Stillness is the Awareness that You are Loved Unconditionally
In a recent workshop I was facilitating, one of the participants asked, “So why would you want to be still anyway?”. I was surprised at his question, and in that moment realised I had never asked myself this. But I then realised that it was like asking “So why would you want to have an orgasm anyway?” It was a question of ignorance. In the same way that once you have had one orgasm you are motivated to have more, stillness is much the same. It feels great! Having experienced it once, you naturally want more.
Funnily enough, both experiences often result in the exclamation: “Oh God!” In fact the direct association between stillness and God was succinctly stated by the Psalmist who wrote, “Be still and know that I am God.” He suggests that there is a direct association between experiencing God and stillness. So what is this stillness that has divine outcomes?
I have been working on being still for many years, and have mentored hundreds of people in developing the awareness and mindfulness that are the precursors of stillness. In a nutshell, stillness is the awareness that you are loved unconditionally by God (feel free to replace the word God with whatever word has you remain still). Since the essence of ‘God’ is love and in stillness you are aware that your are also pure love, it could be concluded, as written by the Psalmist, that you “know that I am (that is you are…) God”. Some may think this blasphemy, but it was my understanding that Jesus invited us to become ‘one’ with him, just as ‘he and the Father are one’.
Stillness does not mean being inactive. It’s not the stillness of a stone, although it can be. Stillness is about our inner vibration/energy being still, and that being the fabric of the filter for how we engage or relate to our external world. It means that we participate in life both through awareness and mindfulness. You might have a job or not, you might be in a relationship or not, you might be well or not, you might be affluent or not and you might have a disability or not. No matter what your circumstance, you can live life with inner stillness.
When your core is still, you will be living each moment in awareness. Stillness is the direct effect of having clarity and commitment to your noble purpose. Stillness comes from faith in Divine Grace. The knowledge that abundance is a constant, which means that when you ask, it is provided, when you knock, the door opens. Stillness is the natural state of being, which is revealed when your fears dissipate. That occurs when you experience the unconditional love of God. That instant when you no longer have to believe that you are loveless or unloveable, the foundation to all of your fears.
When your core is still, you will be a peace-maker. This means you will hold both the victim and perpetrator with equal compassion. You can do that because you will understand that they are both flip sides of the same coin, so as to speak, that coin being the belief that they are loveless/unlovable. Your capacity to be still in this and similar situations is achieved when there is no judgement.
When your core is still, you will be charitable. In the past, many spiritual traditions have used the role of a mother as the metaphor for charity. It is this dedication to service achieved through singleness of heart and the silence of personal desires that helps to foster stillness. You’ve heard it said, “That’s a face that only a mother would love” describes yet again the nature of unconditionality that would make stillness possible.
When your core is still, you will be merciful. This means that you can forgive yourself, just as you can forgive another. Forgiveness sees judgement displaced by the desire to understand. You know how you feel when you have resorted to judging someone. You will also remember how it feels when you judge yourself. Forgiveness is finding the gift in the injustice. It is not denying what has happened, it’s choosing to see it differently. That’s what contributes to maintaining stillness.
Being merciful, charitable and a peace-maker are only possible when you are aware of your state of consciousness and the key story-filter that fuels your belief that you are loveless/unloveable. At EAP, we help you to enhance your awareness of both, making stillness a reality.
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