CHRSITIANITY AND MEDITATION

Meditation has, for a long time been stereotyped by the Christian adherents due to the nature it has been co notated and used to this day, by the eastern culture.

The use of meditation by these people, especially in the Asian countries, has been misused by some, for all the wrong reasons. Most of the teachers of meditation are known to advocate meditation, to the calling of the spirits of dead people. There are others who advise their students to meditate by focusing their concentration on the tip of their nose. Others are asked to meditate upon clearing their mind by thinking into nothingness.  This kind of meditation is so dangerous and has seen a lot of people damage their brain as a result.

This dangerous kind of meditation has warranted an overall condemnation on the use of the discipline by Christians in general. 

It has painted the discipline in a very bad light and one would easily be condemned upon been found to engage in it.

We, however, find that the discipline has been used in the bible and is encouraged about 16 times, in the book of Psalm alone and more than twenty eight times, in the entire bible- give or take.

If we look at the definition of the word meditation, we find that it is described as the art of spending time in quiet thought, for religious purposes or relaxation.

If the actual meaning of meditation is as described above, then we see the importance of spending some quality time in quiet thought.

It should, then, not matter how the discipline has been used by others. It should matter how we use it ourselves to better our lives.

But how may we benefit from this discipline that has benefited so many in the past but by clearly understanding it from a biblical pedestal.

But it is not just the mere meditation that we are talking about here. No, it is the spiritual meditation that is the pathway to Divinity. This is the meditation that is referred to and mentioned in many occasions in the bible as we have seen in the opening paragraphs above.

This kind of meditation is referred to as the mystic ladder which reaches from earth to heaven and from error to truth or pain to peace. This then, is the kind of meditation that Jacob, as he was dreaming, had a vision of and saw a ladder, or stairway, between heaven and earth. God's angels were on it, ascending and descending and Jacob saw God standing above it.

As we have seen on the definition of the term, it s nothing more than the intense dwelling, in thought, upon an idea or theme, with the object of thoroughly comprehending it.

This kind of meditation, centered upon divine realities, is the very essence and soul of prayer. It is the backbone upon which the precept of Christ in His yoke, on self renunciation, is contained. This is so in that, true meditation of this kind fortifies the person against his real enemy, the lower ‘self,’ and establishes him more and more firmly in the divine and imperishable self- his divinity, that is inseparable from Truth.  

So, meditation on good thoughts is important in the realization of our desires as well as aspirations in our lives. Constant meditation upon the objects of our desires is in fact what it is to pray without ceasing, for such meditation is based upon holy thoughts. It is the concentration on the unseen- the kingdom of God and the object of meditation is the substance of the things hoped for.