II. Be Still and Know.
1914 original text, YOGeBooks typeset transcription; original text extent only
II. Be Still and Know.
Now, in order that you may learn to know Me, so that you can be sure it is I, your own True Self, Who speak these words, you must first learn to Be Still, to quiet your human mind and body and all their activities, so that you no longer are conscious of them.
You may not yet be able to do this,
But I will teach you how, if you really want to know Me, and are willing to prove it by trusting Me and obeying Me in all that I now shall call upon you to do.
Listen!
Try to imagine the “I” who speak thruout these pages as being your Higher or Divine Self, addressing and counselling your human mind
11 moment as being a separate personality. Your human mind is so constituted that it cannot accept anything which does not conform with what it has previously experienced or learned, and which its intellect does not consider reasonable. Therefore, in addressing it, you are using such terms and expressions as will most clearly explain to your intellect the truths it must understand before the mind can awaken to the consciousness of your meaning.
The fact is, this “I” is yourself, your Real Self. Your human mind has hertofore been so engrossed with the task of supplying its intellect and body with all manner of selfish indulgences, that it has never had time to get acquainted with the Real You, its true Lord and Master. While You have been so interested in and affected by the pleasures and sufferings of your body and intellect, that you have almost come to believe You are your intellect
12 forgotten Me, your Divine Self.
I AM not your intellect and body, and this Message is to teach you that You and I are One. The words I herein speak, and the main burden of these instructions, is to awaken your consciousness to this great fact.
But you cannot awaken to this fact until you can get away from the consciousness of this body and intellect, which so long have held you enslaved. You must feel Me within, before you can know I AM there.
Now, in order that you can become wholly oblivious of your mind and its thoughts and your body and its sensations, so that you can feel Me within, it is necessary that you studiously obey these, My instructions.
Sit quiet in a relaxed position, and, when wholly at ease, let your mind take in the significance of these words:
Be still!—and KNOW,—I AM,—God.”
13 Command, to penetrate deep into your Soul. Let whatever impressions that come to your mind enter at will—without effort or interference on your part. Note carefully their import, for it is I, within,thru these impressions, instructing you. Then, when somewhat of their vital significance begins to dawn upon your consciousness, speak these My Words slowly, imperatively, to every cell of your body, to every faculty of your mind, with all the conscious power you possess:—
“Be still!—and KNOW,—I AM,—God.”
Speak them just as they are herein written, trying to realize that the God of you commands and demands of your mortal self implicit obedience.
Study them, search out their hidden potency.
Brood over them, carry them with you into your work, whatever it be. Make them the vital, dominating factor in your work, in all your creative thoughts.
Say them a thousand times a day,
14 meaning;
Until every cell of your body thrills in joyful response to the command, “Be Still,” and instantly obeys;
And every vagrant thought hovering around your mind hies itself off into nothingness.
Then, as the Words reverberate thru the caverns of your now empty being;
Then, as the Sun of Know-ing begins to rise on the horizon of your consciousness;
Then, will you feel the swell of a wondrous strange Breath filling you to the extreme of all your mortal members, causing your senses almost to burst with the ecstacy of it; then, will there come surge after surge of a mighty, resistless Power rising within you, lifting you almost off the earth; then, will you feel within the Glory, the Holiness, the Majesty of My Presence;
And then, then you will KNOW, I AM, GOD. moments within, when you have tasted of My Power, harkened to My Wisdom, and known the ecstacy of My all-embracing Love,—you no disease can touch, no circumstance can weaken, no enemy can conquer. For now you KNOW I AM within, and you always hereafter will turn to Me in your need, putting all your trust in Me, and allowing Me to manifest forth My Will.
And you, when you turn thus to Me, will always find Me an unfailing and everpresent help in time of need; for I will so fill you with a Realization of My Presence and of My Power, that you need only Be Still and allow Me to do whatever you want done,—heal your ills or those of others, illumine your mind so you can see with My eyes the Truth you seek, or perform perfectly the tasks which before seemed almost impossible of accomplishment.
But this Knowledge, this Realization, will not come at once. It may not come for years. And it may come tomorrow.
15
Not upon your personality, with its human desires and human understanding.
But upon the I AM of you—God, within.
Who is it that causes the bud to open into the blossom?
Who causes the chick to burst its shell?
Who decides the day and the hour?
It is the conscious, natural act of the Intelligence within, My Intelligence, directed by My Will, bringing to fruition My Idea and expressing it forth in the blossom and in the chick.
But did the blossom and the chick have anything to do with it?
No, only as they submitted or united their wills with Mine and allowed Me and My Wisdom to determine the hour and the ripeness for action, and then only as they obeyed the impulse of My Will to make the effort, could they step forth into the New Life.
16 thousand times a thousand times to burst thru the shell of your human consciousness.
But it will result only, if at all, in a breaking down of the doors I have provided between the world of tangible forms and the realm of intangible dreams; and the door being open you then no longer can keep out intruders from your private domain, without much trouble and suffering.