Building our house of Light

In one of the esoteric teachings, the following meditation phrase is given:

“I build a lighted house and therein dwell”

The aim of a disciple is to build a lighted house and dwell in it. But to build such a house, the best materials are needed. Essentially needed are the primary substances of Love, Intelligence, and Good-Will, all of which are aspects of Divine-Universal Light. As well, any of the higher spiritual Virtues will become building blocks for this house.

The house referred to here is the composite of our lower and higher ‘bodies’, parts of ourself, which we can think of as stories or levels of the house. We have a responsibility to develop and refine our three “lower” bodies, the physical, emotional, and mental. We can build a healthier physical body with good food and exercise. But also important to work on are our emotional and mental bodies.

Our emotional body is built by the emotions we consistently remain in, whether positive or negative. So in order to refine or improve the emotional body, we have to live in higher positive emotions. Remember that emotions are not simply energies that come and go; but instead, any emotions we consistently remain in will gradually become our emotional body.

Our mental body is built of the thoughts we dwell in. So with conscious intention we can choose thoughts of truth and goodness, in order to build, or rebuild, our mental house. In all these levels of oneself, it is best to use the building energies of love, truth, goodness and beauty. Also important with this building process is knowing the Spiritual Purpose for doing so and having a sense of need and desire to work on this.

In the beginning of our lives our three lower bodies - the physical, emotional and mental - are built somewhat by unintentional processes. For example, with good food and exercise our physical body grows naturally, without much thought or intention. Our emotional and mental bodies somewhat grow naturally as well, if one grows up in a healthy emotional environment and develops the mental body with education and intelligent thinking.

Again, think of these potential bodies as possible levels of oneself, or as stories of our house of self. The ground level, the physical body, is mostly developed naturally and unconsciously; though once past childhood we often take a more conscious and intentional approach towards improving and maintaining a healthy strong body. Also, the materials for this building are provided by one's physical environment. A person's physical environment provides the needed building materials of food, water, air, and space for activity and exercise.

At the next level, the emotional, the initial building process is again natural, without any particular intention, effort, or conscious consideration. As we grow up from infancy, the building materials for our emotional body are provided by our social environment, especially from close family or friends. But in this media age, technological medias also provide emotional energies, qualities and patterns. Thus, in our beginning stages of life we do not have any real intention or freedom in choosing the kinds of emotions that will build our emotional body. In other words, we are simply absorbing and processing the emotional energies of those closest to us, and these energies then naturally become the building materials for our emotional body. We take on, become, and react to the emotional qualities of those surrounding us. Then, later on in life, we might realize that we can have some choice in what emotional qualities we absorb and react to, from our emotional environment. Though many adults never reach this kind of realization; esoterically, then, we say they are asleep.

At the next level, the mental, the initial building process is again natural, without any particular intention, effort, or conscious consideration. As we grow up from infancy, the building materials for our mental body are provided by the mental or intellectual environment in which we live. For example, this will depend on the intellectual and reasoning opportunities as provided by our family, friends, and education. Our ideas, beliefs, and reasoning intelligence will be developed and shaped by the conversations we hear, by the stories we listen to, and by whatever else we absorb from various sources and media. In general, our mental body will initially be developed by the ideas and beliefs provided by our social and societal environment. So again, this building begins as an unconscious process, without our own intention or choice. Even our inherent power of discernment, as well as our patterns of reasoning, are unconsciously conditioned by the mental world surrounding us; at least this is true in childhood. But at some stage there is a natural possibility for actual self-thinking and real discernment that is not simply parroting what was initially provided in early childhood.

Here is the main point. We have an inherent potential capacity to actually choose the quality of our mental, emotional and physical bodies. At this moment, or at some moment/s in life, we wake up to realize that we can choose the quality of our being. Yet, each of us has to begin from whatever we are -- from what is present already -- physically, emotionally, and mentally. The physical will be the most difficult to actually change, because it is made of physical material which is the most stable and dense material. The emotional material is the next most stable and dense, and then the mental. Practically and realistically speaking, we will not be able to immediately create a new emotional or mental body, just as we cannot suddenly recreate our physical body. But we can consciously and intentionally work on refinement, betterment, improvement; so that the quality of our being is raised higher.

Besides the obviousness of having to take good care of our physical body, a less obvious work is to refine and evolve our emotional and mental bodies. As already stated but still worth repeating again, it is possible to refine and evolve the emotional and mental aspects of our self if we choose to do so. The first step has to be our choice, our choosing. Next, this will require intentional work, because it won't just happen by itself. What will happen by itself is a continuation of our emotional and mental bodies as they are at present. Patterns, programs, habits all continue for as long as nothing is pressing to change them. So we have to want to evolve our emotional and mental parts of self, and we have to make some conscious efforts. This is not to imply that what we are at present is bad or unworthy. The motivation is to evolve, to improve, to grow and mature further.

So the motivation necessary for further development of the mental body is to learn more about our self, about the world, and about universal principles of mind and reality. We want to become more intelligent; that is, we want to actualize our potential of intelligence. We will want to think for our self and develop our own intelligence, rather than merely follow along with the ideas or beliefs given to us as a child, or in school, or from religion, etc. School, religion, and parents may well have revealed to us important truths, but now we have to test these for ourself. It is not necessary to abandon what we have learned from outside sources, but we ought to abandon blind acceptance and instead think for ourself. Thirdly important for developing the mental body is to work on holding positive thoughts and allowing into our mind universal truths rather than the negative trash that is often offered to us by worldly sources. And finally to mention as significant in evolving the mental body is the transforming power of consciousness and light. These are really two sides of the same thing. The more consciousness and light we bring into our mind, the further it evolves and more intelligence we have. Ultimately, our goal is a mind of light, clarity, and intelligence.

The motivation for developing and refining our emotional body is two-fold. One motivation is to hopefully eliminate negative emotions. Negative emotions are disharmonies in our emotional body. Disharmonies are not only unhealthy but are also unenjoyable. Anger, hatred, and depression are not enjoyable states. Unity with others, love, friendship, loyalty, and caring are all enjoyable states. Any emotion that feels disharmonious can be considered a negative emotion. So one motivation for working to improve our emotional body is to simply feel better and eliminate old patterns of reaction which bring us into a disharmonious state of being. Learn to relax and enjoy life, even when one's desires are not getting fully met, or even someone does not behave as we think they ought to.

The other half of the two-fold motivation is to build up the positive and harmonious emotions, such as love, joy, and caring. So our work in the emotional body is to eliminate the disharmonious and negative reactive states, while building stronger the harmonious and positive emotions, of which love is the essence. If we can actually bring our emotional being into our heart, then a great transformation will occur. Most of humanity's usual emotions are really centered in the gut, or in the solar plexus, or in the sexual centre. So it is transformational to raise our emotional being to our heart centre. Finally to mention is that the goal for our emotional body is for it to be full of light. Be full of light and love. And when there is nothing else, then one has become transformed into a purely spiritual being and true Initiate.

Building a body of Light

Next, we have an inherent potential to build a higher body. This higher body can only be built consciously and intentionally. It cannot be built by environmental forces; it cannot be built by society or the people around us. This level of building completely requires intentional work and choice. The capacity for this is natural within us, but it is not simply developed by the forces of nature, nor by anyone other than our own conscious being.

This higher body is known by different names. In some esoteric teachings it is called the intuitional body, and it exists in a fourth level called the Intuitional-Buddhic Plane (fourth in relation to the three levels or 'worlds' -- of the physical, emotion, and mental). It is also known as the buddhic body, the diamond body, or the light body. It is also known as the soul body; it is our self-developed soul.

In reincarnation teachings, we come into this life with a transmigrating soul. So we do already come into life with a soul, but this inherent soul doesn't have much power or influence in our lives, until we mentally and emotionally realize it and allow it into our consciousness. In other words, our inherent soul is at first unconscious to us, and we can rightly say it is also disconnected from our thoughts and emotions -- and thus it is not really yet an integrated part of who we are as a person.

Once we do actually realize our soul, if this even happens, then we are starting with something already present. However, this present soul of who we are was, at some time, self-developed with conscious intention and choice, for this is how every soul is built. Anyway, we will hopefully awaken to the soul we already are; and then proceed to build our soul even further, in a process of refinement and expansion.

So, we each already have a soul, inherently, but every soul is in further progress towards greater realization or being a greater expansion of light. And thus, there is an opportunity, in this present life, to build a more permanent and stronger soul-consciousness – with clearer connectivity to our mental, emotional and physical bodies – infusing greater Light into the lower bodies and then into the whole world.

This possible building of our soul will require intentional effort and also cooperation from our three lower bodies -- comprising our 'personality'. Developing and refining our physical, emotional and mental bodies will still be important, of course, since these are the very foundational levels of our being. And we can refine these three levels of our self with light -- bringing in and using the power of Light to transform our bodies and make them into a lighted house.

But now, in addition, and as an extra-ordinary work, we shall also build our soul-body, our light-body. So, another level of meaning in 'building a lighted house' is to build our light-body, which is a 'higher level' of building. We develop our spiritual soul with the energies of spiritual light and higher consciousness, and in doing so we are building our house of light. When we hold our mind steady in pure spiritual light, or in pure consciousness, then we are building this soul-body made of light.

The Intuitional

Our soul/light body is also called our spiritual-intuitional body, because here in the soul we can directly know the spiritual reality of life and all existence. Here, we are immediately in the very Light of consciousness, and thus we also have direct access to the divine-cosmic Intelligence. Our soul has immediate knowingness of its spiritual being and spiritual qualities.

Furthermore, as our intuitional-soul temple is developed there is a gradual increase in our capacity for continuity of consciousness, realization of immortality, awareness of the spiritual hierarchy, and contact with Christ or with our particular master-guide. In relation to the hierarchy, realize that it is like a great mansion built from the actual bodies of spiritual Masters/Adepts. ⁱ

So to build a lighted house is to build our intuitional aspect of self. It is to build our intuitional capacity. There are four main kinds of intuitional capacity. One is to directly know the innermost depth of our own true being. This is not a kind of intellectual reasoning about who we are in essence, nor is it a parroted repeating of what we learned from teachings about who we are. Instead, it is a direct knowing, a direct experience. Two, it is a direct intuition about what is real -- about what is metaphysically or spiritually true. One directly perceives the true nature of reality. Third, our spiritual intuition is capable of directly knowing the highest Purposes and Values of life. Intuition knows the spiritual Purposes of life, and also the Values, Virtues and Ideals. These Values, Virtues and Ideals are the goals for every conscious soul on the spiritual path. And fourth, our Spiritual Intuition is capable of directly perceiving and experiencing the Divine Universal Light. This Divine Light Essence carries in it the three primary Qualities/Powers of Intelligence, Love, and Will.

Thus, it is through this level of possible being that we can directly experience the divine cosmic universal Light, and through this Light comes higher intuitive Intelligence. This is the universal divine Intelligence, or called the Intelligence of God. No one is given the complete Intelligence of God or of the Universe; that is not really possible for a human being. But it is possible to perceive, or have revealed, portionate insights, and also to develop greater intelligence capacity. The meaning of true intelligence is the capacity to learn and discover; it is not about how much information one knows or about how much of a spiritual book one has memorized. It is to do with an ability to learn and discover, and this requires a certain degree of openness and receptivity, as well as active inquisitiveness and a will-to-know.

There is a subtle connected relationship between our mental body and our Intuitional body. The former is also known as the lower mind and the latter is the higher mind. In the beginning stages of life, and for most people at this time, the Intuitional body (or the Intuitional possibility of self) has not yet been revealed in a conscious way; therefore, the person only has experience of their basic three levels of self -- the physical, emotional, and mental.

The usual mental aspect of a person does not include any spiritual or Intuitive knowing, though it may have some 'intellectual' or book-found information. Our mental body can accumulate information, develop various conceptual maps, and even teach what it knows. It can also use reasoning and learn about causes, and it can learn practical things and even find practical solutions to problems.

Intuition, though, does not use reasoning and it is not the same as our usual thinking mind. It has direct knowing, but this is a general or abstract knowing; in other words, it is a knowing of fundamental truths, principles, values, and it also gives one a direct insight into the divine essences of Love and Light. Yet our reasoning and thinking mind is necessary for practical life, and it is necessary in order to more explicitly understand and be able to explain what is given from the Intuitional level. Thus, both Intuition and thinking mind are significant.

The mental body is a very important and powerful instrument. It does have some degree of intelligence, a capacity to learn and discover, but this is really provided by a person's Intuitional level of being. The Intuitional enters into the mental body at times, often during dream sleep, though unnoticed and unregistered by our normal mind, and this is how the mental body acquires some degree of intelligence and can also have sudden flashes of insight or life-moving ideas.

So at times there may well be an Intuitive connection with the mental body, or normal thinking mind, such that the power of true intelligence (from the higher level) plants its seeds in the mental body and Insights can sometimes enter into the mental body, the lower mind. However, if the relationship between higher mind and lower mind remains mostly unconscious, then the connection is correspondingly limited. Thus, the goal of a disciple, or path walker, is to become fully conscious in the Intuition and develop this Intuitional body. Well, not only develop it, but also make more conscious the relationship and connection between the Intuition and the normal thinking mind.

We want to develop a mental ability to easily move into the Intuitive mind at will and to more easily bring Intuitive knowing and insights into our regular thinking mind. The lower, the thinking and reasoning mind, needs to come into a working relationship with the higher, the intuitive direct knowing mind. The optimal ideal is for both levels of mind to work consciously and cooperatively.

Also it is significant to know that the Intuitive level, or Intuitive experience, is not merely in the head. Again, it is not really a thinking, nor a reasoning, nor is it a regurgitation of something previously memorized. Our usual mind, the thinking or lower mind, is mostly in our head; though at times it may instead seem to be in our stomach or in our sexual organs. In a sense, our lower mind moves about, though we seldom notice this.

But the Intuitive mind, which is really an operation of our spiritual soul, is more often found in our heart centre. The Intuitional aspect of self is sometimes known as the knowing in the heart, or more simply as the knowing heart. If we meditate deep into the heart centre, we will discover the very Light of our soul, which is the deeper consciousness in our heart centre.

So the Intuitional level, the Intuitional body, or the spiritual intuition itself, is actually a Love-Wisdom. It is an Intelligence, yet with Love included in it, or with Love as its basis. This is an important understanding, especially since most people regard intuition and intelligence as merely a mental thing. But it isn't merely just mental or about mind in the usual sense. Rather, it is just as well about the heart and about Love; for Love is always involved in any true intuition or spiritual insight. Love is at the very heart of our intuitional self, or soul. And soul is in the very heart of our being.

This is also related esoterically to the seven planes of existence and to our seven centres. Because our soul is our fourth level of being, built upon the three lower stories/levels of mental, emotional, and physical. And the soul exists on the fourth plane, called the Buddhic-Intuitional Plane. And the fourth centre in our self is the heart centre.

Thus, this intuitional level of self, or spiritual intuition, is essentially related to love and the heart, and it could even be called the wisdom of the heart. However, it also involves mind and intelligence. So it is neither just one or the other, but rather it is both mind and heart, intelligence and love, combined in synthesis. Locationally, our spiritual intuition is very often found in our heart centre, and so is light, which is the meaning of having an 'illuminated heart'.

Yet spiritual intuition is also experienced as being a higher centre in the head, just above the thinking mind. This because it is also related to the crown centre, which is also related to spiritual light. In fact, very often our experience of spiritual light is that it is coming from Above and entering into our mind from above the head. So as far as locating where our spiritual intuition is, or where it comes from, it comes from both head and heart.

This higher Intuition has an important relationship with our mental body, or regular mind. It provides Intelligence, Insight, and Light to our mental body. The Intuition can and should carry Intelligence and Insight into the lower mind. This is part of the intended relationship. There are four essential kinds of Insight given by the Intuition. One is insight into Truth, whereby one is able to realize metaphysical or spiritual reality. Two is insight into spiritual Ideals, Values, or Virtues. Three is insight of creative ideas -- which are possible ways for expressing or manifesting the higher Values of goodness, truth, and beauty.

Though one should understand that these creative ideas are not coming down from on High in a completely, precisely packaged manner. In other words, the Divine Mind (or Cosmic Mental Plane, as it is called by some) does not produce exact and precisely detailed blueprints for how to create in the world. It is not like God giving us exact plans for what to do. Rather, the intuitive insight of creative ideas is a collaborative synthesis involving the higher Divine Mind and our own lower mind. The higher Ideas are general and somewhat abstract, rather than specific and concretely prepackaged. So our lower mind is needed to not only interpret what is given from the Higher, but also it is needed to make the higher Intuitive Idea into a practical, specific, concrete reality.

The fourth kind of Insight is a direct Experience of Light and Love, as the essences of Being Itself. Our lower mind, or mental body, can receive Light from the Intuitional level. In other words, higher mind provides Light to lower mind, which helps clear, clarify and purify the lower mind. This brings us right straight back to the beginning of this topic, which was to build a lighted house and therein dwell. It is a foremost goal along the spiritual path to make our mind into a house of light. Our emotional and physical bodies as well need to be full of light; but if our mind is full of light then the other aspects of ourself will more easily be filled with light.

So now, let us be filled with Light in our mind. May our minds be filled with Light. For this Light transforms the mind -- clearing, clarifying, and purifying the mind. This does not mean that our mind will be cleared like as if we had a lobotomy. It is not a purging of everything we know. It is a clearing of that which has no more use or purpose to it. It is a clearing of unnecessary and scattered thinking. It is a clearing of illusions and delusions. This is what Light can do. So then our mind becomes clearer and we have greater clarity. There is less obstruction in the mind, we see more clearly, and thus we can see further and more expansively. And because the Light has dispelled so much of the previous obstructions and illusions, we are now able to see more clearly what is True and Real. Such is the power of Light, which is most essential. Correspondingly, in our emotional body Light eliminates the most stupid emotions, such as hatred, anger, desire for revenge, fear of the future, and self-despair.

Then, while the purifying power of Light is at work, the building power of Light can also be at work. For remember that Light both destroys-refines-transforms and also builds-develops-creates. How could any life exist or even begin, without the creative power of Light? Light is the very Source of creative power. But what science does not yet realize is that Light has its own Intelligence. One of the primary aspects of Light is Intelligence. So the Light that is given to our mind, if we can be receptive enough to it, is also the bringer of Intelligence and new creative Ideas, which is what comes from the level of Intuition.

So, may our mind be filled with Light, which can be directly be received from the Spiritual Sun.

Lastly, let us consider, one more time, building the light of our soul. As previously stated, most people already have some degree of Soul, or Intuitional body, or Light body. We are saying 'some degree', because even if we all already have a spiritual soul, such as the spiritual seed within us, each soul is but in some degree of what it could be. Each soul is a degree of possible development. Each soul is a degree of the Absolute Divine Being -- a degree of realization and a degree of completion.

Whatever degree our soul is, or however advanced it is, this is still the highest and deepest level of our self at this time, that is immediately available to our waking mind. So whatever degree our soul is, this is who we are most deeply, and this is our most immediate source of higher love and wisdom and spiritual will. But now, the question here is how can our soul be developed even further. How can it grow further in realization and completion? The answer is that our soul has to receive from a Higher source; just as our regular mind has to receive from its most immediate higher source, its soul. Our soul has to receive Light and Love from the Spiritual Sun, or this has also been called the Spiritual Logos, and beyond this (but nonetheless available) is the Cosmic Sun, the Universal Source itself known as God. Yet all of this is mere speculation until we realize and experience our Soul. Once we know our own soul, and can think and choose from this centre, then we are in position to develop our soul, our true inner self.

The best step we can take in this is to build in us the greatest possible Light. This will include clarity, intelligence, love, and consciousness. The next key to developing the soul is to understand that Soul is further developed by its own work. Every soul has to develop itself; no one else can. The next key is receptivity. The soul needs to be consciously receptive to the Greater spiritual reality and to the greater reality of Being. And this has to be conscious. The human personality of lower mind, emotions, and physical body can develop unconsciously and by external forces. But Soul development requires conscious receptivity, conscious work, and it is all done by oneself -- except for the needed help from higher up.

The final key is meditation in just being, but with consciousness. Our soul is built with Light, which means that our soul is built with energy essence of consciousness. But not just a consciousness that is filled with everyday thoughts, desires, daydreams, or emotional reactions. Rather, it has to be pure consciousness, clear consciousness. And it has to be consciousness in the heart, or from the heart, because in our heart is our inner being essence.

Exercises:

• Allow Light into the physical body... purifying, and clearing any problems in the body.

• Allow Light into the emotional body... purifying, and clearing any disharmonies.

• Allow Light into the mental body... purifying, and clearing any unnecessary thoughts, and dispelling illusion.

• Allow the Highest Light to crystallize into our soul-body, becoming a diamond body of Light.

• Allow into our mind, a Higher Ideal of how we can be. Open the mind to one great higher Ideal, and see this coming into our being by way of Light.