Be Still And Know

In the past, I have found it quite humorous when spiritual teachers and authors in their books admonish the reader to stop reading so many books or listening to spiritual teachers. I thought it odd that they would write a book expounding on their perspective of truth and simultaneously suggest that the reader not read books or follow their teaching.

Today, I more fully appreciate the importance of the message they were attempting to convey - listen to our own inner wisdom and connect with our inner “knower.”

H. Emilie Cady, in her seminal text Lessons In Truth, one of the first comprehensive books on New Thought teaching published by Unity, says,

My advice: If you want to make rapid progress in growth toward spiritual understanding, stop reading many books. They only give you someone’s opinion about Truth…What you want is revelation of Truth in your own soul, and that will never come through the reading of many books. ¹

Unless Truth is revealed to you by “my Father in heaven” it is of no practical benefit to you or to anyone else. ²

Similarly, in his book It’s All God, author Walter Starcke says,

By continuing to think that if you go to one more class, learn one more truth, study one more teaching, or pray to God one more time for the purpose of becoming something you are not, you are still in Self-denial. ³

We say that God is all knowing, all knowledge, and that we are one with God. If so, then everything we hear or the inner voice that speaks to us comes from our Selves, our union with Omniscience. ⁴

During a recent meditation, I received the following message. While I believe it was in response to my personal questioning, I also believe that it applies universally.

Listen to the voice of your Self. It is not something that is external to you, not something that is apart from you. It is your voice. Release any idea of separation. Again, listen to your Self, your own wisdom, your own guidance. You have been listening to many other teachers. You have gathered much from other teachers, from books that you have been reading, from teachers that you have been studying, from all of those who have guided you along this path, and that is a beautiful thing. There are many guides along this path, many in human form, and many who have been in human form, many who have written many books, done workshops in their beautiful expressions of light, gathering in and sharing the information they have received.

It is important information for you to be receiving, for you to be integrating, for you to grow in your own awareness of that which ‘I Am; you are.’ It is now your opportunity to listen to that voice for yourself. Yes, to know that you have the wisdom. The wisdom is within you. The wisdom is you coming forth into your own awareness.

Be still and listen. Be still and know. Be still and know ‘I Am.’ Be still and know I Am that within you. Be still as often as you possibly can. Give yourself permission to be still and to know, to know what you need to know and trust what you know to be present in your own knowing. That is what you are being called to now. It is not about not reading or not studying other works or other teachers, but it is about really claiming your own knowing that it is within you. It is your knowing that you are to claim. Now it is your knowing that you are to share in whatever way is yours to share.

You have done much. You have been on this path for quite a while. You have contemplated. You have meditated. You have prayed. You have read. You have gathered together in groups. You have gleaned information from those teachers who are around you, from those to whom you have been drawn. It is all good, and it continues to be good. Also know that you have the power to discern for yourself what your own wisdom is and to bring forth that wisdom into your own knowing.

You know in the moment that you need to know. In the moment that you are willing to release the idea that you do not know, you know. You bring that knowing into your conscious awareness, and in that awareness you are receiving and you are grounding, and you are embodying that knowing. It is an energetic vibration of knowing, and you know when you know. You know when you know that you know. You feel the knowing. Again, be still and know.

There was much more to the message which I may share in subsequent posts, but this is the gist of what I received which reflects the messages of Dr. Cady, Starcke and many other great teachers. It is time for us to claim that we know and what we know, to share it and to live it.

I encourage us all to “Be still and know.” ⁵

¹ Page 38 Complete Works of H. Emilie Cady

² Page 80 Complete Works of H. Emilie Cady

³ Page 277 It’s All God, Walter Starcke

⁴ Page 238 It’s All God, Walter Starcke

⁵ Psalm 46:10