As Eckhart Tolle has written, poetry “has been recognized since ancient times as a highly appropriate medium for the expression and transmission of spiritual truth.” The Clear Light is Steve Taylor’s latest contribution to this poetic tradition, offering short and powerful reflections as a guide to spiritual awakening and as experiential glimpses of the state of enlightenment itself. Taylor ranges widely, through subjects including “Making the Human Race Whole,” “Freedom from the Past,” and “The Reality of Connection,” always in clear and simple language. Best of all, he reminds us of the choices we always have when life feels chaotic and overwhelming: empathy, acceptance, and love. Soothing but also challenging, Taylor’s words continually affirm the profound bedrock of peace and even joy in the present that is always available. The book’s eponymous reflection says it best: “There is nothing that can’t be undone — / no past injury that can’t be healed / no past mistake that can’t be corrected — / in the clear light of the present.” Reading this book is a transformational spiritual experience in itself.
ENDORSEMENTS
“A powerful and invaluable guide to the realization of who or what you are beyond the conditioned mind. If you read this book slowly, attentively, and repeatedly, it can take you beyond identification with the content of your mind and into the clear light of present-moment awareness.” — Eckhart Tolle, from the foreword
“Treasure this much-needed precious gift for your heart, mind, and soul during these uncertain times.” — Theresa Cheung, author of Dream Decoder
“Steve Taylor has gifted us with a collection of illuminating, heartful incantations, meditations, reflections, and above all, direct pointers to our nondual spiritual nature, in which all our unhealed suffering and trauma resolve in the ‘clear light of the present.’ This is a book to dip into and savor again and again.”
— Stephan Bodian, author of Wake Up Now and Beyond Mindfulness
FOREWARD
And God said, “Let there be light,”
and there was light.
According to Genesis, the first book of the Bible, the creation of light preceded even the creation of the sun and the other celestial bodies.
In fact, this light appears to be a prerequisite for the creation of the cosmos (a Greek word that translates as “order”). It is clearly the case, therefore, that the word light is used here to refer to something much deeper than that which can be perceived by our sense of sight. It is a word derived from the realm of sensory perception, but it points to a mystery that is prior to and beyond the world of appearances and manifestation. Perhaps we could describe it as the organizing principle that guides the evolution of life throughout the universe, an infinite, eternal, and transcendent consciousness that gradually expresses itself more and more fully in the dimension of space and time. This would imply that the creation of the universe is by no means finished yet, but is a process that is ongoing, and that humans, too, are a work in progress. There is an evolutionary impulse that drives all life-forms toward greater consciousness, toward enLIGHTenment!
When Jesus said, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14), he was speaking to every human being. He was able to make this assertion because he had realized this reality within himself and was therefore able to state unequivocally, “I am the light of the world” ( John 8:12).
Similarly, in Mahayana Buddhism, the term clear light is synonymous with luminous mind, which refers to the Buddha-nature that is the essence deep within every life-form.
Steve Taylor’s The Clear Light is not only a book of inspiring spiritual and poetic reflections, but also a powerful and invaluable guide to the realization of who or what you are beyond the conditioned mind. If you read this book slowly, attentively, and repeatedly, it can take you beyond identification with the content of your mind and into the clear light of present-moment awareness. This book will show you how every situation you encounter can become an opening into the state of presence. Performing a routine task is suddenly experienced as deeply fulfilling; you discover magic in ordinary, everyday objects; being present in nature gives you a glimpse of sacredness and self-transcendence; and even stress, conflict, and suffering can bring about a spiritual awakening.
If used rightly (and if you are ready), this book can transform your state of consciousness as you read. You then no longer derive your sense of identity from your personal history, but from a much deeper place, and you realize that you are, indeed, the light of the world.
— Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now and A New Earth