44 - Our Solar Initiation

You know, we exist on several levels - the level of the mind and the level of emotion. You have to work with the intermediary levels. That means that you have to purify your emotions from any dark emotions: covetousness, resentment, hatred, jealousy, intolerance, judgmentalism, and then, dishonesty, dire manipulation, intrigues, so that the emotions become glorious, luminous, diaphanous, golden, very beautiful emotions. That will have an immediate effect on your aura. Thoughts become crystal clear, no more ambiguity, because there is some relationship between the emotions and thoughts. If your emotions are murky, thoughts get confused, ambiguous.  When the emotions have become clear, like when a cloud is moved and the sun shines upon the landscape, then the thoughts become crystal clear, crisp and clearly defined. You are carrying your thinking into further dimensions, further frontiers of thought in the evolutionary process.

In this condition consider the starry sky. Just imagine that your body is in some way anchored upon planet earth; it is part of the proliferation of the planet, yet somehow your consciousness is able to reach out into the stars. Isn't that extraordinary? What does a flower know of the stars? We are able, just with our thoughts, to reach out into the stars. What an extraordinary feat of evolution! The flower has become the human being in the course of evolution and is able to have a more encompassing grasp over the whole meaningfulness of the universe.

In the past, you've practiced getting into the consciousness of beings by experiencing what it would be like to be your friend, for example, someone you are very close to. Consider the sun as it rises above the horizon of planet earth. Then consider that you could take off and the sun would not be rising above the horizon of the earth because the earth would be far away somewhere and the sun would be seen now continually. Instead of looking at the sun as an object of your vision, enter into the consciousness of the sun. You realize that your body was originally the sun because the planets emerged out of the sun, or at least the companion to the sun. It's not quite certain which theory is correct, but in any case, your body is of the nature of the fabric of the sun, the galaxy and the Big Bang. Not only your body, but can you earmark those qualities in your personality that you have inherited from that being of which the sun, which we observe with our eyes, is only the body. Don't think of the sun as being a glob of burning fire suspended in the sky but think of it as a being whose body we experience as a burning spark of fire.

Giving life by burning, that is the sun. The Sufis call the sun an Archangel. They call it Prince Huraksh. Shams Tabriz had lost himself totally in the consciousness of Prince Huraksh. That's why he shattered the being of Jelaluddin Rumi by the radiance of his being. That's the secret. So if you can identify with your solar inheritance, realize that you are not only your body, but you have inherited some aspect of your being from the Archangel of the sun, Prince Huraksh. The being is covered by 22,000 veils but all you have to do is peel off those veils which represent layers of your personality to find, deep down in your being, the idiosyncrasies of the Archangel of the sun. Then you will understand the words of Jelaluddin Rumi, "I want burning." By burning on the sacrificial altar of holocausts you give out light and illuminate all creatures with your light.

Shahabuddin Suhrawardi called this a solar initiation. You have to recognize in you, the quality that is the nature of the Archangel of the sun. That quality is Ya Haqq - Truth. Dissipate the clouds of ambiguity; bring everything to light. When you do that you are operating as a sun. Unmask the hoax. One of the aspects of the hoax is self-deception.  The dervish becomes like the sun, truthful.  Now you proceed into the starry sky.  You leave the orbit of the planetary system and you have to broaden your horizons.  Remember, the earth bathes in the sun .  The sun does not have a boundary so we are in the sun.  The earth is in the sun, not outside the sun.  The sun itself, is bathing in the galaxy so you are not reaching out from the planetary system. If you did reach out in a spacecraft beyond the planetary would be easier to grasp the immensity of the galaxy. Once more you would realize that it is a most incredibly powerful Archangel, humongous, even more glorious than Prince Huraksh. 

Can you imagine a being whose body is ten million stars, intelligence, the emotion, the scope, the attunement of such a being. Remember, if you are just in a spacecraft, you would still be in your physical self-image, self-identity, but suppose that you jumped out of the spacecraft and started to float in outer space and while you were doing that, instead of identifying with your body, you would think of yourself as an aura. Your aura is spread out throughout the starry sky. Now the stars are not the object of your cognizance anymore because your aura is made of the light of the stars. It is contiguous - coextensive -  with the light of the stars. In fact, the stars are not those little dots in the sky but reach out into immensity. There's no space anymore. You forget space; you reach beyond the idea of space.

You are part of it all. So the physical world is no more the object of your cognizance. What is more, in that condition, you realize that your thinking is of the nature of the thinking of the universe, otherwise, you would never understand the universe unless you thought the same way as the universe thinks. In fact, at some level of your being, you are of the nature of the Archangel of the galaxy. That's what is meant by the splendor of the universe - the splendor of the being whose body may be beautiful as the galaxy is beautiful - but splendor is beyond its manifestation in the Now you are carried beyond any emotion that you could ever possibly have experienced - into cosmic ecstasy. It is so incredible! You shame yourself for having paid so much attention or attributed so much importance to your puny problems on planet earth. It's like picking up the crumbs when you're invited to the banquet of the stars. It is participation in the cosmic celebration of the heavens. You realize that the power of that super Archangel, Dominion, is the wondrousness of sheer majesty participating in the glorification of the cosmic celebration. You see the whole universe born out of the cosmic celebration. 

The whole physical universe is just simply a derived reality that is trying to express the splendor and the meaningfulness behind it. Now you see that you are a pilgrim on the planet earth and you forgot who you were. Instead of climbing down the mountain, you are climbing up the mountain and beyond it into lofty realms. You see how inadequate our lives are when we've lost contact with our real Self. No wonder we get confused, disenchanted and embittered. We've lost the battle of life. Identifying with your solar inheritance is your saving grace.
