"From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson, too, struggled to put this thing into words and resorted to lending perspective where none exists. How else to convey? There is no "behind" or "within" of enlightened awareness, but to share it he assigns familiar orientations for our benefit. He is dead on with "the light is all." This resounds later through Ramana Maharshi's cinema projector light illuminating film upon a screen. Truly, though, our cinematic perspective of the material world is illusory, as are all perspectives from our supposed personal point of view.
"It is undefinable, unmeasurable, but we know that it pervades and contains us"...and it can be experienced when "there is no screen or ceiling between ourselves and the infinite heavens"...when "the walls are taken away"...when we awaken to "independency of those limitations which circumscribe us on every hand." In other words, when we transcend the limiting factors of our senses and mental processing.
Fifty years before Vivekananda brought Eastern wisdom to our shore, Emerson transcribed the experience of enlightenment. Masters such as V then provided the detail and proof of method necessary to pollinate those of us with ears to hear.
Emerson, too, struggled to put this thing into words and resorted to lending perspective where none exists. How else to convey? There is no "behind" or "within" of enlightened awareness, but to share it he assigns familiar orientations for our benefit. He is dead on with "the light is all." This resounds later through Ramana Maharshi's cinema projector light illuminating film upon a screen. Truly, though, our cinematic perspective of the material world is illusory, as are all perspectives from our supposed personal point of view.
"It is undefinable, unmeasurable, but we know that it pervades and contains us"...and it can be experienced when "there is no screen or ceiling between ourselves and the infinite heavens"...when "the walls are taken away"...when we awaken to "independency of those limitations which circumscribe us on every hand." In other words, when we transcend the limiting factors of our senses and mental processing.
Fifty years before Vivekananda brought Eastern wisdom to our shore, Emerson transcribed the experience of enlightenment. Masters such as V then provided the detail and proof of method necessary to pollinate those of us with ears to hear.
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