I recall a phone greeting that said, “At the sound of the tone, please tell me who you are and what you want. Now you may think these are simple questions, but most people go through their entire life and never satisfactorily answer either of them.” These are essential questions to ask ourselves every day. Who we are is more than our name or what we do. What we want is more than our desired acquisitions or even the goals we have set for ourselves.
Advertisers bombard us and seek to tell us what we need to be happy or complete. Consciously or unconsciously, we may find ourselves snagged into believing what advertisers sell is what we want or need for fulfillment. We may find ourselves filled full of something all right, but it is merely the empty calories of life. In most cases, when acquisition becomes the object of our life, the by-product is a more stressful life.
However, there is an answer. The answer is in the silence. Charles Fillmore, the co-founder of Unity, once noted that all power is found in silence, and everything else is nothing more than a spent vibration. Many people don't take the time to go apart to be still and quiet intentionally. In silence, we can connect to the source of true power, realize our reason for being here, and recognize our real identity.
In addition to setting aside time for daily meditation and silence, it is particularly beneficial to take extended times in which we walk, eat, and do tasks in silence. When I become still enough, it never ceases to amaze me to witness the thoughts that run through my mind. Many of the thoughts are probably ones that ought not to go out of the confines of my consciousness.
Most of the thoughts we have do not focus on the here and now. Instead, we think about what will happen in the future or regurgitate something that has happened in the past. When we are not in the present moment, we are not experiencing the fullness of what God is, or what God has in store for us. In the silence of meditation, we can come into the awareness of the ever-expanding good of Spirit, as well as stretch ourselves to become spacious enough to realize our life is the life of God. It is in this space we discover the "dynamic still point."
It is called the "dynamic still point" because when we pull our attention inward and still the calculating surface mind, something dynamic happens. The power of peace, love, joy, and well-being begins to take over the surface mind. Goodness and spiritual perfection begin to reshape our body of affairs.
If we wake up in the morning, raring to go and stillness has not become part of our day, we merely have brought our past experience of life into the now moment. We spiced it up with a bit of imagination and moved into the world the same person. However, if we start our day with silence, quietness, or meditation, we start our day primed for increased energy as well as the ability to negotiate our day more effectively.
We must go to the dynamic still point to see the world as God sees it. It is in this space that we can more effectively answer the question of who we are and why we are here. It is here we uncover the answer to the question, "What does the Universe want for my life?”
Peace and Blessings,
James