November 6, 2024
Without light, sight is blind; and without sight, light is darkness. Light, again, can lead, mislead or distort: it can create mirages and optical illusions, and it is good to realize that light is in a way responsible for the creation of shadow. Only when the sight is clear and clever can truth be seen as truth and falsehood as falsehood, without confusion.
In life we are familiar with several forms of sight, apart from eyesight and its defects. We know people who have brilliant hindsight: they are the ones who are always looking back at the past, with regret, remorse and useless brooding. Their whole life is a perpetual mourning, and this veil of mourning compels them to neglect the present opportunities and then mourn them when they are also dead and past. There are others who are reputed to have great foresight. They read the future, and they are so clever that they can avert a calamity before it befalls them! They take great precautions; and since these precautions have no troubles to deal with, the precautions themselves create the troubles, become the trouble. Few there are in the world who see the danger of these two sights, and who see that only insight is infallible. One who has insight has the divine sight which is the highest wisdom.
The divine sight or insight is the Inner Light, the Light that is the Self, atma-jyoti. This Inner Light is ever alert and eternally vigilant; and it is sufficient to deal with every problem that arises in life as it arises. This alertness or vigilance is not tension, it is the very opposite of tension. It is only when you anticipate trouble and flex your muscles that you become tense. If your finger happens to touch a hot stove, the intelligence in it at once pulls it away, without any tension: even so the Inner Light is capable of dealing with all situations as they arise, if there is no ego-interference. May the Inner Light shine forever in you.