May 5
"In
quiet I receive God's Word today."
PRACTICE
SUMMARY
Longer: 3 (at times best suited to silence) 10 minutesBe still and listen to the Voice for God, the Voice for your Self. Come in stillness and quiet listening, without your petty, meaningless thoughts, desires and judgments. Let God give you His holy Word, to spread across the world and usher in the quiet time of peace.
Shorter: hourly a moment
Be still and in quiet receive God's Word. Remind yourself that this is your special purpose today.
COMMENTARY
All we are being asked to do today is to be quiet for ten minutes, three times during the day and for a moment each hour. Just to be quiet. "Only be quiet. You will need no rule but this..." (9:1). "Only be still and listen" (9:3). "His Voice awaits your silence, for His Word can not be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled" (6:2).Isn't it amazing how much practice it takes to learn to be quiet? I can't tell you how many times I've sat down to meditate and be quiet only to find myself, sometimes only a few minutes later, so distracted by some passing thought that I open my eyes and start to get up to "do something" before I've even realized what I'm doing. I plop back down in my chair muttering "Good grief!" to myself at the distractedness of my mind. Draw a deep breath, think to myself, "Quiet, Allen. Quiet. Peace, be still."
The difficulties I have with being quiet, rather than standing as an insurmountable obstacle to me, have simply become indicators of how much I need this practice. Clearly, the Course is teaching us that a quiet mind is essential. "The memory of God comes to the quiet mind" (T-23.I.1:1). We can't hear His Voice until we are quiet for a while.
The Course describes the voice of the ego in various colorful phrases: "senseless shrieks," "raucous shrieks," "loud discordant shrieks," "the senseless noise of sounds that have no meaning," "frantic, riotous thoughts," "raucous screams and senseless ravings," "a loud, obscuring voice," "a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense."
Our ego is a constant noise machine trying to cover up the Voice for God; we need to learn to still our mind, to cease to pay attention to its loudness. The ego is noise; the Spirit is quiet. There is merit, then, simply in being quiet, even if nothing else seems to happen. Let me, then, remember to take this time to be quiet, to be still, and to listen.
Copyright © 1996, The Circle of Atonement, Sedona,
Arizona, USA.
All rights reserved.