Prema Jyothi – January 2025

31 Dec

Newsletter of the Sacred Earth Community

"Let your light shine. Be not afraid to show your light to the world. Let everyone shine with the inner Light of Love, for that Light you are. It arises from Love and merges into Love.” Sai – Inner message

Namaste. In spirituality we often talk about light. We talk of enlightenment, or the inner light. What do we really understand about what this means? External light has been studied scientifically for a long time. What do we know about the inner, spiritual light.

Light is the most subtle, yet the most profound element in our lives. It is the enduring continuity within an ever-changing world. It disappears at night, but it is always there in another part of the world. The sun rises each day, whether we wish it to or not. We are the children of light, and it is light that enables us to have our very existence.

There is great beauty in the dawning of the day, when the sunlight kisses the earth. We feel uplifted in that moment between night and day. We often feel a sense of calm within. Within that calm we can begin to sense an inner light. We begin to remember that: in the darkest of days – we are the light; in the deepest of sorrow – we are the light; in joy or sadness – we remain the light.

In spirituality, Light takes on a new meaning. We talk of: the ‘light of wisdom’; the ‘light of knowledge’; the ‘light of love’. We consider Self-Realisation as enLIGHTenment. Light is not only a metaphor for inner awareness, but it becomes a powerful instrument to awaken awareness. Inner light can be perceived when we venture inside ourselves. It becomes tangible and fully evident in our meditation.

The role of light in our spiritual evolution is worth exploring. This issue of Prema Jyothi (the Light of Love) is dedicated to the inner light that is within all of us. We are the Light that we seek.

- Satyavan

The Inner Light

If the darkness of ignorance is to be dispelled, man needs a container, oil, wick and a matchbox corresponding to what an external lamp needs. For man, the heart is the container. The mind is the wick. Love is the oil and vairagya (sacrifice) is the matchbox. When you have these four, Atma-jyothi (the Divine flame of the Spirit) shines effulgently. When the light of the Spirit is aflame, the Light of Knowledge appears and dispels the darkness of ignorance. – Sathya Sai Baba

Just as when we walk in the dark night, we require a torch of some kind, so too when we walk in the darkness of ignorance of our true nature, we require the Atma Jyothi, the light of the knowledge of the Self within, to see the way ahead. Atma Jyothi could be explained away as a metaphor for wisdom arising from within us. But is it more than that? Is it a reality - a perceivable light? In meditation, many seekers have described sensing an inner light and some sensitive people are able to see the light around living organisms. Is this illusion or is it something real?

When we see a person who is super-healthy or super-intelligent, we say that they are ‘bright’. So too, in the spiritual sense, when someone appears to have a profound and effective spiritual practice, there is a brightness in the eyes and the face that can be perceived. Is this an effect created by inner light?

There is real evidence of the action of endogenous photons (packets of light) in all cells. These are weak light emissions that seem to be produced by cellular physiology. They have been postulated as a mechanism for cell-cell communication, among other functions. Fritz Popp, a biophysicist who pioneered the exploration into the bio-photonic nature of cells, explains

“We know today that man, essentially, is a being of light. And the modern science of photobiology … is presently proving this. In terms of healing, the implications are immense. We now know, for example, that quanta of light can initiate, or arrest, cascade-like reactions in the cells, and that genetic cellular damage can be virtually repaired, within hours, by faint beams of light. We are still on the threshold of fully understanding the complex relationship between light and life, but we can now say emphatically, that the function of our entire metabolism in dependent on light.”

Light around a hand photographed with Kirilian technology

Popp showed that the surface of our skin ‘glows’ with an unseen light. In yogic anatomy there are five sheaths, called koshas or shariras, that make up the human organism and house the atma or soul. One of these is called the pranamayakosha (the energetic body). Perhaps this ‘glow’ is evidence of such a possibility and part of the puzzle of this inner light. Certain yogic techniques are designed to create health utilising the pranamayakosha to increase vitality in the body.

The concept of prana (mauri in Te Reo Māori), the life force, is a commonly accepted phenomenon in many cultures. Because of the difficulty in measuring it, modern science has not embraced this concept, in fact rejects it outright in most cases. However, Rupert Sheldrake, a modern biologist pioneered research into what he called morphogenetic fields. He concludes that there is a universal field that connects everything in this cosmos. Prana is said to create a field around the body. This field provides a source of health and bodily heat that can be utilised by yogis to keep the body young and to perform feats like being able to go naked in snow. (There is footage of Sai walking barefoot in snow.) As time evolves, it is certain that our understanding of light, fields and life force will grow.

The science of kriya yoga made popular by Yogananda in his book Autobiography of a Yogi is centred around the concepts of prana and life force fields, which can be utilised to bring about Self-Realisation through various techniques that work with inner light. Although science has not investigated kriya to any great degree, countless practitioners can attest to its benefits, which include physical, psychological and spiritual benefits.

The meditation that Sai has taught us is a meditation on inner light using visualisation. (NB. modern psychological practices utilise imagery in therapy, although the explanation of its effectiveness is generally attributed to changes in neural connectivity.) Visualisation has been utilised widely, with people reporting useful results in stress management and reducing anxiety, etc. In our spiritual journey, it is a powerful tool to bring about changes in the body’s energetic physiology, allowing our true nature to be more and more evident.

We are essentially ‘light beings encased in a body-mind complex’. What are the implications of this?

Shine your Light

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do humans light a candle and put it under a basket, but on a candlestick, and it gives light for all that are in the house. Let your Light shine before all, that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.”

The above quote from Jesus is a reminder that whatever we have been blessed with is not just for us, but to be shared with all. If we develop a ‘spiritual splendour’ within, then it cannot be kept inside, but it must translate into acts of service to creation.

Savitri undertook a research project, completed in 2013, where she interviewed spiritual practitioners in India. The thesis emerging from this project is titled, “From the self to the Self” and was essentially investigating the process and outcomes of Self-Realisation from a practitioner’s point of view. The following two quotes from participants are worthy of contemplation.

“

When you go beyond the ego you become an offering to the world.”

“He [the Self-realised] is always ready to give. He exists only for others. And in this, he has joy.”

If a river is dammed, water backs up and it can neither quench the thirst of the people downstream, nor reach the ocean. It is the same with spiritual development that does not result in service to creation nor in supreme realisation. All the great spiritual masters, in history and the present day, work tirelessly for human evolution and the welfare of all creation, all beings. The Sanskrit prayer, Samastha Loka Sukhino Bhavanthu (May all beings in all the worlds be happy), is the spontaneous outpouring of the light that resides in our deepest consciousness.

Light is not only a powerful force in our own evolution, but in the evolution of all creation. The Gayatri Mantra is found in the Rig Veda (10th book, 16th verse), which is the oldest known text of humankind. It praises the light from the sun and is a prayer to awaken the inner intelligence. - Satyavan

Chanting the Gayatri daily (at least three times will enable our mind to receive the light of wisdom from the inner Sun - the Supreme Self, God or Pure Consciousness (whichever iteration you like to use). We become illuminated from within. Whilst we associate Gayatri with the sun, it is the inner light that is most important.

Whilst inner light gives us (often) amazing experiences, how do we translate these into our daily lives? The Gayatri gives us a clue when it identifies increased intelligence as the result of the chanting (called japa in yoga). Such intelligence lights the way to living a dharmic life aligned with our purpose and responsive to the needs in any given situation. So we begin to allow our truth, our inner guiding light, to shine. This can lead to being more loving and kinder, but also can lead to handling life’s situations with skill and wisdom, to knowing what to do in life’s dilemmas that we all experience from time to time.

Developing discrimination has another benefit within the spiritual path. We begin to see what our own reality is – not the mind’s notion of reality, but the reality of our own inner being. We begin to loose ourselves from the tyranny of our whims and wishes – our desires, which can bind us tighter to ignorance and lead to often disastrous situations. Consider plays that fall into the genre tragedies, like Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It is desire that leads to the death of both King Macbeth and his wife. This is the case in many tragic plays, books and even real-life examples. Illuminating our intelligence allows us to foresee the consequences of any actions motivated by desire and taking a different course.

Inner light shines through our lives in positive and powerful ways. As Jesus states, we need to let our light shine, not in an egotistical manner, but in a way that sets an example, and potentially illuminates humanity. The great and revered people who we set as examples; Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Oskar Schindler or Mother Theresa (the list is long), all shone their light, not because they wished to be well-known or remembered, but because it was the need of the hour. That is the Light of Dharma. That is the Light of Truth. May we all shine our Light brightly. -Satyavan

The light from the heart (Atma) illumines the mind and enables it to see the external world. Without this illumination the mind cannot comprehend the world. The mind is like the moon which receives its light from the sun. It has no light of its own. It shines because of the light from the Atma. When the sun shines, the moon is hardly visible. Likewise, when there is awareness of the Atma, the mind is not perceivable. The Atma is the basis for everything.

Sathya Sai