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Speaking
The Infinite Silence I
By Savitr
WHAT’S IN A
NAME?
“Recognize what
is shining forth before your face, and what is hidden will be revealed to
you.”
(Gospel of Thomas, logion 5)
Much of my joy is simply that I experience—more and
more, each and every day—everything
as fully Divine, fully Sacred. And
this is a major component of the experience that I would love to share
with you. But Words have begun to feel hollow, empty, compared to our
infinite communion of stillness; they are abstractions about
experience, and cannot convey the experience itself. Then it finally occurred to me that, if someone opened the
right doors, and if you walked
through them, you could have your own
transformative experience with words.
This is, in fact, the purpose of Sacred Language, and the doors it
opens are ancient.
Now, most of us are united by a western worldview,
and the western language (English or one of its parent tongues) that goes
along with it. We could have
a pretty lively debate over whether English should be classed as a Sacred
Language—it certainly contains a lot of words with hidden meanings that
reference the transcendent—but for most of us it’s not, because we
don’t use it that way. We
simply don’t use our language with the focused intent of experiencing
the Divine through it. Psychologists
are well aware that our words express our thinking (verbal communication
is, essentially, one constant Freudian slip); so if we transform our
experience of words, will our worldview (experience of Life) transform as
well?
What we’re discussing here, essentially, is the
difference between the secular and the Sacred.
In my definition, the secular describes what’s really going on in
our everyday life, whereas the Sacred describes what’s Really going on in our Everyday Life.
Like everything else, it’s merely a matter of perspective.
So I propose we take a new look at some words we
thought we knew, and see if we can’t find some in-spiration there that
we may have overlooked. If we
can rediscover some powerful breath of Spirit in the universe we create
with and from our words, then perhaps our silent experience will follow
suit. Ironically, we will be
‘mining’ some extremely old texts for our discoveries—but one
hallmark of the Sacred is that it stands outside of time.
To begin, we’ll explore the concept of name.
You live by symbols. You
have made up names for everything you see.
Each one becomes a separate entity, identified by its own name.
By this you carve it out of unity. . . .What are these names by
which the world becomes a series of discrete events, of things ununified,
of bodies kept apart and holding bits of mind as separate awarenesses? .
. .It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names, and thousands
more. Yet you believe this
is what learning means. . . .
Think not you
made the world. Illusions, yes! But
what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming. . . .God has no
name. And yet His Name
becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson
does all learning end. All
names are unified; all space is filled with truth’s reflection.
(A
Course In Miracles, workbook
lesson 184)
The Hebrew/Aramaic word that we read as “name”
in the Old and New Testaments, is Shem. There is no comparable word in English; there is, in fact, no
single thought that encompasses it.
Shem, in the words of Dr. Neil Douglas-Klotz,
“points to all wave- and vibration-related reality, the realm of
communion that connects us through light, sound, vibration and
atmosphere.” It also means name or word, but in the
greatly expanded sense implied, for instance, by Logos, which refers to the totality of the Absolute and the Relative
together, the Son of God as all of Creation.
Root-And-Pattern Expansions
in Hebrew Words
~v Shem, SHM:
v Hebrew
letter Shin, sound “SH.”
‘A staff, an arrow, a bow; the arms, the instruments of man; every
object leading to an end’
(D’Olivet)
‘Step, Shine, Outer Action. The
ShINing of the candle flame as it spreads out in ever expanding
shells of radiant energy, light
and learning from its Source; also the outer Vessel that holds the
Flame’ (Tenen).
Peacefulness, harmony, completion, rest, wholeness.
The refitting together of all the disparate
parts, just before the last letter of the alphabet. (Traditional Midrash)
~ Hebrew letter Mem,
sound “M”
‘Develops the being in indefinite space, or it comprises, in the same
respect, all beings of an
identical nature.’
(D’Olivet)
‘MeM final is the external Unfoldment into the Expanse.’
(Tenen)
~v
SHM, Shem: Name,
light, sound, vibration, noun, radiation, expression, experience,
atmosphere.
‘The circumferential extent, the entire sphere of any being
whatsoever, the total space that it
occupies….The name of
every being, the sign which
renders it knowable; that which constitutes it
such:
a place, a time, the universe, the
heavens, GOD HIMSELF: glory, eclat, splendour, fame,
virtue; that which rises
and shines in space; which is distinguished,
sublime, remarkable.’ (D’Olivet)
The first occurrence of SHM
in the bible is in Genesis 1:1 – the verse that, according to the Hebrew
mystics, contains the entire meaning of the Torah within its 28 letters.
It appears as shamaim, which is usually translated as
heaven or heavens. It occurs in a similar form in the first line of the Aramaic Lord’s
Prayer – Abwoon d’bwashmaya – translated as Our
Father, which art in heaven.
Clearly, what is being referred
to here is not some abstract after-death destination spot that’s
separate from this creation experienced here-and-now. It recognizes shamaim
as the totality of God’s
creative expression flowing into and through the Unmanifest ‘void’ –
the mayim,
the trans-existent waters of the cosmic ocean – all of which ultimately
expresses itself as the physical Universe.
This radiant ‘wave reality’ is
the Shem, the vibration,
by which man’s consciousness can ‘name’ God, by which the nameless One is known.
: Shemsh -- The Sun; to be brilliant.
vm,V,h;
: Shemesh -- The Sun; to be brilliant.
And as above, so below.
The archetypal, universal principle of Man (adamah) is created ‘in
Our image,’ as a full
extension and reflection of the radiance of God.
‘Adamah’ occurs before
‘adam’ in Genesis 1:25-26, but is not translated.
As seen in the following excerpt from Dr. Douglas-Klotz’
retranslation of verse 26, it ‘means the universal, immortal, and powerful [A]
assimilation, collection, and whole aggregation [DM]
of primordial creative life [AH]’:
Let this Universal
Assimilation of the whole ground of Being (adam)
take on the
veil or appearance of the Universe itself,
the shadow of
the totality as projected from the Source
through the
experiment of earthiness.
--Desert
Wisdom, p. 160
This, then, is the ‘name’
of Man – not a limited reference to gendered embodiment; but the
amalgamation of every aspect of Divinity, a projection and condensation of
the Universe itself, the Son of God
as the Totality of the Expression of God’s Shem. This
is the name by which I am known to God; it is the
Truth of who you are, as well. It
is that by which I am connected to the most fundamental ‘ritam
value’
of God’s Self-expression and -realization.
It is also that by which I recognize my connection to every other
aspect of Creation.
[m;v. : Shem’a – Hear,
hearken, understand, obey, sound, declare.
`dx'a, hw"hy> Wnyhel{a/ hw"hy> laer'f.yI
[m;v. -- Shem’a israel:
Adonai elohainu Adonai echad.
Hear, O
Manifestations of God: The Lord our God, the Lord is One!
The concept of name
is much, much more than a self-limitation or definition that we answer to
at dinnertime – it is the relationship
by which we are each connected to the radiance and fullness of
All-That-Is. It is the
recognition that Creator, Created, Creation, and the Process of Creating
are inseparably interrelated, and expressed through the consciousness that
is able to hear, understand, and declare so.
‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’
She who has eyes to see, let her see.
Those who have hearts to understand, let them understand, that they
might Return, and become whole.
This also describes both the
purpose and the process of Sacred Language.
It is one of the means by which we recognize and declare our Shem, radiate it to others, and reflect it back to
Source. It is one more way in
which we experience – and express – the Truth of our existence,
transforming illusion into clarity, suffering into joy, limitation into
unboundedness. Like the
Ascension Attitudes [an obvious high point of Sacred Language], it is an
approach by which we consciously and conscientiously re-cognize ourSelf
and our experience as Infinite, Eternal and Loving
Reflection of the Absolute.
Over the next few months, then,
we’ll explore a new relationship with words as expressions and impellers
of our own awareness. As in
this article, I intend to leave lots of questions unanswered; for if you
enjoy the romp as much as I do, you’ll want to use it as a springboard
rather than as a coffin lid. By simply beginning, we create our future ahead of us.
Nethqadash shmakh—
--Hallowed be thy name.
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