Franklin Merrell-Wolff on the Inner Fire

This is a part of The Teachers Speak, a series of articles on the Culture of Awareness.

“Fire is burning, man pull your own weight!” – Bob Marley

If you read my writings often, you might be familiar with the inner fire or violet flame. I usually use it in reference to inspiration from Source, but as we’ll learn here, it has far more uses than providing creative inspiration. This is one of its uses, but there are others we should be aware of that are just as helpful, if not more so.

The ‘fire’ is a powerful spiritual force that burns away everything in society and in the individual that inhibits growth, evolution or enlightenment, enabling us to reach a higher state of awareness that will eventually take hold in society.

If everyone became aware of it overnight, the populace would be more enlightened and willing to change the world than ever before.

Cleansing and Purification

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Franklin Merrell-Wolff

Franklin Merrell-Wolff explains the fire in a way that, in my opinion, perfectly describes what it does by likening it to physical fire. I’ll share his words on it below, and when reading about it, I realized that I’m going through this process right now.

Through a series of lessons and experiences that are showing me what no longer works in my life, I’m making way for the fire to cleanse it all, purify my being and give me the strength to emerge with more wisdom and creativity to share with the world.

I’m sure we’re all experiencing this on some level, even those who don’t consider themselves spiritual. It can be difficult, but it’s all a part of the evolutionary process and we’ll eventually move on from it.

Bridging the Physical and Spiritual

In spiritual terms, the fire is a force birthed from love that exists in higher states of awareness and its purpose is to break the spiritual through to the physical.

Even though the physical and spiritual aren’t separate to begin with, our awareness is so fixed on the physical that we’ve shut down our higher senses. We’ve become completely unaware of the bliss that exists within, and those who try to bring our awareness to it are called crazy and rejected.

The fire bridges these two seemingly separate realms by getting rid of the ego-centered blockages that prevent spiritual awareness, and it brings with it adversity and, sometimes, pain. It’s all for the purpose of getting rid of what impedes us, and when we look back, we’ll be glad we went through the things we did.

The Fire Is Real

Franklin writes that the fire is not just a figurative concept. As you proceed further down the spiritual path, you discover that it’s the energy of purification and it’s very real.

“In the old days when I read of this Fire, I supposed that It had but a figurative meaning. But while the Fire is figurative, in a sense, yet It is also a quite real and even a sensuously felt and manifested fact. Not only have I felt this Fire, but It has been induced in those who live near me.

“They report feeling It as genuinely as the heat of the sun and manifest some of the effects of the sun’s heat as it acts upon the human body. The Inner Fire does reach down to the outermost of the man. This does imply that, looked at aright, the metaphysical is not utterly divorced from the physical.” (1)

The fire doesn’t destroy, he writes; it transforms.

“A Fire descends and consumes the personal man. For a time, short or long, this Fire continues. The personal man is the fuel, and the fuel, in greater or less measure, does suffer. But fire does not destroy; it simply transforms.” (2)

He uses the example of physical fire to illustrate the inner fire’s purpose.

“This fact can be realized by an analysis of what takes place through the action of ordinary fire. If a log is burning, the fuel is principally, if not wholly, in the form of carbohydrates, and the fire transforms these into carbon dioxide and water vapor.

“There remains a small amount of ashes, the persistently earthy portion of the log. The carbohydrate in the log was a fixed form, partaking for a long time, of the earthy solidity of the mineral associates in the log. But as the carbohydrates become carbon dioxide and water vapor, they take on new form in the freer world of the air.

“So too, does the Fire which descends and consumes the personal man but Transform him.” (3)

Credit: strongdisciple.com

The Fire Liberates

In my opinion, this quote is important because it reminds us that the fire liberates instead of consumes.

It also gives a concise picture of what it’s like to go through the ‘dark night of the soul’ moments that lead to transformation, and if you’re struggling with this right now, remember that you’re not alone and you will get where you need to be if you stay on the path you’re making for yourself.

In the end, the fire frees you to explore your heightened spiritual awareness by lifting away the heavy weight of fear and misaligned desire that kept the doorway between you and Source shut tight.

Once all the clutter is out of the way, you can embrace the blissful visions and ecstatic states of being that exist beyond your physical awareness but mingle with it right under your nose.

(Continued in part 2 tomorrow)