Contemplative Reading Group: Session 2
“Be Still and Know that I am God” Psalm 46:10
Reflection by Ian C. Edwards, PhD
Reflection: For this particular reflection, on one of the most beloved and contemplative passages in the Judeo-Christian tradition, I find myself led to allow the words of the Psalm to speak to me one at a time. This reflection, as with the others, is not intended to be a scholarly exposition nor is it to be academic in nature. Thus, you will not find an “exegesis” that intentionally grounds itself in a philosophical or theological tradition. I say “intentionally” only because, without being consciously purposeful, multiple traditions will find themselves expressed in veiled as well as unveiled ways and will be intuited and felt and not always consciously thematized on an abstract or intellectual level. I am led to imaginatively and creatively play with the language of the psalm, and in a kind of circular reversal, allowing it also to play with me, so that what emerges, in the form of writing, is an expression of the Divine, from the Divine, and a loving expression to the Divine. This method, if you will, allows God to communicate from a place of fullness, which is himself, to the fullness that resides in and ultimately is me and you. With this psalm, we can create an opening for contemplation to intertwine with our very being so that we become the stillness that resides at the heart of existence.
“Be”
Presencing itself, non-coerced, un-forceful body-mind flowing effortlessly (from the Source) in the midst of everyday life. Acting without acting, thinking without thinking, feeling without feeling, seeing without seeing, hearing without hearing, tasting without tasting, touching without touching, smelling without smelling, ultimately both sensing without sensing and experiencing without the experiencer that “does” the experiencing. No-doer doing nothing as no-thing. To “be” is not separate from non-being, being and not-being forming a circular, bi-directional relationship that flows in a seemingly infinite number of directions – creation, presence, and cessation forming an existential trinity that is the basis for sentient as well as insentience.
“Still”
The appearance of the absence of movement, whether physical, emotional, psychological, and/or spiritual. Actually, but often non-perceptible and un-experienced, continuous and constant movement that is not bounded by space and time, but the very flow of space-time itself as intertwined with Selfhood. The individual “I”, as ego, as self, as “little me” is transcended, but without being un-excluded. The “I” is there but witnessed from the perspective of Self. The “I”, with its repetitious thinking, worrying, ruminating, ideating, ceases to move - its very processes are negated within the fullness of Being. The “I” becomes empty, as it is a kind of emptiness, a void that creates an opening for Emptiness itself that transitions from initial stillness to Divine, dynamic movement – the paradox of simultaneous stillness and ceaseless activity. In Stillness and as Stillness, what moves is God and what ceases is the “little me” that was the I’s object and revered idol.
“Know”
Gnosis, the One who knows and is knownthrough the act of knowing. Not-intellectual, non-conceptual and non-abstract knowledge that can’t be rendered by thinking or as a product of the “mind.” It is not of the I, but of Christ/God/Buddha-nature within me and you that is the doer of such knowledge. It is meditative thinking, immediate awareness without process – it is not the acquisition of information or “facts” about existence, rather, it is the act of rendering the illusory veil of maya to be a presentation of the Divine itself. It is the contemplative activity which necessarily follows Stillness and is the conjunctive link that foreshadows Divinity.
“I am God”
I-am-God. God as, “I am.” The very name of God, the inexpressible, unfathomable, That/He/She/the Ultimate Thou/BEING. God’s name as revealed. This is the act of presencing God as a manifestation of the knowledge that comes through stillness. Moreover, this manifestation is a revelation that is a transfiguration. We come to know God through Self-revelation whereby the darkness that shrouds Selfhood is illumined, not so much that the veil of ignorance (or not-knowing) is removed or that the darkness that separated us from God is transformed into light but that the darkness itself is illuminated – a bright darkness in which the light shines from the darkness itself. Thus, a bush burns and speaks its “I am,” Jesus transfigures into Christ on Mt. Tabor. Through the everyday, phenomenal world, the world of forms and appearances, the Numinous can be experienced. God’s revelation of himself to himself as the Self that I am. God, the God Beyond God, as my True Identity – the descent of the ego from the throne, restorative of God to his rightful place as the Lord of Life: mine, yours, everyone’s.
Be Still and Know that I am God
A commandment to be sung. Sound becomes a whisper before becoming silence. The paradoxical commandment to Stillness that can’t be arrived at through any effort of your own, but only by letting Stillness be. To do Stillness is impossible. Let Stillness do You. By letting Stillness Do You, a peaceful silence emerges, and within that peace, God reveals himself in You and through You. You know the True Identify of yourself and all things to be of Love, and in that Love, peace is every step, Christ is resurrected in each and every moment, as darkness and light intertwine to transform all violence (whether self or other directed) into compassion.