DEMOCRACY IS SELF-GOVERNMENT

Harold W. Percival

PART III

TRUTH IS: THE CONSCIOUS LIGHT

The Conscious Light within is that which shows things as they are, and which will show the way to the accomplishing of all things. Truth is the Conscious Light within, because it does show things as they are.

How can one understand that there is the Conscious Light within which is Truth, and shows things as they are?

To understand anything, one must be conscious. One cannot mentally see any subject or thing without light. Without the Conscious Light men cannot think. The Light necessary for thinking is the identity that identifies and relates the one who thinks with the subject of his thinking. No subject or thing can be identified without Light. Therefore that Light which identifies and relates one with a subject of thought and makes one conscious of his own identity and conscious of the identity of his subject, must be itself a light and Conscious as a Light. People instinctively use the word “truth” because they are conscious of a something within as the conscious essential of understanding, or because “truth” is a word of common speech. People do not claim to know what truth is or what it does. Yet, it is obvious that truth must be that which shows things as they are, and which gives understanding of things as they are. So, of necessity, truth is the Conscious Light within. But the Conscious Light is usually obscured by one’s preferences or prejudices. By thinking steadily on the subject on which the Light is held one can gradually overcome his likes and dislikes and eventually learn to see, to understand, and to know things as they truly are. It is therefore evident that there is the Conscious Light within; that the Conscious Light is commonly called truth; and, that the Light does show and will continue to show things as they are.

Truth, the Conscious Light in the Doer within the human body, is not a clear and steady light. This is because the clear light is diffused by, or seems obscured by, innumerable thoughts and by constant streams of impressions that pour in through the senses and affect the feeling and desire of the Doer in the body. These sense impressions dim or obscure the Light, similarly as the sunlight in the air is dimmed, or darkened or obscured by moisture, dust or smoke.

Thinking is the steady holding of the Conscious Light on the subject of the thinking. By persistent thinking, or by repeated efforts to think, obstructions to the Light are dispelled, and truth as the Conscious Light will be centered upon the subject. As the thinking focuses the Light on that subject the Light will open and expose all there is of it. All subjects open to the Conscious Light in thinking, as buds open and unfold in the sunlight.

There is but one true and clear and steady and unfailing self-conscious Light; the Light of Intelligence. That Light is conveyed by the Knower and Thinker to the inseparable Doer in the human. The Light of Intelligence is conscious as Intelligence. It makes the Knower of the Triune Self to be conscious as identity-and-knowledge; it makes the Thinker of the Triune Self to be conscious as rightness-and-reason; and it makes the Doer of the Triune Self to be conscious as feeling-and-desire, though feeling-and-desire is unable to distinguish itself from the senses and sensations in the body. The Light of Intelligence is of identity-and-knowledge; it is not of nature, nor is it any of the lights produced through the senses of nature. The lights of nature are not conscious as lights, nor conscious of being lights. The Light of Intelligence is conscious of itself and conscious as itself; it is independent of the brain; it is not ratiocinative; it gives direct knowledge of the subject on which it is focused by steady thinking. The Light of Intelligence is of one unit Intelligence, undivided and inseparable.

The lights of nature are composed of innumerable units of the elements: that is, of the fire, of the air, of the water, and of the physical earth. The lights of nature, as starlight, or sunlight, or moonlight, or earthlight are not of themselves lights.

So, the light of the stars, the sun, the moon, and the earth, and the lights produced by combination and combustion and radiation, are not conscious lights. Even though they make objects visible, they only show objects as appearances; they cannot show things as things really are. The lights of nature are transitory; they can be produced and changed. Truth as the Conscious Light is not affected by any subject; it cannot be changed or diminished; it is of itself permanent.

Truth, the Conscious Light, is with the Doer in every human. It differs in degree of fullness and of thinking-power according to the subject and purpose and frequency of the thinking. One is intelligent to the degree that he has fullness of the Light and in clarity of thinking. One may use the Light as he wills for right or for wrong; but the Light shows the one who uses it what is right and what is wrong. The Conscious Light, Truth, is not deceived, though the person thinking may deceive himself. The Conscious Light makes one responsible for what he does by making him conscious of what he is doing; and it will be in evidence for or against him according to his responsibility at the time of his thought and act.

To the feeling-and-desire of each Doer in a human body Truth, the Conscious Light within, is the treasure beyond estimate. By thinking, it will reveal all the secrets of nature; it will solve all problems; it will initiate into all mysteries. By steady thinking on itself as the subject of its thinking, the Conscious Light will wake the Doer from its hypnotic dream in the body—if the Doer persistently so wills—and lead it to union with its Thinker and Knower of its immortal Triune Self, in the Eternal.

Well, when and how does the Light come? The Light comes between breaths; between the in-breath and the out-breath. And the thinking must be steady just at the instant between the in-breath and the out-breath. The Light does not come during breathing. The Light comes as a flash or in its fullness. Like a photographic fraction of a second or as in time exposure. And there is a difference. The difference is that the photographic light is of the senses, of nature; whereas, the Conscious Light used by the Doer in thinking is of the Intelligence, beyond nature. It reveals and makes known to the Doer through its Thinker and Knower all subjects and problems of whatever kind.

But Truth as the Conscious Light will do none of these things of its own initiative. The Doer must itself do this by thinking: by the steady holding of the Light on the subject of the thinking at the instant of the in-breath or the out-breath. At that instant the breathing need not be, though it may be, suspended. But time will stop. The Doer will be isolated. The Doer will be no longer under the illusion that it is the body or is of the body. Thereafter the Doer will be conscious of itself as it is, independently of the body; and it will be conscious of the body as nature.