Last evening, I gave a talk about the radiance that is present in us and in all things. This radiance has been given many names, probably because it is experienced in so many different ways, and so it is named based on that variety of experience. The debate has gone on for centuries whether this is an entity or not. I am convinced it is real.
It is this radiance that allows me to be conscious and become aware of things that seem to be all around me. This radiance is an animating entity that is present in everything and manifests in a myriad of experiences.
I have recently heard this radiance described as the underlying consciousness of the universe. I think rather that it is what allows consciousness to occur. It generates the dynamic brilliance that allows things to be perceived either in a contrived, conditioned appearance or as they really are.
One hardly ever sees this radiance directly. If I could, I would be fully enlightened or fully awake. However, this radiance gives appearance to all things and allows me to get small glimpses of the luminosity within me and that exists behind my experience of everything that seems to appear before me.
Perhaps it is helpful to see this radiance as an ocean of luminosity that takes shape in limitless fashion. Perhaps it is in this way that the ultimate shapes the historical. I hardly ever see it directly, but I experience it inside of me and all around me. I mostly see it as if I am looking through fogged glass.
It has the shape of the wet tile walls of my shower. My radiance encountered it there this morning. It appeared to me as the wall of my shower and I touched its cool hardness, knowing it was actually the radiance within me bouncing off the shower wall, going me a small, blurry glimpse of the undifferentiated commonness in me and the shower wall.
Very briefly, the radiance manifested as a shower wall. The radiance within me manifested in the sensory experience that allowed me to be aware of the shower wall. There is deep joy in recognizing, becoming conscious of the common linkage, the radiance in all.