I remembered another image, reflecting a similar vision, in the wood carving by Gustav Dore of Dante's Divine Comedy shown below. While it does not depict exactly what I saw in my mind Friday evening, it is actually what was ahead of us as I saw us ascending individually and then rising and coming together as one bright light, drawing closer to a brighter light in the distance.
Paradiso Canto 31, by Gustave Dore, The Empyrean.In the Empyrean, the highest heaven, Dante is shown the dwelling place of God. It appears in the form of an enormous rose, the petals of which house the souls of the faithful. Around the center, angels fly like bees carrying the nectar of divine love.*
While I've always been a bit frightened by Dante's depiction of hell in his Inferno, the allegorical story is powerful in its metaphor of the ascension of the individual soul, out of the dark hellish depths of despair, through surrender, and the expanding stages of light, likened to a stairway, as its rises up into the radiant light and love of total divine ecstasy, bliss, on the way closer to the beautiful union with the divine.
I share this with you, not to incur any fear of judgment because our creator does not judge, but to highlight the simple idea that when we surrender all that holds us and controls us, we will heal from our weakened state as we accept and experience only love which opens us to the ultimate love experience. It is our perception of our own self-condemnation that we project onto our creator. The darkness itself, which controls and weakens us by condemning us, draws us away from the light with fearful, manipulative, controlling threats of judgment, self-rejection diminishing our sense of personal value and power. BY inflicting fear on us, it creates a strange sense of weakness and dependency, creating a fear-based allegiance to itself. By reversing that, we begin to grow in real power. We gain courage and strength and the longer we remain in that consciousness, we will build and stand strong and tall, able to withstand the cruel attempts to control by the darker forces. Each time we stand up for our own dignity and value, honoring our own voice, view and self, we defeat the power of the dark.
We are here in this human life to expand our power and our light, not reduce it through fear. There is a one-way street to the divine, and it is out of fear and judgment into light and power.
As we realize the divine would never judge, and any idea otherwise is a dark and terrible lie that enslaves us to the great oppressor, we naturally surrender that lie. Then awakening begins. We awaken when we realize we are loved more than we can imagine and that nothing can ever reduce our creator's love of us. That thought is the antidote to hell's false power to control and subjugate us. It breaks its evil spell. God's love is always there as the sun is always there, regardless of any clouds. It seems once we realize this and allow it to free our minds, liberating us from our preoccupations of things in our mortal existence, then we are freed to live as we were always meant to live - in total love, peace, and joy as our authentic and unique selves and creators of our most magnificent lives.
Once we are free, we cannot ever be caged or controlled again. That is when our empowerment begins, launching on the way to divinity. Then we begin our spiritual ascension, propelling us closer to the divine, and empowering us spiritually in ways we could never have ever imagined. As we become free, we become empowered, which is the greatest joy we could ever know.
* http://www.openculture.com/2013/10/gustave-dores-dramatic-illustrations-of-dantes-divine-comedy.html
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