Living in the Sunlight

A lecture delivered on Sunday, 7 May 1922, at 11:00 a.m.

in Washington Hall at the State-Lake building, Chicago.

Charles Stansfeld Jones (Frater Achad)

The subject of my talk this morning is LIVING IN THE SUNLIGHT. I do not think that we could have had a more appropriate morning for a lecture of this sort. We might, however, have a more appropriate surrounding in so far as you would all, perhaps, have been better off out of doors than in here. But the question of living in the sunlight is not one that only applies in the material sense, although, after all, that is very important.

We all realize, I think, all of us who are here this morning, how much brighter, in every way, we feel on account of the bright sunshine this morning, which has entered not only into our lungs but in our minds, and gives us a brighter and clearer outlook on the world in general. There is no doubt whatever—nobody can deny that the sunlight is one of the greatest blessings of life. Of course, as a matter of fact, without it, we should, none of us, be here at all. I want to take up the question of living in the sunlight from several aspects. First of all, we have the word "living", and the question arises as to whether or not we are all of us living, whether we are among the "quick" or what we may term "dead". I am prepared to say that there are some of us, at least, who are certainly not living 100%, in the way that they might be. They are not filled with the living forces of the universe, and by breaking thru then constantly in the way they might if they only knew the way and thought it was worthwhile. El Levi [Eliphas Levi] tells us that there are upon earth a number of people, so-called, whose higher self—the sun of their being, as it were—has departed from them, even in this life; and that they are little more than shells, animated by the remainder of their life forces and having a certain amount of mentality, but that they are practically dead even while they are supposed to be alive. I do not think that we have any of that type of person with us this morning, but there are others, again, who are living, but living practically in the darkness or in the shadow. You will remember last Sunday morning, I talked to you of the "Shadow Under the Table", and described this world as some of us know it, to a living in that shadow, not having realized the full light of life and, at the same time, having got accustomed to the twilight we have become more or less satisfied with.

Now, I think there are few of us who can not increase the light within ourselves and consequently the life force within them, for life is the substance of light. We may, I think, compare this type of person to some little animal who lives under ground; or we may say, perhaps—(I do not know why) but I think perhaps people prefer to be likened to plants and flowers, rather than to animals. We might say, perhaps, they are like the young shoot in the ground who have been developing their roots to a certain extent, have been getting a firm grip upon the life of earth, but who have not succeeded in breaking thru the crust of earth above them and opening themselves out to the full light of the sunlight. Those who feel that their life is full of shadow should remember the comforting words of Liber Legis, the Book of the holy Law of the new aeon is that which remains, after the sorrows are but shadows. They pass and are done, but there is that which remains, after the sorrows and shadows have passed away, and that it is which we wish to concern ourselves with for it is our chance of immortality—for it does remain, and also it leads us into a life of pure joy under the law of Light, Life, Love and Liberty.

     But how are we to change our condition? Probably this is more or less a question of natural growth, but once the true aspiration of growth has arisen within us, once we have become conscious of our true will, our true purpose, this growth may be greatly accelerated. We can imagine that if a flower, for instance, could become conscious of a desire for light, it might push forward very much more quickly and, as a matter fact, we have heard stories which are more or less confirmed, I think, of the extremely rapid growth of plants or flowers under the influence of the will of some of the Yogis. In other words, the Yogi, or the eastern sage, knowing somewhat of the secrets of life, is able to contact the soul of the seed and to hasten its growth so that, in a few hours, we find a plant growing up and coming to maturity, which would otherwise have taken, in the course of nature, a long time. In other words, the Yogi has succeeded in, first of all, aligning himself with the will of the Universe or God, and, secondly, in, to a certain extent, showing forth the powers of God by means of that will. Will is that which causes change to occur in conformity with our true will. When we can succeed in learning that secret, we shall be able to grow very much more rapidly towards the sunlight than we have ever before been able to do.

Besides those who live under ground, we may say that there are those who live in the water. They are like the fishes. They see each other thru the waters, but they are unable to look above, to raise their heads above the water, especially if they are deep water fish, they may not be able to come to the surface.

They are living in a semi-transparent surrounding, and they have become quite accustomed to it. They are, as a matter of fact, what we may term children of the last aeon, children of Osiris, the Age which was governed by Pisces or fishes. There are very many who are still swimming around in the waters and who have not succeeded in imitating the bird, as far as their own life is concerned, and rising above the waters to a clear air where they may enjoy the rays of the universal sun. I suppose that this Age of Aquarius, the new aeon as we may term it, is preeminently an Age of Air. We find it heralded by the mastery of air by means of planes, and so on, and I think that we shall be able during this period to comprehend much more completely, if I may say, the bird mind. Whatever we may have been able to recognize and realize about animals, we really know very, very little from the point of view of the birds, for we have not had much opportunity to get that point of view. We shall undoubtedly gradually get it in this Age, as all these things on the physical plane are always manifestations of what is going on inside the individual and inside the race, and so on; for everything which manifests on the outer plane comes into manifestation as a result of some inner force.

I was struck, yesterday, I think it was, by one of the very old texts in the Bible which I had previously very little understood. Sometimes, in our childhood, we learned a number of texts and so on, and we put an ordinary meaning on them, and they go on, in our mind, many years. We never trouble at all to re-examine them in the light from further and more advanced knowledge. The text I am referring to is this: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head". Now, when we were little Sunday School children, I think probably most of us had the opinion, from that text—the saying of Christ, which he answered to a man who came to him saying: "Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest"—we always have a [sympathetic] feeling in our heart for Christ at that time, and we think of a man as an outcast who has no place to lie down and so on. That is the kind of interpretation which is generally put upon it. Look at us—we have a nice house, and so on, and yet the Son of man hath no where to lay his head. Now, I got an idea about that, and on taking up the Bible it was afterwards much more strongly confirmed by one of the verses almost immediately following. I came to the conclusion—to give you my idea first—that the Son of man hath not where to lay his head is on account of the fact that he is constantly shining. He neither slumbers nor sleeps—in other words, because he is the true representative of the Sun. Now, the sun as we know, is always shining, although many of the old religions, all of the old religions—practically every religion which is existing today, is based or has been based upon the apparent fact in nature that the sun disappeared—that he does disappear; but they had the idea that the sun died every night and was re-born or resurrected every morning; and upon that basis or solar myth was based practically all the religions for the last two thousand years. We can trace the idea, of course, in the Christian religion and many others. Now modern science has pointed out to us, more or less recently (when I say that, I mean as compared to the date on which these older religions are founded)—the fact that the sun is always shining, and it is this earth which revolves and consequently cuts off the light of the sun at times by the gross [ . . . ] and opaqueness of its own body. The sun, itself, is always shining. It does not die and is re-born. It is constantly ever-living, and that is the idea concealed beneath Christ's words. He is always shining. He is always the Son of Man.

Now, to confirm that, we will go a verse or two further—not to confirm that idea so mush as to counteract the old idea that we may have had. Within three verses, we hear of the fact that Christ entered into a boat and the disciples came to him and found that he was asleep and they woke him up on account of the storm. Now, Christ would not say with his own mouth that the Son of man hath not where to lay his head, and within five or ten minutes he was asleep. Either you have got to accuse him of telling an untruth (which you would be loath to do), or to say that his words about having no where to lay his head have a decidedly different and more secret meaning; and I think, if we look at things in that way, we shall be able to interpret the saying very much better. In other words, to the man who asked him whether he could follow him all the while—he simply said, at the present time you are not capable of shining, constantly active, always reflecting and giving out light as the sun does, and that is the Son of man's particular work. But, although we may not be at the stage when we can become as the Sun himself, constantly shining—yet we may learn to live in the sunlight. And that, after all, is very much better than living under the earth or in the water.

Now, there is another aspect which I want to take up before I develop the subject any further; and that is—What is there living in the sunlight at the present time? This question can be taken up from more than one point of view, again. We are all living, really, on account of the sunlight. The earth upon which we live is but a spirit (?) [ . . . ] of the rays (?) of the sun. The life of the sun is in the earth, and if it were not for that life, and the one substance of which we are all made, we should not be here; we should not be able to exist at all. But this life needs to be constantly sustained; in fact, all things are in the process of becoming. They are constantly being born, constantly being preserved, and again being destroyed, in order that they may be renewed; and it is to the action of the sun, himself, the center of our solar system, that we look for the creation, preservation, and destruction of all living things as we know them.

In one of the secret rituals of a well known Order, we find the following words: "The secret of the Royal Art grows like a flower in the heart of man. All that we can do is to aid that flower by supplying it with food, air, water and sunlight. Candidate, will the assurance of such [aid] satisfy you?" That is all that any occult Order can do towards showing us the great secret of light. Realizing that within each of us, within the heart, as it is said, the Royal Art or the secret of the Royal Art grows like a flower. It is possible to supply that flower with food which is the earth which surrounds it, the air which is necessary to it, the water which is necessary to it, and sunlight—and this can be done. Of course, they represent the four elements; the four elements which are typified in occultism by the four letters of the ineffable Name. However, there is something further needed. Jehovah — Yod — He — Vau — He must become [Yeheshua] — Yod — He — Shin — Vau — He, the Holy Spirit represented by the triple flame of the spirit must descend into these elements thus crowning man as a creature of the elements, making him into a perfect microcosm, the true fivefold star or pentagram. The Star of Unconquered Will. This Holy Spirit must arise within man, and he, himself, must seek it and find it if he would control himself and those around.

Now, to take up another aspect of what is living in the sunlight. There is something living in the sunlight which is most important to us, for it is the very life force, itself. That is what is living in the sunlight. The Hindus call it Prana, the life force, the one force of the universe which causes change and causes the progress of creation, preservation and destruction to continue. The one force which acts upon the one substance. In other words, the whole universe is made of a living substance of which one aspect is the life and the other the substance. Now this pranic force is everywhere around us. It is active, perhaps, when the sun is actually shining and its rays are reaching the earth. That is why we feel our bodies to be more filled with life while the sun is shining and during the Summer months than we do in the shadow and night and cold of the winter. We have often heard the Holy Spirit designated as the Divine Breath, and the Holy Spirit comes to us a constantly [ . . . ] like a (tide)? flame. This [ . . . ] is really both the light of fire and of spirit, and it is the essence and flame of the breath. It may be extracted from the air we breath if we only learn to breath rightly. This secret of the Holy Spirit is [ . . . ]. It is a great mystery, but it is not so far from us as we really thought. We can let it fill our bodies with the fire and life of Holy Spirit if we will learn to extract the Prana from the air we breath. But we have not been breathing deeply enough. The secret of Prana[yama] is control of Prana, as the Hindus call it . . . [ . . . ] is in these two little ideas. Breathe slightly more slowly than usual and very, very deeply.

You will find all kinds of books on Yoga and breathing and so on, all kinds of exercises recommended—those of you who have studied the path, # but the secret of the whole thing is to discover a particular life breath that will just suit the individual who is practicing, and this will be found by breathing slightly more slowly than normally for you, and very much deeper. It is not a question of how slow or even of how long you can make the breath or how long you can hold the breath, but to discover the particular breath that will tone up your being to the particular key which you manifest and comes over upon you in sympathetic vibrations with the solar forces outside. I am not going to make a lecture on breathing, this morning. I am merely pointing out, however, that there is something very much living in the sunshine and in the air we breath which is permeated by the rays of the sun.

When we learned this secret of breath, we find another thing that we may learn from the Hindus. They tell us that coiled up at the base of the spine is a certain secret force called Kundalini. This is likened unto a fire. It is really the stored up Prana in our bodies, but, in a certain sense it is Karma. For the passage or canal carrying [ . . . ] passing up the central part of the spine is closed at its lower end and this Kundalini (they say mystically) three and a half coils at the lower end of the spine, beneath this closed opening, and when this can be opened, the Kundalini force takes up its rightful place which is about the navel of our bodies in a certain chakra, as it is called, a nerve plexus branching off from the spine. The solar force or the Kundalini force dwells safe within, in the solar plexus and not at the base of the spine. That is its normal home to which we must restore it. [ . . . ] and finding there are certain powers being granted to us. We find, as a matter of fact, when the force begins to [ . . . ] some of the [ . . . ] as they are called, or plexas, that we begin to see most wonderful colors. We find, in other words, that certain higher senses are developed and we are living a much fuller life than ever we had conceived before. We are like those fishes who have succeeded in raising their heads above the water, [ . . . ] —as we say—looking out in a new universe to a world which they had never previously conceived, a world of intense life. When we succeed in reaching the highest part of the spine, arouse (?) the Chakra which is called the thousand and one petaled lotus which is above the heart of the aspirant.

Now these powers are to be obtained thru the living furnished (?) of the sunlight. We are really crystallized sunlight, every one of us. Every time that we breathe, we are taking into our system some of this Prana and it is being used to keep our bodies running and at the same time, it is storing up a surplus energy which is this Kundalini force. There are certain dangers attached to these things, I must warn you. I am not giving you any details of that, for practice of that kind should be undertaken with very great care. But there are these things within us and they may be aroused by those who really aspire to the true light.

But we must truly learn to live in the sunlight. We must not be content to start on a path of this kind with any half goal in view. We must aspire as if we are to become the sun, itself, who is the Great Spiritual Sun of the universe, which we may term God.

It is not well that we should enter upon the mystical, occult path with the intent of obtaining certain occult powers. It is only well that we should attain to our powers and complete harmony stage, which is union with God, and a conscious co-operation with our purpose in the universe. If, then, we have that end in view, which we may call the Great Work, it is safe for us to take any steps that we wish that will help us towards that accomplishment, for we have in mind the very highest ends that will lead not only to our own salvation but towards the redemption of humanity. Then we will truly learn to live in the sunshine.

When we were in Vancouver, some years ago, a certain sister of the Order whom we called [Soror Hilarion - Jeanne Foster] came to visit us with the Master Therion. She it was who first used this expression "living in the sun light" and who has most successfully shown it forth in her own life. Although I have not seen—for some [seven] years, the remembrance of her is always, as it were, a ray of sunlight. She is one of the most wonderfully bright, cheerful, soothing individuals and yet at the same time so full of passion that it arouses within one all the latent forces that I have ever known. She it was who first, to my conscious knowledge, used this expression and she had a method all he own which everyone of us may adopt. It consisted in this: she said that whatever may have been the cares and trials and troubles of the day, no matter how many people may have gone against us and appeared to be unkind to us and so on—no matter what the state of mind we have been in—there was one great secret. This world, itself, is more or less of an illusion and we create to a large extent our own illusions. As a matter of fact, when I say the world is an illusion, I will say that we are looking at it from an illusionary point of view. Now, the idea was that every morning—every night, when she laid down to sleep, she put aside the cares of the day—all little annoyances and sorrow and shadow, with a firm determination, before sleeping, to wake up with the sun and to wake up to a new day—to a clean sheet, to look at the world afresh every morning and live that day in the sun light and with the sun.

Now there we have in that simple little process a very fine idea. Practically everything we see, at one time, is sorrow and at another time is pleasure. It is a question of our view point. If we begin to learn to take the point of view of the ever-shining sun, we shall find that all around us is light and beauty, although we shall have forgotten ourselves to a certain extent, even as we should do. If we become one with the sun, we should no longer see his rays as coming and falling on us, but we should see them as we project them onto our surroundings; then wherever we throw them will be sunlight for we, ourselves, will have become the sun and the giver of light.

Now the test of [ . . .]'s way of living is this: if we aspire to live thus, we must do all that we possibly can to refine ourselves, to cast out all that is dirty or unclean in ourselves or in our surroundings—to live royally as we are, as a representative of the sun upon earth, and not to be content that we are truly living in the sunlight or giving out the sunlight while there is any trace of darkness or distress anywhere in our surroundings.

There are those who have the power of radiating light and love to all that are in their presence, so that immediately one gets into touch with such a person, one feels happy although after having left them, one may go back into the gloom of night as it were. But we should become such living centers of light and love; so let it be the proof of our success whether we do still spread any of those with whom we are in contact anything but brightness and joy and light, life, love and liberty. If we can succeed in doing that, we shall succeed in not only living in the sun light—we shall have succeeded in becoming one with the sun and look at all things from the solar point of view.

The Book of the Law, Liber Legis, tells us of this; it is the great charter of our Godhead, for It says that every man and every woman is a star; and each star, as you know, travels in its appointed course without interference. This is what is meant by doing our true will, that we may learn our true starry or solar nature; we may learn to give out light wherever we go and we shall find ourselves avoiding all friction and trouble; we shall pass on our way fulfilling our true will or purpose like stars and constantly giving forth our light to all around us. Thus, a man seeing us will say, "who is this that makes us feel thus?" and we shall gradually be pointed to as a child of the new aeon, little children of light, the crowned children of the aeon of Horus; for this is the Age of the Crowned Child. We shall all become much more simple in our habits; we shall become perhaps a great deal more childlike in our ways, as in the past aeon we have become far too complex.

But we shall give forth a source of light and pleasure that will be far, far greater and much more cheerful than all the intellectual talks that we may have been giving out before or all the little arguments, or this, that and the other, that we have been shedding forth. Everybody is shedding out some kind of an atmosphere, a genial, pleasant person, or an intellectual person, or whatever they may happen to be; but when we have succeeded in radiating the true sun within us, which is after all the true Christ Spirit, when we say "I and my Father are One"—that my Father is in Heaven and that Heaven is within me—then we shall realize what Christ meant when he talked about the Son of God, for each of us is a Son of God, and we should all have that sun giving out the strength and light and [ . . . ]

I have tried to give out some little conception of my [ . . . ] of living in the sunlight, and I hope some of you will try to adopt some of these simple methods. You will find your relationships with all around you taking on a more pleasant feeling, and will find joys of which I have no possible opportunity to talk to you today, arise within you; for our Lady Nuit has promised you to give, you infinite joy on earth [ . . . ] "nor do I demand aught else in sacrifice". We shall attain this certainty while we still live, [ . . . ] there is (?) actually no death. There is a change, but even as the sun is constantly shining, so are we in our own true selves constantly shining. It is only when we take up a body as we have now, that the gross material of our body, as gross material of the planet, shuts us off from the sunlight of our own true being.

It is during the periods when we are out of incarnations, so to speak, that we realize more of out own true being than we do in what we call life; but life and death are but the plus and minus parts of a [ . . . ] As we change from the plus to the minus, or the minus to the plus, so in the long orbit of our lives (?) do we go on. It is all life, but it is a question of sleeping and waking, as it were, even as we do in this life; but once we have realized our earthly immortality, the [ . . . ] of the immortality of the universe, we shall never again enter into that darkness. [ . . . ]

The illusions of the universe may still be with us, but we shall break thru that shadow; we shall realize our [ . . . ] and we shall begin to live naturally and freely as children of God on earth and his representatives in the Kingdom.

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