Afterimages

When you look at light and then look away, you can see what's called an afterimage. Even if you close your eyes, you can still see it. The afterimage still glows like light does, but not as brightly and the colors are shifted. We are not able to fully retain God's light. Our mortal minds and hearts are imperfect vessels. When we are receiving revelation, it comes to us as pure and white and radiant light. In the moment we receive it, like the prophets of old, we are transfigured, our mortal, finite minds and hearts temporarily transformed to receive and comprehend the stuff of eternity. But after the moment passes, if we attempt to recall the experience after we have returned to our mortal frames, the best we can manage is an afterimage of God's light, still luminous, but dimmer and distorted from what it was when we were in the midst of receiving it. That is why we have a hard time describing truly transcendent experiences. No mortal tongue can speak, nor can it be written, the true, unfiltered glory of God. That is why we need to be constantly seeking God's light, because our memories are not adequate to recreate the true splendor of God's light. But every time we have the Holy Ghost as our companion, He can reveal to us once more the pure light of Christ in all its glory and majesty, and we don't have to rely solely on the poor afterimages of our recollection.