remove the Curtains
Enlightenment is not a goal to be attained, it simply means living in the light. If you are in a dark room and the sun is shining outside, it is not about bringing the light as the sun is already shining. It is about removing the curtains that block the sun. Enlightenment is not about becoming something else or going somewhere, it is about removing the curtains that block the sun.
This can happen instantaneously. We have to let go our attachment to the dark. Where light is there is no darkness, but we are attached to our egos. When we are enlightened, we are no longer holding on to the ego. So, the amount of enlightenment we have is to do with the amount we hold on to our mental constructs and idea of how things should be. Enlightenment can only occur when there is space, and that space is created by humility. We need to acknowledge we are living in darkness and want to allow the sun in.
What are the curtains between us and the light? Holding on to the past and the future, pushing against aspects of the present, holding on to worldly desires, harbouring grudges and not looking at our shortcomings. So, we keep the curtain there. In many ways it can feel safer to live in the dark. We know it. We can feel good about ourselves when living in the ego.
It takes courage to begin to face ourselves and gradually remove the curtain. As soon as we pull it just a little open, light will pour in and the love in the universe will pour in to help us reach enlightenment. – Savitri
Gayatri - Lightbringer
Gayatri, Savitri and Saraswati are latent in everybody. Bhur, Bhuvah, and Suvah in the Gayatri mantra refer to body (materialization), life-force (vibration) and soul (radiation). Bhur means Bhuloka (the earth), which is nothing but the combination of materials. This denotes the human body, which is also a combination of materials. Bhuvah refers to the lifeforce, which makes the body vibrate. Suvah refers to Prajnana Shakti, which sustains the life-force. This Prajnana Shakti is known as Constant Integrated Awareness. This is also termed as radiation. All the three, namely, materialization, vibration and radiation are present in man. I tell you often, you are not one, but three - the one you think you are (physical body), the one others think you are (mental body) and the one you really are (Atma). Sathya Sai Baba 2000
This mantra is the heart of the Rig Veda (the oldest of the Vedas). The Vedas have no author as they were cognised – heard by the inner ear, the intuition, of the Rishis. Therefore, the Vedas are considered as sruti – heard in the deep recesses of being. This mantra was revealed by Vishwamitra who, it is said, travelled to the sun to receive the divine hymn or mantra. That would be appropriate as it is a prayer asking for the radiance of the sun to illuminate our intellect.
The Gayatri must be chanted by the heart, not the mind or the lips but from the heart. Chant out loud but let the sound arise from deep within the heart. You will be blessed.
Gayatri brings more than light, it is radiance that carries with it the peaceful service that the sun brings to Earth. Its energy is beyond perceptible light. It is the illumination that corrects the buddhi and reaches beyond the physical, across all realms. It touches mind, both human and cosmic and its radiance fills the heart, creating a web of light reaching out to all creation, carried far beyond human comprehension. All the sages, both earthly and celestial bow to the power of Gayatri.
To have full power, the correct pronunciation and intonation when Gayatri is chanted is essential. However, the Gayatri must be chanted from the heart, not the mind or the lips, but from the heart. Chant out loud but let the sound arise from deep within the heart. When it is chanted correctly the light is generated in the heart and sent through the heart-web (the network of light that connects the heart to all that is).
Gayatri soars above all other mantras save Om and Aham.
- Satyavan
Sathya Sai Meditation on Light
“Set aside a few minutes, every day, in the beginning for this; later, you are sure to extend the period, when you experience the thrill of peace. Let it be the hours before dawn. This is preferable because the body: is refreshed by sleep and the peregrinations of daytime have yet to impinge on the senses and distract physical and mental energy. Have a lamp, with a bright little flame, steady and straight, or a candle, before you. The flame does not diminish in lustre; however, many lamps may be lit therefrom. So, the flame is the most appropriate symbol of the eternal Absolute.
Sit in the padmasana (lotus posture) or any comfortable asana, in front of the flame. Look on the flame steadily and closing your eyes, try to feel it inside you, between your eyebrows. From there, let it descend down into the lotus of your heart, illumining the path. When it enters the heart, in the centre of the chest, imagine that the petals of the lotus bud open out, one by one, bathing every thought, feeling, emotion and impulse in the Light and removing darkness. There is no space now for darkness to take refuge; it has to flee before the flame. Imagine that the Light becomes wider, bigger, brighter. It pervades the limbs; they can no more busy themselves in dark, wicked, suspicious activities. They have become, you are conscious of it, instruments of Light, that is to say, of Love. The Light reaches the tongue. Falsehood, slander, bragging, spite vanish from it. It reaches the eyes and the ears. All dark desires that infest and infect them are destroyed by the brilliant Light of Wisdom and Virtue. No more puerility, no more poisoning of the ear. Let your head be charged with Light; all wicked, vicious thoughts disappear, for, these are denizens of darkness. Imagine that Light in you more and more intensely - and it will be so. Let it shine all around you, enveloping you in the brilliance of Love; let it spread from you, in ever widening circles, taking into its fold your kith and kin, the loved ones, friends, companions - nay, strangers, foes, rivals, enemies - all men all over the world, all living beings - all Creation.” Sai Baba 1968
