To the World of Light

The little butterfly looked about her in wonder and amazement the moment she came out of her cocoon; she fluttered her two small wings in joy and delight, gazed at the beautiful world around her, and said to herself: "How sweet is the joyous world of light, and how delicious the warm rays of the sun... How happy I am in it, and how blissful! Here I am freed from my narrow, dark prison, and now I can soar into the open spaces and fly through this wide world. The cocoon that imprisoned me is gone, and the door of the jail that kept me from enjoying the world of light and the realm of radiance has opened... In a little while I shall fly to that flower whose buds have not yet opened, and tell her of this great happiness which I now enjoy in the world of freedom and beauty. I shall say to the closed buds and the slumbering blossoms: open and awake, for your day has dawned and your light has risen. Come, accompany me, you beautiful roses, that we may welcome the world of light and live in the flood of radiance."

Such is the speech of a little butterfly that came out and freed itself from a dark prison and a shriveled cocoon, to enjoy a happy life in the embrace of enchanting, bewitching nature and the bright, alluring world of light. And this, without doubt, is the cry of the heart of everyone who counts himself among the children of light and life. How great is the difference between one who lives in a dark world and shuts himself up in a closed cocoon, and one who dwells in a world of shining light and blazing radiance. Those who live in the darkness are surrounded by terrifying forebodings and deadly delusions; but those who walk in the light travel roads with clear landmarks and paved paths, guided by a heavenly glow and a celestial light. That is why the children of light shun the darkness and flee from it, to soar with their imagination to a lofty world filled with brightness and radiance.

And under a flood of light there flash before the soul enchanted moments that carry their possessor up to the heaven of imagination; his heart opens to the scenes of bewitching nature, and his soul is stirred by the sense of the most sublime beauty. You see him spellbound by a plant whose flowers have opened, entranced by a night whose moon shines full, touched by a child's innocent smile, and charmed by the beauty of an artless girl. And in an atmosphere of illumination certain inspired minutes reveal themselves, filling their possessor with visions and dreams: with his inner sight he sees what ordinary people do not see.

His imagination stretches beyond this limited world, and with his sensitive soul and his spiritual ardor he feels his way to the celestial places of illumination,

where the world of light pours out upon the universe goodness, truth, and beauty.

Nor let us forget that light sends out its rays in straight lines; that it carries the heat that kills every germ and purifies every corruption; that it floods the universe with its brightness and its radiance, and bestows its glow and glitter upon its inhabitants. It was in passion for this light that Goethe, the inspired German poet, spoke on his deathbed, saying: Grant me, O God, light from Thee...

By my life, the children of darkness are in misery. He who bolts the doors of his heart and hangs thick curtains between himself and the ripples of this glowing light lives indeed in the blackness, far from the rays of light. How wretched is he who, when light floods over him, keeps it to himself and denies it to others. Columbus and Pasteur and Edison and their like were not stingy with the light of their discoveries toward the children of humanity. The true children of light have shed light upon this world without distinction of race or creed; while those who consented to live in the darkness and to walk with closed hearts and clenched souls are without doubt wretched and miserable: they have been denied the touches of mercy, the looks of tenderness, and the smiles of hope. They are a company who preferred death to life and darkness to light, and so marked themselves for extinction.

Better, then, for a man to draw the veils from his soul, and break the locks from the door of his heart, and go out into bewitching nature, discovering her secrets, piercing her curtains with his glowing light, stretching the eye of his sight and the keenness of his insight beyond the far twilight, striving to understand nature and to better the world, and opening his heart to receive life and love and beauty... Yes, better for him to light his candle in the midst of the darkness than to remain smoke and fog, adding gloom to our world and darkness to our earth.