LIGHT AND DARKNESS

In the Bible, we are told that God is all Light but He creates Light and darkness. The only reason God creates darkness is to display the properties of Light; it is to make Himself known. In order to create darkness, God has to contract and produce a region of spiritual darkness within the Oneness of His Infinite Light. Within this darkness, He emanates an image of Himself or the Heavenly Man. But the only reason darkness exists is to manifest and expand the glory of God. And darkness is nothing in and of itself; it is simply the negation or lack of Light. We can say the same for our inner world: there is spiritual Light in our consciousness but there is also spiritual darkness [matter]. If spiritual Light is Truth or Reality, spiritual darkness must be falsehood or illusion. Like our outer world is enlightened by natural Light, our inner world must be enlightened by means of spiritual Light or Truth. If we want to understand the universe and our own being, we must stop lying to ourselves.

God, is Infinite Spiritual Light or Love. Divine Love cannot love itself; it can only delight in the joy of another. This is the meaning and essence of Love. And so, Love must realize itself infinitely. This is the reason for universal existence. The Purpose of the universe is Divine Love. This Love is realized by means of Truth or the Word of God. God continually creates beings on which He can bestow Love and Truth. All creatures or beings are vessels that receive God's Light, Being, Love and Truth. By being useful , wise and loving, all creatures return this Love to God.  This is the purpose of the universe, to realize Love by means of wise and useful actions.

But since Love is freedom itself, this Love must be realized freely and willingly. That means that human beings always have the freedom to be selfish and cruel. So the Tree of Light, also has a shadow, which is the tree of darkness. We fall into the tree of darkness when we stray from the purpose of the universe and choose to follow our own selfish ways. In effect, instead of understanding, loving, worshipping, and trusting spirit or God, we remain in spiritual darkness or ignorance and we love, worship and trust matter, things, money, the world and our own egotistical self.  But this only leads to a meaningless and empty existence. We can gain the whole world and lose our soul. So, this inner feeling of meaninglessness is a signal from the universe that we are not fulfilling the purpose for which we were created.

Man's soul essentially consists of Will and Understanding. It was designed to receive or understand the Truth and will or Love the Good. Heavenly or true Joy, in fact, only results from Loving God and our neighbor and being of use to them.

Divine Love is Substance and Divine Truth is its Form. Ideals, by themselves, are form without substance. We give our ideals and principles substance when we fuse them with the substance of Love by creative and useful actions. This is how we transform and regenerate our soul. It is not what we think and say that counts; it is what we will and do. "You shall know them by their works."