12/09/2023
Can you hear the "still small Voice" of your Inner Light? Its Voice awaits your silence, for Its Word cannot be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled.
Personal note:
Meditation is merely a tool that can be used by anyone no matter what their spiritual background. Even if they have no spiritual background. There is peace within when the mind is quiet, at rest and able to hear the Truth which will free the mind of fearful and unloving thoughts. In the western tradition that I was raised in, the practice of meditation is called the Contemplative life, or practicing the presence of God. I was first introduced to meditation when I was attending a Christian college in my early twenties through the writings of Christian mystics like Madam Guyon, François Fénelon, Thomas à Kempis, John of the Cross, Jakob Böhme, François de Sales, Brother Lawrence, Watchman Nee, Thomas Merton, Meister Eckhart and others. This is when I began practicing meditation. The immediate results were so spiritually satisfying and effective that I felt like I was progressing in my spiritual growth in a much deeper and personal way than I had previously experienced up until then. I experienced so much peace and joy that looking back, it is hard to believe that I allowed a respected well-meaning but misinformed professor to convince me that meditation was not Biblical, it was dangerous and that I would be led astray if I did not give up the practice. So I gave it up and did not take up meditation again for 26 years. I was 48 when the thought came into my awareness to stop looking outside of myself for Truth. I was looking in the wrong place, no wonder I could not find it.
I started to realize that everything I had spent my life looking for, peace, joy, happiness, freedom from fear and worry, companionship, supply, all this and more, I already possessed within me. I remembered what Jesus had taught about the Kingdom of God/heaven being within me. So, I stopped looking outside of myself for these things and followed the call to journey inward. I started to be still and listen for a few minutes a day. It was such a rewarding experience when I discovered the peaceful space within me that I wanted to stay there as long as I could and my “few minutes” turned into longer and longer periods of contemplation. It is just a part of my life now like eating and sleeping.
I wish that I had been taught to meditate when I was a child. I believe that my life would have been much happier and peaceful. By and large, any form of mindfulness or meditation just wasn’t and still isn’t taught or encouraged in the Bible belt where I grew up. Things are changing though. Mindfulness and meditation are beginning to show up in all kinds of places and spaces. Also, some congregations of the Christian faith tradition that I few up in are now learning to meditate together. Even people who have left the faith or who do not practice any formal religion are starting to experience the many benefits of meditation (Search the internet to see all the positive that is happening in places where they are teaching meditation now, especially in places like problem schools and prison populations). I am encouraged. We need more peace and happiness in this world today, but people cannot be happy and at peace when their mind is in a state of inner conflict, I have found that I have to experience that peace and happiness within myself first before I can share it with others.
