Mystical Desriptions of the Light

Posted by Olly Robinson on 5 August 2008 | 6 Comments

Tags: Religion, Mysticism

I have gathered various descriptions from mystics in various traditions of their experience of ultimate reality as "light", which I would like to share with you. The commonality does suggest that however difficult it is to unpack mystical experience in language, the notion of luminosity and light seems to convey some kind of nonverbal truth accessible through the contemplative arts. Furthermore, near death experiences frequently involve descriptions of a light beyond description, and experiences of the numinous in everyday life are often found in the experience of light; a sunset, the play of light in trees, a rainbow, the sun breaking through the clouds.

In my opinion, the truths of religion and spirituality are fundamentally nonverbal, and find only very approximate description in words, so that when theologies and scriptures are taken as truths, rather than as vague approximations, as signposts, then we have the basis of religious dogma and intolerance. If all religions accepted that at their heart was a truth which was beyond words, that is experienced as light and love but is hard to translate, we would all be a little bit safer.

I recall that the physicist David Bohm said that matter was just "frozen light". Perhaps that's what we all are, but the mystic manages to melt...

Buddhist

Tibetan book of the Great Liberation
“The self-originating clear light, enternally unborn…shining forth within one’s own mind.”

Bodhidharma
“If, as in a dream, you see a light brighter than the sun, your remaining attachments will suddenly come to an end and the nature of reality will be revealed. Such an occurrence serves as the basis for enlightenment. But this is something only you know. You can't explain it to others.”

Christian

Dionysus the Aeropagite
“That divine Darkness is the unapproachable light in which God dwells. Into this Darkness, rendered invisible by its own excessive brilliance and unapproachable by the intensity of its transcendent flood of light, come to be all those who are worthy to know and to see God”

St John
“the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

St. Symeon
“a light infinite and incomprehensible…one single light…simple, non-composite, timeless, eternal…the source of life.”

George Fox
“I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness.”

Ruusbroec
“However, that simple eye that dwells above reason in the ground of our understanding is always open, contemplating with unhindered vision and gazing at the light with the light itself - eye to eye, mirror to mirror, image to image.”

Gospel of St Thomas…
"If they say to you, "Where did you come from?" Say to them, We came from the light, The place where light came into being Of its own accord And established itself And became manifested through their image."

Sufism

Sufi Abu ‘l-Hosain al-Nuri
“a light gleaming in the Unseen…I gazed at it continually, until the time came when I had wholly become that light.”

Rumi
“How could the rays of God's light fit into the heart? Yet when you search you will find it there, not from the point of view of containment such that it could be said that the light is in that place. You will find it through that place”

Ibn' Ata' Allah
"When the invocation descends into the heart, if there is darkenss within, it illuminates it; and if there is already light, the invocation increases the light and intensifies it."

Shabistari (in The Secret Rose Garden – around 1250)
"The eye is not strong enough to look at the brilliant sun, But you can watch its light reflected in water. Pure Being is too bright to behold, yet it can be seen reflected in the mirror of this world … Every particle of the world is a mirror. In each atom lies the light of a thousand suns.

Shabistari
"What are "I" and "You"? Just lattices In the niches of a lamp Through which the One Light radiates. "

Hindu and Vedanta

Ramakrishna “When I was ten or eleven years old … I first experienced samadhi. There are certain characteristics of God-vision. One sees light, feels joy, and experiences the upsurge of a great current in one's chest, like the bursting of a rocket.”

Muktananda: “As I gazed at the tiny Blue Pearl, I saw it expand, spreading its radiance in all directions so that the whole sky and earth were illuminated by it. It was now no longer a Pearl but had become shining, blazing, infinite Light. The Light which the writers of the scriptures and those who have realized the Truth have called the divine light of Chiti. The Light pervaded everywhere in the form of the universe. I saw the earth being born and expanding from the Light of Consciousness, just as one can see smoke rising from a fire. I could actually see the world within this conscious Light, and the Light within the world, like threads in a piece of cloth, and cloth in the threads. Just as a seed becomes a tree, with branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit, so within Her own being Chiti becomes animals, birds, germs, insects, gods, demons, men, and women. I could see this radiance of Consciousness, resplendent and utterly beautiful, silently pulsating as supreme ecstasy within me, outside me, above me, below me.”

Taosim

Tao Te Ching says, “Use your own light and return to the source of light. This is called practicing eternity.”

If you have any other quotes on mystical light, or any personal experiences to share, please add them as comments.

Dr Olly Robinson