Turn the Spark Into a Blaze

One must seek the shortest path and the fastest means to get back home, to turn the spark within into a blaze; to be merged in and to identify with the greater fire that ignited the spark.
—Bhagavan Nityananda

Nityananda’s words describe sādhana as the process of being aflame with the desire to know our Source. Through our own volition, we are able to reach inside and rekindle the ember of awareness that has almost been completely extinguished beneath the density of our misunderstanding. We unintentionally cover up this spark when we perpetuate our own ignorance, our ingrained belief that we are separate from God. What we say we want most in life is often not what we pursue. Therefore, we must ask ourselves honestly if we are fanning the flame of awareness, or if we are extinguishing it.

The third century saying, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” originally referred to mundane love and desire, but we can apply this maxim to how we perceive the beauty of our own lives. We are the beholder of our life, and its beauty is ever-present, if we choose to see it. If we don't look for it, we will never behold the infinite, unconstrained, unstained abundance that is the greater fire of our lives.

Freedom in the Face of Adversity

I frequently speak about freedom, joy, love, and abundance, and some people perceive that by doing so, I dismiss people's pain, sorrow, challenges, and difficulty. This is certainly not the case.

The goal of nondual practice is jīvanmukti, or “freedom while alive.” Jīvanmukti is not freedom from outer circumstances, but an inner liberation from all constraint while in the face of adversity, difficulty, and loss. To suggest that our outer lives need to be perfect in order for us to apprehend the inner perfection and beauty of existence would be to promote a dualistic view of reality.

My teacher Rudi said, "Life must be consumed whole with all its pain, joy, and sorrow." He understood this intrinsically since he lived in extraordinary emotional pain that stemmed from his complete self-rejection. Yet Rudi did not accept this view of himself as the highest truth and therefore refused to feed his self-abnegation. He knew that indulging this aspect of himself would have inevitably covered up the inner spark of awareness. Likewise, Nityananda also experienced physical pain, living with debilitating arthritis that made it difficult for him to walk. Both Rudi and Nityananda chose to accept their pain, without denying that it hurt like hell or that life was often a challenge.

Their experience teaches us that though we all have difficulties in life, we can use them to discover the place in ourselves where circumstances cannot and does not diminish the spark of our inner abundance. Regardless of our external conditions, there is always some spark of light that cannot be diminished or extinguished. God's grace manifests as an inherent knowingness that breathes fire back into that spark giving it life, turning it into a blaze.

Turn Inside – No Matter What

Instead of accepting that life is burying you, understand that all of the pressures of your life are divinely created to motivate you to turn back inside. No one's life is harder than anyone else’s. Some people may experience more pain or illness; others may suffer from injustice or loss. Although everyone suffers in different ways, the real pain that underlies all our experience is that of being separated from God. Our spiritual work is to free ourselves from that separation. This is why it is important to cultivate discipline and the willingness to surrender our dualistic perceptions of reality. Even though rekindling the spark into a flame is difficult, its light illuminates the beauty and innate perfection of life.

You must love both God and your life. You cannot love God while not loving your life because it doesn't feel and look the way you want it to. When we doubt God because of undesirable outer conditions, we only bring upon ourselves more doubt and suffering. God is not somewhere else. He is not in somebody else's life — nor is He only in a singular dimension of your life. God exists in all the dimensions of your life, expressing Himself as the unbounded field of Consciousness from which everything emerges

Life is multidimensional. Infinite Consciousness exists within every aspect of manifestation, from the gross to subtle, from pain to joy. In order to truly participate in the fullness of life, you must not get caught in just one dimension. Stop trying to control everything, because that is what reinforces the idea that you are separate from the God Who is giving you exactly what you need to grow spiritually. Engage with every dimension of your life and resolve to find the beauty within every experience. 

While there are many kinds of relative truth, there is only one absolute truth, which is found in the direct recognition of nonduality. By the grace of God, the truth and beauty of that recognition will reveal itself to you. If you breathe life into the spark within and turn it into a blaze, you will find the path home.