Week 2: Did God Create The Universe—or Become it?

13 Jan

Written By Rev Dinah Pemberton

Reading and Affirmation for January

From the book The Beatitudes: Their Inner Meaning by Swami Kriyananda

Blessed Are the Inwardly Free

Rays of One Light: Weekly Commentaries on the Bible and The Bhagavad Gita

In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

~ The Gospel of St. John, Chapter 1

As the seventh Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita states:

I am the fluidity of water. I am the silver light of the moon and the golden light of the sun. I am the AUM chanted in all the Vedas: the Cosmic Sound moving as if soundlessly through the ether. I am the manliness of men. I am the good sweet smell of the moist earth. I am the luminescence of fire; the sustaining life of all living creatures. I am self-offering in those who would expand their little lives into cosmic life. O Arjuna, know Me as the eternal seed of all creatures. In the perceptive, I am their perception. In the great, I am their greatness. In the glorious, it is I who am their glory.

Excerpts from Week 2: Did God Create The Universe—or Become it?

Whispers From Eternity

128. I Beheld Thee Hiding Behind the Flowers

I looked at a flower and prayed: suddenly, O Father, I beheld Thee hiding there. It exuded to me the perfume of Thy presence. I saw the blush of Thy purity coloring its petals. It was the gold of Thy wisdom that shone in its heart. Thine all‐embracing, upholding power filled its delicate calyx. The mystery of life and immortality lay in the pollen—lifted by the bee when it tasted Thy sweetness. Oh teach me Thy wonders of Creation, which is hinted at in even the tiniest roadside weed.

What inspired me from this week’s reading from the Rays of One Light to share with everyone was…

“I am the fluidity of water. I am the silver light of the moon and the golden light of the sun. I am the AUM chanted in all the Vedas: the Cosmic Sound moving as if soundlessly through the ether. I am the manliness of men. I am the good sweet smell of the moist earth. I am the luminescence of fire; the sustaining life of all living creatures. I am self-offering in those who would expand their little lives into cosmic life. O Arjuna, know Me as the eternal seed of all creatures. In the perceptive, I am their perception. In the great, I am their greatness. In the glorious, it is I who am their glory”.

We will take these words from the seventh Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita into our meditation together for reflection. But firstly we will listen to Make Me a Channel of Thy Peace by Swami Kriyananda.