School of Meditation Weekly Teachings

Escape Strategies

If we misunderstand meditation and don’t see it as prayer, as a spiritual discipline, but instead see it as a form of relaxation, a way of dealing with the stress of life, of escaping into our imagination and fantasies, we can practice for years without any increase in awareness or resulting transformation.

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The Gift of Divine Grace

Spiritual transformation is outside our control. This total change of consciousness cannot be ‘achieved’ in any way but is a gift of divine grace.

Although the spiritual journey is often presented in a linear fashion, quietening first the body, then the mind, so the spirit can be touched, we are not dealing with progressive stages but simultaneous, overlapping, deepening levels: we spiral through them, being afforded glimpses, as we practise.

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What are the characteristics of a Christian Meditation group?

The World Community for Christian Meditation has a mission statement:

“To communicate and nurture meditation as passed on through the teaching of John Main in the Christian tradition in the spirit of serving the unity of all.”

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Communion or union

The early Church fathers had no shadow of a doubt that union with the Divine is possible for all: “God is the life of all free beings. He is the salvation of all, of believers and unbelievers, of the just or the unjust, of the pious or the impious, of those freed from passions or those caught up in them, of monks or those living in the world, of the educated and the illiterate, of the healthy and the sick, of the young and the old.” (Gregory of Nyssa)

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Attention

Paying one-pointed attention to your word is the essence of meditation. John Main always stressed: ‘Just say your word.’ That is all that is needed. But as you well know the mind just keeps on going off on its day dreams, keeps on worrying or planning. Hence the importance of our word, our aid to help us focus one-pointedly. Read more »