July 29, 2010
Each of you surrounds the light, just as you are surrounded by the light. You surround the light much as you surround the candlelight. The candle has its presence, its light, but at the same time each of you reflects that light. You absorb its energy in part, and you reflect its energy beyond your reach. What you absorb you cannot see. You may see with your eyes, but you don’t fully see what is taken in by that light. You do however see evidence of its reflection. The reflection is an indication of the presence of that candlelight, for without the light there would be no reflection. Despite what you can see, there is no way to fully know the energy that you are absorbing.
Light consists of energy. Some of that energy is in the form of particles that you can measure. Some of that energy is heat, but you cannot easily observe what you are absorbing. You can only accept what you get from the candles through faith. You can be aware intellectually of those energy particles, but the real evidence is missing from your own personal experience.
And so it is with God. You can see reflections of God, the spiritual energy, the Spirit Center, in others, but it is more difficult to sense that part of God that you are actually absorbing by the mere reality of your life. Nevertheless that absorption takes place. Every human being absorbs God’s energy, just as everyone in this room is absorbing some energy from the candlelight.
What is it that you absorb from God? The energy that you bring into your own being is an energy of vision. It is a kind of vision that does not involve your physical sight, but it is a vision which can evolve into insight. What is insight? It is vision directed inward. It is awareness of a presence inside that provides for understanding of what is outside.
You are absorbing light from the candles, but you are also in a very real sense absorbing the light reflected by each of you. That reflection is not from a single source, for you are reflecting the light of the candle and you are reflecting the light of those around you. What you do reflect is not in a single direction but is all over. The light that you reflect also has a presence in the room. You don’t sense your impact on reflecting light on the walls, on the ceiling, on the furniture, but that reflection nevertheless is there. What is it that you are reflecting? You are reflecting in your own way the same light that you are facing. It may be dimmer, it may be another color, but it is still a reflection of what you all are sharing.
The love that is God is reflected in the same way as the light from the candles. You cannot know the impact of what you reflect, but you can acknowledge a belief that what you reflect has an impact. What you reflect has a presence. A mirror reflects much and absorbs little. You absorb much and reflect little. The difference between the mirror and you is in effect no different from a contrast between your own ability to reflect and absorb and the ability of someone next to you to reflect and absorb. When there is more that is absorbed, there is less that is reflected. When there is more reflected, there is less absorbed. The two together are in total no greater than that of someone else. It is only a difference in the energy—some energy is absorbed, some energy is aimed outward.
Every person you encounter has a different mode of absorbing and reflecting, but everyone exchanges this energy in equal portion. The energy comes from God. The energy is God. What you reflect is in part what God is. God is love, and therefore all that is reflected and absorbed is love.
You cannot approach the presence of another and feel with certainty that another is totally consumed in darkness. That individual that seems to radiate little light is in fact absorbing that light, and may in fact be absorbing more than you are.
Your own lives are transformed from reflection to absorption and back to reflection. Human life is a dynamic life. The change in this energy pattern is constant. It is never static, never remains in one form for any length of time as you would measure it. Each of you is constantly absorbing and reflecting. If you are reflecting to a surface that is dark, then less is reflected back to you, but all that you reflect nevertheless becomes a part of the individual beside you.
This analogy of light, candlelight, a point source, is a direct relationship to the reality of your own spiritual light, your own personal illumination. As you reflect, you are in your own way spreading light just as the candle spreads light. The candle is the source of your light. God is the source of your loving energy. The candle can be said to be a point source. It is identifiable. That light comes from a place that you can actually identify. God’s light does not come from a place, but comes from a source that has no place. It is merely a presence, and it is a presence that is everywhere, but it is still the presence of God, the presence of the energy that has created everything.
When you pray, you are increasing your capacity to both absorb and reflect. In absorbing, you are growing. Absorption is much like the nurturing of a plant. The water that is needed, the nutrients that are needed allow the plant to grow. What you absorb allows your own spirit center to grow, but you also have an ability to reflect light. You don’t create it, but you do reflect it. The light that is within you strengthens you, and thereby changes the balance between what is absorbed and what is reflected.
As you enter phases of being filled with light, you are more capable of reflecting God’s light to others. The energy within is a resource that allows you to more effectively reflect the love that is still being directed toward you. That energy from God does not stop when you feel in some way fulfilled, and then you just take your energy and push it out. You need the energy that you have absorbed. Your spirit needs that connection to God, and thereby changes what you accept and receive into becoming a being that reflects, that gives. Prayer in listening is really enabling you to be filled so that you are able then in turn to reflect.
The balance we often speak of that comes through prayer is this balance between the love you receive and the loving light that you reflect. It is a balance that changes constantly. In prayer, the reflection is increased as a result of what you’ve taken into your soul, and that reflection spreads God’s light, spreads that energy, and the light is increased. A single candle surrounded by many mirrors creates much light. A single candle surrounded by black cloth reflects and creates less visible light.
How do you pray? You pray to be open, you pray to be filled, and in so doing you become more capable of reaching out in compassion. You become more capable of illuminating the life, the path of others.
Your lives are sometimes filled with great needs. They’re filled with vulnerability. But at other moments you are less vulnerable, and you are occupied by reflecting your beliefs. The exercise of beliefs is an exercise of reflection, for it is creating an environment that allows the light to be multiplied.
You exist because there is a need to multiply the light of the candles. Candles are the beginning, but it is you, it is your spirit, that is designed to take that point source and spread it around the room to illuminate humanity, to share with others. In sharing with others, you are also absorbing what others reflect. This process is constantly in flux. But you are given life to expand light, each of you in your own way, each of you with your own intensity. The light multiplies. Love grows.
We speak of darkness as not having an energy of its own but a presence. The dark cloth surrounding the candle is indeed present and yet reflects very little. It does absorb. Your lives are to reflect, but your lives are also meant to absorb.
The question arose tonight about “why God.” It is the essential question of existence, for if nothing existed, there would be no energy. There would be no God. The reality is existence in some form or another has always been. People speak of the theory of the Big Bang, the beginning of the universe. There is some truth to that, but it is also true that there are many universes. There are many levels of existence. You exist in your own universe. You exist as part of your own constellation. The sun is part of that constellation. The planets respond to the existence of the sun. But this is only your own universe. There are other forms of reality based on energy, an energy that human beings have not learned to identify.
You must have faith in this reality of many forms of existence, the whole concept of something existing which never had a beginning. There has always been existence, for there is always a presence, there is always a present, there is always a now. That now is the existence that is permanent. The energy that allows for now in all universes is God.
Human beings are incapable of comprehending something that is never begun. It just is. You say God Is. That is a true statement, but far more profound than human beings can accommodate. You exist for the simple reason that God Is. There is not a purpose to the fact of existence, for if there were a purpose, then there would be a logic, a reason for existence, but there is no reason. It just is, because God just is. There was not a force that created this energy source that we refer to as God because then there would be something that was responsible for the creation of God. We cannot explain why there is a God, because there is no rationality or argument that can be debated to resolve the question. Just as soon as you make a decision, then you must assume that a decision was made at some point, and there clearly was no decision made to create God.
The concepts of God, why God, why anything, will be much clearer to you when you are ultimately in spirit-form. Suffice it to say that God exists because God exists. That is all you can say. It is the full truth and yet beyond your comprehension. Your lives reflect what they reflect when they reflect it. Your lives absorb what they absorb when they absorb it. Allow your lives to be fluid in their giving and receiving, in their reflection and in their absorption. Accept your lives when you feel the light and when that light seems hidden. You reflect because you absorb. You give because you have received. Everyone experiences the same loving energy of God, but all are in their own flux of giving and receiving, of reflecting and absorbing.
You’re asked to believe and not to know. You’re asked to live in faith without having concrete evidence. You’re asked to reflect; you’re asked to absorb. You cannot judge another because there is not a perfect relationship between giving and receiving. You are exchanging energy. You are exchanging the same amount of energy as your neighbor. All human beings are in the process of that exchange.
We, your guides, speak to you through this exchange. You listen, you hear, you act. You listen, you hear, you act. It is our blessing gift to you to help in this exchange, and in understanding its reality, you are given that insight that provides your interaction with all of creation.
Be blessed through your insight. Be blessed in your beliefs.
Amen.