meditation

• contact with Adjuster favored by devoted

91:7.1Mys­ti­cism, as the tech­nique of the cul­ti­va­tion of the con­scious­ness of the pres­ence of God, is al­to­gether praise­wor­thy, but when such prac­tices lead to so­cial iso­la­tion and cul­mi­nate in re­li­gious fa­nati­cism, they are all but rep­re­hen­si­ble. Al­to­gether too fre­quently that which the over­wrought mys­tic eval­u­ates as di­vine in­spi­ra­tion is the up­ris­ings of his own deep mind. The con­tact of the mor­tal mind with its in­dwelling Ad­juster, while of­ten fa­vored by de­voted med­i­ta­tion, is more fre­quently fa­cil­i­tated by whole­hearted and lov­ing ser­vice in un­selfish min­istry to one’s fel­low crea­tures.

91:7.2The great re­li­gious teach­ers and the proph­ets of past ages were not ex­treme mys­tics. They were God-know­ing men and women who best served their God by un­selfish min­istry to their fel­low mor­tals. Je­sus of­ten took his apos­tles away by them­selves for short pe­ri­ods to en­gage in med­i­ta­tion and prayer, but for the most part he kept them in ser­vice-con­tact with the mul­ti­tudes. The soul of man re­quires spir­i­tual ex­er­cise as well as spir­i­tual nour­ish­ment.

• man can never wisely decide temporal issues or transcend selfishness without

99:7.4Man can never wisely de­cide tem­po­ral is­sues or tran­scend the self­ish­ness of per­sonal in­ter­ests un­less he med­i­tates in the pres­ence of the sov­er­eignty of God and reck­ons with the re­al­i­ties of di­vine mean­ings and spir­i­tual val­ues.

• favors spiritual growth

100:1.8Re­li­gious habits of think­ing and act­ing are con­trib­u­tory to the econ­omy of spir­i­tual growth. One can de­velop re­li­gious pre­dis­po­si­tions to­ward fa­vor­able re­ac­tion to spir­i­tual stim­uli, a sort of con­di­tioned spir­i­tual re­flex. Habits which fa­vor re­li­gious growth em­brace cul­ti­vated sen­si­tiv­ity to di­vine val­ues, rec­og­ni­tion of re­li­gious liv­ing in oth­ers, re­flec­tive med­i­ta­tion on cos­mic mean­ings, wor­ship­ful prob­lem solv­ing, shar­ing one’s spir­i­tual life with one’s fel­lows, avoid­ance of self­ish­ness, re­fusal to pre­sume on di­vine mercy, liv­ing as in the pres­ence of God. The fac­tors of re­li­gious growth may be in­ten­tional, but the growth it­self is un­vary­ingly un­con­scious.

• prolonged isolation of personality most undesirable

100:5.8There is great dan­ger as­so­ci­ated with the ha­bit­ual prac­tice of re­li­gious day­dream­ing; mys­ti­cism may be­come a tech­nique of re­al­ity avoid­ance, al­beit it has some­times been a means of gen­uine spir­i­tual com­mu­nion. Short sea­sons of re­treat from the busy scenes of life may not be se­ri­ously dan­ger­ous, but pro­longed iso­la­tion of per­son­al­ity is most un­de­sir­able. Un­der no cir­cum­stances should the trance­like state of vi­sion­ary con­scious­ness be cul­ti­vated as a re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.

• healthful attitude is reflective worship, prayer of thanksgiving

100:5.10The more health­ful at­ti­tude of spir­i­tual med­i­ta­tion is to be found in re­flec­tive wor­ship and in the prayer of thanks­giv­ing. The di­rect com­mu­nion with one’s Thought Ad­juster, such as oc­curred in the later years of Je­sus’ life in the flesh, should not be con­fused with these so-called mys­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ences. The fac­tors which con­tribute to the ini­ti­a­tion of mys­tic com­mu­nion are in­dica­tive of the dan­ger of such psy­chic states. The mys­tic sta­tus is fa­vored by such things as: phys­i­cal fa­tigue, fast­ing, psy­chic dis­so­ci­a­tion, pro­found aes­thetic ex­pe­ri­ences, vivid sex im­pulses, fear, anx­i­ety, rage, and wild danc­ing. Much of the ma­te­rial aris­ing as a re­sult of such pre­lim­i­nary prepa­ra­tion has its ori­gin in the sub­con­scious mind.

• brings deliverance from illusions of evil

131:4.7“God is our Fa­ther, the earth our mother, and the uni­verse our birth­place. With­out God the soul is a pris­oner; to know God re­leases the soul. By med­i­ta­tion on God, by union with him, there comes de­liv­er­ance from the il­lu­sions of evil and ul­ti­mate sal­va­tion from all ma­te­rial fet­ters. When man shall roll up space as a piece of leather, then will come the end of evil be­cause man has found God. O God, save us from the three­fold ruin of hell—lust, wrath, and avarice! O soul, gird your­self for the spirit strug­gle of im­mor­tal­ity! When the end of mor­tal life comes, hes­i­tate not to for­sake this body for a more fit and beau­ti­ful form and to awake in the realms of the Su­preme and Im­mor­tal, where there is no fear, sor­row, hunger, thirst, or death. To know God is to cut the cords of death. The God-know­ing soul rises in the uni­verse like the cream ap­pears on top of the milk. We wor­ship God, the all-worker, the Great Soul, who is ever seated in the heart of his crea­tures. And they who know that God is en­throned in the hu­man heart are des­tined to be­come like him—im­mor­tal. Evil must be left be­hind in this world, but virtue fol­lows the soul to heaven.

• always successful even if superconscious
• practice difficult, time-consuming at first

133:4.10To the trav­eler from Britain he said: “My brother, I per­ceive you are seek­ing for truth, and I sug­gest that the spirit of the Fa­ther of all truth may chance to dwell within you. Did you ever sin­cerely en­deavor to talk with the spirit of your own soul? Such a thing is in­deed dif­fi­cult and sel­dom yields con­scious­ness of suc­cess; but ev­ery hon­est at­tempt of the ma­te­rial mind to com­mu­ni­cate with its in­dwelling spirit meets with cer­tain suc­cess, not­with­stand­ing that the ma­jor­ity of all such mag­nif­i­cent hu­man ex­pe­ri­ences must long re­main as super­con­scious reg­is­tra­tions in the souls of such God-know­ing mor­tals.”

• after prayer, remain in silent receptivity

146:2.1716. Je­sus taught his fol­low­ers that, when they had made their prayers to the Fa­ther, they should re­main for a time in silent re­cep­tiv­ity to af­ford the in­dwelling spirit the bet­ter op­por­tu­nity to speak to the lis­ten­ing soul. The spirit of the Fa­ther speaks best to man when the hu­man mind is in an at­ti­tude of true wor­ship. We wor­ship God by the aid of the Fa­ther’s in­dwelling spirit and by the il­lu­mi­na­tion of the hu­man mind through the min­istry of truth. Wor­ship, taught Je­sus, makes one in­creas­ingly like the be­ing who is wor­shiped. Wor­ship is a trans­form­ing ex­pe­ri­ence whereby the fi­nite grad­u­ally ap­proaches and ul­ti­mately at­tains the pres­ence of the In­fi­nite.

• on eternal realities

155:6.13When you once be­gin to find God in your soul, pres­ently you will be­gin to dis­cover him in other men’s souls and even­tu­ally in all the crea­tures and cre­ations of a mighty uni­verse. But what chance does the Fa­ther have to ap­pear as a God of su­preme loy­al­ties and di­vine ide­als in the souls of men who give lit­tle or no time to the thought­ful con­tem­pla­tion of such eter­nal re­al­i­ties? While the mind is not the seat of the spir­i­tual na­ture, it is in­deed the gate­way thereto.

• value in problem solving

160:1.10But the great­est of all meth­ods of prob­lem solv­ing I have learned from Je­sus, your Mas­ter. I re­fer to that which he so con­sis­tently prac­tices, and which he has so faith­fully taught you, the iso­la­tion of wor­ship­ful med­i­ta­tion. In this habit of Je­sus’ go­ing off so fre­quently by him­self to com­mune with the Fa­ther in heaven is to be found the tech­nique, not only of gath­er­ing strength and wis­dom for the or­di­nary con­flicts of liv­ing, but also of ap­pro­pri­at­ing the en­ergy for the so­lu­tion of the higher prob­lems of a moral and spir­i­tual na­ture. But even cor­rect meth­ods of solv­ing prob­lems will not com­pen­sate for in­her­ent de­fects of per­son­al­ity or atone for the ab­sence of the hunger and thirst for true righ­teous­ness.

160:1.11I am deeply im­pressed with the cus­tom of Je­sus in go­ing apart by him­self to en­gage in these sea­sons of soli­tary sur­vey of the prob­lems of liv­ing; to seek for new stores of wis­dom and en­ergy for meet­ing the man­i­fold de­mands of so­cial ser­vice; to quicken and deepen the su­preme pur­pose of liv­ing by ac­tu­ally sub­ject­ing the to­tal per­son­al­ity to the con­scious­ness of con­tact­ing with di­vin­ity; to grasp for pos­ses­sion of new and bet­ter meth­ods of ad­just­ing one­self to the ever-chang­ing sit­u­a­tions of liv­ing ex­is­tence; to ef­fect those vi­tal re­con­struc­tions and read­just­ments of one’s per­sonal at­ti­tudes which are so es­sen­tial to en­hanced in­sight into ev­ery­thing worth while and real; and to do all of this with an eye sin­gle to the glory of God—to breathe in sin­cer­ity your Mas­ter’s fa­vorite prayer, “Not my will, but yours, be done.”

160:1.12This wor­ship­ful prac­tice of your Mas­ter brings that re­lax­ation which re­news the mind; that il­lu­mi­na­tion which in­spires the soul; that cour­age which en­ables one bravely to face one’s prob­lems; that self-un­der­stand­ing which oblit­er­ates de­bil­i­tat­ing fear; and that con­scious­ness of union with di­vin­ity which equips man with the as­sur­ance that en­ables him to dare to be God­like. The re­lax­ation of wor­ship, or spir­i­tual com­mu­nion as prac­ticed by the Mas­ter, re­lieves ten­sion, re­moves con­flicts, and might­ily aug­ments the to­tal re­sources of the per­son­al­ity. And all this phi­los­o­phy, plus the gospel of the king­dom, con­sti­tutes the new re­li­gion as I un­der­stand it.

• makes contact of mind with spirit

160:3.1The ef­fort to­ward ma­tu­rity ne­ces­si­tates work, and work re­quires en­ergy. Whence the power to ac­com­plish all this? The phys­i­cal things can be taken for granted, but the Mas­ter has well said, “Man can­not live by bread alone.” Granted the pos­ses­sion of a nor­mal body and rea­son­ably good health, we must next look for those lures which will act as a stim­u­lus to call forth man’s slum­ber­ing spir­i­tual forces. Je­sus has taught us that God lives in man; then how can we in­duce man to re­lease these soul-bound pow­ers of di­vin­ity and in­fin­ity? How shall we in­duce men to let go of God that he may spring forth to the re­fresh­ment of our own souls while in tran­sit out­ward and then to serve the pur­pose of en­light­en­ing, up­lift­ing, and bless­ing count­less other souls? How best can I awaken these la­tent pow­ers for good which lie dor­mant in your souls? One thing I am sure of: Emo­tional ex­cite­ment is not the ideal spir­i­tual stim­u­lus. Ex­cite­ment does not aug­ment en­ergy; it rather ex­hausts the pow­ers of both mind and body. Whence then comes the en­ergy to do these great things? Look to your Mas­ter. Even now he is out in the hills tak­ing in power while we are here giv­ing out en­ergy. The se­cret of all this prob­lem is wrapped up in spir­i­tual com­mu­nion, in wor­ship. From the hu­man stand­point it is a ques­tion of com­bined med­i­ta­tion and re­lax­ation. Med­i­ta­tion makes the con­tact of mind with spirit; re­lax­ation de­ter­mines the ca­pac­ity for spir­i­tual re­cep­tiv­ity. And this in­ter­change of strength for weak­ness, cour­age for fear, the will of God for the mind of self, con­sti­tutes wor­ship. At least, that is the way the philoso­pher views it.

• practice difficult, time-consuming at first

160:3.2When these ex­pe­ri­ences are fre­quently re­peated, they crys­tal­lize into habits, strength-giv­ing and wor­ship­ful habits, and such habits even­tu­ally for­mu­late them­selves into a spir­i­tual char­ac­ter, and such a char­ac­ter is fi­nally rec­og­nized by one’s fel­lows as a ma­ture per­son­al­ity. These prac­tices are dif­fi­cult and time-con­sum­ing at first, but when they be­come ha­bit­ual, they are at once rest­ful and time­sav­ing. The more com­plex so­ci­ety be­comes, and the more the lures of civ­i­liza­tion mul­ti­ply, the more ur­gent will be­come the ne­ces­sity for God-know­ing in­di­vid­u­als to form such pro­tec­tive ha­bit­ual prac­tices de­signed to con­serve and aug­ment their spir­i­tual en­er­gies.

• learn value of

192:2.2Je­sus then turned to­ward Pe­ter and asked, “Pe­ter, do you love me?” Pe­ter an­swered, “Lord, you know I love you with all my soul.” Then said Je­sus: “If you love me, Pe­ter, feed my lambs. Do not ne­glect to min­is­ter to the weak, the poor, and the young. Preach the gospel with­out fear or fa­vor; re­mem­ber al­ways that God is no re­specter of per­sons. Serve your fel­low men even as I have served you; for­give your fel­low mor­tals even as I have for­given you. Let ex­pe­ri­ence teach you the value of med­i­ta­tion and the power of in­tel­li­gent re­flec­tion.”

• modern man thinks he is too busy for

195:6.7The mech­a­nis­tic nat­u­ral­ism of some sup­pos­edly ed­u­cated men and the thought­less sec­u­lar­ism of the man in the street are both ex­clu­sively con­cerned with things; they are bar­ren of all real val­ues, sanc­tions, and sat­is­fac­tions of a spir­i­tual na­ture, as well as be­ing de­void of faith, hope, and eter­nal as­sur­ances. One of the great trou­bles with mod­ern life is that man thinks he is too busy to find time for spir­i­tual med­i­ta­tion and re­li­gious de­vo­tion.