Vigilance
A lamp whose light keeps evil spirits at bay
March 31st 2015
When a thief is threading his or her way through the crowd in search of something to steal, they will sense instinctively which people are vigilant, awake, and which are half asleep. And what clue do they look for? Light. Because people who are awake give out a kind of brightness, so they are not the ones a thief will go for. The thief is on the lookout for those who are dozing with their eyes open, because actually they are immersed in a kind of darkness. In the same way, the evil entities of the invisible world do not attack those in whom they sense light, as they know they will be immediately spotted and repelled.
The word ‘vigilance’ belongs to the same family as the French words veiller, ‘to watch’; veille, ‘wakefulness’ and éveillé, ‘awake’. To remain awake means not go to sleep. But what is it in us that must never sleep? It is our consciousness. Our body needs sleep and should not be deprived of it. Not sleeping is one thing, but having an awakened consciousness is something else. Someone can very easily not be asleep but have a sleepy consciousness, just as they can be asleep while maintaining their consciousness awake. Consciousness is like a lamp that is lit. In very evolved beings this lamp never goes out, which is why they always keep evil spirits at bay.