The Cost of Light

The Cost of Light

The catchy phrase, “there is no free lunch,” is a clever way of describing the hard truths of disciplines like economics and ecology. Except for the light emanating from the sun, the saying holds up when applied to many things. Regarding a human lifetime, the sun is infinite and never-ending, so in a sense, the sun is a free lunch for providing energy to planet Earth. We are incredibly lucky Earthlings that the sun is an exception to this rule.

Similarly, the availability of higher states of consciousness is like internally tapping an infinite source of sunlight. Yet, I am often too bogged down by my daily sleep and struggles and petty identifications to even notice the sun or the possibility of Higher Centers. When I truly remember myself, that is when I am in Divine Presence, I have tapped these precious Higher Centers, the third and fourth states or the states of subjective or objective consciousness, respectively.

At a beautiful Chopin piano recital last night, I found myself listening to the concert and thinking about Higher Centers. A curious Work ‘I’ then occurred to me, saying “Thinking about Higher Centers is not being in Higher Centers.” In a flash, I was in a higher state—like a light switch was flipped. Suddenly my attention was multidimensional, in the hall but beyond the hall. The sounds, the pianist before me, my view over the seat, my feet on the floor. The experience of being in the moment enveloped me and it was free. Well, sort of. Was it free or did I pay for it?

The no-free lunch analogy holds true once again, but not entirely. On the one hand, I know that there is a very real cost of waking up. The cost of attaining higher centers is the cost of deciding (repeatedly) that I’d rather live in Higher Centers than in this lower state. My state of identification, imagination, and my normal mechanical life are elements that I must surrender or pay for in ransom. In one sense, therefore, it is not a free lunch, yet the return on investment for higher consciousness is indeed infinitely great, like the light of our sun.

It becomes a matter of choice as to whether to illuminate where I live. Do I want to live in this mechanical dark place where I’m dominated by mechanical lower forces: my ego, my fears, my whims, my opinions, my uninformed or illusory understanding of things?

Or do I choose to turn the light on internally, and live in the way of . . . things as they are and as an actor on an infinitely large stage? The place I am.

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The Garden of Hesperides, Frederic Leighton