In The Face Of Radiance

I recently asked someone who has practiced the teachings of a traditional spiritual path for many years, what he learned from the path he followed. He said, “The one thing I learned that I didn’t know before was, turning towards God, facing God.” When I asked him how he does it, he said he didn’t know, that he just does it. I reflected on this in relation to my own experience and realized that indeed he cannot tell me how he does it, because facing God is not a “doing” thing, it’s a matter of “being.” What he calls “facing God” may be similar to what I call, “radiant presence.”

Many years ago I was on vacation on a tropical island. My friends and I were driving to a remote bay at one end of the island. We drove through miles of verdant tropical forests, and the expanse of the dense growth of trees seemed endless with no beach in sight. Then suddenly there was a roaring sound and as we crested the hill on the road, a magnificent vista beheld my gaze; there it was, the pounding surf, the aqua colored water washing up on the white sand. My breath was suspended, my mind went quiet. I still remember that feeling of radiance that flashed before me and through me; a feeling of communion, of pulsing beauty that leaves one speechless. We visited the same beach several times after that. Although each time it was a beautiful sight when we approached the beach from the crest of the hill, the majesty of that first ecstatic encounter of the ocean was not there. In the first experience, I had no expectations, I was totally open  with a freshness to what was there. My mind was stopped by the sheer beauty and radiant presence of the ocean. My mind could not engage in describing what I saw or its usual commentary. I was in the presence of the holy of holies.

In the Christian tradition we are taught that God made Man in his own image. In the mystical traditions of the East, we learn that Consciousness descended into form and all existence is an expression of that one Consciousness. So to experience God we don’t have to wait until we die or do X amount of mantras and meditation retreats. We simply have to be aware of the essence of what is behind all of experience in both the form and formless states.

There is a very ancient book on Yoga called the Vijnanabhairava or Divine Consciousness which consists of one hundred and twelve yoga aphorisms which delineate how to experience the divine in the midst of daily life. These can be as simple as enjoying the ecstasy of eating one of your favorite foods. The one English translation that I know of, is cumbersome and assumes previous study of introductory philosophies. I will occasionally do some posts based on some of these aphorisms. The practice of these yogas of everyday experience is to be in the presence of God or as I like to phrase it: To be in the face of radiance. Every experience offers the opportunity to face God, for behind every experience is the radiance of the divine. It is a matter of how we perceive life.

And that Aha! that you get when you see an artwork that really hits you is, ‘I am that.’ I am the very radiance of energy that is talking to me through this painting.—Joseph Campbell

These words are the essence of the yoga aphorisms of that ancient  scripture. Indeed we can turn towards God and experience divinity in the midst of our normal life without having to retreat to a monastery, perform rituals or go on pilgrimage. Our worship then becomes the trappings of our normal existence; of the daily routines of our lives, our physical and emotional pains, the ups and downs of our creature-hood.