Philosophy of the Inner Light

This is the story of a seeking and finally a finding. It began in Friends meetings for worship. It went on to the study of various great philosophers in the Western tradition. It came back, enriched, to meeting for worship. The goal of my search was meanings. What is the inner light – or, as George Fox and other early Quakers called it – the “light within”? What is “that of God in every one”? I wasn’t asking here for definitions. Rather, I sought to know how the inner light operates, how it can be used, most of all what it signifies. I’d had enough of subjective interpretations, of sociological religion; what I needed to find was some objective truth. Is it true that the inward light is a seed of God in me? But what is God?

My goal was not to chase words but to uncover the value of my life: to discover what it means to be human. I found in myself a great thirst. In my middle years I became again an adolescent asker of questions. I began to explore and ultimately to find.