Listen to the inner light

Divinized, immortalized, changed into citizens of peace

I’ve been too far-flung places, went sailing on a ship of fools. All firmly in the grip of the delusion that makes fine young hearts grow cold, that all would be fine and dandy, if I could just get hold of more power, prestige, and gold. 

Not a drop of peace did I find there, just a broken shore, and an endless, soulless ocean filled with fears and tears that roar.

Imagine my amazement to discover, if it’s inner peace I seek! It won’t be found in chasing gold, but in the little humble ways the heart must learn to love and hold.  

Without two cents to call my own, I finally found her, the blessed bliss of inner peace. With worldly goods in tatters, and my life in smithereens, she came right out to meet me and made the unseen gleam.

In a tiny house of bare essentials that fully shook as trains roared by, she whispered to my heart and soul and said: 

It’s time for you, my child of chaos, to let the old life die! Embrace the inner peace dove now, and you shall learn to fly.

Alright, enough already, with the attempt at poetic prose. Here’s a quote: 

Listen to the inner light; it will guide you. Listen to inner peace; it will feed you. Listen to inner love; it will transform you: it will divinize you; it will immortalize you. — Sri Chinmoy

Now what’s not to like about that? Clearly, there is a world of depth and meaning in those few words. And the emphasis is entirely internal. This is well and truly a quintessential inside job. The source of this most precious light, inner peace, and transforming love, is not external, it’s already within in each one of us. 

I’ve had plenty to say already on this blog about imago Dei. That we are all created in the image of God. We live our best lives only through connection with this life-giving light, or living Spirit. This is an energy, if you will, that comes as part of the package in all life on earth. It is the spiritual star dust from which we all arise. The very kernel of life that enables us to we grow and thrive.

Amid a warring and broken world, Gandhi said, “Be the change you seek.”

Nothing has added add more value to my life—certainly not chasing rivers of gold—than embracing the source of peace. I believe that an inherent desire for peace exists in everyone. We’ve made for the internal journey into the heart and soul. It is there that we find the living God, and nowhere but there that we discover, that God is indeed light, peace, and love in the now. (Phil 4:6-9).

Perhaps our true purpose, comrades, as profoundly spiritual beings, is to become ever-more like that from which we come. To be divinized, immortalized, changed into citizens of peace. To live, eat, and breath peace and love because that is who we truly are as God infused people. “Listen to inner love; it will transform you.” Changed heart, changed life! Peace be with you.