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Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Who Is God? - Fred LaMotte


Be still and know that I am God

Who is God?  The answer comes not as thought, but as breath;
or rather, as the energy of Grace in the inhalation.  This energy
is Shakti.  Breathing Shakti is the answer to the question, who
is God?  Shakti is the Holy Spirit, the divine breath, the supreme
Mother of creation.  In ancient scriptures, whether in Chinese,
Arabic, Hebrew or Greek, the same words is used for both
breath and spirit.  And the Spirit of God is portrayed as
feminine.  Her all-mothering power of creation is God's active
energy, while God himself is the witnessing Silence, the
un-created Source.

What is the experience of God?  Not a belief, nor a remembered
image, nor an esoteric vision - for mystic visions are also
thoughts and activities of the mind [?]  But the experience of God
is simpler than any vision or arousal of imagination.  It is the pure
energy of Silence, Shakti herself...  Therefore the classic Yogic
scipture Vijnana Bhairava declares: Exhalation goes out, inhalation
comes in.  At the still point where they merge, one experiences the
state from which Creation comes forth and into which it is absrobed...

~~

"Gateh, Gateh, Para Gateh, Bodhi Svaha!
Gone, Gone, Gone Beyond.  Gone beyond the Beyond:

At some point, images get in the way, even our favorite image
of God: so we pass beyond it.  At some point words get in the
way, even the divine name: so we pass beyond it.  And at some
point, the soul itself gets in the way: so we pass beyond it.  This
is the meaning of Gateh in the great meditation mantra of Tibet.

Don't assume that this is simply an Eastern teaching.  It is also
the age-old practice of Christian Mystics.  In the early Church,
these mystics were called hesychasts, which means practitioners
of silence. 
In the 7th Century, St. Hesychius of Jerusalem wrote
that the core of Christian mysticism is, "The heart's silence, 
undisturbed by any thought."

The heart's silence at first may seem like a negation, yet it is
the most positive experience possible.  For this silence is the
soul and source of creation,  the silence that was here before
God said, "Let there be light."

Fred LaMotte
Interfaith Minister

excerpt from his post:
"To Breathe God"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering



 

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