I am ready to share some of my experiences with you. I believe I should start with a personal note. If you learn anything from these posts, my hope is that the overall message would be a Gospel message. I recognize that I may reference Hinduism as my guiding force, but the overall Truth to me is that Christ is real. My ultimate mentor, my ultimate hope, my reason for belief, and the purpose of my spiritual quest is to grow closer to God. I believe that gaining direct access to God can only be accomplished because of Christ's sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit. With that in mind, understand that I believe there is a great deal about spiritual journey, self-discovery, and discipline that we can learn from other cultures. In my life, there are some very cool and very honest Hindus that have taught me these methods of meditation. If you want to debate universal truth, the Hindu religion, or just want to be a "stick in the mud", don't respond here...I don't want to partake in any of that.
On to the meat. Meditation has become a very powerful part of my prayer life. The days that I take the time to properly meditate I feel refreshed and overjoyed by connecting with the creator. I want this to be interactive and fun. If you have any questions please ask. If I don't know the answer I would love to ask Raj or Ramya or Sayli about it, and let them be the teacher.
The first thing I want to tell you about it is the "sacred" parts of meditation. After several conversations with Raj I began to realize that there are very few sacred parts of my life. I don't even understand the meaning of sacred very well, but with his (Raj's) help I am learn that there are parts of my life that should be totally separate from one another. For example, praying and driving to work should be kept separate. I can't exactly concentrate on driving if I'm speaking to God, and I can't exactly search deep within myself if I'm driving. I'm either going to wreck my car or have a shallow prayer. How about this, reading the Bible and using the restroom don't exactly mix. I have often found myself guilty of this. Sure I can read the Bible in that spare time, but I either lose the deep meaning of the Holy Word or I don't get the full enjoyment out of that private time. Now you may be thinking "Zane there is nothing wrong with either of those things". And if you are thinking that, you are right. There is nothing sinful about that. But I believe you are getting the short end of the stick if you supplement your private time with God with private time with God and another activity. We need to have time in our day that is solely dedicated to God and our heart's desire for Him. By focusing your entire mind, body, and spirit on Him you can gain significantly more than when you are multi-tasking. Does that make sense?
Through proper meditation, you are providing God a platform where only He and you are the center of attention. There are essential parts of meditation that should not be compromised. By following these steps you are making your meditation time sacred. That is to say, you are making this place in your life set apart solely for God.
Here are the first steps:
- Find a place in your house where you can sit on the floor
- This place in your house should be distraction free, ie. no television, no books/magazines (other than the Bible), no children, no pets. It should be the equivalent of what Christ taught when he said, go to the closet, shut the door, and then pray
- If you are serious about meditation, then this place in your house should only be used for meditation. In other words, it should not be your office where you also work, it should not be your bedroom where you also sleep. If you don't have a lot of spare space, you should find a little used corner in your house where the only thing you do in that corner is pray/meditate.
- After you've found your spot, find some meditation clothes. Find a set of clothes that are just plain (mine are pajamas) and set them aside for meditation. You will only wear those clothes when you meditate/pray. Put them on before you begin, take them off when you are finished. Simple right.
After you've finished completing those tasks, then check back on the blog. I will hopefully have the next steps outlined. I would go deeper, but I'm tired of typing.
Peace and Grace, Zane
1 comment:
Zane - this is great. Thank you for sharing the steps of meditation. I've seen people meditate - Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, some Catholics but have never translated it for me. It is important to set aside time where it is only you and God... no distractions. I, however, haven't done it yet and will certainly try. I remember visiting my mom and dad in China and every morning, you would see people in the park across the street from their apartment meditating. They would be in loose white garmets, on a rug in the park... legs crossed, arms on their knees, back straight... meditating. You would think that it would be too noisy in the park but that was not the case. Everyone there was very incredibly respectful and did not make any noise.
I look forward to the next post.
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