All the world is a play of light.
From light it comes and to light it returns.
It is light upon light.
This beautiful earthly existence is so captivating but it is only one aspect of the primordial light of creation. It takes soft eyes and an open heart to see the world as it really is, to recognize the light that is at the center of everything, the light that is the living substance of creation.
A Vision of Light
I have had a vision of how the earth is born from light. It was a potent vision that seemed to reflect an ancient understanding of the earth, a way of seeing the earth that we have collectively forgotten. It felt like a mystical vision merged with a shamanic trance. In this vision I saw that God is a seamless wholeness without beginning or end. God was imaged as light that is at the center of creation, a living, flowing light that is permeating everything. In this center of creation there is only a fertile nothingness and the light of creation flows from it. There is a sense that this image of creation is simultaneously both form and formless.
Creation is a deeply mysterious act that is constantly in process of becoming. It is an act of subtle magic, something we cannot measure and weigh or even give a name to. Yet it has been so heavily laden with our imaginings and projections.
We think that creation is this planet, this material realm, but on the inner planes it is far more mysterious than that. Creation is like a continual process of God manifesting in this world and then simultaneously vanishing from it. Creation is at its essence something that has no form, it is a void of potential that is covered in veil upon veil, light upon light.
Creation emerges into existence from this void and manifests in successive layers of subtle form. Our very consciousness of creation, our need to understand it and engage with it in our minds and hearts, changes it.
With intuitive sight one can see how creation is woven together into a web of silk-like threads made of light. As this light is woven into this web, it is like a Mandelbrot fractal which contains every single possibility of this dimension that we call the universe. But even this living fractal, pulsating with infinite spirals of life unfolding unto itself, is just an aspect of the oneness of God.
When peering behind these veils into the realms of light we see things as they truly are. The veils of the material world become thin and the immutable laws of matter themselves become soft and permeable. Matter reveals its fractal nature, it becomes a living being and shows us the presence of the light within it, interacts with us as though a god in its own right, revealing its multiple forms. This web becomes the primary screen upon which all creation manifests through a projection of the light. This web is the fertile substrate in which form appears, and it operates by different laws and principles to the material world we are so entranced with. Every single atom of creation is a particle of light, and in each particle of light there exists a reflection of the entire universe.
Time and Space
In the realms of light, everything takes on an archetypal meaning. Time and space are not immutable laws but rather living archetypes, or living gods. Like all archetypes they carry the power of the gods, they are imbued with a consciousness and exist within their own right, make their own choices, fulfill their own destinies. The constructs that we have made them into are dissolved in the realms of light. Time and space show us the deeper dimensions of their being, their true archetypal faces which are so much more mysterious than we care to see in this world. In these realms it is made obvious that our human conditioning about the permanence of time and space is a construct that is self-limiting. Here the world shows us that it does not have a beginning or end, cannot be weighed or measured, cannot be understood with the rational mind, because its real nature is this light that is pregnant with infinite possibilities.
Seamless Wholeness
When seeing this realm of light we are reminded that life truly is a mystery that we do not and cannot ever understand within our human condition because life is a dynamic and ever-changing pattern of light merging with light. In these planes of light there is no separation between us and God, only a spectacular unfolding of life from the planes of non-manifestation to the planes of creation, in a continual pattern of emergence. In the planes of light everything reveals itself as a seamless wholeness. Everything is a unified wholeness, everything is one.
Hidden Treasure
It is said in that God created the world in order to know himself:
“I was a hidden treasure, and I wished to be known, so I created mankind.” (Hadith Qudsi)
In this hadith there is secret wisdom, hidden treasure, that points to a profound truth. But like most good treasures, it is hidden and the path to discover the treasure is disguised in a riddle that needs solving. The riddle has the power to awaken in us the realization of something that is good and true and beautiful.
I have pondered this saying, written about it, meditated upon it, gazed into the clouds and drifted into daydreaming with it. I have brought it into my art, coaxed it out of a good few sunrises and wrestled with it. I have come to think of it as meaning that the divine light of God is present in every atom of creation and that through the eyes of humanity God looks back upon Himself.
The light in creation, the light in a flower or a tree, a mountain range or a stream, these are all places where the mystery of this Hadith is revealed. There is a substance to this light that we can dance with in nature. This light seduces our senses, like a bee is seduced by the patterns of light emanating from a flower. All of nature seems to witness this light in creation where it is present in every single thing. Even the rock is a living being that is made of this light. It is simply a seamless wholeness of light upon light.
In the inner worlds of oneness and on the planes of mystical light there is only oneness and love, a seamless wholeness that pervades all the created worlds. When looking at the world and seeing a seamless wholeness throughout the fabric of creation which is saturated with the presence of God, one cannot see anything other than something truly holy and deeply sacred, something profoundly connected and seamless. With the eyes of a mystic, through the lens of oneness, one cannot see God as something separate from creation because there is no place where God is not present. When we see the world through our hearts, when we engage with the world in love, then the mysteries are revealed.
The important thing for me in this deeply complex subject of the origin of life is that it makes us wonder. It is through wondering that we open the portals to mystery and through our passion and longing for truth that we are softened enough to receive this wisdom.