Message in a Rainbow

Divine Mother shared a message with me this morning through Her play of sunlight and mist. It is captured here in the following video.

The Divine Romance

The gardening team at Crystal Hermitage had just finished setting up sprayers for a long bed of irises that adorned a welcoming walkway. The sun was at high noon making my newfound friend, the miniature rainbow, clearly visible to me along the spray line.

What was Divine Mother’s message for me? She wanted to remind me of how to seek God and how to understand both the impersonal and personal dance that makes up the Divine Romance.

Rainbows are beautiful and hold a spiritual significance. God blessed Noah with a rainbow after the Great Flood as a divine covenant. Swami Kriyananda had an affinity for them. On special occasions, large rainbows span the entire sky in the Yuba River valley at the Crystal Hermitage. Of course, rainbows are simply elegant, emanating beauty, light, and divine intelligence.

This rainbow captured my attention even though it was a small one. I was struck by the thought of how a rainbow is formed. Light is refracted through water. The potential for a rainbow exists literally anywhere light and water meet but it takes a witness standing in the right spot to perceive it. The luminous potential has to awaken subjectively in the eye of the lucky beholder.

God’s Eternal Light

God is omnipresent in all creation. His light shines eternally through the Christ Consciousness in every sub-particle of the cosmos just as the Sun unceasingly casts its light on planet Earth. This is His impersonal reality. As the Heavenly Father, He is impersonally vast, but the Divine Mother is utmost and personal in attending to the needs, thoughts, and feelings of every individual soul.

It is every soul’s destiny to merge back into Cosmic Consciousness, but until we attain that supreme state we have to experience life through the little cup of our ego. Every once in a while we get a glimmer of God’s presence through the veil of creation. In the meantime, how do we expand the cup of our consciousness to receive the Divine?

Yogananda gave the following analogy. Imagine a person who is trapped in a dark room for a very long time. Even though his eyesight may be perfectly fine, he suffers from a conditional blindness. His way out is not to beat at the darkness with a stick, but to open the door and let in the light.

Spiritual ignorance is an affliction to the soul. We suffer when we feel the absence of God’s light and joy in our lives. The solution is always an inward one. Open the heart with devotion, and direct one’s energy and consciousness upward towards the spiritual eye. A little intuition may even develop along the way.

There is an art and science to yoga and the spiritual path. The devotee seeking inner fulfillment learns to balance feeling and reason and to keep both the heart and mind open and inspired. I receive an abundance of this twofold inspiration from Yogananda’s Whispers from Eternity and his chants, as well as from Swami Kriyananda’s music.

Selections

Here are some poetry and music selections that relate to my encounter at Crystal Hermitage.

Whispers from Eternity

Prayer Demand for the Opening of the Spiritual Eye to Find God in Everything (103)

My eyes are enthralled, O Father, with the beauty of earthly flowers, with life’s passing scenes, and with the sailing, silent clouds. Everywhere, all I see hints at Thy hidden presence. Open that eye in me which sees only Thee. With that gaze may I behold Thee above, beneath, all around, within, and outside me. Teach me in all things to see only Thee. Open in me that eye which beholds everywhere Thy hidden but ever subtly reigning wonder.

This demand should be repeated mentally with deep concentration until the prayer‐thought becomes fixed in your superconscious by the conviction born of deep faith.

Bless Me, that I May Perceive Thee Through the Windows of All Activities (134)

Bless me, that I may perceive Thee through the windows of all joyous activities. Look upon me, and cheer me always as I engage in my daily duties. Let my every action—whether waking, sleeping, or dreaming—be sprayed by the fountain of Thy presence.

Cosmic Chant

O God Beautiful!

O God beautiful, O God beautiful,
At Thy feet, O I do bow!
O God beautiful, O God beautiful,
In the forest Thou art green;
In the mountain Thou art high;
In the river Thou art restless;
In the ocean Thou art grave.

O God beautiful, O God beautiful,
At Thy feet, O I do bow!
O God beautiful, O God beautiful,
To the serviceful Thou art service;
To the lover Thou art love;
To the sorrowful Thou art sympathy;
To the yogi Thou art bliss.

Swami Kriyananda Song

Thank You, God, for the Sun

Thank you, God, for the light of the sun,
Thank you, God, for the rainbow,
Thank you, God, for this day begun,
Thank you, God, for the sun.

Thank you, God, for the bright summer flowers,
Thank you, God, for the green fields,
Thank you, God, for these wakeful hours,
Thank you, God, for the flowers.

Thank you, God, for the smile of Your love,
Thank you, God, for our gladness,
Thank you, God, for the stars above,
Thank you, God, for your love.