Books and Essays by Light
About ten years ago while in a bookstore, by chance I happened to pick up “Active Meditation: The Western Tradition”, by Robert R. Leichtman, M.D., and Carl Japikse. I thought that meditation might be a good way to relax. The book was definitely not what I expected and it was not about relaxing. It is a mechanism for exploring and understanding consciousness.
In researching the background of the authors I found their website. They founded Light in 1980 and they have extensive backgrounds in writing and teaching in the areas of personal and spiritual growth. Shortly after reading Active Meditation, I sent a few questions to an email address on their website. Since the email program was set up to use my work address, the message included my company name. A few hours later, I received a phone call from a fellow employee who lives about 10 minutes from my home in New Jersey. He told me that Carl Japikse, who lives in Atlanta, teaches classes at his home. Carl saw that we had the same email addresses and told him to let me know about his next class. Since we worked for a company with locations throughout the continental United States, I wondered how Carl seemed to know that we lived near each other. He must be psychic.
Over the past ten years, I’ve studied many of their other books and essays, including “The Life of Spirit” and “The Art of Living”. I have links to the books that I’ve read on my Recommended page. I consider their works to be among the best available on these topics. The ideas were not invented by the authors—any more than electricity was invented by mankind. These ideas have been discovered long ago. Just like it took the skill of brilliant scientists like Nikola Tesla and James Clerk Maxwell to help us understand the principles of electricity, the skill of people like Leichtman and Japikse provide extremely valuable insights into the workings of divine laws and principles. I’ve found that the ideas they present are not in conflict with any religion. In fact, they represent the principles that inspire all religions.
I’d also like to mention the forum on the Light website. Now that my children are a little older, I was looking for a good book specifically to teach younger children about God. I posted this question on their forum. Carl did some research on this, and not being satisfied with what he found, he wrote “The Story of God” in response. Now that’s a useful web forum! I encourage anyone with specific questions on these topics to post them.
The Impact of Light
"The light of the sun travels ninety-three million miles to reach the earth, where it is absorbed into the system of a tiny flower, transformed by photosynthesis into the energy of growth, and expressed once again in the radiant beauty of the unfolding blossom. Indeed, at times the color of a blooming flower is so intense and vital that there can be no doubt that God is present. Just so, the aspirant who has contacted the source of illumination is constantly touching everything in his life, at every level, with the light of this light. He reveals the presence of God.
"From this, we can learn a most powerful lesson. To become an agent of light, we must endeavor to shine the light perfectly through whatever darkness we encounter, even though we may not know for sure how to contact the actual source. If we make the effort, constantly invoking the guidance of the soul, the contact will be made."
—from The Light Within Us
