Hey... I was just wondering... Is meditation "against" the Bible or maybe is it something Cathlics should not do?... I've been practicing meditating off and on for about a year now and since it has been helping me alot with stress and to calm the chaos in my mind as a teenager. It just came to me one day that it might be against my religion. I think it has really just about finding your self and developing your mind, but I would like to make sure. Maybe someone could clear this up for me... Thanks...
hi c firstly if yer take away the vs. then there is no contest .............is there. imean anyone can meditate(got fuck all to do with religion)has it............back to me meditation...........................peace man
Many catholics have practiced meditation in the past, and to this day. It is in no way against belief in God, although of course, people have many divers beliefs. A very famous early Christian text "The Cloud of Unknowing" (anon) actually describes a method of contemplative prayer very similar to some forms of meditation. In recent times, Thomas Merton, a cistercian monk has written quite widely about meditation and in particular how Christians might apply Zen meditation to their lives. No reason at all why Christians shouldn't benefit from meditation.
Yeah. Some in the church don't like what Merton is doing, but deep prayer is basically mantra meditation anyways, and we know the church can be backwards sometimes. No offense intended to your religion. Pretty much every religion uses meditation in some way, and everyone can benefit by it. The bible says the kingdom of god is within, how else are you going to find it? A surgeon's scapel? haha
I think you're right - many Church people don't like the idea of meditation, which only goes to show how little some of them know about their own tradition - to which I, incidentally, do not subscribe, although I am interested in all spiritual paths. As you say, meditation or contemplative prayer play a part in most religions. It does seem though that modern Christianity has moved away from this. Perhaps thats part of the reason why so many are looking to other paths these days - because ordinary church Christianity doesn't offer any method of actually experiencing the Divine Reality, but is mainly focused on other matters.
I was thinking that while I wrote my response, you're right. Modern churches don't offer any real understanding of the divine, they just read old scriptures, and now even focus a lot on politics. Without the holy experience, a religion is dead; at least in my opinion. People are going through the motions, hoping they're saved and thinking very little on their spirituality; just on the scriptures and their laws. (not all of them, of course, just generalizing).
Fully agree that without actual experience, religion is meaningless. And it very quickly gets politicized and corrupted. With Christianity, the majority seem to be focused on just a kind of assent to the dogmas, however they are understood, and on morality as the central thing of religion. I think ethics are secondary. If one has experienced some real touch of the Divine then you tend to act ethically without the need for all these external rules etc. We have to be self-regulating I think if we want to be truly free, not bound to a particular scripture, even if it does contain much that is of value. Krishna said one who sees Him has no more use for the words of the Vedas because he has realized the truth behind those words. Its a pity there isn't something similar in christianity. Perhaps there is - but its not made so explicit. 'The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life'? Pity more christians don't bear that in mind. Om Shanti.
Two things: 1. (Already been discussed) Many Catholic and other Christians meditate. Prayer even is a form of meditation and I'm sure people have reached medititave states when from sitting still from hours on end in church services (I'm not quite sure if that was a joke). Most of the prophets and Jesus have done meditation. When Moses and Jesus went up on the mountains for 40 days and 40 nights what do you think they were doing? Picking their nose for 960 hours? I think in the Catecism (sp?)(Catholic book of teaching and interpretations) it has something saying that contact with God comes best from a place of stillness and that this stillness is achieved in a medititative state. 2. It's your life, it's for you to live. Even if the Catholic church forbidded meditation then it's still up to you. Remember that every teaching is a guideline and that there are actually very few people who practice every single teaching of any set of teachings without drawing from other sources. If it was God's will for you not to meditate then I'm sure he'd teach you not to somehow. Blessings Sebbi
There is a book [color=#99333]THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST[/color][color=#99333] [/color][color=#99333]The Resurrection of the Christ Within You[/color][color=#99333] [/color][color=#99333]A revelatory commentary on the original teachings of Jesus[/color] [color=#99333]Paramahansa Yogananda[/color] One of the most eagerly awaited books in the history of Self-Realization Fellowship is Paramahansa Yogananda's revelatory interpretation of the teachings of Jesus Christ. In this unprecedented masterwork of inspiration, Paramahansa Yogananda takes the reader on a profoundly enriching journey through the four Gospels, verse by verse, and illumines the universal path to oneness with God taught by Jesus to his immediate disciples but obscured through centuries of misinterpretation: "how to become like Christ, how to resurrect the Eternal Christ within one's Self." Basically Jesus meditated, he went to the east, learned from all sorts of dudes and gals over there, and went back to turn on the jews as much as he could in THIER CULTURAL-RELIGIOUS CONTEXT. And Jesus also toked uphttp://www.cannabisculture.com/backissues/cc11/christ.html Oh and prayer is also a good technique in many ways, some christian mystics "prayers" would just be repeated a mantra-like name of god, over and over and over again, thank you god, thank you god, thank you god, thank you god, thank you christ! thier INTENSE DEVOTION connected them to the PERFECT PURE ENERGY THAT IS EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING, NOW, WOW! And they would have experiences that fit the description of most mystics in all sorts of different religious traditions... So get over it! NOW WOW LOVE WE ARE ONE! Huh? Who? I don't know anything silly. I'm at your feet universe.
