LET THERE BE LIGHT

     When I was a young, seven-year-old boy, I was very sick. I had pneumonia in each lung. I also suffered from meningitis, polio, and an infected mastoid bone, all at the same time.

     During the second of the two operations to remove the infected mastoid bone, my heart stopped. I died then and left my body. I found, however, that I was still conscious. At first, feeling as if I was falling through an endless darkness, I started to panic. But then a voice told me to turn the falling into flying, told me that there was no bottom. I heeded the voice, and then, once I had begun to fly, I stopped panicking. Instead, I looked about and realized that I was floating blissfully towards a great and welcoming White Light.

     I never reached that Light. The doctors were somehow able to restart me, and I fell back into my body and excruciating agony. I could deal with the physical agony, but I nearly lost it when I realized that I was now hearing other people's thoughts. Scared by this, I quickly learned to drown them out by constantly reading and by playing loud music on the radio. I had to do this for many years.


     Ever since those early days, I have searched for that great White Light in all its many manifestations. I have sought it in the light of the sun, the moon and the stars, with all their various changes and permutations.

      I have keenly noticed the differences between the winter and the summer solstices. Over time, I have learned the seasons of the sun. I have noticed the differences between the new and the full moons too, watching the moon's varying progressions through our night sky. Also, living out of doors in the deserts and the high mountains, I have spent a lot of time gazing at the myriad stars coursing the night sky.

      I have noticed the variations in all these lights at all these different times. I have learned what each light means and how they each affect our energy and our consciousness. I have come to love these lights. But they are not my great White Light.


     I have sought the White Light in my consciousness too, mainly through the use of the I Ching, dream work, LSD, and meditation.

     The I Ching has been my spiritual guide ever since the day I first discovered this great Chinese holy book, back in the late sixties. In fact, the very night that I was introduced to it, I dreamt that a Chinese Sage turned towards me as he was passing by and welcomed me into his spiritual life.

     I have found each and every one of my dreams to be enlightening. Over the years, they have helped me to illuminate all the dark corners of my consciousness and become a more whole being.

     LSD was rightly called Liquid Light by all of us who experimented seriously and diligently with it. I have always found that it greatly increased my consciousness while I was on it and invariably left me more clear and compassionate afterwards.

      Meditation has also led me to the Light, letting me experience my consciousness as both clear and compassionate. Here, the Light that manifests in the meditative consciousness has let me glimpse myself as I truly am, separate from both my mind and my body.

      As a result of remaining conscious, even as I left my body and headed towards that White Light so many years ago, I have always sought, not only the Light itself, but also the consciousness that would survive the death of my body. I have always wanted to be able to maintain my own individual consciousness, even as I finally merged with that great White Light.

      This is why I have chosen the I Ching as my spiritual guide. This is why I have listened to my dreams with their deep understandings. This is why I have long experimented with LSD and meditation. This is why I have become a Taoist too. I have always sought for that consciousness that would endure past the death of my body.


      Reading that wonderful book, Seven Arrows, I began to understand more of what I had gone through as that young and dying boy. In it, the author, Hyemeyohsts Storm, says that "each person is a unique Living Medicine Wheel, powerful beyond imagination, that has been limited and placed upon this earth to Touch, Experience and Learn." He goes on to say that "each man, woman, and child at one time was a Living Power that existed somewhere in time and space. These powers were without form, but they were aware. They were alive." And, "these beings were placed upon this earth that they might Learn the things of the Heart through touching." (p. 7.)

      Reading this, I realized that the great White Light that I had experienced as a boy was the same as Storm's "Living Medicine Wheel." Knowing that I will exist and be conscious after the death of my body has always comforted and sustained me through the darkest of my days.


      Later on, reading the books of Carlos Castaneda, I came to realize that what he has Don Juan call the Eagle is also the same as my great White Light. In his books, Carlos has Don Juan explaining that a person can avoid the Eagle that feeds on souls and their memories if he can create his dreaming double while he is still in his body. (The Eagle's Gift, p. 177.)

      I saw from all this then that if I wanted to survive as a consciousness after the death of my body, I would have to somehow energize and strengthen my consciousness, especially my sense of self that is separate from my body. I saw that I would also have to accept nonmaterial reality as my true home.

      This is why I have studied and practiced Taoism for the past forty years. I have wanted to create what they call the Diamond Body; that is, the consciousness that transcends the death of the body. To that end, I have always focused upon that aspect of myself that transcends body and is eternal. To that end, I have spent much of my life withdrawn from the world. Instead I have turned inwards and have developed my own diamond body. And I expect that, when I do die as a body, I will return to my unlimited being with all the memories of this life intact.


      From my many years of exploring consciousness, of searching everywhere for that great White Light that I first saw as a dying boy, I have come to see that each and every one of us is a great White Light, each and every one of us. We are all great White Lights, and, when we die in our earthly bodies, we can return home in bliss. We can return to being whole, our experiences as bodies added to our greater consciousness.

      And, because we are all truly great White Lights, full of compassion and clarity, why not manifest ourselves as such in our lives now? Why not become beings of Light today and ever after? Why wait till we are all dead from war or global warming or famine or pestilence to become the great Lights that we truly are? Why wait? As that wise old Rabbi once said, "if not now, when? If not us, who?"


      Today especially, there is a greater than ever need for a strong collective Light, for a collective consciousness that is illuminated by the individual consciousnesses of all of us who are trying to be clear and compassionate in our lives. Together, we need to look into the darkness of the world without flinching or succumbing to it and begin the Herculean task of healing the collective consciousness.

      This healing can be done. Darkness has always dreaded the Light. Darkness has always run from the Light of consciousness. So let us begin by refusing to act out our own darkness - our own fear and our own anger. Instead, let us surround ourselves with healing Light. Let us be Light. Let us enlighten others too. Let us spread the Light.

      Let us find other Lights. Let us find other folks who are also trying to be more conscious, trying to be more clear and compassionate. Let us all join with one another. Let us help each other to become more conscious and more able to bear the Light that is the manifestation of Spirit within each of us. Let us help each other to bring our collective Lights into the darkness of our own lives as well as the lives of those around us. The Light will spread. The Light will grow. The healing will be done. Let there be Light. Let it loose upon the land.

     By Eugene Marks