Out of respect for my discipline, I decided today to revisit the first form of Meditation I was exposed to - Christian Meditation. Except I must note that as a child I adored singing...I never doubted my "voice" as I have in mid life. In fact for many years I forgot I even had voice, much less one for singing. But my point is that as a child I sang this hymn, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine....". But I honestly didn't have a clue what it meant. The only light I knew of was external. I wasn't so good with words so I never asked or bothered to mention to those around me that I didn't understand the light. Today, I understand that the light in an inner light. The light refers to God's light within each person!
Okay, so I've never claimed to be the brightest bulb in the box! But I get it today.
Like I said I decided to see if I perhaps missed something about Christian Meditation too. Meditation is mentioned in the bible 20 times. Mostly growing up I heard it called a moment of silence. Now I don't know about you, but a moment. Please...with all the monkey chatter in my brain it takes about 660 moments for brain to begin to slow down! But today I'm open minded...and I tried to do it.
In fact I have tried it many time today. It's not my favorite way. I didn't become calm in the same way, nor did I experience a union with my soul or with the universe - the part that's unseen. What I did experience was a connection to others. Not a still small voice as Christianity says to seek and in finding this voice you will see the light! But there seemed to be layers. The first layer is that Christianity is the largest religion in the world. What does this mean to me? It gives it validity. Okay, my second choice would be Christians are really good salesmen. It did begin as a Jewish sect! But something being valid does give my psyche a boost in the direction of goodness. As opposed to two people have tried this and loved it you should try it. The second layer is that I was baptized Christian as a young girl and the belief is that once saved always saved. So the second layer here is I was sticking strictly to a tenant of my family faith.
Okay, so now I have to ramble and tell you a story. Five years ago, I had never entertained the idea of anything in the universe except of the God of my childhood. But I'd had many experiences growing up of seeing things that no one else could see. No Doctor would ever declare me insane, so I came to the understanding that I had a gift called Extra Sensory Perception. The Bible does talk about this phenomenon but it only happened in biblical times and they were called prophets, or such is the mainstream belief of such phenomenon. Someone suggested as I struggled at mid-life for me to branch out, explore other religions, try eastern meditation. I skipped Church one Sunday morning several months after I'd discovered Meditation. I sat in my Meditation Room chanting...I didn't know silent way yet! I felt this really odd sensation on my face...I thought oh cool it really works. But when I opened my eyes, blood was spurting everywhere. It freaked me out. I ran into the bathroom and my eye was swollen up bigger than an egg and blood was spurting straight out. I realized that the cat had gotten into my meditation room and had slapped me, just one nail hit underneath my eye and punctured a vein. It frightened me and angered me, because all I could think of was the God of my childhood was angered because I'd skipped church and was meditating. I locked the cat up and ran out into the street because one of neighbors was an eye Dr. He fixed me up and my family came home. By then I had calmed down enough to laugh at my own superstitious beliefs. Thus began, my real journey to explore the valley of my soul.
The third layer is that God doesn't care if I meditate formally or not. I'm looking for answers concerned for my soul trying to make sense out of life. So however I do it...as long as I'm searching for answers...the God of my understanding is cool with that. And probably needs the laugh occasionally!! What God cares about is my intent. Intent is in my heart. What's in your heart comes out of your mouth. And the fourth layer is that a moment is simply not enough time for me! Zen calls it monkey mind...I have that. It takes many mintues for me to get past the worrying about physical sensations, and past my sub=conscious negativity. So just so I got my basis covered I'm embracing all disciplines until I discover that they don't work or that I'm just plain wrong. And God being all powerful will direct me!
The fifth and final layer for todays meditation is the inner light can ignite the light in others...and that's my purpose!
