In today’s Prayer to Passage, I ask God, “What perspective am I to impart to readers today?”  I have chosen Elizabeth Gilbert’s novel ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ in which she seeks enlightenment both earnestly and with refreshing levity. I was gently guided to page 123. (I love the page number, especially due to Gilbert’s spiritual verses referencing numbers and the power of trinity notations.)

She writes,

“A great Yogi is anyone who has achieved the permanent state of enlightened bliss. A Guru is a great Yogi who can actually pass that state on to others. The word Guru is composed of two Sanskrit syllables. The first means ‘darkness,’ the second means ‘light.’ Out of the darkness and into the light. What passes from the master into the disciple is something called mantravirya.  ‘The potency of the enlightened consciousness.’ You come to your Guru, then, not only to receive lessons, as from any teacher, but to actually receive the Guru’s state of grace.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert

Even on my best days, I don’t know that I could say with great confidence that I have finally achieved “the permanent state of enlightened bliss.” Enlightened bliss, yes. Permanent state? I’ll keep you posted. There is something so mysteriously charming about not yet being in that perpetual element. I am making my way in that direction every chance I get, and the journey is sweet and lively. Can one rent a Guru? For a day? I would love that. To have that ethereal glimpse into the world of a soul so connected to the Source that the light makes its glorious passage into my own soul would be a brilliant experience.

“The Divine in me recognizes and honors the Divine in you.”

I believe that we already have the light within us. We know of the Divine. The Divine is made available to us. Perhaps it is in the choosing that we may create an enduring and everlasting Heaven on earth. Perhaps it is the continual action of creation that begets a continual receiving of blissful life. My grandfather used to say that he believed the Spirit world exists just a few feet above us. It is right there, so close to us, not far away in a celestial abyss. And so it is with God. What’s more, God enters the soul. “As above, so below.” It is no wonder that this is described as light within.

Sometimes it is difficult to closely guard our souls when they extend so far beyond the limits of our bodies; like a lightbulb trying to hold the light within a safekeeping of its own glass shell. Light is generated. I believe we may appoint and multiply it from Source. I share the light as I hold the light; both are in my choosing of it. And this charge and privilege can be placed into existence without waiting. If ever there was a time when I lost my power, I just took it back. God-originated and self-generated. Out of the darkness, into the light.

Admire a Guru, rent a Guru, be a Guru.

Namaste.