Tim Boyd – India, USA
Tim Boyd, driven. motivated and always inspiring
Recently I was invited to say something about the second verse of the Universal Invocation, “O Hidden Light shining in every creature.” As with most members of the Theosophical Society (TS), it is a verse with which I am quite familiar. Since the earliest stages of my membership and throughout my association with the TS, I have continually encountered it. At the TS international headquarters in Adyar and throughout the Indian Section every meeting begins with it, and many groups around the world take the same approach. The entire invocation is:
O Hidden Life, vibrant in every atom;
O Hidden Light, shining in every creature;
O Hidden Love, embracing all in Oneness;
May each who feels himself as one with Thee, Know he is therefore one with every other.
The first three lines are constant in all languages and settings. The last two lines are occasionally altered to read, “May all who feel themselves as one with Thee, know they are therefore one with every other.” Many people feel that the masculine “himself” is needlessly exclusive.
Just to give a little background: in 1923 Annie Besant was asked to compose a meditation for a meeting of a group within the TS. She recalled, “I wrote them a few lines for daily repetition, morning and evening, as I did not feel I could write a meditation. . . . Meditation seems to me to be a very individual thing, . . . the most I could do was to suggest a theme.” In the process of writing the prayer/ invocation she said it “chanted itself”. The “theme” she suggested for the group’s use has since gone on to become a mantra used in personal practice across languages and borders.
Extended exposure to anything has a twofold effect; over time it — whether a person, a place, or even words of power — becomes familiar to us. The danger is that familiarity can lead to taking things for granted. In the case of the mantra, it can become mere words repeated from habit with little attention to the power that originally attracted us. Repetition without awareness can actually have a dulling effect. However, it is the nature of powerful things that their power is not fully dependent on our wholehearted involvement. Annie Besant described the effect of the Universal Prayer in this way: “It sends forth successive waves of colour, pulsing outwards from the speaker, if rhythmically intoned or chanted, whether by the outer or the inner voice, and if some thousands would send these out over successive areas, we might create a very powerful effect on the mental atmosphere.” The mantra also has an effect on the one chanting it. Although full attention and involvement magnify its effects, repeated, regular exposure unconsciously deepens our connection.
It is a normal experience in moments of crisis that forgotten prayers from one’s were no atheists in the trenches. Men who in undisturbed moments cursed the idea of the Divine, found themselves reciting the prayers from their youth out loud — pleading for Divine protection.
When I was a child, my family visited the Vatican. There were many impressive sights, but one made a lasting impression. In St Peter’s Basilica there is a bronze statue of St Peter, founder of the church. It is an ancient statue that dates to the 13th century. He is seated giving the sign of blessing with his right hand and holding the keys to heaven in his left. His right foot is slightly extended. Over the centuries it has been the custom of many of the faithful who enter the church to bow and to kiss his foot. The result has been that the metal of the foot is worn smooth and thin. The sandal and toes of the left foot are clearly articulated, but the right is smooth and uniform. The lips are some of the most delicate parts of the body, but the softest wears away the hardest over time. Words of power, engaged with over time have the effect of thinning the veil that separates us from our deeper potentials.
So, what is the light that is “shining in every creature”, and why is it described as “hidden”? In spiritual traditions throughout history light is regarded as the active principle of Spirit. In the Bible “Let there be light” marks the beginning of the creation process. Enlightenment is the result of removing the barriers to that light. In the legend of the Buddha, when he had his experience of enlightenment the first people who saw him could not make out his form. They were blinded by the light emanating from him. Medieval paintings of the Christian saints always show them with a halo of light around their heads. It is both a stylistic choice and an accurate depiction of what is seen in the presence of holy people.
In The Voice of the Silence, H.P. Blavatsky is more specific. “All is impermanent in man except the pure bright essence of Âlaya [the Universal Soul]. Man is its crystal ray; a beam of light immaculate within, a form of clay material upon the lower surface. That beam is thy life-guide and thy true Self, the Watcher and the silent Thinker, the victim of thy lower self.” Essentially, light is the nature of our being and it is hidden by the “lower self” — the “form of clay material”. In the same way that something can be covered by a thin sheet, or a heavy blanket, or even buried deep within the earth, the light that is our being is obscured by the density of our personalities. In the fairy tales of many cultures, stories are told of buried treasure, often protected by fierce creatures. The hero’s task is to defeat the guardians and bring up the treasure. The protecting beings are the fragments of our personalities that guard and enable the continuing dominance of the separative ego — all of the doubts, self-centered thoughts, negativity, and personal desires that prevent access to the “true Self”. At the human stage of the hero’s journey, the conscious activity of revealing the Hidden Light is possible. Spiritual selftransformation is the name for it. This revelation leads to the perception of the same light in all things.
In The Mahatma Letters, the statement is made that each one of us is “continually peopling his current in space with a world of his own, crowded with the offspring of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions, a current which reacts upon any sensitive or nervous organization which comes in contact with it in proportion to its dynamic intensity. The Buddhist calls this his “Skandha”, the Hindu gives it the name of “Karma”, the Adept evolves these shapes consciously, other men throw them off unconsciously.” To the extent that our “peopling” process is unconscious and desire-based the appropriate karmic response follows.
In the opening of the little book As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen, there is a poem. A portion of it reads, “He [Man] thinks in secret, and it comes to pass: Environment is but his looking-glass.” Many people lament the conditions of their lives, giving no thought to their role in creating those conditions. It would be naive to suggest that it is possible for anyone to control all of the influences in their life. The weather, vast social and economic conditions, natural disasters, cultural pressures, and wars are just some of the things that sweep across millions of people regardless of the quality of their individual thoughts and actions. Although each person plays a part with their infinitesimal contribution to the collective thought current, beyond the personal karma we create our capacity to affect the whole has limits.
The basis for the powerful effect of mantra is not only that it awakens sleeping latent potentials, but that it connects us to the one real source of power. Unity, oneness, brotherhood, interdependence, interconnection, even inter-being are words used to describe this source. The motto of the Theosophical Society, “There is no Religion (Dharma) higher than Truth”, is another indicator of that source. The power of the Universal Prayer is rooted in the fact that we live in a responsive universe. This is the reason it is also called the Universal Invocation; literally we invoke, we “call upon”, the Hidden Life, Light, and Love. In the stillness of our minds, the quiet of our hearts, we call out; we recognize the transformative presence of a shared Universal Soul and feel ourselves “as one” with it. What begins as an act of imagination, over time and with proper attention, becomes our life experience. We come to know in a way that goes beyond mere intellect that we “are one with every other”.
There is an ancient mantra that is quoted at the opening of J. Krishnamurti’s first book, At the Feet of the Master. It is known as the pavamâna mantra. Much like the Universal Prayer, it is a calling out for the experience of the Real.
From the unreal lead me to the Real.
From darkness lead me to Light.
From death lead me to Immortality.
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This article was also published in The Theosophist, VOL. 145 NO. 10 JULY 2024
The Theosophist is the official organ of the International President, founded by H. P. Blavatsky on 1 Oct. 1879.
To read the JULY 2024 issue click HERE