The following passage comes from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, and it lights up my heart every time I read it. There’s something about light, both in its literal and its metaphorical sense, that I find exquisitely beautiful. Its use in this passage has the power to set you on fire for Truth:
“Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?’ Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.’”
The power of this saying, for me, resides in the awesome, almost numinous image of Abba Joseph – his hands stretched towards heaven, his fingers like lamps of fire, his words ablaze with wisdom. I imagine his eyes burning intensely with the full force of Conscious Light, the kind of intensity that you see in the eyes of Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, and Anandamayi Ma.
Or in YOUR eyes. That Light shines in you whether “you” are awake to that fact or not. In other words, you are already aflame. However, when you are awake to Awakeness or to the fact that you are already Pure Consciousness shining as the Knowing of your experience, another magnitude of Light shines from your eyes.
The Christian mystic John of the Cross referred to this Light as the “living flame of Love.” The sense of the “separate self” is drawn to that flame like a moth. The moth cannot survive; the flame cannot die.
Deep in your heart, you wish to “become all flame.” Do nothing to prevent or delay this self-immolation. It is calling you home.
“Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?’ Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.’”
The power of this saying, for me, resides in the awesome, almost numinous image of Abba Joseph – his hands stretched towards heaven, his fingers like lamps of fire, his words ablaze with wisdom. I imagine his eyes burning intensely with the full force of Conscious Light, the kind of intensity that you see in the eyes of Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, and Anandamayi Ma.
Or in YOUR eyes. That Light shines in you whether “you” are awake to that fact or not. In other words, you are already aflame. However, when you are awake to Awakeness or to the fact that you are already Pure Consciousness shining as the Knowing of your experience, another magnitude of Light shines from your eyes.
The Christian mystic John of the Cross referred to this Light as the “living flame of Love.” The sense of the “separate self” is drawn to that flame like a moth. The moth cannot survive; the flame cannot die.
Deep in your heart, you wish to “become all flame.” Do nothing to prevent or delay this self-immolation. It is calling you home.
Read/watch HERE
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