You Are the Light

By

Sri Swami Chidananda

This article is a chapter from the book Daily Swadhyaya.

A disciple rang up and asked for blessings that he may attain Illumination, and said: “Today (being Dipavali) all of India is illuminated with millions of lights taking away darkness. While everything is bright outside, but within me there is only darkness. The light of that inner awakening has not yet started to shine forth with me.”

The thing he had to do was to get rid of this wrong notion that there is no light within, that there is only spiritual darkness. “Who told you this? Have I not repeated many times, ‘I am in the Light. The Light is within me. I am the light’? Why cling to the wrong notion that there is no light within? Have not all the scriptures told you that the indwelling Divinity is your reality, that the Light of lights beyond all darkness shines in Its non-dual splendour where the knower, the Thing known and the process of knowledge sink into oblivion? The triplet disappears. There is only the experience of Consciousness. And that Light dwells in all hearts. Jyotishaamapi tajjyotistamasah paramuchyate; Jnaanam jneyam jnaanagamyam hridi sarvasya vishthitam – That, the Light of lights, is said to be beyond darkness; (That which is) knowledge, the knowable and the goal of the knowledge, abides in the hearts of all.” [Gita 13.17]

“You have only to stop thinking that there is no Light. You are the Light of lights, which can supply radiance to everything it comes into contact with. It can light up million lights. Establish yourself in an unshaken manner in this truth. Abide in the awareness: ‘Within me there is no darkness. I am the Light of lights. Divine radiance is my name. I can supply light to the whole world.’ Try to practise this truth. Abide in this fact. Do not be fearful of non-existent darkness.”

He answered: “Please bless me to understand all that you are saying.” Then I told him: “All these words are nothing but one hundred per cent blessing only. A spiritual teacher does not strike a pose, raise hand in some benedictory posture, and then pronounce in a big dignified way, ‘My son, I bless you. He lives blessings. He is blessings. What he says, what he speaks, what he is doing is blessing. He is nothing but perpetual blessing in all that he thinks, feels, speaks, acts and lives. The way that lives is also a blessing. Recognise the blessing. Know it as such. Blessing is there.” And I concluded, “You are the Light.”