The Atma Jyoti Blog

A continuation of “The Yogi as the Light of the World”

We are aspirants, hardly world-changing masters, yet through our continual invocation of Om we can change the world for the better. Wherever a person is invoking the supreme, ultimate Name of God, Om, God is present, making the invoker a presence of God in the world. Wherever he goes, God goes. Whether he walks through stores, drives down a highway, or sits somewhere in a forest, he shines in the world. It says later in the Bible, “Ye shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15). So we see that the real benefactors of the world are those who fix their minds on God.

When we invoke the Pranava*, the Word of Life, Om, we are in touch with the entire field of creation, for it pervades all the creation. Therefore when Om is invoked, there is nothing in the whole cosmos that is not ultimately beneficially affected.

Swami Brahmananda explained that when you drop a rock in water, especially in a small pond, the waves go out to the side of the pond and then they come back and meet again in the middle. In the same way, he said, when the Name of God is spoken, it goes out like a ripple through the entire creation, and then comes back to us and blesses us. We speak of actions creating karma, but we forget that calling on the Name of God (both in and out of meditation) is the supreme karma, so that we create God-karma–God-consciousness karma–through japa* and meditation.

The lamp has no light of its own; the wick has no light of its own; the oil in the lamp has no light of its own; but when the fire is applied, then it becomes a source of light. God lights us, and it is God’s light that shines into the world through us. And yet it is our own light, as well.

We cannot hide or be hidden

“A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.”

We have a grave problem at this point in time. The forces of ignorance and anti-spirituality have for a long time been dinning away at spiritual people that they are not supposed to be “fanatics” or “unbalanced,” meaning that they are to be unseen and therefore ineffectual. “Religion is a private matter!” they fume, while having no objection to openly foul talk and the expression of hatred toward “legitimate” targets–that is “free speech,” apparently denied only to the religious or spiritual. Attempting to coerce others into negative or foolish behavior and ways of thought is just fine, but to merely speak of spiritual matters is to be “extreme” and “trying to cram your ideas down other people’s throats.”

Don’t fall into the trap! Forget not the words we have just recently considered: “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” We are supposed to be visible and–yes–pungent. We are supposed to be annoying to the servants of the dark, because we dissolve their whole world of darkness by being what we are. If we are not infuriating to them, then we are not of the light. That is why Jesus said not long before this: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

The principle “as above so below” applies here absolutely. If something is going on in our higher levels it will manifest on our lower levels, including our outer life. Spiritual life manifests right here in this world. People may not be able to define or express it, but they will know “something is going on” with us. The positive ones will like and appreciate us (even if they cannot articulate their reasons for doing so), and the negative ones will wish we would go away or die, (even trying to make that happen). However we may be reacted to, we will be visible. The light that we are will reveal us.

Next: Living on the Mountain of Higher Consciousness and Life

Definitions of words in the text above from A Brief Sanskrit Glossary.

• Pranava: A title of Om, meaning “Life-ness” or “Life-Giver.” Om is the expression or controller of prana–the life force within the individual being and the cosmos.
• Japa: Repetition of a mantra.

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