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1    Silent Worship and Biblical Exegesis

Silent worship, practised by Quakers in Europe, is "unprogrammed", which means that after a few minutes of gathered centering, anyone may briefly express a thought, offer a prayer, quote a verse, or say a little about what that verse inspires in him or her.

Here, no preacher has to analyse some verse or passage from the Old or New Testament, and there are no specific times for liturgical singing, for reading, for prayer.

Everything is wholly spontaneous, whether it be silence, spoken words, or a hymn sung, perhaps, by a Friend so moved.

For certain, there is no evidence of a whole group of believers depending on a preacher, Sunday after Sunday. All that automatism — the liturgy; the pre-programmed patterns of listening and dutiful repetition (in song or liturgical prayer); the listening followed by doxology recited all together — stays outside the door, away from the Quaker religious position.

What counts more — alongside Friends' respect and love for the Written Word (the Bible), by which they are inspired 99 times out of 100 — is rather the search for a direct connection with the Spirit of God.

There isn't a special interpretation of one or other particular verse, there isn't a doctrine or theology imposing a given interpretation on biblical passages, there isn't a preacher drawing the congregation into a personal vision of the world or of holy scripture. Above all, there is absolutely no risk that weekly interpretations of the bible, if compared, could be, or appear to be, contradictory.

And finally, there is no risk of being thought a luke-warm Christian just because one's speech isn't stuffed full of biblical quotations.

The more time goes by, the greater grows the number of translations of the Bible, of discoveries of more or less ancient texts, of revisions, of interpretations by translators and commentators.

Discoveries of Greek manuscripts in the various parts of the Mediterranean world that were dominated by Greek-speaking culture, whether or not from the Bible, allow us to understand words from the New Testament whose meanings were unknown until yesterday. Especially among those who tend towards fundamentalism, this creates confusion.

For Friends who meet to meditate or talk together about that Word, but the Word often enlivened by a deep sense of the presence of God, the risk of depending on more or less "correct" interpretations of passages from the bible is absent from the start.

And human silence clearly has its own limits and risks, but they do not necessarily draw in the whole community.

At most, there could be an error of "omission".

Frino di Ghiffa, 3 III 1992

Death as generally understood does not in truth exist. What we call death is governed by the principle of Shiva, that is to say, death is nothing but a transformation, a going beyond form. It is a simple changing of the state of consciousness that can happen to some in a way so unrecognised as to be unnoticed.

The great majority of humanity, especially in the West, neither has known nor knows how to find a right relationship with death. Dramatization of the event, attachment to appearances, identification with earthly goals, etc., represent infantile delusions for those who know and understand. One day or another it will be revealed that birth is under the law of limitation, while death is under that of liberation.

Raphael, Beyond Doubt

This is a free translation of the Italian version (Raphael (Asram Vidya Order), Di l� dal dubbio, Ch. "Post mortem e Bardo Thotrol". Edizioni Asram Vidya. Rome 1979. [Italian Edition]).


English text by Simon Grant, based on the translation by George T. Peck revised 2008-01-28 and 2010-01-26
[Original Italian by Davide Melodia]
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Please send any suggestions for alternative translations of any of these meditations to Simon Grant.