Not long ago a Canadian wrote me about a mysterious encounter he’d had with a homeless man, Helmut, who always carried in his shopping bags spiritual books, herbs, treats and notebooks, and you could imagine that many people thought this ragged man was probably a little crazy. But Helmut seemed to turn up whenever this man was facing a difficult situation, and then he would always say something helpful.
One night they stood for nearly 40 minutes in the cold outside a Starbucks talking of spiritual matters. “And in a flash, I saw the image of a bright Being behind and around him (Helmut). He was filled with light, and I could see his light.” At the same time, “I was filled with peace and joy,” he said. “Was Helmut an angel?” he asked, and then to my surprise: “Or was he simply a human evidencing the light we all emit—the light of love?”
That’s the question, isn’t it?
For the truth is, we all live and move inside a bubble of spiritual light. In my book, The Art of Intuition, there is a whole chapter about how to see the light in others or in yourself, for we are spiritual beings, as the cliche goes, living a physical experience. And it is incumbent on us to realize that when we see another shining—shining as this homeless man did, what you are seeing is . . . God.
We say that God is Love, that Christ became incarnate to teach us that God is not some Celestial Psychopath. God is Love and that Love can move mountains. Love heals the sick and calms the frightened. And indeed it is visible! The whole earth is shining: the trees, dogs, grasses, horses, cats, and probably the lions and bears—all shining with the light of love.
Do you see it?
I don’t have time to tell you at length how to see it in a friend (or enemy), but it flares off your own hands and fingers, and it is possible to see.
Here’s how:
Squinch your eyes tight, and when you open them, using soft focus only and in soft light (it’s easiest to see at dusk, or under a quiet light) look at the space above or around your friend’s head or else at the space between shoulder and head. Don’t look at her face or body, but at the emptiness five or six inches (or 9 feet!) around her.
Ask her to think of something that she (or he) loves deeply. Your light expands then. If you are angry or afraid, your aura shrinks to inches around you, pulled into itself like a sea anenome when touched.
I don’t see the high colors that some mystics see, but I see a colorless, wavering light, like heat waves rising from a hot street in summer. When I see it, I am humbled. It is that person’s true self that I am seeing. I can hold no resentment then.
I wish we all could practice seeing it. If we understood that we are all suffering, and that we are all doing the best we can, and that we are all spiritual beings (and the trees and grass and dogs and everything alive), we’d have fewer wars or even arguments. We are all expressions of the Divine, shining, shining, with the light of love.
©️ 2019 Sophy Burnham
