בראשית היה תוהו ובוהו
In the beginning there was chaos – an infinite wonder and eternal wandering. Then a reverberation arises in the vast, formless emptiness in the first form – the permissive command “Let there be light.”
For light-workers and light lovers, the light is the first identification. The very identity of existence is formed in Genesis with the emergence of this light – “I am the light.” This is a primal act of identification – moment by moment – and identification implies division. The ‘separate self’ is born.
There is a multitudinous dimension of difference between the miraculous revelation that “I am the light,” and the closure inherent in the belief “I am only the light” – the reflex of identification.
If ‘I’ am only the light, then the light must be defended from the darkness – that chaos out of which it arose. It must be used like a weapon within the primordial darkness in order to maintain its form. This light becomes a sword of consciousness used to create, structure, survive, illuminate, reject and affirm. This light is espoused as if it is in direct antidote to darkness – the “other”.
Inherent to the belief of perception as an absolute end-point is the human narcissism. This is the bottom less pit of craving to “see” and “be seen”. This pit is bottomless because the source of seeing can never ultimately see itself.
Perception is all about light. Experience is all about light. Revelation is all about light. Without light, none of this would “be” – or so we believe when we remain addicted to the illusions of reflection – which is so close to the illusion of rejection.
Take the classical non-dual metaphor of the movie theatre – the empty screen – the projected images of all this life. Many stop with the electro magnetic energy of light generated by the projector. This is absolute, this is what I AM. Not the images that are facilitated by the light, but the light itself – pure, open, empty luminosity.
In this, the failure of the energy source of light (the bulb popped) is an amphitheatre of fear. No light. No source of illusion. Nothing except the walls, the broken projector, perhaps the flickering green WAY OUT sign to the street – where other dimensions are also alive in yet other frequencies of luminosity allowed by the same imperceptible source.
From Luminous to Numinous – Passing through Dimensions
With many metaphors, we are now pointing at the shifts between the perceptive windows of consciousness (the creative, awakened perceptive backdrop to cognition), awareness (the allowing, receptive, infinite backdrop to sentience) and perception through emptiness (that through which polarity collapses in unity beyond time and space). These three windows of perception are explored in greater detail in the book I AM HERE – Opening the Windows of Life & Beauty.
We pass from the suffering of identification with the luminous (which is a form of process and happening, illumination) to the unconditional space of the numinous, when we agree to release the creative clinging which states that perception defines who we are, that light is an end-point to existence, or that light is an absolute source of the whole.
In this clinging to the light, “BE the luminous awareness”, polarity is not avoided but actively created. The judgement is born against non-light – the un-illumined, the “chaos” or the “other” with which we refuse communion. Judgement between good and evil is conceived. Personal agenda is born, and all the suffering that comes with that. Bliss becomes fear, Ecstasy becomes dread, and Passion becomes condemnation.
Let’s return again to Genesis – so appropriate in these days in which the Jewish people initiate the cycle of reading the bible again from the very beginning.
In the beginning there was chaos. There was chaos – and this was ‘God’ – the one that gave permission for the light, the first form, to “be” of itself.
Applying it for Real
What does this mean, as we start up our morning, reach for the coffee, assess the stress of the coming day, and search for the joy, happiness, peace and homecoming that we would like to be part of it?
This is the shift from the luminous to the numinous – a quantum shift in opening the windows to life and beauty. When we acknowledge the “chaos” of multiple perspectives, the purity of the unconditional – the numinous source of all light and all forms, the source of our very “seeing” or “feeling” ourselves to be here and now, then there is a kind of alchemy.
We don’t go for the ‘now’ of consciousness or the experience of ‘being’ – this is good, but it is still form, perceivable, experienced. We go for those perceptive blinks, where perception is not. We hunt our non-perception with a wisdom which says that out of these blank spaces, perception itself is born, and out of that, all forms arise. In allowing these billiard perceptive blinks, in which we tune in constantly to our own source – the emptiness of the imperceptible – perception itself comes to life – as with Genesis, so with the kitchen sink.
In this, the windows of life and beauty truly begin to refine. As with all forms of addiction, all it takes is a little humility and a living acknowledgement of a greater power – one beyond any ego we could ever conceive or perceive into being. A greater power which is who we are – not only beyond any thing but behind, before, between, within, without, after, and ubiquitous to every space and every moment – the source where nothing and everything disappear in unity.
