Each age has its own tasks. For most of us now, our monasteries have no walls except the silence our meditation gathers to the center of our lives, and this is enough—it is more than enough. Our hermitage is the act of living with attention in the midst of things; amid the rhythms of work and love, the bath with the child, the endlessly growing paperwork, the ever-present likelihood of war, the necessity for taking action to help the world. For us, a good spiritual life is permeable and robust. It faces things squarely knowing the smallest moments are all we have, and that even the smallest moment is full of happiness.
The sun receives information from the center of the galaxy. Light comes from other stars as well as the sun. The universe communicates with itself through light. Light beams are messengers, and one synonym for messenger is "angel." A light ray is an angel. An angel is a being of light carrying information outward from the center of our galaxy, star to star, sun to planet. Our seemingly solid bodies are created from condensed sunlight, making us vessels of light, just like angels. Our true identity is angelic, or light-filled. We are beings filled with the information that comes to earth in light.