Celebration of Discipline

Part 4 - Understandable Misconceptions

By Richard Foster

Whenever the Christian idea of meditation is taken seriously, there are those who assume it is synonymous with the concept of meditation centred in Eastern religions. In reality, the two ideas stand worlds apart. Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind. The two ideas are quite different.

Eastern forms of meditation stress the need to become detached from the world. There is an emphasis upon losing personhood and individuality and merging with the Cosmic Mind. There is a longing to be freed from the burdens and pains of this life and to be released into the impersonality of Nirvana. Personal identity is lost and, in fact, personality is seen as the ultimate illusion. There is an escaping from the miserable wheel of existence. There is no God to be attached to or to hear from. Detachment is the final goal of Eastern religion.

Christian meditation goes far beyond the notion of detachment. There is need for detachment - a 'Sabbath of contemplation' as Peter of Cells, a Benedictine monk of the twelfth century, put it. But there is a danger in thinking only in terms of detachment as Jesus indicates in his story of the man who had been emptied of evil but not filled with good. 'When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first' (Luke 11:24-26).

No, detachment is not enough; we must go on to attachment. The detachment from the confusion all around us in order to have a richer attachment to God. Christian meditation leads us to the inner wholeness necessary to give ourselves to God freely.

Another misconception about the meditation is that it is too difficult, too complicated. Perhaps it is best left to the professional who has more time to explore the inner regions. Not at all. The acknowledged experts in this way never report that they were on a journey only for the privileged few, the spiritual giants. They would laugh at the very idea. They felt that what they were doing was a natural human activity - as natural, and as important, as breathing. They would tell us we do not need any special gifts or psychic powers. Thomas Merton writes, 'Meditation is really very simple and there is not much need of elaborate techniques to teach us how to go about it.'

A third misconception is to view contemplation as impractical and wholly out of touch with the twentieth century. There is a fear it will lead to the kind of person immortalized in Dostoevski's book The Brothers Karamazov in the ascetic Father Ferapont: a rigid, self-righteous person who, by sheer effort, delivers himself from the world and then calls down curses upon it. Many people believe that at its very best meditation leads to an unhealthy otherworldliness that keeps us immune to the suffering of humanity.

Such evaluations are far from the mark. In fact, meditation is the one thing that can sufficiently redirect our lives so that we can deal with human life successfully. Thomas Merton writes, 'Meditation has no point and no reality unless it is firmly rooted in life.' Historically, no group has stressed the need to enter into the listening silences more than the Quakers, and the result has been a vital social impact far in excess of their numbers. William Penn notes, 'True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavours to mend it.'

Often meditation will yield insights that are deeply practical, almost mundane. Instruction will come on how to relate to your wife or husband, or how to deal with this sensitive problem or that business situation. It is wonderful when a particular meditation leads to ecstasy, but it is far more common to be given guidance in dealing with ordinary human problems. Meditation sends us into our ordinary world with greater perspective and balance.

Perhaps the most common misconception of all is to view meditation as a religious form of psychological manipulation. It may have value in dropping our blood pressure or in relieving tension. It may even provide us with meaningful insights by helping us get in touch with our subconscious mind. But the idea of actual contact and communion with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob sounds unscientific and faintly unreasonable. If you feel  that we live in a purely physical universe, you will view meditation as a good way to obtain a consistent alpha brain-wave pattern. But if you believe that we live in a universe created by the infinite-personal God who delights in our communion with him, you will see meditation as communication between the Lover and the one beloved.

These two concepts of meditation are complete opposites. The one confines us to a totally human experience; the other catapults us into a divine-human encounter. The one talks about the exploration of the subconscious; the other speaks of 'resting in him whom we have found, who loves us, who is near to us, who comes to us to draw us to himself.' Both may sound religious and even use religious jargon, but the former can ultimately find no place for spiritual reality.

How then do we come to believe in a world of the spirit? Is it by blind faith? Not al all. The inner reality of the spiritual world is available to all who are willing to search for it. Often I have discovered that those who so freely debunk the spiritual world have never taken ten minutes to investigate whether or not such a world really exists.

Let me suggest we take an experiential attitude towards spiritual realities. Like any other scientific endeavour, we form a hypothesis and experiment with it to see if it is true or not. If our first experiment fails, we do not despair or label the whole business fraudulent. We re-examine our procedure, perhaps adjust our hypothesis, and try again. We should at least have the honesty to persevere in this work to the same degree we would in any field science. The fact that so many are unwilling to do so betrays not their intelligence but their prejudice.