Inside all of us there is a light. The light is our personal beliefs, our philosophy, our way of looking at the world.
The more true our philosophy is, the more real our beliefs, the brighter that light shines.
When our beliefs match with the truth of the world, with the spiritual reality behind it all, our light shines bright like the sun. When our inner reality is out of tune with truth, our light is dimmed, unable to draw power from God, from the spiritual world of ideas, from the power of ethereal reality.
That’s why we are drawn to the people who glow, the people who we see “possess” something, who have a truth within. We see that they have access to something, that they’re plugged into that power source, and we want to turn that light on within ourselves.
And it makes sense. A person who has that light, they are a natural force, no different than time and space. They have access to reality on a level that so many others do not. And if we want to access spiritual truth we need those people to help us connect.
But there is another to this all. Something we often forget when we gravitate towards or away from people.
See, because there’s more to us than just that inner light of truth. That connection to a higher reality.
Because we are also physical, limited, tethered things. We have bodies. Bodies with a physical brain, a mouth, hands. And how we use those faculties directly affects how easily the outside world can see our light.
In other words, our bodies (and specifically our actions and speech) are windows. They are a window into our inner reality.
Now, a window is great. It allows us to see within an enclosure, into a world which would normally be hidden to us.
But a window needs to be clear if we want to see through it. And the thing is, most of us are not so great at keeping our windows clean. We forget to take out our cleaning supplies and wipe them down daily. In fact, most of us wait a few weeks, months, or even years before we look through that window. Some don’t even know about that window, God forbid.
And so the windows get covered in grime, in dirt, and especially in whatever worldly things we come in contact with. The further away it is from our personal truth, the dirtier the window gets.
This is a big part of the reason we can’t completely trust many of the people who inspire us. There may be a part of their window that is clear, a part of themselves that allows the light to shine bright and clear, so we see that they have access to something beautiful. But as we get closer, and we see there is more to the window, as we see they don’t live their lives as perfectly as we thought, we become increasingly disillusioned and we wonder if even that bright spot was real.
And then there are other people with weak lights. People who believe in something small, something not so connected to truth. But their window is clear. After all, it is much easier to keep a window without much light coming from it clean. The blemishes are harder for people to notice.
No wonder, then, that so many people gravitate towards small people, small ideas, small realities. It is easier for everyone to manage a smaller light. It’s also clearer.
But the problem with that is the closer we get, the less and less we get. A bright light lets us see more and more the closer we get. A small light does so only minimally.
But the worst is the people with dirty windows. People that don’t even have a bright light to show. Because they mingle with the other people with the bright lights. They try and pretend like their window is clear. They put up artificial lights. They put decorations around their windows. They do everything but clean the windows, because it is much easier to decorate than to work hard at scrubbing ourselves clean of all the excess dirt within ourselves that we’ve built up over the years.
And then the people that saw those bright lights from afar start to wonder if they were tricked all along. They wonder if there is even such a thing as the light of spiritual truth. They wonder if everyone they ran into was a fraud, because they’ve been tricked over and over.
This is the problem with religious communities. Full of a bright light of truth that comes from the various people within, the dirtiness that covers so many ends up obscuring any good light.
And it is no wonder, then, that so many people would prefer to run away to the easier world, the world where the lights are less bright but the pain of looking through a window and realizing it was all a sham is less likely.
A month or two ago, I wrote that our beliefs are beyond people. I wrote about my disappointment in meeting “bad Jews” and how much this hurt my beliefs, and how that strengthened my thought that we need to access belief and forget about belief.
But this is simply not true. Other people are the windows into truth. They are the way we see that light we’re all trying to access. Whether we’re talking about people we actually know, or we’re reading the books written by them, it is people who are portal to truth. This is why having a mentor is so important. This is why parents have such an effect on the lives of their children.
Yes, beliefs will always matter more than people. Yes, truth and ideas will always be above the “bad” people, and we need to see past those dirty windows. But at the end of the day, we need people who can be our clear windows into a bright light of truth. Rather than giving up on people, we should invest in people more. We should work harder to find the rare people that have allowed themselves to tap into a strong power source and have made sure to clean their window every day.
It is only in that way that we can then be the access point for others around us. It is only then that reality can truly be accessed by the world. Until we realize that we matter, and that other people matter, and that, in fact, no belief or truth or idea will be able to penetrate without the people who allow it to shine through them… until we realize that, we’re lost. Living in a world of darkness of our own creation.
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