Lantern ethics and inner light

In early times in Japan, bamboo-and-paper lanterns were used with candles inside. A blind man, visiting a friend one night, was offered a lantern to carry home with him. “I do not need a lantern,” he said. “Darkness or light is all the same to me.”   “I know you do not need a lantern to find your way,” his friend replied, “but if you don’t have one, someone else may run into you. So, you must take it.” The blind man started off with the lantern and before he had walked very far someone ran squarely into him. “Look out where you are going!” he exclaimed to the stranger. “Can’t you see this lantern?”  “Your candle has burned out, brother,” replied the stranger. 

Lantern ethics is an interesting concept which is used to convey messages metaphorically. The candle that burns out indicates the state of complacency while the one that never burns out represents the intense desire for knowledge. For the candle to sustain the wind a transparent cover is necessary which represents the person’s ethics, the principles that one believes in. These principles that one holds dear and the virtues that one aspires become the fuel to the lantern of enlightenment.

In Vedic tradition truth and light go hand in hand. When the mind is troubled one feels darkness setting in. Everyone seeks light to dispel the shadows of confusion and promote the path of clear action. The light of knowledge, light of truth, light of compassion and the light of peace are all powerful to lift the darkness of the mind and enable the experience of positivity in the form of hope, joy, and peace. With every new hope and joy, the world at once seems to be glowing in the light of love.

The Upanishads call one’s inner light as their true Self. The inner light is eternal, infinite, and ever-shining and illuminates consciousness of the mind. People who betray others actually betray their conscience and put out their inner light. Mark Twain exemplifies the significance of inner light or conscience in his characteristic humorous style. He light heartedly writes about the day his conscience came out into the open, “where I could get my hands on it and at once finished off the pesky thing so that I could indulge in a carnival of crime.”