MEDITATION
WHAT IS MEDITATION?
Originally, the meaning of the word “meditation” actually is to think deeply about something. However, when Eastern contemplative practices were “imported” to Western culture, this was the term that was used to define them, for lack of a better word.
Nowadays, meditation has a bigger meaning than this exercise, of focusing attention.
Meditation is more of a deep reflection. To think deeply and to observe your thinking.
Meditation is an act of submission and continuous mindful consideration of God’s word in the scriptures.
Meditation is the exercise of quiet reflection, where you repeat God’s Word for some time. It is a deliberate time set apart to think over and over the Scriptures. Our thoughts are powerful, hence we tend to say more what we think and do what we say.
Meditation, unlike Prayer, involves only yourself – you can only know what you think.
When you meditate on something, you turn it over in your mind. You examine it carefully. You let your mind dwell upon what is there. You examine how the phrases and the relationships extend to the problems of life and what you are trying to wrestle with, at the moment.
Meditation demands a great discipline. Not the discipline of supression or conformity but the discipline that comes when you observe your thinking. When there is an observation of thought, that observation brings about it’s own extraordinary, subtle discipline.
Meditation draws the marrow from your bones. It gives you the strength to live.
Meditation is so rare nowadays that people have to turn to transcendental meditation and Eastern mysticism to contemplate things in their life.
Meditation used to be one of the great virtues of Christians everywhere. They thought about different Scriptures. The thinking of Scripture, the one letting the mind meditate upon the richness that is there, the marrow in the bones, the rich fatness of what is there, permiating your being, to make you what you should be. This is what is lacking.
BENEFITS OF MEDITATION
Meditation brings several benefits:
• You become more astute according to your ideals/ideas and wishes, and perhaps more efficient when it comes to attaining the goal that makes you happy
• Strengthening of faith
• Boldness in a fearful situation
• Trust in the Lord
• Obedience to God’s word
• Living a holy life
• Total surrender to God’s will
There is a saying: “where there is strife and envy, there is every evil work.” And so, we are so much more likely to be influenced by evil, not when we’re meditating but when we’re in anger, when we’re in stride, when we are in disagreements, when we are triggered by certain things, and instead of controlling our spirit, we just let it all hang out.
But in Praying and Meditation, your goal really is to cultivate Inner Peace. And when you are meditating unto the Lord, you are inviting God into your practice. So you have the company of God. It’s really about your intention. And for most of us, if we decide we want a meditation practice, it’s because we want to get rid of anger and strife, and anxiety, and stress, and negativity. That’s why most people meditate.
I know there is this misconception while meditating to emptying the mind. Minds need a good washing out. But washing from what? Negativity, limiting beliefs, shame, anger, guilt, fear, all of these things that we may be holding onto and it’s never been healed because our minds have never been truly renewed. Meditation helps you to come into stillness, come into silence, and become aware of your stuff.
Sometimes while meditating some people start feeling anxiety. Some fear might come up. And really what’s happening is just like when you do a physical fast and those toxins, you kind of released out of your fat tissues and go into your bloodstream and you might get headaches or some people might get rashes and those type of things because they are now being extracted from your tissues.
Well, the same thing happens with your emotions.
When you incorporate silence into your life and stillness into your lives, your emotional toxins begin to come up. And sometimes that can induce anxiety and fear when you don’t know what to do with those things.
But in Christian meditation, I really encourage you to invite God into your pain. So if you’re meditating, these things are coming up, and you interpret them as something evil. No, it’s really just your own stuff, your own insecurities that had been buried down, sometimes all the way back to childhood because you clean the outside of the body but rarely do you have some ongoing practice to clean your internal, your minds, your hearts.
The Bible says that if your eye is full of light, then your whole body is full of light. And so, what it’s really saying is you see through a filter. So if you see through a filter of negativity and fear, that’s how you interpret a world. And so, you want to clean the filter, and that’s what your meditation practice with Soul Energy Noosphere Regulators help you to do. The Scripture also says it’s not what goes into the belly that defiles the men, but it’s what comes out of the heart. That is what defiles the men. So you need to be really concerned about the condition of your heart and mind.
God is a Spirit and the Bible says that we must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. And so, when you do Spiritual disciplines like Meditation, you really are tapping more into the Spirit.
And yes, there is a Spiritual World which is coming out from the Satan, not from God. But when you meditate with your Soul Energy Noosphere Regulators under the auspice of God, you are under His Love, you are under His Divine Light, and you are under His Protection.
A Christian that is Praying, but not Meditating is like a person leaping with one leg instead of walking with two legs.
Both Praying and Meditating make you whole, perfect, established, and standing in God’s Will for your life.
Meditation is a lost art for many Christians, but the practice needs to be cultivated again.