In response we tell stories, such as the tale of how Raven stole the light, included in this issue. But the question can have no final answer, and so it remains alive for the adult, who must approach it in a different way, through the conscious search for self-knowledge, truth, and meaning. It is through light that the ego is shorn of its miscomprehensions, and through light that the self is reborn. The emergence of a real self remains a mystery, however, and many traditional schools of thought recommend that we not focus on the outcome. Light empties the ego of its extras, which are numerous, until it can serve its intended purpose in the makeup of the individual.
Light is thus the energy by which coarser matter is changed to finer.
The attention is brought to a higher frequency, one that allows us to be better attuned to the truth. Light, then, relates the ego to the world. But that is not all, as stated in the Sukhavativyuha Sutra of Mahayana Buddhism. Light awakens through stillness, a stillness that the Cistercian master builders of Gothic Europe knew, as reported by Otto von Simson and corroborated by the photography of David Heald. Light awakens us to the inner call.