Light and Darkness

(Posted on July 19, 2013 by David McMillin)

[NOTE: While serving as mentor for an online verion of "A Search For God" study group and working on the Day and Night lesson, a class member described working with dreams in a group setting and also shared some devotional material that focused on John 1:5 – “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” The emphasis was on being continuously aware of the light of God’s love and presence.  Here is my reply. – David McMillin]

Dream groups are a wonderful way to work with dreams, for just the reason you pointed out. Others can often see the connection between the dream and our own self better than we can.  Like so many experiences in the "Know Thyself" area, we are often the last to know. Also, dreams are probably the safest path to deep inner exploration for most people.

As noted in the video overview, the association of day and night with polarities such as light and darkness (good and evil, etc) has a rich and deep history in the great spiritual traditions of the world. Many Cayce readings emphasize the association of light with God and darkness with separation from God, much as described in the devotional material you have shared. Here is the explanation given in one of the study group readings for this lesson:

(Q) Please explain the existence of darkness before the existence of light.
(A) This has just been explained, to those who will read that given! That man, or war, or sin, or separation in glory of those that were heedless. Then, that there might be the way for those - What has been given as the most meaning of all that written? He has not willed that any soul should perish, but from the beginning has prepared a way of escape! What, then, is the meaning of the separation? Bringing into being the various phases that the soul may find in its manifested forms the consciousness and awareness of its separation, and itself, by that through which it passes in all the various spheres of its awareness. Hence the separation, and light and darkness. Darkness, that it had separated - that a soul had separated itself from the light. Hence He called into being Light, that the awareness began. Hence we look out and see the heavens, the stars; and, as the psalmist has said: "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handiwork, as day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night sheweth knowledge." (262-56)

Framing the symbols of light and darkness in terms of relationship (connected or separate from God) and harkening back to the creation story for context is a wonderful example of dualism (or polarity) in the service of Oneness, as we have covered in previous lessons. The cosmic perspective of the psalms provides a powerful setting for the poetic interplay of light and darkness, all for a Divine purpose: That we may become aware of the separation in consciousness from our Source.   

As noted, the identification of God with light has a long history and actually ties in nicely with the next lesson where we will consider God's manifestation in the earth and various "concepts of God."