This Week’s Quotation:
A superficial spirituality has a person forever seeking that from another person, from a book, or from a spiritual teaching. While all those things can be significant steps along a person’s path—perhaps even necessary ones—if they really are steps and not distractions, they lead people to the dreadful, awe-inspiring realization that the wonder they seek is within them, looking to get out. And the only thing really stopping that from happening is themselves.
Becoming a Sun
p. 110
The Awe-inspiring Realization
Author, Becoming a Sun
These words come from a chapter of my book on Practical Spirituality. They get right to the heart of becoming a sun. Your own spiritual nature has to become real to you if spirituality is to have meaning. You have to get in touch with the warmth in your heart and the light in your mind. You have to find the personal gravity that comes when you have the courage to be all of who you are.
As someone who writes and speaks about these things, I try to describe how I have experienced them, and how I understand them. I attempt to show people something within themselves that is invisible—an inner resource of wisdom, love and power. My ultimate aim is what American transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, called Self Reliance.
I hope and pray that I can assist a person to find parts of themselves that are the source of their own creativity. That source doesn’t depend on me or anyone else, even though I believe deeply that we are here to help each other along the way.
The source within us does rely on the individual to find it, And not only find it, but recognize it when they do. And not only recognize it, but embrace it, draw upon it, and let it shine out through them.
Why would that be dreadful? Only because this process asks us to give up the cultural tendency to give away our personal power and authority to others. The good news? Self-reliance brings utter freedom. Yay!
What does it mean to become a sun?
Every human being is already a sun on the inside—a being of intense love and light. The difference is that some people have the vision and courage to become a sun on the outside. This difference is our human destiny.
