Be the Light of the World: 1

Teaching in the temple, Christ Jesus boldly proclaimed: I am the light of the world; he who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but he shall find for himself the light of life. (John 18:12)

So, here is our goal this week (October 4-10): To zealously love and devotedly follow Sananda-Jesus, and thereby to come into the light of our own, indwelling I Am Self. Joined wholeheartedly with Sananda and his twin soul Sol-O-Man/Mary, we are the light of planet Earth!

Dark Night of the Soul

When we follow the Master and our own Christ Self, we no longer wander around and remain in the dark areas of our soul or subconscious, our akashic or soul record of this and past lives going back millions of years on Earth. And yet, until we are able to fully follow the example that Christ Jesus demonstrated, we periodically do enter into and go through a passage that is commonly called “the dark night of the soul.”

The term “dark night” comes historically from a 16th-century Spanish mystic, Catholic priest and Carmelite friar, St. John of the Cross, who wrote a famous poem about this darkness.

(See the inspired painting of him to left. Note that he is surrounded by darkness but he looks up and peers into the light. His third eye  is single on God the Good, as symbolized by his light-filled forehead. He is aflame with I Am zeal to see and bring forth the dawning of a new day of Christ awareness and consciousness.)

St. John did not give a title to his eight-stanza poem, but rather he wrote two book-length commentaries about it: Ascent of Mt. Carmel and The Dark Night. 

However, his poem and experience of moving through a spiritual crisis of darkness into communion with God has come to be called not just the “dark night” but the “dark night of the soul.” Why is it of the soul? Because this means of the subconscious,  in which are stored the memories of the dark episodes of this and prior lives.

(For details, click here for a good Wikipedia article about “St. John of the Cross.” Click this for an article about “The Dark Night of the Soul.”)

Four Lower Bodies

Moreover, the term dark night of the soul has come into popular usage to indicate any difficult passage in life, whether it be a philosophical one, a psychological challenge or a physical disease; such as death of a child or friend, divorce of a spouse, difficulties with a boss or employees, drug or alcohol addiction, sexual harassment, bankruptcy or a life-threatening illness like cancer.

However, as we zero in on our dark night of the soul, we are going to focus this week primarily on the core spiritual dimension or aspect of it, which however does radiate and reflect into our mental, emotional, soul-astral and physical bodies. In other words, we shall be holistic in healing our whole, holy self, in coming out of the darkness of our soul into the light of our I Am Self and light body.

Christ Jesus is the Way

Rather than concentrate on St. John of the Cross, however, we are going to fix our third-eye singlemindedly on Sananda-Jesus the Christ. He not only demonstrated the darkness of crucifixion (when he was “Jesus of the Cross”) but of more importance and impact, he resurrected his light body. That is why he is the way, the truth and the light (thus, we might call him Jesus of the Crucifixion-Resurrection.)

He was the first to have demonstrated this full movement from the darkness of third-dimensional, mortal, soul expression, that which is limited to our four lower bodies, and to rise into his etheric or fourth-dimensional or electric body, his eternal light or Christ body. He completed the whole cycle from darkness to light, and then to add the final exclamation point, he ascended.

Baptism with Fiery Light

Not only did Jesus go through the darkness of crucifixion, but he also went through the proverbial “dark night of the soul” at earlier stages and initiations in his life; as well as in his past lives when he was Melchizedek, Moses, Elijah, Zoroaster, Socrates and Gautama the Buddha. Each one of Jesus’ dark times gives us more insight into the nature of our evolution from darkness to light, into becoming the light of the whole world, in the East and the West.

The first notable instance as recorded in the canonical Gospels is when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. In Jesus’ baptism with heavenly, fiery light, an illumined dove was seen to descend upon him and a heavenly voice was heard to say, “This is my son in whom I Am well pleased.”

Jesus represented the Son-of-God aspect of the cosmic trinity of Father-Mother-Son, the Christ Self in each of us as a son or daughter of the Divine. Our Father-Mother Creator was pleased with and about Jesus. For that matter, no doubt Lord Maitreya, who is Jesus’ master teacher, was pleased with him as his disciple or son. Jesus’ baptism with fire bore dramatic witness to the cosmic fact that he was the Messiah long prophesied by the Jews to lift mankind from out of darkness into the light of a new day and a new path of being love in action.

Forty Days in the Wilderness

Being filled with the flame or fire of I Am life, you might think that Jesus would have gone right out and started his public ministry, demonstrating his powers and teaching the Way. But instead, he went immediately into the wilderness where he fasted, all alone, for forty days and nights, and faced his temptations.

No one was with him, not Mary his twin soul, not any of those who would become his twelve apostles. Rather, he was alone with our Father-Mother Parent. And this aloneness and eventual at-onement with the One is an essential feature of most dark nights of our soul.

In the wilderness, he did battle with Satan, meaning the remaining dark thoughts, feelings and memories in his soul and in the soul of man. How would Jesus use his spiritual powers? How had he used them rightly and not so perfectly in his past lives? Could he live up to the promise of his extraordinary spiritual-soul mission as the primary leader and wayshower for the whole planet, its Prince of Peace, he who lights up the entire world and every soul on and about the planet?

Forty Years

In Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, he encapsulated, condensed and corrected the residual of experiences that he had when he was Moses, who atop Mt. Sinai communed with God, received the Ten Commandments, came down and led the Israelites out their captivity or dark night in Egypt, through forty dark years in the desert or wilderness, before they could enter the promised land.

By this, we learn that the term “night” does not necessarily mean a single night, but rather that it represents any period of time when things are dark. In the case of Moses, his dark night persisted for forty years, during which the wandering Israelites complained, competed with one another, committed all kinds of egregious errors, and just about drove Moses nuts. Repeatedly he rebuked and chastised his wayward followers. However, throughout this time, a cloud or pillar of light was above the Tabernacle that Moses had had constructed. He kept his eye single on that abiding reality. That’s how he got through his dark times.

With sufficient zeal for each day, including the uplifting and the distasteful challenges in it, he persisted and made it to the end. But even then, due to his past mistakes, he was not allowed to enter with the Israelites into Canaan.

Dark Night Temptations

What are the temptations that Jesus faced in his forty days and nights in the wilderness? As given symbolically in the Biblical accounts, the first temptation was to use his I Am powers to turn stones to bread. This represents the entire range of Earthly temptations: fame, fortune, inappropriate sexual exchange, glamor and being well thought of by others.

Jesus said no to all of these mortal pathways and affirmed that he sought the kingdom of God and therefore all that he needed would be added unto him. He knew that he already had manna from heaven, the “bread of life,” all that he needed to bring a new heavenly order into externalization.

And we are to do the same thing in regard to knowing the truth of God’s ever-present abundance and about turning away from the remaining dark desires of our soul that only feed our mortal ego or personality, and that give us indigestion.

Down and Dirty

Next, Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem and told him to throw himself down, saying the angels would protect him from injury and restore him to the peak of the temple. Here is the temptation to throw ourselves down from I Am consciousness into our remaining doubts, fears, anxieties, depression, and all manner of selfishness and mortal foolishness; even to feel defeated by whatever physical disease we may have.

Moreover, our darkness may be so enshrouding and painful that we may tempted to commit suicide, delusionally thinking that the angels will then take us back up and into the higher etheric planes where we will be healthy and at peace. Yes, Jesus’ guardian angel(s) were with him, but they could not and would not abrogate or supersede his free will. He would reap what he had sown. And so will we, for better or for worse.

In Nada-Yolanda’s intunements about suicide, she has received that those who kill their bodies typically are required to reincarnate shortly if not right away, and in circumstances that echo or mimic those from which the soul has tried to escape. Only now, the pain is even greater, the task is more difficult, because of the past mistake to give up and give in to the darkness, rather than to face and move through it. This next time around it is like such a person has to pay interest on his debt.

What we really want to kill or transmute during our dark night is the soul-searing pain within us, not the physical body that reflects and expresses it. In the same way, rather than fixate on the pain that others have caused us, we take responsibility for the fact that we have brought it upon ourselves. We can only change ourselves!

Be Balanced

Another way that we may throw ourselves down from the top of the temple, from I Am consciousness, is to focus excessively and exclusively on what is dark, error-ridden, weak-willed and selfish within us. Yes, we have to clean out these pockets of dis-ease and dysfunction, to give this our whole-hearted effort in doing so. At the same time, however, if all we do is fixate on darkness, then we will be drawn ever further into such darkness such that it will threaten to suffocate and drown us in our sorrows, to separate us from our guardian angels and ascended masters who watch over us and help us, if we will but let them.

So, even in our darkest moments, we remember eventually to give equal attention and emphasis to that which is good within us. As the old proverb goes, it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, to curse he residue of Cain or selfish consciousness within us.

We recall and realize time and again that we are a beloved child of God, who only temporarily in the past has gone astray. We balance the darkness with all our memories of the good that we have done. That makes it easier to detach ourselves from and move out of our darkened state, for us to resurrect following our crucifixion.

Mountain Meditations

Finally, Satan took Jesus to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and he said to Jesus: “All of these I will give you to you, if you will fall down and worship me.” A high mountain represents the peak or height of our spiritual unfoldment and progress to this point. But as high as we go, as much as we have purified our soul, we still may be tempted to become the mortal king or queen of our world, rather than of the kingdom-queendom that is not of this world, meaning that of the fourth dimension. Get thee behind me, Satan!

And this temptation gets all that much harder as we grow spiritually and the mountains are higher, because the higher we go, the more powerful we are. At each new peak, we are presented with numerous new opportunities to step over the line and become mortally powerful, to repeat the past mistakes. This is an ongoing battle, of mortal versus immortal, of Cain versus Abel, until we fully resurrect and ascend in I Am or Abel or Christ consciousness.

As soon as we get smug and think that we have “arrived” is typically the time that we enter into the next phase of the dark night of our soul.

Pride before a Fall

Jesus gave additional insight on our temptations in a channeling through Yolanda on April 16, 1958. As part of summarizing the additional three temptations that he explained, the first one is spiritual pride, thinking that we are better than and superior to others. But in due time, others will achieve whatever knowledge or mastery that we currently are demonstrating. Everyone is a child of God. We are to keep our eye single on the I Am Self in each son and daughter of the Divine. In other words, we are to become humbler and more compassionate. We are to treat all souls as being equally capable of rising into I Am consciousness.

Guard your Pearls

The second of this set of three temptations is of manifestation of spiritual truths where the situation is unworthy of such manifestation. As Jesus said, we are not to cast our pearls before swine or they will turn and rend us. It is our own fault when we share too much, too soon and too inappropriately with those who are not ready or capable of hearing what we say; and who then twist and turn our words and use them against us.

Thus, rather than be angry and self-righteous about our detractors, we are to be more discerning and wise about how and what we say and do. There is a time to speak up and a time to be quiet and work behind the scenes. With each dark night, we get better at discerning this and dealing rightly with our potential enemies. We love our enemies as ourselves, but we do this mostly from behind the scenes and bide our time before we speak up and rebuke them.

Be Kind to One Another

It is easy to love others when they love us. But, it is difficult to love others who hate or misuse or ignore us; as Jesus put it “to turn the other cheek.” But this is the test of the dark night: To love unconditionally, to love the good in the other person, regardless of how he or she thinks or acts. In time, love will “conquer” all.

No one of us, not even Sananda in his lifetimes as Jesus, Melchizedek, Zoroaster, Moses, Elijah, Gautama Buddha or Socrates, is loved by everyone. So, we have to be careful about wanting and hoping to be loved by all others. We have no control over what others think, feel and do, but we can control our own I Am love power.

We always can find new ways in good times and in times of mortal darkness and despair to love one another. Love lights up our darkness and that of all others and the whole planet. Love is the light of our life.

Spiritual Retreats

Rather than experience a definite forty days and nights of wilderness consciousness, we may at times have relatively short intervals in which we remove ourselves from the stresses and strains of our daily life and spiritual responsibilities. We cannot always be “on” and actively engaged. We need rest and review periods, time to replenish our batteries, time to let go of the clinging, dark thought forms and feelings that inevitably we absorb to some extent when dealing with the darkness of those in our life, including those in the lower astral planes; not to mention the darkness that has spilled out of our own soul.

In the Gospels, we read of many times when Jesus, after appearing in public and dealing with multiple difficult situations and people, disappeared or went off alone. Note here that once again, he was alone at these times — not even his mother Mary or his apostles went with him. Rather, he retreated into isolation so that once again he could be at-one with God. After all, as El Morya-Mark taught us to know, affirm and live the reality that one with God is a majority!

Moreover, we cannot get overly caught up in our active, creative, uplifting cycles of spiritual growth, the zeal that burns too brightly and too often and in too many ways. There can be a tendency to think in these heady, zesty times times that our creative juices will keep on flowing almost forever. We may get almost addicted to the “high” of the creative process and expression, to the thrill of being able to help and heal others. But, if we do not watch it and properly interpret the signals that Spirit gives us to change gears, we will inevitably come crashing down, and thereby enter into another dark night of the soul.

Gethsemane

And finally we have as our model the prototypical, literal, single dark night of the soul that Jesus experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane, which name means oil press; press for extracting unguents and ointments (as per Charles Fillmore in his Metaphysical Bible Dictionary). Prior to this time in the garden, in his three years of public ministry, he had given all the needed spiritual teachings and demonstrations to guide people in walking through and out of darkness into the light of life.

Now it was time for his ultimate demonstration, his crucifixion and resurrection, which he and he alone understood. It was time to press out the remaining doubts, errors and disappointments within himself, so that he could rise anew into a whole new level of I Am consciousness and light body expression. But it was also a time to press out and press forward in his I Am Self and light body. (A press, Fillmore writes, is an emblem of trial, distress, agony, while oil points to Spirit and illumination.)

At the Last Supper, Jesus instructed Judas Iscariot to go and do what he had to do, and to do it quickly, to betray him to the religious and political authorities. That night, Jesus went with the remaining eleven apostles to the Garden of Gethsemane, which was near Jerusalem, at the foot of the Mount of Olives. There he asked his apostles to stay awake and pray with him through the night, which they professed and tried to do. But, they fell asleep, and once again Jesus was all alone in his agony.

Why agony? First and most obviously, he certainly could not have looked forward to his physical crucifixion. Second, he must have wondered if he had received it correctly in his communions with Spirit that he was to go through this. Was he about to make himself unnecessarily into a martyr? Why could he not just go off in hiding and continue to work with the Israelites from behind the scenes? And even if he did go through with being crucified, could he really resurrect? After all, no one in the known history of the planet had been able to demonstrate this. What an incredible, almost unbelievable task he had before him!

Can’t you just imagine Jesus saying to his beloved Father, “You want me to do what?” And in our dark night, we we often respond in the same fashion: To our beloved Father-Mother Creator, we say something along the times: “I can’t do what you ask. It’s nigh unto impossible.” And He-She responds, in what seems like a whisper at first but becomes a full-throated voice: One with Me, all things are possible!

Physical Symptoms

To illustrate and dramatize Jesus’ agony in the darkness, the Gospels record that he “sweated as blood.” What an incredibly expressive phrase this is! And we all know what it means, because we have been there and done that in our own prior dark nights. But our current darkness, like Jesus’, may be the worst one yet — and we “sweat more blood” than ever before.

Some scholars claim that in Jesus’ day, there actually was a disease in which blood oozed from the skin. Whether this is true or not really does not matter. The phrase “sweated as blood” appears mostly to be a metaphor or symbol, not a physical reality.

And yet, it is quite common in a dark night of the soul that we have as a significant component some physical illness, particularly one of a catastrophic nature like cancer, heart disease, multiple broken bones and so on. In fact, the illness is often what kicks off our dark days and nights.

As just one historical example, after FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) became paralyzed from the waist down as a result of having polio, he spent many years being depressed and trying to deal positively with his disability. And yet, he eventually did so and became one of the USA’s most effective, powerful presidents, even while sitting in a wheelchair. He led the US and the world through the Depression and WWII. Not too bad for a cripple, don’t you think?

FDR certainly was not crippled in Spirit. Nor are we when we have some physical defect. We are still a child of God with the power to do lots of good with the body that we have. The good we do is due to the love in our heart, not the physical prowess of our physical form; although it helps of course to have a healthy body.

Depression & Anxiety

Or, our illness may be more so mental and emotional, such as in depression and anxiety, which in turn are accompanied by physical symptoms. Thus, someone who is depressed typically has what has been called “catastrophic consciousness.” Thus, a despondent person may develop a new pimple or small growth on his or her skin, and think that it must be a malignant melanoma. A stomach upset, one fears, means that one has an ulcer. Our dark night in these instances gets even darker, more amplified until it can seemingly paralyze us.

Furthermore, when we get older and have various physical ailments, we may expect each of them to end our life, but they only end up being minor annoyances. We may have diarrhea or constipation and think that it must be due to a tumor. We may go through a period of financial challenges that are surmountable but we think we definitely are going to go bankrupt. And so it goes, on and on, until we see the insanity in our fears and our false, catastrophic, darkened expectations. Until then, in our deep depression, we sweat copious amounts of blood, not just a few trickles.

Thy Will Be Done

And finally, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus proclaimed the defining words of coming out of darkness into the light: If this cup can pass, than let it pass. But Thy will, not my will, be done. God’s will always is good! Our goal and task always is to align our will with Spirit’s will. Then we come once again into the light of life, brighter than ever before.

For This Have I Come

Just a few words now about Jesus’ crucifixion, entombment and resurrection: One of the classic statements of Jesus on the cross was: Father, why has Thou forsaken me? And certainly, in our dark night, this is exactly the question we ask. If is as if, despite all our past beliefs in our Father-Mother Parent, even unto teaching these repeatedly to others and proclaiming them to be true, now it seems like God may not even exist or has left us.

We feel all alone, not even comforted by Spirit; forsaken, forlorn, forgotten not only by the Creator but also by our invisible spiritual teachers, ascended masters and angels in the higher planes. It is indeed a dark time, the darkest of all, when we feel this disconnect with the One Power and those who rightly radiate this Power.

However, other Biblical translations and accounts give an entirely different version of Jesus’ alleged statement on the cross. They say that the correct, higher interpretation of it is: “For this have I come.”

Talk about night and day, two sides of one coin, the very epitome of the darkness of crucifixion and the light-filled resurrection to come.

So, in our better moments, we are wise to acknowledge our dark feelings and impressions, but not to give into them. Rather we keep our eye single on renewal, rebirth, regeneration and resurrection. At times, we may feel a bit schizophrenic about all of this, like we are of two minds or personalities. But isn’t that usually the case between our mortal mind and our immortal mind? Are they not diametrically opposed until we have cleansed our mortal/soul/personality and aligned it fully with our immortal I Am self and light body?

Cause & Effect

Along these lines, if we have some catastrophic, soul-searing illness, we may well be asking why this is happening. We may see no logical reason for it, especially not one of this lifetime. But the truth is that we always reap what we have sown. If we do not remember our past lives, then we will not see the reason for our present difficulties.

On the other hand, if we can only remember this life, we can certainly remember the cosmic truth of karma and reincarnation. We need not know all the details of our past mistakes, in fact it might overwhelm us if we did. What we can say is that if we correct the current condition, we will correct the past aberrations in our soul record. We and we alone can be the master of our soul, not a slave to it.

Moreover, we cannot change the past, for it is over and done with. But we can correct and heal the present way that we think, feel and act. That is the key. If we need to know the past, Spirit will show it to us. Meanwhile, we keep the faith and take care of what is before and within us, in full view.

In the Tomb

Following the death of Jesus’ physical body, he was placed in the tomb, a veritable dark place whose one opening was covered by a huge stone. So where was Jesus’s soul at this time? According to Nada-Yolanda’s channelings and intunements, he spent much of this time in the sixth astral plane, where the 12 Powers approach is taught and demonstrated. There, he reviewed the final vestiges of his shortcomings, lack of higher understanding, attachments to mortal life, and so on. And then, he waited and watched, prepared for and brought forth his resurrection.

However, as the saying goes, it is darkest before dawn. We may know or at least think that dawn is coming, but we cannot be sure because we still are in a state of darkness. Only this time before dawn is not the rancorous, fractious, difficult time of crucifixion so much as it is a time of rest and rejuvenation and renewal, like the final hours of a good night of sleep.

It is a time of reabsorbing our astral-body energies and our physical vibrations back into our light body, which makes resurrection possible. Patience and persistence are of the essence here, as well as resting in the peace of one’s I Am Self. Spirit alone knows the time when dawn will come and we resurrect out of the tomb.

Moreover, even when Jesus resurrects and shows himself on Easter morning to Mary Magdalene, he still is not fully in synch with his light form. He says to her, “Touch me not for I have not yet ascended.” However, that night he teleports and appears behind closed doors to his eleven apostles in the Upper Room. At first, he rebukes them for their fears that he is a ghost, but then he lovingly shows and proves to them that he is truly in his light body.

Demonstration

Let us go and do likewise this week, to stop fearing that the ghosts of our past will possess and destroy us, but rather to become the light of the world. In the upcoming seven days, review your past dark nights of your soul, what you have learned, what you did well and when you faltered. Then devise your own plan and program to light up your life and that of others. As Spirit guides you, come out of your remaining soul darkness into the light of your I Am Self.

Call upon Sananda and Sol-O-Man, your guardian angel, space visitors from planets, and higher astral plane guides to help you. Be at one with them and in and through them with God and all of His-Her children.

Be the light of the world.

Amen.

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This blog is but the first of three blogs in my series about the “Dark Night of the Soul.” I will post the next two blogs about this subject in the days or weeks to come, probably interspersed with blogs about Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot. The two remaining blogs on the dark night will cover my own dark-night passage from 2016-2020 and my rising again into the light of my spiritual Self, my Soliel consciousness.

Stay tuned!

To reply to this current blog, send your email to me at [email protected], or add your comment below.

Go to www.thenewearth.org/markage.html to order Mark-Age books online, including Birth of the Light Body.