' You Are Light '...

"Light is my very nature; I am nothing other than the Light. When the universe manifests, indeed, it is I alone who shine." ( Janaka in Astavakra Gita, 2 / 8 ). "The Upanishsd-s very often indicate the Self as 'Light' ( Chaitanya ). This example is sometimes taken by the students too literally and in their over zealous enthusiasm they start imagining in their meditation that they had seen the Truth as a dazzling "mass-of-light". The teachers, while teaching us the Upanishad-s, take special pains to remind us that the term 'Light' as used here is not "light" as we experience in the world outside. What we experience can only be an "object," not the "Subject." Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa had once defined the Reality as "Light without its properties." In Vedanta the Self is considered as Light because of its essential expression, in all living beings, as Consciousness. When the ego is ended, the seeker rediscovers himself to be the Light of Consciousness that illumines both the Subject, and its world-of-objects--the experiencing-ego, and the entire field of its experiences. Janaka from his own inward experience of this transcendental Self identifies himself with the Infinite Consciousness and declares : "Light is my very nature; I am nothing other than that light." This 'light'-nature is inexpressible for the human intellect, and when this Consciousness is viewed through our disturbing equipment of the body, mind and intellect, it is visualized as the world of objects, emotions and thoughts. In short, the universe is nothing but a projection of the Effulgent Self.................... ( Swami Chinmayananda ).