Psalm 23 interpretation by anonymous

An LoA-oriented translation of Psalm 23, based on a close reading of an interlinear Hebrew translation:

I AM my shepherd and so I AM without lack.
I meditate upon abundance in stillness.
I return to my awareness and it guides me to that which I desire to be.
Thus, no matter the appearance of what my external senses tell me, I am fearless for I AM with me.
By discipline and support, I am guided and I am comforted.
Neither doubt nor the opinions and actions of others have power over me, for I am more than abundant.
It is done. All good and all that I desire follows me and has always been in pursuit of me.
As I willed it in my imagination, so it is done.

The King James translation, for comparison:

>The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
>He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
>He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
>Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
>Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
>Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.


Look at psalm 23 for an excellent example of a man describing the inner witness state and who knows who the observer is, and how the world of illusion and movement all points back to the inner stillness. It's actually insane to think of how this psalm infiltrates culture, and I knew it my entire life, yet never questioned the strange phrases. "The valley of the shadow of Death"? "Thy rod and thy staff comfort me"? "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies"? "My cup runneth over"? I look at this now and realise how I blind I was until I woke up to the experience of the self that has run through our entire history secretly beneath the egoic society.
The Temple at Delphi: "Know thyself"

It's about the non-dual witness state. In LoA you visualise your image and then surrender to the path that is opened through your intent (intent: Carlos Castaneda is a peculiar LoA flavour. Wayne Dyer picked up this thread too).

>The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want
My intent is set, my goal visualised. Now I surrender to the path, trusting it is already done. In the witness state I am without desire, because I am beyond time, space, and all attributes and forms. I am pure awareness.
>He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
Poetic language for the experience. The witness is unchanging and still, it is life itself: green pastures, still waters.
>He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
If you are not aware you are trapped in the mind and the tensions of dualistic, judgemental thinking e.g. good/bad, love/hate, have/lack. When you are aware you are content. Also, right action follows right mind. When you are present, and flowing, focusing on the task at hand, not judging it or conceptualising it, but seeing it as it is and working it as it is, you do the task as it is meant to be done. See here Jung's comment on the purpose of his ideas: to do the next necessary thing. One thing at a time, done with all the care of the universe.
>Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil
Fearing no evil is straight forward, as in awareness there is no good/evil, and nothing to fear, everything is accepted as it is without desire for change. The valley of the shadow of the death is harder for me to be confident about, but the interesting part is that it is the shadow of death . . . death here could represent unawareness, the unseeing eye, the world of forms. The valley is this world of forms we pass through that casts shadows on the wall like in Plato's cave. We walk through it without identifying with the forms, without distraction.

> for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou art with me is straight-forward. Thy rod and thy staff comfort me is about how even pain is now seen as merely a trigger for his awareness. Every sense perception is used, even pain, as a trigger that points to the stillness inside. Consider here Zeno's paradoxes where he gave various example of how movement all point towards non-movement. I believe a disciple of Zeno was also tortured to death in an attempt to get him to crack, yet he remained at peace till he died.
> Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies
As Jesus said, love your enemies. In the witness state, there are no enemies, there is no this/that, there just 'is', I AM. It is a non-dual state. The lion lays down with the lamb.
>thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
He is blessed. Life is abundant. When you are aware, you are aligned with life itself. You know there is only the present moment. You know that you can give, and give, and give, because life is inexhaustible, and what is given is received back as there is only you giving and receiving from yourself. You hear the zen parable about drinking from the river? A greedy man grabs at the river with his fist and goes thirsty. The wise man gently lowers an open hand into the river and drinks from his palm. He lets the excess water run from his hand because he knows the river is abundant. Give and ye shall receive. You are the cup that life is poured through (except there is no cup. Also, take a moment to consider the Holy Grail here. "Who is the Grail King?")
>Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Obvious. It's good to be alive and aware. You abide with life itself. You are life.

>Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Looking at this again, you could also say the shadow of Death is Life. Life and Death are themselves dualistic concepts. Awareness gives rise to both of them.
When you engage with one half of a polarity on its terms, and believe it exists independently as a thing or form, such as life, you immediately open yourself up to its opposite polarity, in this case, death. But it is true for all polarities. You say something is good, you open yourself up to it also potentially being bad, for instance. If you affirm X/Y exists, you doom yourself to ping-ponging between them and living in that tension. Also, what you concentrate on gets multiplied, as life is a giving process, and so if you think of one thing, life gives you more of it. Think of condemnation? Here, have way more condemnation (see here Matt 13:12 For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.)
This is the meaning of judge not lest ye be judged. If you can say x is good/bad, then you yourself must also be good/bad. If everything simply 'is', you exist on a non-dual plane outside of judgements. When you condemn something, you condemn yourself.
Anyway, to walk through life is tricky because it is so easy to identify with a form/thought/idea/image/belief and get trapped in what is essentially a sort of subroutine of life. Only via awareness can you transcend both life and death and walk safely, which is to walk without walking.

>Matt 13:12 For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him
Also on this point . . . if you study hypnosis or NLP you learn that the mind does not process negatives.
The example I remember was telling a child "Do not push that button" and then leaving them alone. They always push the button.
To understand the sentence "Do not push the button" you have to first visualise pushing the button, and then enter the strange world of non-existence to say actually, no, just don't do that thing we imagined.
Can you imagine NOT pushing a button? No, you can't. Now, you may be thinking you can, but probably what you are imagining is you just standing there doing nothing. That is a positive imagine, not a negative. The mind does not process negatives, and neither does reality/life/God.
So, if you say to yourself "I do not want this" what does life hear, and your mind/subconscious? "I want this". Okay, more of that for you then . . .
This is also the second meaning of 'positive thinking'. Most people hear this phrase and they think 'happy thinking', but it is not just that at all. The concept is also about thinking of terms of things that ARE versus things that are not e.g. I do not want that dog to bite me vs I want to walk safely past that dog.

>thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me
These are the instruments of the shepherd. The rod is symbolic of discipline, to keep the shepherded self headed in the right direction. This is a loving discipline — the shepherd does not use the rod to wound his sheep, only to redirect them. However, if there is a need for defense, the rod is there to defend the flock from harm (i.e. from doubt or adversarial thought).

In contrast, the staff is symbolic of loving support, that which one uses to make their walk through the valley of shadow easier.

Note that the rod and staff are a singular, selfsame instrument of authority utilized for different purposes. The dichotomization between one length of wood into two — a rod and a staff — is in perception. Likewise, the character of David, as a shepherd, is given biblical authorship of this psalm about God being his shepherd. This is a recursive reminder that you are both the shepherd and the shepherded; both the desire and the desirer. Even as you discipline yourself, support yourself. In support of yourself, you are disciplined.


Here is a bit of Empedocles on what I think is the same message:

Come now: watch with every palm how
each single thing becomes apparent. Don't hold
anything you see as any more of an assurance
than whatever you hear, or give those loud
sounds you happen to be hearing preference
over the sharp tastes on your tongue. And don't
reject the assurance provided by any other limb
that offers some passage for perception, but
perceive how each single thing becomes apparent.

Here he speaks about how you begin to perceive all perceptions as pointers to your inner being, and the dualistic values you placed on them when you believed all was separate become meaningless, as now you know the only true seeing and being begins when you are seated in your awareness, as your awareness, that gives rise to all things.
In Psycho-Cybernetics Maltz talks about 'negative feedback' and how all seemingly bad things are useful for course correcting towards your goal. In the view of inner being you use everything you are aware of to trigger your remembrance that you are yourself awareness. This is what I take thy rod and thy staff to mean, that it is the power to use all perception as negative feedback that points back to your true self as awareness, the comfort of pure being.
I took the translation of the poem, and the idea of what it means, from Reality by Peter Kingsley, where he also translates and examines Parmenides in the same way, in the light of a teaching that points to the inner being and an awareness of interconnectedness, and the idea of using all perceptions to continually remind you of what it is that is aware of those perceptions.