The Bright Way. Diana Rowan

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       Past Wisdom + Present Illumination

      As your final stage of initiation into the Bright Way, it’s time to master the philosophical basis of the Bright Way System. This sets you up with the optimum mindset, that body-mind-spirit knowing, for our journey together. It also provides a lighthouse to reorient by as you navigate the creative life’s ups and downs.

      The Bright Way System is a confluence of two mighty sources. The first is what I call “past wisdom,” that vast archive we have assembled as a civilization. This Bright Knowledge is “a great treasury of learning, knowledge, and wisdom, a candle that was eternally renewed as the light passed from recipient to recipient so that a brighter light might illuminate the world.”

      The second Bright Way source is what I call “present illumination.” This represents intuition, sudden knowing, sensing beyond what is rationally learned and categorized. The Old Irish word imbas (pronounced IM-bus) means “vision that illuminates” or “instant illumination.” It has parallels in many cultures and eras, such as the intense enlightenment experienced upon emerging from Plato’s Cave. In order to access intuition, we first sit in darkness, either literally or metaphorically, inhabiting the unknown. In the shadows, we wait agenda-less for whatever wants to be revealed. In this open, intuitive state, we become receptive to sudden bright flashes of insight. Breakthroughs and quantum leaps of understanding become possible. We let go of everyday consciousness, even past wisdom that we might hold sacrosanct. New ways of thinking, being, and feeling flood in, uncensored. New possibilities open up, new ideas and inspiration appear, seemingly out of nowhere.

       The Bright Way respects the past, integrates the present, and calls on you to engage with the grand design.

      Light and dark marry: past wisdom lights our way through knowledge while present illumination provides the fertile darkness our intuition requires to take root in. The Bright Way respects the past, integrates the present, and calls on you to engage with the grand design.

      All these dimensions synergize with one another. Combining the skill of historical knowledge — not some moth-eaten museum exhibit, but a living, breathing manifestation of distilled human experience — with the magic of present-day experience, you add to the conversation as much as you listen to it and take it in.

       Figure 2. The Intersection of Past Wisdom and Present Illumination

      When we look back, it’s astonishing how profoundly the sages of the past understood human nature and what it takes to live a meaningful life. Aristotle’s and Hildegard’s words are as fresh to us as if they lived today, not thousands of years ago. Much of this knowledge went underground and was rarely taught in standard education forums anyway. Now is our opportunity to reclaim this wisdom of the past, grow from it, and add to it. History doesn’t simply act on us; we create it, every moment of every day. This is our moment.

       BRIGHT WAY ACTIVITY

       Your Hopes and Dreams

      What do you dream of creating? Now that we’ve come this far together, take a moment to tap into your new hopes and dreams. What do you hope to achieve on our journey together, knowing what you know now? Write down your thoughts. They don’t have to be big, and they will not be set in stone. The intention here is simply to enter your Bright Way stream.

       Past Wisdom

      Tapping into these ancient wisdom traditions, I have grown keenly aware of the real people who laid the paths we walk today. When it comes to classical piano, my longest-existing passion, I connect with the souls of the great composers and to the hopes and dreams of their entire cultures. Playing the exact notes Chopin and Beethoven wrote, I commune with them mysteriously across time. These are real, tangible energies. I learn from them. They directly transmit feelings and beliefs that are still relevant today and worth remembering.

      I feel Chopin’s vulnerability exposed in every song he wrote. He reminds us that when we share from the heart — even if it’s terrifying, as his early retirement from public performing attests to — our work becomes timeless and universal. Beethoven inspires me with his faith in the towering dignity of humanity. His music became increasingly compassionate as he matured, despite the fact that he was repeatedly disappointed by life and his relationships. Beethoven’s profound deafness was just the tip of the iceberg. From his abusive father to his famously unrequited loves to his former hero Napoleon trampling his dream of democracy, Beethoven was frequently heartbroken. Yet he wrote some of the most uplifting, passionate, humane, and heroic music of all time.

       Early Influences

      Growing up in many countries, I learned that time flows in more ways than how I experience it in California now. СКАЧАТЬ