Lords Prayer In Aramaic - Our Father Who Art in Heaven

Reliance on particular words and facts that cannot fully describe experience is a significant factor maintaining the illusion of separation from divine Oneness.  I call this over-objectification. The experience of Oneness is found in the subjective, the unique meaning each of us imparts to what is through our personal inner eye. For every outer phenomenon, there is an inner phenomenon. This is wisdom, as opposed to intellectual assent.

Taking the language of scripture back to its roots can be a revelatory technique in many ways. Remember, words and letters are symbols. We limit experience when we use them to define rather than reveal. Symbols always point to something beyond facts, they expand into experience through meaning, and subsequently, value. Modern day language, in and of itself, tends to limit and confine the meaning of words. In the language of today, words have found greater definition, precision, and discreet implication. But ancient languages, Greek, numerous Middle Eastern languages and Hebrew dialects, Latin, etc find more space around words as symbols, allowing their implications to expand experience rather than point to one factual aspect of the experience.

This is the case with the various renditions of the Lord's Prayer from earlier languages. Many agree that the original Aramaic (a language with origins in the 10th century BC) cannot be retrieved, but a diversity of transliterations from early sources allow the Lord's Prayer to be taken back to a more fundamental, and subjective, articulation. It makes a difference. It creates a space for consciousness raising through experience.

Below is a word by word, symbol by symbol, translation of the first line of the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father who art in heaven" or Abwoon d'bwashmaya in "Aramaic" by Sufi and Religious studies scholar, Neil Douglas-Klotz, from his wonderful book, Prayers of the Cosmos.

1. Our Birth in Unity

Abwoon d’bwashmaya: "Our Father who art in heaven"

A = the Absolute, the Only being, The pure Oneness and Unity – source of all power and stability (echos the ancient sacred sound AL and the Aramaic word for God, Alaha, literally, “the Oneness”).

bw = a birthing, a creation, a flow of blessing, as if from the “interior” on this Oneness to us.

oo = the breath or spirit that carries this flow, echoing the sound of breathing and including all forces we now call magnetism, wind, electricity and more. This sound is linked to the Aramaic phrase rukha d’goodsha, which was later translated as “Holy Spirit.”

n = the vibration of the creative breath from Oneness as it touches and interpenetrates form. There must be a substance that this force touches, moves, and changes.

This sound echos the earth, and the body here vibrates as we intone the name slowly:

Ah-bw-oo-n.

D’bwashmaya

Shem = means light, sound, vibration, name, or word. The root shm indicates that which “rises and shines in space,” the entire sphere of being.

Shem is the “name” the renders Abwoon knowable

-aya shows that this shining includes every center of activity, every place we see, as well as the potential abilities of all things.

Shmaya = the vibration or word by which one can recognize the Oneness – God’s name – is the universe. (The Aramaic conception of heaven)

English translations:

O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos, You create all that moves in light.

O Thou! The Breathing Life of all, Creator of the Shimmering Sound that touches us.

Respiration of all worlds, we hear you breathing – in and out- in silence.

Radiant One: You shine within us, outside us-even darkness shines-when we remember.

Name of Names, our small identity unravels in you, you give it back as a lesson.

Wordless Action, Silent Potency-where ears and eye awaken, there heaven comes.

**************

Be still and know that I AM

Be still and know

Be still .

Be.

Experience is fullest when our minds are quietest, when the "interpreter" is asleep. As you rest in the space of Universal Love, may all light surround you, ground you, and guide you!

_/\_Peggy @ Ecumenicus