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.
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Monday, June 29, 2015
HEALING THE QUANTUM BODY
The quantum shift in healing is no longer a focus on the body as material body. It is a focus on the body as energy consciousness.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
TIME and ETERNITY
Patience lay on the continuum of eternality. Impatience throws us into the clutches of time and the forces of the stories we live in the world. Patience moves us toward the timelessness and experience of eternality, being eternal in the world yet not being of the world.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
THESE TIMES WON'T LAST FOREVER
No, these times won't last forever. But time is death, dancing with birth, giving song to life eternal.
Friday, June 12, 2015
JESUS AND ONE-REALITY-CONSCIOUSNESS
Jesus says that "one must be in the world but not of the world." He is not invoking the irreducible duality of immanent and transcendent world. Jesus is really saying that the "All" is the One. The One shows up as "world" but not for the world. This does not mean that there is no distinction between 'in' and 'of' the world. There obviously is a radical difference but primarily from the standpoint of not "seeing" the difference. The Oneness which occurs shows up as "world" which is no longer owned by the world. World now occurs within the One.
When one truly sees the distinction, then one sees and finds oneSelf as one with oneself in the world. This is because the real distinction gives one one's true self. Then and only then is there someone who can actually and really be in the world.
The "self" as atomized, alienated individual, one thing among many mere things, disappears when one's Self "lights up" as the world. In fact one is only fully "in" the world when one is not of it and oneSelf is both fully Lived and but also fully "disappears" to oneSelf as such when in the world. So one never negates nor annhilates the presence of the world. One can be at play in the world and know one is playing, thus enjoying, appreciating and loving.
The world always is and yet we do not find our selves being of it only as in it. But we find ourselves in being in it when it shows up in and for that Self that is not of it. This one is the One of the conscious, living being of the only reality which is always also transcending itself.
This Self's true "in-ness" is not in-itself as a thing in the world but in the "beyond" of itself. This Self is aware and is Awareness in such a way that it finds reality within the presence of things but not itSelf being one "of" those things. It's reality is in the eternal becoming of itself through the ""Truth" that will set you free" as Jesus puts it in the Gospel of John.
All the above is further summed up when Jesus says, "I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you." So Jesus finds his true Self in the absolute reality of the Godhead. Yet we are also of that Godhead in that we are in Jesus. We come to know this truth and its freedom when we discover as St. Paul did that "it is not "I" that lives but Jesus that lives in me." So when we discover and know the transcendental Self embodied as Jesus, we will know that we are not in the world but, in truth and reality, in God. To know that "in-ness" is to light up the world in that we, like Jesus, become the way, the truth and the Light. We can now know all things for what they are and what they are not.
When one truly sees the distinction, then one sees and finds oneSelf as one with oneself in the world. This is because the real distinction gives one one's true self. Then and only then is there someone who can actually and really be in the world.
The "self" as atomized, alienated individual, one thing among many mere things, disappears when one's Self "lights up" as the world. In fact one is only fully "in" the world when one is not of it and oneSelf is both fully Lived and but also fully "disappears" to oneSelf as such when in the world. So one never negates nor annhilates the presence of the world. One can be at play in the world and know one is playing, thus enjoying, appreciating and loving.
The world always is and yet we do not find our selves being of it only as in it. But we find ourselves in being in it when it shows up in and for that Self that is not of it. This one is the One of the conscious, living being of the only reality which is always also transcending itself.
This Self's true "in-ness" is not in-itself as a thing in the world but in the "beyond" of itself. This Self is aware and is Awareness in such a way that it finds reality within the presence of things but not itSelf being one "of" those things. It's reality is in the eternal becoming of itself through the ""Truth" that will set you free" as Jesus puts it in the Gospel of John.
All the above is further summed up when Jesus says, "I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you." So Jesus finds his true Self in the absolute reality of the Godhead. Yet we are also of that Godhead in that we are in Jesus. We come to know this truth and its freedom when we discover as St. Paul did that "it is not "I" that lives but Jesus that lives in me." So when we discover and know the transcendental Self embodied as Jesus, we will know that we are not in the world but, in truth and reality, in God. To know that "in-ness" is to light up the world in that we, like Jesus, become the way, the truth and the Light. We can now know all things for what they are and what they are not.
Friday, June 5, 2015
INVESTED INTEREST
The true Self is found -- or, let be-- when one is more interested in nothing than in any one thing, or things, in particular. However, being interested in nothing really means everything but without being driven by a desire that wants to use one's interest to satisfy that desire and establish an ego identity. True interest isn't the return on investment but the investment itself.
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