Essay 5: REST IN PEACE

“The wisest of mankind have believed that in rest of some sort they should be satisfied. They have known that in the purest rest is pure God.” (Esoteric Philosophy page 16:2)

There really is nothing new under the sun and this is true of our spiritual life as well. As we can free ourselves from the delusions of time, space, and matter, we find our Native Home at the right hand of God. The world and all its conditions will always present us with an urgency or an illusion of substance that they do not nor ever did deserve. In his book Doing Nothing, Steven Harrison describes this quest as “perhaps a faint nostalgia for a state of rest we vaguely remember, a state of rest to which we can no longer find our way.”

In Lesson III, Emma describes for us the state of doing, thinking, “feeding and affirmation” that tends to conceal our native state from us. She stresses time after time that there is nothing new to be done but rather surrender to a restoration and returning by “looking toward.” There is nothing that we can do to attain this state because it is already all that we are, all that we can be, and all that we ever have been. In a very real sense, we do not wait upon the Lord, it is the Lord that waits upon us.

We rest when we trust. We rest when we embrace a level of faith that is beyond our understanding. We rest when our only prayer is “God’s Will be done in me.” When we rest, we close our eyes and our lower bodies become quiet. When we rest our “caterpillar,” there is nothing we need to do, and the fullness of Being can be revealed. Rest is certainty and confidence. It is the Grace to know without question that “your Father knows what things you have need of before you even ask.” Embracing this rest of body and mind is the very foundation of living in Unmerited Favor.

In Mark 4:35-40, Jesus and the disciples travel by boat across the Sea of Galilee when a furious storm blows up, tossing the boat about and causing all manner of concerns among the disciples. All the while Jesus Himself slept, unconcerned in the back of the boat. “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” complains one among them to which Jesus responds “Quiet, be still.” At this command, the tumult of the wind and sea quieted, as did the fears and concerns of the disciples. As was the case so many times, Jesus used this seemingly random event as a teachable moment among those with “the ears to hear and the eyes to see.”

As this particular journey begins, Jesus suggests “Let us go over to the other side.” Little did they know that, at a deeply spiritual level, Jesus was inviting each of the disciples to “go to the other side” in consciousness, turning away from a world of conditions and situations to find reunion with Truth, that Universal place of rest and favor. In quieting the storm, He brings forth the Truth that, regardless of appearance, we are meant to be masters of matter, not its servants. At a deeper level, calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee also calms the storm of duality, attachment, and hypnosis of matter that each of the disciples were still enslaved by. In the end, Jesus wisely asks the disciples to examine their own thinking as well as their belief systems in His statement “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

As Jesus did, Emma suggests that as our “me-ness” surrenders to our “I-ness,” there is nothing left to do, to aspire to, to fear, or even to think about. In this state, the Christ Presence not only flows through us, but as us. As our egos are resurrected, expression becomes free of our perceived needs, thoughts, and ideas. The love of the world harbored in our human personalities becomes Love IN the world. What manifests in us becomes direct impartation of the Holy Spirit. Our will is truly free because it has come home to the Divine. 

For each of us, our rest in peace turns our gaze from the winds of tumult inherent in everyday life to the ease and grace that only First Cause can bring. Truth becomes the hand that moves across the waters of consciousness, bringing not only rest, but restoration in us and as us.