You are the Light of the World

When Jesus was teaching during the "Sermon on the Mount", he said something very interesting, very powerful. He said to the listeners, "You are the Light of the World". Now, why would he say something like that, if it were not true? And, if it were or is true, what exactly did he mean by that statement? It certainly must have meant something important for us today. Now, this Jesus fellow was not one to waste words. He did not have the time to do that sort of thing; so, I suspect, that he was telling the people then that "You are the Light of the World." He was telling you, he was telling me, he was telling all of us everyone, everywhere that has ever lived or will ever live "You are the Light of the World."

Now, at first we may feel that it is a little arrogant to believe this about ourselves. Yet, Jesus said it. He was absolutely clear. He didn't hedge his words. This was simply a statement of truth about you and about me. And, it is actually opposite of a statement of arrogance; because, it is not a statement that we made up about ourselves. It refers to you and to me, as we were created by the Creator. It simply states the truth about all of us.

Our human ego in its infinite confusion tells us that this is the top of our self glorification. But, you know that the human part of you really does not understand humility. Humility here consists of accepting your role in the world, your role. So once again, you have to ask is Jesus telling us the truth or is he a liar? And, you have to make that determination for yourself.

So if Jesus is really telling us the truth about all this, it is only your own arrogance that tells you that he must be wrong. And arrogance is always part of the human self or human ego. True humility requires that you accept Jesus' statement regarding this; for, it is really God, himself or herself, speaking. God or Spirit's voice is speaking to you from the pages of the New Testament, Matt. 5 verses 14-16. Your own inner voice says the same thing; for, "You really are the Light of the World."

Now, it is a funny thing about Christianity. We who claim that we are part of the various Christian denominations seem to pass over the things in the bible that we do not fully understand and press on vividly with what we do feel that we understand. And we often make big mistakes in our different interpretations. Two that come to mind to me are the Christian belief system that said, "Black people were less than human and they deserved to be slaves."People fought over this statement in our country for over hundreds of years, up until astonishing recently. And right now something similar is happening regarding the lives of gays and lesbians; not in our church, but, in many others.

And, here is this superbly wonderful teacher Jesus, whose given name was Joshua Bar Joseph, who left us this legacy so vast that after over 2000 years, we still are not totally able to grasp all of what he taught us, let alone live the kind of life that he lived. In the book of Matt. Chapter 5 (14-16) here is the passage regarding the light of the world: Jesus said, "You are the light of the world, a city that is set upon a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand, so that it gives light to all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven."

Now what does Jesus mean by his statement, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven."? Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, is not somewhere out there. No, they are right within each one of us. However, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, are not terms that we can understand and discuss in our world today. In ancient times, even in the middle ages, people had Kings and Kingdoms; but, we do not have those types of things today. Instead today we might say. "Let your light so shine before men so that they may see your good works and glorify the Spirit within you. Now, that I can understand. Your Spirit within is the very life force that animates your body. It is the life force that allows your eyes to work, your mouth to speak, your brain to function, your heart to beat, and your lungs to breathe. All of these parts work in you in concert. We think we are so cool; yet, we cannot even regulate our own heartbeat without help from Spirit. We might be able to slow down our heart beat or our breathing in meditation; but, we certainly cannot make our own skin or hair grow no matter how hard we may try to do it. And, yet we think we are so cool.

You see our God, our Spirit, our Life Force, whatever you call it is within us calling the shots; yet, it is our free will that gives us the force to make most of our decisions. When we choose God or Spirit, our light shines through us and into the world. When we choose fear, arrogance, irritation, anger, worry, etc, our light dims and we move through life more in darkness.

"You are the Light of the World". Jesus tells us that we are; so, it must be true. It is true as far as I am concerned in any case. Yet, if I am the light of the world, how do I express that? How do I, how do you, how do we let our light shine? Well, the first thing is that we have to come to the acceptance that Jesus is speaking the truth, when he makes that statement. You are it, you don't have to go anywhere to qualify for it, you don't have to even pray for it. It is already a done deal. All you, all I have to do is express that light.

Now, over the centuries, millions and millions of us have asked, "What is the purpose of life?" Books, stories, poems, and songs have all been written to ask that same question. And most of them have some kind of answer to go with their version of the question. And yet the answer is always right there in your mind and in your heart. And you can hear that answer in your soul, in your gut, when you listen for the inner voice of God in meditation. In fact the voice of Spirit is speaking to you in your heart at this very moment. We just need to listen. It is not so much an actual voice, it is more like a gut level feeling, a knowing, a nudge. Yet, the main thing that I have learned is that the voice of Spirit always moves you ever closer to the place where "You are the Light of the World". "It always moves you to the place where you let your light so shine before man that others may see your good works and glorify the Spirit within you".

Now, how is that working for you? For most of us it is done by choosing to see the world in in a different way, instead of seeing the world through the eyes of fear and violence, we choose to see the world in a state of love and peace.

Love and fear are present in every circumstance on our planet, as long as we are in this physical world. For, we live in a world of duality, left and right, up and down, light and dark, joy and sorrow, and so on. When you find yourself afraid, even the slightest bit irritated, catch yourself and stop. Take a deep slow breath and change your mind, choose love instead of fear and "You let your light shine". That is how easy it really is. Know that God, Spirit, the Life Force of the Universe is always present. Just shine your light on that person or that situation and see what happens.

Have you ever noticed how a certain person will walk into a room and the room just lights up? Why do you think that is? Some kind of magic? No, it is more simple than that. They are just being loving. They are letting their light shine, as they are genuinely glad to see you. Have you ever noticed the opposite happen? Someone new walks in the room and it seems as if a dark blanket has covered everything. The lights go dim. Well, they do not seem to be very glad to see you. Which person do you want to spend time with? Which person do you want to get to know?

Shine your light, shine your light. For most of us forgiveness is the first step in order to express that light in the world. At the level of consciousness where we are now. It appears that our biggest problems are our judgments, hurt feelings, upsets, essentially all that drama stuff. So once more I say that the first step for us to express our light in the world is forgiveness. And, I'm fairly certain that once we have forgiveness down at the core of our being, there will be ever more ways to express our Light in the World. Yet, true forgiveness is a fairly big jump for most of us to handle. So for now, starting today, each time that you get angry, resentful, scared, anxious, upset for any reason, recognize that you are calling upon your own weakness. And as you do that, you reinforce your own weakness and you make yourself more unstable emotionally and spiritually.

You are the Light of the World and each time you express that light, you become stronger and more powerful. So powerful that when you walk into a room, the room lights up even more. You are calling upon the Christ Consciousness within you, a power greater than your mortal self. We came into this life to express our God Self, our Light in the World, and we have many opportunities to do that. For me, when I am on this podium this is one of the opportunities that I have. I go up to the podium, begin to speak and the light of Barbara shines brighter. At the podium there is a different energy in me that takes place and that is the Light of the World that I am expressing. We came into this life to express God's love everywhere, not just for me at the podium, but everywhere I go. Love, peace, joy, happiness compassion that is the purpose of our life. And it begins right now with you and with me with forgiveness and will eventually move into even greater ways of expression. Every journey, every adventure, every change always begins with the first step. And the first step for you today begins by your forgiving me; better yet, by forgiving yourself for perceiving me in a way that causes you any kind of unrest. I may not have done anything; and yet, you have chosen to look at me and take offense. All that is going on inside of you; so begin by changing, by forgiving; just as I must do the same thing, when it comes to my thinking about something in you that upsets me, that causes me to take offense, when I look at you. Whenever we find ourselves upset for any reason, recognize that we have chosen to take offense; and, if we want to be happy and peaceful again, we must let that feeling go.

Today we begin by being the light of the world, by forgiving ourselves and everyone else around us. Today we will all have unlimited opportunities to forgive. So today begin to express your purpose in life, "to be the Light of the World". It is not hard to do. It is easy once we move all the other mixed-up thinking out of the way, then, out it comes: "Let your light so shine before man that they may see your good works and glorify your father within you." It is just that simple.

Namaste,

Barbara