Good Morning and welcome Dr Ing’s Sunday soul connection. As always, we like to begin our time together by setting the intention with Naturally Seven and Let it be.

I feel it's important to set the intention for whatever it is that we're doing and that we begin every Sunday by setting the intention to step away from the outer world of distractions, what's going on and planning for the week ahead, to consciously come together to commune with the ground of our being God in us as us; from everything that would grab our attention and just let it be for the next 45 minutes.

So as always, I applaud you for honouring and taking that time out to nourish your soul and quench your spirits.

We continue in our enquiry and deepening in the deepest things of God. I must confess that when I began this inquiry I felt that truly, I was getting a deeper understanding. No matter how much we study or read into it.

There's still so much more to uncover, and how can we with our finite limited consciousness ever think that we could completely know or understand that which is Infinite?

We tend to get it, drip by drip drop by drop. We we feel it in moments and then other moments we forget.

Anais Nin said “There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.”

That struck me of the truth of it. Because this morning, we're going to look at illumination, the illumination of God.

Whilst there are moments when each and every one of us can claim to have felt the experience that illumination, it quickly disperses in the busyness of living and life.

Until the next time as Anais Nin says it's almost like fragments putting together mosaic. I was reminded of that this morning after having a conversation with a dear friend last night, and during the course of the conversation. She kept saying, hopefully this will happen and I'm hopeful this might occur and hopefully this will be… eventually I stopped her and said you've been with me too long to be using hopefully in this conversation.

She laughed and said how often she corrected others and here she was. You see it is this illumination of God that lights up our consciousness and keeps us truly connected to the truth of who we are and who's we are in our hearts, in our eyes and in our mind.

So in order to expand let me kick off with our secret text.

SACRED TEXT

1 John 1: 4-5
In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

As I contemplated this text as to what it meant. What is the darkness that the light can overcome it? This darkness that cannot overcome the light and I realised that it meant the ego. The ego cannot come overcome the illumination of the truth of God.

God is that total illumination that is all truth all wisdom, all knowledge, all good, all perfection which the ego cannot overcome. So for a lot of us, we’re expressing, fragmenting pieces, a little bit at a time of God's illumination God's truth, God's light applying it sometimes and then not others.

We will find life exceedingly challenging being this unconscious. Jesus knew this truth because he came into the world and said, I am the light of the world.

He knew that he was one with the illumination, that deeper thing of God with which there is no variation or shadow or change.

That's the first thing when we can connect and plug in to this truth and allow that unstinting unhindered illumination of the Divine Spirit to guide our path to direct our way to illuminate us. We won't be hoping or wishing or begging or cajoling God.

Jesus knew that this illumination was powerful that this illumination was not subject to him alone. This illumination was for every single one of us and that is what He taught and demonstrated and lived.

I am not advocating that this is easy, because I know, as I am challenged myself. My accountant gave me some news that shook me to the core. But I had to rally quickly to remind myself that God is the source of all my needs, for all that I want, desire or require and that I need to hold that truth, hold that illumination, hold that belief uppermost in my consciousness. So that the darkness of the ego will not overwhelm the light of truth.

We all have to face some kind of crisis in our lives, when the darkness of our egos will seek to overrule the illumination, of truth, of wisdom, of understanding of discernment, that comes from when we are connected to the Source of all that is the ground of our being.

This truth, this understanding of God’s illumination can be found in many of the worlds major sacred texts:

Seikism
There is but One God, His name is Truth, He is the Creator, He fears none, he is without hate, He never dies, He is beyond the cycle of births and death, He is self illuminated, Guru Nanak

Zoroastrianism
One of the central properties of the benevolent Ahura Mazda — God — is uncreated, glorious, primordial light (xvarnah). It fills the heavens, which are the abode of light, and it was the energy from which every material thing in existence has been formed.

Islam Section 5 Vs35
35. “Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as it were a glittering star, lit from a blessed olive-tree, neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself) though no fire touched it. Light upon light, Allah guides unto His Light whom He pleases, and Allah sets forth similitudes for mankind, and Allah is All-Aware of all things.”

Buddhism
Buddhist scripture speaks of numerous buddhas of light, including a Buddha of Boundless Light, a Buddha of Unimpeded Light, and Buddhas of Unopposed Light, of Pure Light, of Incomparable Light, and of Unceasing Light.
The Flower Ornament Scripture, written between 359 and 710 CE, contains an overwhelming number of references to the Buddha as a Divine Light. Most of the references are in verse. To quote just a few examples:

The Buddha's great light of knowledge
Illumines all lands in ten directions...

Poem - Prose

The brilliance of the Buddha's light is often said to be indescribable. In the Sutra of the Contemplation on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life, written in various versions between the 5th and 13th centuries CE, we read that"no words can fully describe [the brilliance] of this light.”

The Buddha of Immeasurable Life has eighty-four thousand features; each feature has eighty-four thousand secondary attributes; each secondary attribute sends forth eighty-four thousand rays of light; each ray of light shines out over the world of the ten quarters; and those sentient beings who are mindful of the Buddha are embraced [by that light], never to be abandoned.

Story

Thanksgiving Day was near. The first grade teacher gave her class a fun assignment — to draw a picture of something for which they were thankful.
Most of the class might be considered economically disadvantaged, but still many would celebrate the holiday with turkey and other traditional goodies of the season. These, the teacher thought, would be the subjects of most of her student’s art. And they were.
But Douglas made a different kind of picture. Douglas was a different kind of boy. He was the teacher’s true child of misery, frail and unhappy. As other children played at recess, Douglas was likely to stand close by her side. One could only guess at the pain Douglas felt behind those sad eyes.
Yes, his picture was different. When asked to draw a picture of something for which he was thankful, he drew a hand. Nothing else. Just an empty hand.
His abstract image captured the imagination of his peers. Whose hand could it be One child guessed it was the hand of a farmer, because farmers raise turkeys. Another suggested a police officer, because the police protect and care for people. Still others guessed it was the hand of God, for God feeds us. And so the discussion went — until the teacher almost forgot the young artist himself.
When the children had gone on to other assignments, she paused at Douglas’ desk, bent down, and asked him whose hand it was.
The little boy looked away and muttered, It’s yours, teacher.
She recalled the times she had taken his hand and walked with him here or there, as she had the other students. How often had she said, Take my hand, Douglas, we’ll go outside. Or, Let me show you how to hold your pencil. Or, Let’s do this together. Douglas was most thankful for his teacher’s hand.
Brushing aside a tear, she went on with her work.

BODY MEDITATION

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SUNDAY SOUL CONNECTION PRAYER

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MOVEMENT PRAYER 1

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BUDDHIST REFLECTION

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Rumination

The illuminated life can happen now, in the moments left. Die to your ego, and become a True Human Being.
Rumi

Benediction

May you see God's light on the path ahead
When the road you walk is dark.
May you always hear, in time of sorrow,
The singing of the lark.
When times are hard, may hardness
Not turn your heart to stone,
For when shadows fall, remember,
You do not walk alone.

Deeper things - God is Light - Illumination