ACT NOW TO GIVE LIGHT TO YOUR DARKNESS

I was thinking the other day about dual meanings of words.  In this instance the simple four-letter word "dark" was foremost in my mind.

We use "dark" in reference to a color or shade -- "her dress was a dark brown" or "it is very dark out this morning."  The word  "Dark" can also be used to describe a mood or frame of mind, i.e. depressed, bitter, angry, down in the dumps.  Then again, "dark" takes on a slightly different twist when we do not understand something or we are in doubt about a certain issue; for instance: "I am completely in the dark when it comes to installing electrical wiring."

The later reminds me of my old friend, Humphrey, who was a highly illumined man and one who as a consequence was never in the dark about anything.  "Whenever you are in doubt as to the course you should pursue, after you have turned to every outward means of guidance," he once counselled, "let the inward eye see, let the inward ear hear, and allow this simple, natural, beautiful process to go unimpeded by questions or doubts."

He went on to emphasize that in all dark hours and times of perplexity, we need to follow one simple direction, found, as all needed directions can be found, in "the dear old gospel which so many read but so few interpret."  Without hesitation he quoted the line from the bible: "Enter into thine chamber and shut the door," and suggested that there is no spot on earth and no conceivable situation in which any of us may be placed where we cannot follow that direction without delay.  What he was saying was that it was not necessary to escape literally to a private closet with a key in the door.

To emphasize his point, Old Humph  more than once told the story of a man of intuition who worked at a desk in a bustling, and often noisy, business office.  Entirely undisturbed by the many voices and sounds around him, the man would, in any moment of perplexity, draw the curtains of privacy so completely about him that he would be fully enclosed in his own psychic aura, and thereby as effectively removed from all distractions as though he were alone in some primeval woods.

Taking his difficulty with him into the mystic silence in the form of a direct question to which he expected a certain answer, he would remain utterly passive until the reply came, and never once through many years experience did he find himself disappointed or misled.

Indeed, intuitive perceptions of truth are the daily bread to satisfy our hunger, coming like manna in the desert.  The key, of course, is to act instantly on intuition because the more we delay, the more we invite erroneous impressions and conflicting moral fantasies to complicate matters for us.

Bottom line: Give light to your darkness, dear friends.  Follow Old Humphrey's final words on the subject:  "Listen to and be guided by the voice of your own soul, the voice of your higher self!"