Something Don brought up: God says in answer to Moses "Tell them, `I will be what I will be" has sent you." Don sees this answer from God as an evasion he goes on to say.... (i) There is a widespread belief in the Ancient Near East that a god's name expresses his essence. God's answer, says Don, is designed to prevent Moses from presuming to grasp God's essence. _______________
I have a different perspective of this, in that God’s answer was not designed to prevent Moses from grasping God’s essence.......that it is in truth a revelation of what God stuff is and God is not a single entity but a force, a light.
I will be what I will be.  if I look at the word “will” and see what comes up, I remember my guide telling me I had no will back in the 80’s. which surprised me a bit as no one likes to think of themselves that way, of having no will. I suppose what it meant, was that I had no will to live. in that context it was true. I had been playing my games so long that there was no point and it was time to crack open some books, but that’s another story.
if I imagine a God saying such a thing “I will be what I will be,” I rather like it because it leads me into a mental plane and away from the twisted wreckage of a guilt ridden depraved heart. the phrase reminds me of ACIM asking me to “have a little willingness to see things differently.” not really a hard thing to employ, and the little willingness, if I remembered, always produced the different perspective I needed. “I will be what I will be” also has a freedom call around it, implying that we may very well be making it up as we go along on this physical level of happenings which appear so chaotic and random. precisely, what else could it be? we all seem to be asking more questions than correct answers can supply, because perhaps there is no correct answer after all.  I will be whatever it is that I am willing to be..Back in the 80’s before I’d found ACIM I would imagine there was a God, or if not a God of traditional bearing, at least beings who were far greater enlightened than my own small flickering candlelight in the wind, who might lend an ear that I wanted to change my life..immediately if not sooner. at the time I concieved through literature on the matter of a walk in; perhaps that was the answer. As I spoke of my plan to vacate the premises to my nameless God,  residing perhaps as a spot in the brain tissue, which some will point to, but desperados are desperate; I outlined the plan and received an incredulous reply that the gift of my life in service to God was an affront to God himself, or All That Is. The inner guidance which seemed to come from outside of me chided me for attempting to give back to the source of life what was a gift and given to me, free of charge, and now which I longed to throw back into his face (what face?) by admitting defeat and lack of will. After awhile of being reprimanded on my lack of insight I was told to not be so serious all the time and to attempt to enjoy my stay, that I need not secure miracles for God, nor change the world, that I was not here for the purpose to pay off karma or carry a guilt load, nor for any reasons which I suspected. In essence I was given total rein to let my interests take me where they might, but one thing for sure I was not going to be allowed to be a walk in because that was not in my life plan and was a complete cop out insofar as this soul is concerned. It goes back to the old religious idea, where God accepts you just as you are, even if you feel you are not worthy and have made a mess of things just as you are means exactly that. So all in all in summation of this most interesting thing that God would say “I will be what I will be” I think it has to do with our ability to develop a will, a center, if you will. a strong will that looks out to the sea and is vigilant, a will that does not waver in listening and hearing inner direction, even in times of great trouble. Some of us will be needed to remain unaffected by the winds of change in the days ahead. This is not a dire prediction, rather, what I mean by remaining unaffected is that we keep our heads about us while others may be losing it. We just don’t want to add our noise to the already noisy grid. Just one person keeping their center can reach for another’s hand and so on and so on until it’s hands across the world sort of thing. It was not so long ago I can admit to not having control of fearful conjectures of death and non-existence befalling me at the same time sensing the sweetness of release from the body. You wouldn’t know you were dead after all. but that’s not the sweetness I speak of. The sweetness is found in the family on the other side who tell you, “wow, you really thought you were there, now didn’t you get into it this time, and btw, have you strengthened your will this time around? I might say bug off, or I might say, as a matter of fact I do feel a bit enhanced from it all.
I apologize for board hoginess again. but Romain said I could do it.

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yes, I enjoy your insight here and in agreement; would only add that you are talking about being balanced as I see it. a person neither too emotional nor too mental, a spirituality that is nonetheless grounded, not flying too high to bliss out. I see that we come here to get everything in balance. I tend to look at the 7 chakras as energy centers that spin. some spin perhaps where several others need activating as we go through our life plans, but eventually the idea is to spin all of them and that might be called balance then.
I speak about balance here because I have been one who was too emotional throughout my life and starting to get the mental in alignment now. and what you call self surrender I agree with and see that as self acceptance of what is. to me that is perhaps like holding to the center, where peace is and holding the stern steady through a storm. it is a somewhat delicate process and is like as in olden times, DP said it was like praying without ceasing. love, alysia

Hi Wayne -

I agree with the better translation, "I am that I am," but I suggest an additional meaning. Consider the archaic use of the word "that" to form the subjective case with "to be". Thus I might say, "I eat that I might be filled," where "that" is NOT a pronoun. so that the meaning, at least in terms of us who work with development of the soul, would be: "I am in order that I shall to be." Or in simpler terms, "I am beingness." Thus we have a totally unconditional statement that God declares Its existence to be pure, non-contingent beingness such that It projects Its beingness. From that perspective we can easily turn to definitions of the nature of being. Being all together as one: "God is Love." Or being total unobstructed awareness: "God is All-Knowing." Or the nature of being as the joyful activity of sheer existence: "God is thre Blissful Joy of Nirvana."  I suggest that this type of name captures the nature of God quite well.

At the same time, it remains absolutely true that God certainly is what God will be, as Alysia stated it. The fact that we can't define this in immediate materialistic terms, doesn't mean that we can't point toward the correct meaning as an attempt to suggest a non-contingent self-transcendence. Language boggles the effort a bit, eh?

dave

Don's coment:
Dear Wayne,
No, read Bernhard Anderson's discussion of the relevant Hebrew etymology in "Understanding the Old Testament," 4th ed., pp. 61-63.  The equally viable translation is not "I am that I am", but rather "I am who I am (rightly, the New International Version's translation) ," which has the same force as "I will be whatever I will be."  What Alysia and others overlook is the fact that God twice refuses even to disclose His name (Genesis 32:29; Judges 13:18) and explains (in Judges) that His reluctance is motivated by the fact that He "is beyond understanding."
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alysia piping in here: lol. ok, maybe it's true. God is beyond understanding. to me though, it's ok that it's that way. and I take that to mean looking into the face of God would mean certain death, like staring at the sun would blind you. in other words we wrestle with the desire to return home but while on a journey through physicality that would be quite impossible, save the occassional glimpse into what is beyond our understanding which I think we try to do here, by dealing with the things that are possible, or that we can conscieve of as possible.
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Please forgive me for temporarily abandoning my promise to desert this site until summer, but scholarly discussion of the original biblical languages is too alluring for me to keep my nose out of the discussion.    
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lol. you aint getting out of here that easy! if u think u need forgiveness, you got it! this discussion has been brewing in my head for months and u started it! I'm learning something about will.
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Let me take this opportunity to encourage you all to read Howard Storm's new book, "My Descent into Death."  Why?  Because after his NDE, angels play an awesome role in protecting him from certain death.  It's the most amazing story of its kind I've ever encountered.  
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thanks for the book suggestion. actually it sounds interesting as I'm studying CW workers, angels to you most intensely these days. they seem like ordinary people to me. Don, do u think we can entertain angels unaware? hmmm. kinda blows my mind to consider this.
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OK, back to my Gateway tapes,
Don
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how's it coming with the tapes?

Hi Alysia- an after thought -

Buddhism officialy denies the existence of a (material) God as well as a (material and invariable) soul. But on the wealls of many older Buddhist monasteries there is often an inscription in which existence is portrayed as the sum of three factors: joyful activities, clearminded aware understanding, contentment of loving unity. When one has amassed these three traits it is the entry into transcendental meditative states that lead to nirvastarka samadhi, the direct meditative realization of the emergence of everything together as a single dynamic that has the essential qualities of joy, logic and love.  It's like our discussion here about the  terminology, not wanting to use the "wrong words" to express somethitng that we all sense in our various individualistic ways.

So might I add to your string of ideas that "being is doing loving"?

dave

Go for it, Don!  - Just don't try toooo hard.

dave