Ha @Andrew … I remember having a very similar confusion in the begining days - If Actualism is that matter is not merely passive then what is this opposite quality of stillness ?
The stillness isn’t as if a surface of a pond is physically seen to be still…I think you may be thinking in terms of lack of motion of materiality…but stillness that Richard spoke about (and can be quite easily known experientially in a PCE) is the lack of movement of the whole universe itself and also the lack of movement of eternal time. The galaxies and stars move about but the universe as a whole isn’t going somewhere.
Richard had these convos in the Audio Taped Dialogues :
R : […] The universe is not expanding – it is already complete. It is incredibly still. The universe is not moving at all. Objects like stars and planets are moving – in relation to each other – but the universe is not. Otherwise one gets into what cosmologists do with their ‘Big Bang’ theory of the edges of the universe receding. And into what the mystics do with their ever-expanding vastness. It amounts to the same thing … and it comes from the self as the centre of all existence.
Whereas the experience of the infinitude of space and time is of an utter stillness. There is no movement.
Q(1): Well, I’ve experienced stillness … or silence.
R: Silence is usually when the mind stops worrying and puzzling away … and the emotions and passion cease agitating and churning. What is that popular song? ‘The Sounds of Silence?’. I have experienced sound as coming out of silence … but one needs to be wary here for it is almost mandatory to go into ‘Movement coming out of Stillness’, ‘Light coming out of Darkness’ … one is starting to get into a ‘Primary Cause’ as in a ‘Creator’. You know: ‘Something comes out of Nothing’ – and all that.
Now, I do not hesitate to say that there is a stillness that is the source of everything. With that statement I wish to convey that infinitude is utterly still; there is no movement at all. There is no ‘rushing’ as in going somewhere – or coming from anywhere. The ‘edges’ of the universe are not ‘rushing’ out into nothingness at the speed of light or whatever.
However, I fail to see how anyone can grasp all this as a concept.
Cheers
Shashank