The true spiritual battle occurs in the "dark" of us, a contest between the light of our wish to be better than the bitterness in us, or higher than some heartache or hatred dragging us down. Whatever its nature, this struggle is between forces that are dark and denying and those light and affirming. The ground fought upon is for possession of our interior; to the victor go the spoils.

One mistake many of us make is that we believe that our ignorance of this contest in our consciousness is the same as immunity to its outcome. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is much at stake. And one of the reasons we may deny our responsibility in this cosmic contest is not so much from ignorance of it, but out of feeling ourselves overcome by its challenge.

But we cannot drop out of this contest. To accept defeat is to agree, by default, that darkness is superior to the Light. It is not. That sinking sense of self we have all felt when doing the dark thing we don't want to do is only a temporary direction born out of a bad decision, and all such bad decisions are always made in the very darkness we then find ourselves decrying.

Here is the point: Everything can change -- become much brighter -- if we will do our part. There is a Way to succeed in every spiritual battle. But, this kind of conquest over ourselves begins with gaining special knowledge and then taking the higher actions that these truths point to. The short story that follows illustrates many of these spiritually empowering truths.

Once there was a prosperous and peaceful kingdom called "Goodness." It was a bright place except for one border that it shared with a realm of darkness. Quite often, but never announced, the dark border of the dark land would suddenly swell into the country of Goodness. From out of this enveloping darkness dark invaders would sweep down, plundering the unwary citizens of Goodness.

None of these attacks went unnoticed by the king of Goodness. One day he called to his throne one of his trusted captains and told him that another attack of the darkness was imminent. He said, "I want you to engage the enemy and not only push them back, but I want you to claim -- in my name -- some portion of their shadowed lands. Will you agree to do this for me?"

The young captain swallowed hard, knowing that he had seen so many of his friends before him fall in battle. Nevertheless, in his heart he knew the trueness of this call. Gathering himself up, he spoke: "Yes, of course I will." He waited a moment, but the king spoke no more. Taking this silence as his dismissal, he turned and began walking out of the great hall.

The sound of his own footsteps followed him, echoing in the great hall like the legions of thoughts now marching through his mind: "What if. . .? How about. . .? Why should I? Why me?" The captain knew what he was being asked to do was beyond his ability. None of his brave comrades gone before him had yet been able to turn back, let alone overcome, the advancing darkness. How could he?

By the time the good captain reached the end of the hallway he had also come to the end of his false bravado. He knew he could not win this coming fight even with the best soldiers he could muster onto the field of battle. But what to do? To admit such a fear would certainly cause the king to lose faith in him, but to not speak of his great misgivings seemed an equally bad fate!

The captain turned and spoke. A shock went through him as he listened to the greatly amplified sound of his own timid voice, a result of the natural acoustics of the great hall. "Sir" he spoke, "I don't think I have a chance in this conflict. I don't have what it takes to turn back the approaching darkness." The king's answer stunned him. "Of course you don't."

It was the kindness in the king's voice that nearly knocked him over, for there was no condemnation, no cruelty, and no distasteful tone in his royal pronouncement. The captain could not understand what was happening and heard himself speak before he knew he was talking. "Why then do you send me to my defeat?" The king sat forward to the edge of his great chair and spoke:

"I would never dream of doing such a thing to you. It is together that we shall prevail." The captain could see the king meant his words, but could not quiet his own doubting voice. "But sire, how shall we win this war when our enemy is cloaked in darkness and unseen until he strikes? Besides, so many others have failed!"

The king smiled and said, "You still do not understand the chain of command. All you have to do is ask it of me and all of my resources are yours to take into battle. This is something others have failed to do precisely because they did not want to see themselves as needing help. They were mistaken, weren't they?"

Completely taken off guard by the implications of this comment the captain started to say, "Are you telling me that all. . .?" when the king interrupted him. "Yes, good captain, that is exactly what I am telling you. All you have to do is ask."

The king continued: "Now then, you just see to it that you go out there and fight the good fight. I will see to it that you have not only all the light you need to proceed, but that it will exceed the power of any darkness you may encounter there upon the field of battle. That is my part in the plan."

Now let's see how this Royal Command can help us to overcome the dark moments in our lives.

Spiritual Light is what we need to have Real Success in life. This Light is not an imaginary force, yet we must learn to call upon its unseen strength. This light is not the sentimental stirring of self-gratifying emotions, yet we must place our whole heart into its Presence. This light empowers us to turn back what punishes us, but these powers do not belong to us.

In the New Testament, in Romans, Paul teaches, "Let every soul be subject unto Higher Powers." He instructs that to succeed with our spiritual wish to transcend the dark nature that defeats us at every turn -- where we act with cruelty instead of compassion, with selfishness instead of selflessness -- we must learn during these trials to call upon the Living Light.

We will touch on exactly what this idea means in a moment, but first, as a prerequisite to empowering ourselves with this rescuing Light, we must make clear to ourselves what it is within us that we are calling upon instead of these Powers of Goodness.

When things go wrong in our lives we have a real tendency to go along with the wrong parts of ourselves. This means that we gravitate towards negative states such as anger to deal with the angry people before us, or we fall into fearful thoughts when faced with uncertainty. Our unconscious relationship with these dark states places them, by default, in temporary charge of our considerations.

What then is the solution? We must learn to call upon the Light already within us. But to do this, we must first remember that it is within our power to enlist these Friendly Forces, and not fall prey to trying to be a power unto ourselves. This is the Key. It also explains why the timeless idea of being awake to ourselves every moment is so very vital in our quest for freedom.

One last Key lesson before we spell out some secret sources of the Light we can learn to call upon: Nothing we can hope to call upon -- to light our way -- can be any more successful for us than our willingness to put ourselves under its Perfect Powers. This means we must agree to be powerless to ourselves before we can hope to be empowered by something Greater than ourselves.

Consider closely the following sources of this Living Light that await your call upon them. Ponder all the lessons that they present, wish to learn their secrets, and then watch how their new powers come to go before you, helping you to win your own interior battles.

First, we can learn to call upon the Light of Real and Timeless Ideas. For instance, we can give our conscious attention to True Thoughts; reach out to touch their bright reality instead of allowing unconscious thought-forms to fill us with their dark misdirection. Self-victory begins with remembering that these inner relationships define us, and then choosing our company wisely.

We can learn to call upon the Light of our faith -- that still small but unshakable part of our understanding that quietly, repeatedly, tells us this Truth: Whatever it may be that a Good God brings into our lives must also be Good for us -- even when we cannot see the truth of this Light in the temporary darkness of some unwanted and self-opposing event.

We can call upon the Light of remembering our right not to be negative, that we are created with the right to choose who will be our interior company. We can also call upon the Light of all those aspirants who have gone before us, evoking their memory while remembering our wish for freedom; recalling their willingness to work for this, and for us, regardless of the personal cost to them.

Lastly, we can learn to call upon the sheltering Light of our awareness of the Present Moment, always striving to remember that it is the nature of this True Awareness to oversee everything that falls within it -- which means that nothing is greater than it is.

For extra benefit you should make your own list of Lights to call upon. This kind of special pondering not only helps to produce Light in you, but also attracts to you the Higher Powers you hope to contact. Do your inner work. Remember the Living Light.

© Guy Finley
Life Channels Contributing Author
All Rights Reserved

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