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Wednesday, July 1, 2015

THE WAY OF STILLNESS AND KNOWLEDGE

The one Old Testament verse which most everyone knows, especially meditators, is Psalm 46: 10.  It may well be best translated as "Be still and know that I am God."  Variations on this translation may however be instructive, especially to meditators.

Another translation says, "Let be, be still and know that I am God.  So possibly the 'being still' does not fare well unless one can first let be, let well enough alone or surrender the illusion that the changes one fantasizes are really at all in your grasp let alone your control.

"That's enough. Now know that I am God."  This version implies that after having tried and accepting that enough is enough, you've done your best, then one can stay in the now of pure presence and see that which does not change and does not need changing.

Several other versions suggest that God makes wars cease or that we should stop fight.  In the end each war stops; so why do we endlessly start them again.  Possibly we have not taken the next step when peace prevails to realize that in the heart of peace lay the Divine.

The God's Word Bible asks "Let go of your concerns; then you will know I am God.  So here the secret lay in letting go of concerns, that is, all the worry that experience shows amounts to next to nothing.  However such "stopping" as the Buddha suggests, is the condition of such transcendental knowledge.

The International Standard Version says "Be in awe and know that I am God."  Here such knowledge is not ordinary cognitive insight.  It is the illumination of truth that arises in the awesome vision of the Divine.

One translation adds the other side of stillness: "Stand silent and know that I am God."  Silence is a well known meditative practice.  However it is not the absence of sound or noise; it is the background permanence against which all sound can occur.  It is the locus of rest, of immanent peace.

Or, "Attention all and see the marvels of God."  As Einstein said, "Either nothing is a miracle or everything is a miracle.  Let me say, I'd rather go with everything is a miracle.  After all, as Leibniz first suggests, "Why is there anything at all rather than nothing at all?"  In fact is it not all a miracle?  Paying attention is not a matter of being fully conscious to one's experience.  Attention is appreciation of the miracle and marvel of it all.  One might insist that a person can't live in such a state of marvel or awe.  But then is the living without such awe really any life whatsoever? Without knowing the marvel of it all, are we not really just technically sophisticated animals wallowing in the "flesh failures."

"Cease striving and know that I am God."  Another task, another goal, another project, another distraction, getting more, doing more, trying more:  all rather exhausting, isn't it?  Do you really want any of the things you desire?  What more is there to really do, especially when it all returns undone?

Lastly, if we invoke the teachings not only of the Bible but of Ramana Maharshi, then we know that the "I AM" means "I am that I am," as God names himself before Moses in the Book of Genesis.  So what we have in full is this:  Be still and know that the I am that I am is God.  That is that within which we find ourselves in our being, in the infinite enclosure of consciousness, is the the divine self of God.  That Light, the self-reflection of consciousness, within which all that is can occur, is God.  And it is that Light, the Light of lights, which is in itself still, silent, fully attentive and finally and fully in awe, marveling at the impossible manifestation that is, the miracle that we are.

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