Post by tomdurst on Jan 19, 2023 9:57:52 GMT -5
AN INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPLATIVE MEDITATION
by Steve Frank
Discursive prayer is asking, praising, and thanking God, our Source. It is “using words and language to communicate with our source.
Contemplative meditation is a receptive posture of the deepest most intense form of loving and listening. It does not use thoughts, words, or images. It is allowing the spirit to pray and work through you. The goal is to develop a deeper personal relationship with God the Source.
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Contemplative meditation is taking time to be alone with and love the one who loves you. It is both a “relationship” with Source and a “method, practice, or discipline,” fostering your personal relationship with God the Source.
Contemplative meditation is basically sitting in pure loving gaze or observation. This love comes from your heart and soul, not your head. Contemplation is loving COMMUNION, not verbal conversation.
Contemplative meditation is a form of mystical union with God. Our soul silently rests in our arms in perfect loving harmony. St. Augustine says, “Our heart is restless, till it rests in Thee.”
Contemplative meditation is an unselfish act of “surrendering” completely to the will of God and paying total attention to Him/Her rather than self.
First, make the intention of consenting to God’s presence and action within. Consent to God’s will and action relinquishing all control is the main point. “I surrender myself into Your hands.”
Richard Rohr said, “Contemplative prayer or meditation is a practice of self-emptying. At its most basic level, contemplation is letting go of our habitual thoughts, preferences, judgments, and feelings. Though life itself is often our most powerful teacher through great love and suffering, Contemplation is a daily, small death to false self and ego. It makes space for our true self to reappear. Contemplation trains you to let go of what you think is success, so you can find the ultimate success or happiness.”
Contemplative meditation does not attempt to change God or twist God's arm to get what you want. This meditation changes you, transforms you, and deepens your consciousness. It cleanses your lenses so you can look with awakened eyes, seeing reality and life truly as it is, free of dualistic thinking, distortions, delusions, fears, lack of trust, and hatred.
A contemplative practice, done over time, rewires our brain so that we can detach from our addictive patterns of thinking and feeling and our unworkable programs for happiness. Now many neuroscientists affirm such very real change and call it neuroplasticity chosen neural pathways gradually grow stronger; unused pathways die away. It retrains our brain to understand the bias from the bottom, to know with true humility and love. The mind, by nature, is intent on judging, controlling, and analyzing instead of seeing, tasting, and loving. Contemplative "practice" works!
More and more, we’re seeing meditation, and mindfulness as a proven tool in health care, psychology, personal wellbeing, as well as a foundation for spiritual practice. Meditation can help in improving mood, impulse control, concentration, and decision-making. It also helps us dissolve one of the great underlying causes of suffering, which is our sense of being cut off from the spirit and cut off from a balanced life.
Thomas Keating, Abbot, priest, and monk of St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado wrote, “Contemplative prayer is a process of interior transformation, a conversation initiated by God and leading, if we consent, to divine union. One’s way of seeing reality changes in this process. A restructuring of consciousness takes place which empowers one to perceive, relate, and respond with increasing sensitivity to the divine presence in, through, and beyond everything that exists.” Is this what is missing in your life?
If your only goal is to love God, there is no such thing as failure. Please join us.
For more teachings on this topic go to this link below:
THE SONG OF THE HEART