Holding the light steady in the dark and the wind.
This is another of those ancient sayings.
It is an image that has stayed with me for many years and sums up so much of our task on the path. As a thought, an image, we can take it into our consciousness and allow it to vibrate a life of its own.
It has numerous meanings, and I will cover a few here:
In our daily life.
Here the light means our full functioning with all our knowledge and capacity available and operating. There are times we move through the world, in day or night, like a multi-armed Hindu God. One hand is our awareness, remembering ourselves, and alert. Another hand is our task before us, with which we feel confident and competent. Another hand is our relationships, if not swinging all the time, at least satisfactorily functional - you can’t expect relationships to always be on an up. Another hand is on our financial security, another on our physical health, and another is pondering the deeper mysteries of life. Another hand has the door closed on all our dark threads, and only the gold threads gleam in our light. We walk like Vishnu, juggling all these balls with skill and joy. Our light shines bright, and why not? Everything is going our way.
Then there other times, when our whole edifice of glory comes crashing down. Pandora’s box opens, and our creep the dark threads. We don’t give a shit about our spiritual crap, our body aches, our mind harbours dead rats. Life hurls bummer after bummer at us, and we wish the whole damn mess would just blow away, or at least we would blow away. It’s easy to hold the light steady when the weather is calm and balmy. But when the night comes down, and the wind blows a chill into our bones - can we hold the light steady then? Can we warm our own bones, light our own confidence, shine on the path with our own beam? This is not easy. This is where we have to have strong hands, and a strong light.
In meditation.
Here the light is our self-awareness, held steady with our will. Silence of the mind, sustained in the darkness of the unknown. We sit in the absence of self-created images, self-created universe - we sit in the darkness of release. Release from movement, release from emotion, release from thought, release from our personality, relaese from the world, and we wait, holding only our pure awareness. That is the image of true meditation... after we stop and reflect, or to call us back in.
The hands.
I especially like the idea of ‘holding’. We normally hold with our hands. The hands are things of wonder, they create our future, and manifest our past into the present. With our hands we touch the sex of our lover. With our hands we hold the spoon of our old parents, for them to eat when they have become too frail to use their own hands. With our hands we smooth the ointment on the wounds of the hurt. With our hands we build houses and vehicles. With our hands we write to our friends, and we create artistic beauty, expressions of our soul. With our hands we hold them together in prayer, offering and receiving. With our hands we manifest outwardly the knowledge we have attained in the past, and in that very action of manifesting, we learn new knowledge which builds the world we move into in our future, even after death. The hands also hold our light. This is intimate. Like a candle we hold with one hand and protect from the wind with the other.
The darkness.
Nasrudin was asked which was more important, the sun or the moon. “The moon, of course!” he said, “because it shines at night when we need it.”
It is easy to see our way when the sun lights up the road. It is easy to know what to when the world give you confidence, and people look in your eyes with acceptance and agreement. But there are many times on any road, when darkness falls, and we have to walk on blind. When people around reject us, blame us, refuse us, and despise us. When all we see is criticism. Then we have to reach into our heart, and bring forth our own light. To walk in the direction we know to be right, only by some inner conviction.
Once on the high plateau of Tibet, in the snow and biting wind, Alexandra David-Kneel and her companions lost the trail. They had to cross a plane and find the path again through the hills at the other end. There was no sign of where the right track was, and to miss it would most certainly be fatal for them. She knew what to do. She knew she was the only one who had the strength of inner light. She simply said, “Follow me.” and off they went into the snow. They found the path when they reached the hills. She, in the absence of a road, laid down the road herself, out of her own will and awareness. That is what we all have to do when we enter the darkness of the path.
The wind.
Emotion. Desires. Cruelty of fate. All these try to blow out our flame. Merciless, and depressing. The world can serve up so much of the rolling force, and it punches at out solar plexus. Again and again, punch after punch. If not the world, then we have the insanity of doing it to ourselves. The wind blows around the house, rattling the doors and windows, forcing the smoke back down the chimney and into our room of safety, where we have a flame. If we haven’t built our house strongly, then the flame can be snuffed by a gust. The hands again, build our inner house, our inner room, our sanctuary, in which we host the eternal flame. This is the symbol of our love - our love of everything - love has no object or cause. We love because we love because we love.
Michael Maher 2007
