BE STILL AND KNOW

The Bible makes it clear that stillness leads to knowledge of the Divine (that is, the sacred and holy), for it is written, ‘Be still, and know that I am God’ (Ps 46:10). They are wonderful words, especially the first two words—‘Be still.’ You see, there is really nothing to do. Just—be still. Start with the body, and the mind will become still as well.

When conducting retreats or leading group meditations I often take the abovementioned verse and progressively break it up, as follows:

‘Be still, and know that I am God.’

‘Be still, and know that I am.’  

‘Be still, and know.’  

‘Be still.’

'Be.'

Who or what is God, you may ask? Some theological construct, unconnected with reality? Well, if you think that God is a giant man or woman 'up there' or 'out there', that is, some supra-personal, supernatural person or being with a face, body, arms, legs and genitalia, then you are horribly mistaken. Here is an insightful passage from the 3rd chapter of the book of Exodus in the Bible, in which Moses enquires as to who or what God actually is:

¹³ Then Moses said to God, ‘Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?’ ¹⁴ And God said to Moses, ‘I AM THAT I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’’

In other words, God, the Great I AM, is saying, ‘I AM pure Be-ing,' 'I AM the Great No-Thing,' 'I AM unformed, undifferentiated consciousness.' That is the name and nature of God. Being the All Being, the Great I AM is the infinite, incorporeal, self-sufficient, self-perpetuating, ever-present Being of all. I AM that which is. I AM that which I AM. The words 'I AM' refer preeminently to the subject of all existence (namely, the unlimited and ineffable, egoistically conscious Omnipresence), although the words also refer to the object. The subject and object are one. The Bible says that I AM is God. In India the I AM is called Om. God – the very essence and be-ing-ness of life itself – becomes, or rather is, what God has said that which God is. ‘I AM THAT [WHICH] I AM.’ I AM = I AM. God is. We are. We are all children of the Great I AM, the Divine Fire, the basic ALL of existence.

Mitre Peak, Milford Sound, New Zealand

I AM THAT I AM. That is the nature of God as revealed in the Hebrew Bible and expounded in metaphysics. The words describe and encapsulate the Omnipresence and Omnipotence of the Divine declaring Itself---to Itself. This is the self-knowingness and self-consciousness of God, the Great I AM. We, too, can be conscious – or rather self-conscious – of that very same I AM-ness, because each one of us is a divine spark, and that same I AM-ness is the very ground of our be-ing-ness. It is the ground of all be-ing-ness. It is the ALL-in-all ... the ALL-ness of all. 

Yes, God – pure Be-ing – is the one formless, sourceless, essenceless, unlimited, unsearchable, self-existent, self-knowing, self-giving, absolute, omnipresent, indestructible, and abundant existence that forever takes form, that is, incarnates, as you, me, and everything else, but which is never even for a moment absorbed by the innumerable objects of its self-expression. What I am trying to say is that the I AM within you, and within all living things, is the only Presence there is. That Presence, which manifests itself as the Eternal Now, is forever creating, by an endless process or renewal of the present moment, an infinite number of centres of its own consciousness. The Great I AM is the creativeness of the universe as well as being the source of own our creativeness.

God – if you choose to use the word at all, for that's up to you to decide – is the life that is the subject of true existence, the very life that lies within, and otherwise manifests itself through and as objects, being all persons and things---the very livingness, or rather self-livingness, of life itself. Put perhaps more simply, you are I AM in expression, as you. In the words of the minister and author Eric Butterworth, you are an 'eachness' within the ALL-ness of God.

Here are some words from Joseph Benner, from his book The Impersonal Life:

I AM You, that part of you who IS and KNOWS;

WHO KNOWS ALL THINGS,

And always knew, and always was.

Yes, I AM You, Your SELF; that part of you who says I AM and is I AM;

…       …       …

But I AM not your human mind, nor its child, the intellect. They are but the expression of your Being, as you are the expression of My Being; they are but phases of your human personality, as You are a phase of My Divine Impersonality.

…       …       …

… I AM because You Are. You ARE because I AM expressing My SELF.

I AM in You as the oak is in the acorn. You are a phase of Me in expression.

…       …       …

I AM the Tree of Life within you.

Each one of us is both an inlet and an outlet of life's self-expression. The ‘us’ in us – the ‘AM-ness’ of us – is not separate from life, rather it is life, or being-ness, itself unfolding from one moment to the next. Whenever we affirm ‘I am …’ we are affirming our being-ness, our I AM-ness, our true spiritual identity. We are saying, 'I AM alive. I AM here. I AM aware that I AM alive and that I AM here. I exist.' You see, the 'I AM' is both universal and individual, for whatever we attach to our I AM-ness, we become. Yes, what we put after those two words 'I am ... ' shapes our reality for better or for worse.

Now, trained as I was as a lawyer and scholar (ugh), I used to think that one could come to know God through academic study and the use of reason and the intellect. Well, that will take you some of the way, like to the end of the proverbial runway but not up into the air. After many years of suffering and self-defeat, I have learned this — the best way to know God is to be … still! 

Meditate. Get really still. Be silent. Say nothing. Let the mind go into neutral, so to speak. Let composure creep all over you. Feel your AM-ness pulsate through your arteries and veins. Breathe in more of that AM-ness. In time, you will come to know your very AM-ness as the ALL-ness of existence individualized in and as you. God is pure Be-ing, and we have our be-ing-ness in God, as the Christian mystics say. 'For in him we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28). There is only one way of be-ing. Call it the ALL-ness of God, if you like. Your AM-ness, which is a small part of that immense, boundless and infinite ALL-ness, enables you to say, ‘I am …’, and ‘I know … .’ 

Know this, 'I AM come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly' (Jn 10:10). What's more, this I AM-Presence within you and as you is with you always, even to the very end of the age (cf Mt 28:20). 

I AM is the Eternal Now, unbound by time and space. 'Before Abraham was, I AM' (Jn 8:58).

Be still! — and know — I AM — God.

The photographs of Mitre Peak, the lotus flower
and the cactus flower were taken by the author.

HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR REAL SELF?

Most of us live from and out of our personality as opposed to our individuality. Only our individuality—as a person among persons—is authentically real, for it is our very ‘AM-ness’, the stuff of existence itself. Let me explain.

In the Bible we read that Moses, standing before the burning bush, asked God His name, so he could tell the Israelites who sent him. God replied:

I AM THAT I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'‘ God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation. (Ex 3:14-15)

Did this incident really occur? Was there really a burning bush which was not consumed? Was there actually a Moses? I don't think so. I think the Biblical Moses is a figure of myth, not history. It doesn't matter at all. The story is about one man's encounter with 'ultimate reality'—a man who finds himself in the presence of pure Being and who comes to see things-as-they-really are. The symbolism of the story is palpable and obvious. The nature of ultimate reality can be 'discovered' in any flower or bush, whether burning or not. It can also be seen in people, in fact, in every thing and everywhere ... if you look deeply and mindfully enough.

Now, I simply cannot believe in a God who is some sort of all-powerful personal, super-personal or supra-personal Person, Being or Thing ‘up there’ or ‘out there’ who supposedly takes a personal interest in each one of us and knows everything about us (even knowing how many hairs are on our head). No, I do not believe God is a Person or Being of any kind. Actually, I neither believe nor disbelieve in any God at all, but that's another matter. What I'm talking about here is something that is not a matter of belief at all. On the contrary, it is a matter of knowing and understanding what truly is. The only understanding of God that makes any sense at all to me—other than the very Biblical understanding of God as love (cf 1 Jn 4:8)—is God as pure Be-ing, God as the Great ‘I AM’—timeless, spaceless, ageless, and without face, form or figure. This Be-ing, the metaphysical name of which is ‘I AM THAT I AM’, is forever becoming, entering into time and space as each and every living thing, taking shape and form in and as each and every thing. This Be-ing is what it becomes, hence, I AM THAT I AM. You know, the ancient Hebrews, for the most part, had a very tribal concept of God, one that is often quite unattractive, but at times we find in the Hebrew Bible something much more profound ... and we have it here ... namely, an understanding of the Divine as the Great I AM. 'I AM THAT I AM.'

In Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible, which is generally closer to the Hebrew than most of the other well-known English versions of the Bible, the phrase ‘I AM THAT I AM’ is rendered 'I AM THAT WHICH I AM'. Exactly. The Great I AM—Life itself—becomes in and out of Itself the ‘I AM-ness’ (‘AM ness’) of all that it becomes. Of course, in so doing, this Great I AM never exhausts Itself, for It is much, much more than that which It becomes. It is indeed all that It becomes, but that is not all that there is of It. In other words, this inexhaustible Be-ing of which I speak is the very Be-ing-ness or livingness—self-livingness, in fact—of life itself. It is the very ground of all being … and all beings.

Life manifests itself in each of us, as us. Each one of us is both an inlet and an outlet of life's self-livingness or self-expression. God—the Great I AM—is what some Christian metaphysicians refer to as your ‘Divine Self’, the 'Christ Self', or the 'Christ within'. Others, including some psychologists, refer to it as your ‘Real Self’ or ‘True Self’. It doesn’t really matter what we call it. The word or phrase is not the thing. I am talking about the 'I AM', or 'AM-ness', of you. This AM-ness animates your body and your mind, in fact, your whole life. It causes your heart to beat and it causes you to think.

When you say, ‘I am … [this or that]’, who or what is this ‘I’ which is speaking? ‘The person that I am, that’s who,’ I hear some of you answer. Yes, that’s true up to a point, for we usually employ the word ‘I’—a pronoun—to refer to the person speaking. In truth, the ‘I’ of us is something much, much deeper. Your AM-ness—the be-ing-ness of you—manifests in your mind as a focal point or centre of consciousness and calls itself ‘I’. In fact, your AM-ness manifests in your mind and resonates throughout your whole body as ‘I-consciousness’. This ‘I’ enables you, the person that you are, to say ‘I am …’.

Your ‘I’ is your Real Self. When the Bible says that you are made in the image and likeness of God, it is saying that God, the Great I AM, becomes and is you, or at least your Real Self. The ‘I’ is the real individual made in the image and likeness of the Great I AM. Each of us is a spark of the Divine Fire. Of course, as I've said on innumerable occasions in the past, we are much, much more than those hundreds of little, false selves---all those waxing and waning ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’---with which we tend to identify—our many likes, dislikes, prejudices, predilections, habits and personality quirks--in the mistaken belief that those things, which pertain only to the personality of us, constitute the ‘real me,’ that is, the person each one of us is. Know this—those hundreds and thousands of false selves are not even a shadow of the ‘real you’. Only the latter—the mind-body complex that is the person—is ontologically real. All of the above mentioned false selves are illusory, and the challenge for each one of us as persons is to transmute our false, illusory selves into our Real Self. You see, from a metaphysical point of view, only the ‘I’, the Real Self of each one of us, is real, for it is the ‘stuff’ of pure consciousness itself, the very ‘I AM-ness’ of life’s self-existence and self-expression. Yes, your ‘I’ is your individuality, not your personality. The ‘I’ of you is an individualized inlet and outlet of consciousness which, in its impersonal, infinite, formless, essence is pure, unindividualized Be-ing-ness. Say this to yourself several times, until the ‘inner’ meaning of the words resonates and authenticates itself to you:

I AM me, my Real Self … that part of me who says ‘I AM’ and is I AM.

When you have reached the point where, when you say 'I AM ...', you are then and there aware of your very own awareness or consciousness—which is the essence of mindfulness, by the way—you have come to know, and live from, your Real Self. 

Now, here is something very important—we think, feel, and act out of that which, in essence, we are (the AM-ness in us) whenever we use our intellect, emotions, and will. All parts of us are one with the wholeness of our being. Whenever we affirm ‘I am …’ we are affirming our be-ing-ness, our very AM-ness, as well. When we say, ‘I am tired,’ we attach our AM-ness to tiredness. When say, ‘I am strong,’ we attach our AM-ness to strength. So, at the risk of sounding Pollyanish, it is imperative that we think, speak and act from a plane of consciousness that is wholesome, loving, uplifting and positive, for as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘We are what we think all day long.’ We must be careful what we attach our ‘I’ to. When we say, ‘I am weak’, we are attaching our ‘I’ to weakness. When we say, ‘I am angry’, we are attaching our ‘I’ to anger. Be careful what you do with your ‘I’, for it will make or break you!

The minister, lecturer and author Dr Harry Gaze [pictured right], in his book Life, Youth and Success, wrote of the importance of living from and out of one’s Real Self as opposed to any one or more of our false selves:

As we continue to speak from this plane of consciousness, the qualities of the real ‘I’ or individual are made more and more manifest in the personality.

Take care what you do with your 'I'. For your sake ... and for the sake of others.

RELATED POSTS

‘WHAT AM I TO DO WITH MYSELF?’

WATCH WHAT YOU DO WITH YOUR ‘I’

WHO AM I? (A ZEN STORY)

SLAVES OF THE 'I'---EVEN UNTO DEATH

THE MINDFUL ART OF KNOWING ONESELF

THE ILLUSORY MIND [Part 1]

THE ILLUSORY MIND [Part 2]

PERFECT PEACE CAN BE YOURS---YES, INDEED!

‘Thou wilt keep in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on Thee’ (Isaiah 26:3)

Deep down, we all crave peace of mind. Call it serenity, tranquillity, equanimity, or imperturbability, we certainly know when we don’t have it. Wanting to be happy all the time is, well, silly, and quite superficial, but peace of mind is an altogether different thing.

This verse from the Hebrew Bible contains a valuable formula for obtaining, and maintaining (‘keeping’), peace of mind. It says that God will keep us in perfect peace if our mind is ‘stayed’ on God.

Who or what is this God? Some theological construct? A person, albeit a supra-normal (whatever that means) one? No, not at all. I know many, many people who call themselves atheists---and that they are, at least when one applies traditional theistic definitions of ‘God’---who have perfect peace. They know God, even though they choose not to use that term---and that is their prerogative.

The word ‘God’ is not the 'thing,' rather it directs us to the reality to which the word 'God' refers. What is that reality, I hear you ask? Well, this is it---God is simply a word that some people choose to use (and others choose not to use) to refer to the medium in which all things live, move, and have their being. Time and space---spacetime, to be more correct---are other words that refer to more-or-less the same 'thing.' They, too, are mediums---or rather the medium---in which all things exist and subsist. No wonder mystics have referred to God as the Eternal Now. Yes, God is the All in all. God is not a ‘thing,’ nor a ‘person,’ as we ordinarily use those words. Got that? God is not a thing, but rather ‘No-Thing’ or ‘No-Thing-ness.’

Now, some or all of the foregoing may be hard to understand but, when you think about it, it makes much more sense than believing in a so-called personal God. Actually, the God to which I refer is both personal and impersonal. It is impersonal in the sense of being general, universal, all-embracing, non-discriminating, and infinite, but it ‘becomes’---for want of a better word---personal in and as you and me and all other persons and things as well as being personal to all who are at-one with its indwelling presence, power, and activity.

So many people have a terrible concept of God---anything but the truth. The true nature of the divine, as pure and ever-perfect Be-ing, is revealed in these Bible verses from the third chapter of the Book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible:

13 Then Moses said to God, ‘Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?’

14 And God said to Moses, ‘I AM THAT I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’’

The words 'I AM' refer to the subject---note that word, 'subject,' not object---of all existence. The Bible says that I AM is God. So, God (that is, the very essence and being-ness of life itself) becomes what God has said that which God is---'I AM THAT I AM.' That is the name by which God is called---at least in the Hebrew Bible and in metaphysics---and it describes the Presence or Power of God (being the spiritual or divine 'image' of each person's creation) declaring Itself---to Itself. This is the Self-knowingness of God, and we, too, can be conscious (or rather self-conscious) of that very same I AM Presence and Power that is the ground of our being, indeed, the ground of all Be-ing. It is the All-in-all. 

Yes, God---pure Be-ing or existence--is the one form-less, essence-less, self-existent, self-knowing, self-giving, absolute, indestructible, and abundant existence that forever takes form, that is, incarnates, as you, me, and everything else, but which is never even for a moment absorbed by the innumerable objects of its Self-expression. In other words, God---if you choose to use the word at all---is the life that is the subject of true existence, the very life that lies within, and otherwise manifests itself through and as objects, being all persons and things---the very livingness, or rather Self-livingness, of life itself. Put perhaps more simply, you are I AM in expression---as you. In the words of the renowned Unity minister and author Eric Butterworth, you are an 'eachness' within the ALL-ness of God. Yes, 'Thou art That.' Whether or not you are aware of it, you are divine and one with this 'God-ness,' being the point---and just one of an infinite number of such points---at which the Great I AM reproduces and experiences Itself. Amazing!

Back to our Bible text. What is meant by the word ‘perfect,’ in the expression ‘perfect peace’? Well, peace is perfect when it is true, real, and substantial, as opposed to being false or insubstantial. Material things, and even intangible things such as status and reputation, are false and insubstantial because they are ‘grounded’—actually, they are not even ‘grounded’ in any real sense---in our false selves that clamour for attention and the approval of others. Peace is ‘perfect’ when it is grounded in the eternal and infinite; this peace is imperturbable, for it subsists at all times and under all events. The great Swami Vivekananda described this state of mind as 'eternal calmness which cannot be ruffled, the balance of mind which is never disturbed, whatever happens.'

Now, if you want perfect peace in your mind, then keep your mind ‘stayed’ in the Eternal Now, that is, in the medium in which all things live, move, and have their being. Keep your mind grounded in the consciousness of the moment, from one moment to the next. For me, mindfulness is the best form of prayer and meditation. It is the primary means by which I stay grounded in the Eternal Now---God, if you like. You don't need to believe in someone else’s concept of God---not even mine, for heaven’s sake. You don't need to use the word God, or think in theistic terms, at all. All you have to do is to stay mindfully aware of, and alert to, the content (both internal and external) of the present moment at all times or at least as much and as often as you can. Angels---assuming there are any---can do no better. 

And how do you know when you are living mindfully? The answer is simple---you are living mindfully when you are no longer fretting about or fighting the past, or fearing the future. You are able to accept, with calm contentment and total equanimity, whatever is. Perfect peace, just like perfect love, drives out all fear, anxiety, anger, and resentment (cf 1 Jn 4:18). Indeed, there is simply no room in a mindset of perfect peace for any negative thoughts or emotions.

The photos in this post were taken by my son

Peter while on vacation in Baja California, Mexico