In this blog post I’m going to discuss meditation in general as well as our own “3Circles Meditation Method” (more below).  With 32 years of daily meditation under my belt and an extremely unique perspective, I certainly qualify as an expert.   

 

Seven of those 32 years were spent doing Yoga Asanas early every morning, followed by meditation that was eastern religious in nature.   What I mean by “eastern religious in nature” is that I believed in eastern religious concepts like karma, reincarnation, Maya and its attendant requirement to subdue the flesh.  These concepts colored and directed my meditations, leading me in directions I now understand to be false and therefore potentially dangerous.   To prevent a misunderstanding of the terms of this discussion, I’ll share their definitions:

 

Maya is defined in the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, as follows:

 

“Maya, is the principal deity who creates, perpetuates and governs the phantasmagoria, illusion and dream of duality in the phenomenal Universe. For some mystics this manifestation is real, but it is a fleeting reality; it is a mistake, although a natural one, to believe that Maya represents a fundamental reality or Truth. ^[1] Each person, each physical object, from the perspective of eternity is like a brief, disturbed drop of water from an unbounded ocean. The goal of enlightenment is to understand this — more precisely, to experience this: to see intuitively that the distinction between the self and the Universe is a false dichotomy.”.

The New Age movement has it’s own form of meditation, borrowed from various eastern religious traditions.  Here is what Wikipedia has to say about this form of meditation:

New Age meditations are often influenced by Eastern philosophy and mysticism such as Yoga, Hinduism and Buddhism, yet may contain some degree of Western influence. In the west meditation found its mainstream roots through the hippie- counterculture social revolution of the 1960s and 1970s when many of the youth of the day rebelled against traditional belief systems as a reaction against what some perceived as the failure of Christianity and the failure of Secular Humanism to provide spiritual and ethical guidance.  New Age meditation as practiced by the early hippies is regarded for its techniques of blanking out the mind and releasing oneself from conscious thinking.  This is often aided by repetitive chanting of a mantra, or focusing on an object.

As can be seen from the definition above, if one adopts the eastern religious view of Maya the mind becomes the enemy of understanding and spiritual awareness.   The teachings of Jesus Christ however, assert that the mind is God’s gift to man, enabling spiritual discernment between good and evil, helping us to make wise choices that protect us, our family and our community. 

 

These two philosophical/religious views are polar opposites.  It is vitally important to determine which view is right.   Eastern religious philosophy maintains that personal enlightenment is mankind’s ultimate goal.   Christ taught that healing the brokenhearted, helping the widows and orphans, visiting those in prison – in other words, helping our fellow man – is mankind’s ultimate goal.   Because the eastern view of our physical reality maintains that what we see is not real, it inevitably leads to lessening the value of each individual life because the individual and their actions are seen as having little consequence.   Furthermore, their belief in reincarnation insures that everyone gets endless changes to “get it right”, to finally achieve the ultimate goal of personal enlightenment. 

 

Compare that to Christ’s teachings, wherein each individual is created in God’s “image”, not as God, but like God in terms of sovereign free will, creative abilities, capacity to communicate and ability to transform and care for our environment.   All religions have a history that includes men abusing the rights of others but common sense reveals that the eastern religious point of view led to a society with far less individual freedom and prosperity, whereas our society was founded on individual liberty, equality and philanthropy for the less fortunate among us, all principles derived from the teachings of Jesus Christ.

 

My remaining 25 years of daily meditation, up to the present, have been spent in developing a Christ-centered type of meditation I call “Abiding in God’s WORD and Glory”.  This is part of the “3Circles Meditation Method”.  Once I invited the spirit of Jesus Christ into my heart, I began to see my mind and body as God’s gift to me, tools that should be nurtured and developed as allies on my quest for greater spiritual knowledge and understanding.   More importantly, the spirit of God within me, now awakened by my rebirth in Christ, began teaching me the ultimate purpose of meditation, which was not a personal state of euphoria but rather an energizing, clarifying, love-building, community-minded state of being that prepares the meditator for becoming a servant-priest like Jesus.

 

Historical Roots of Christian Meditation

In Christianity the scriptures give evidence that meditation was at one time central to the Christian religion, as can be seen in scriptural passages like these: 

“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” (Joshua 1:8);

“But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” (Psalm 1:2);

“When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.” (Psalm 63:6); 

“I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.” (Psalm 77:12); 

“I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways.” (Psalm 119:15);

“that I might meditate in thy word.” (Psalm 119:48); 

“I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands.” (Psalm 143:5); 

“And he said, Take heed that ye be not deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draweth near: go ye not therefore after them.  But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by.  Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:  And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.  But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name’s sake.  And it shall turn to you for a testimony.  Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer:  For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.  And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death.  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.” (Luke 21:8-17);

“Neglect not the gift that is in thee… Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.” (I Timothy 4:14-15).

The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox monastic traditions have continued the use of daily meditation as an essential element of Christianity.   However, from what I’ve read, their meditations are focused either on objects such as the rosary or Eucharist, or on specific prayers.   The Eastern Orthodox Church and some Bzyantine Rite, Eastern Churches maintain an ancient tradition of monastic prayer called Hesychasm.  The word is greek in origin and means stillness, quiet, silence and rest.   The idea is to achieve an experential knowledge of God during which experience the mind no longer registers what the senses percieve. 

Those within the Hesychasm monastic tradition believe that monks can obtain a state known as Theoria (greek for contemplation), a state of being that is a gift from God available only to those who practice the ascetic tradition of denying the passions and senses.   They believe this state of being is the purpose and goal of Christianity, that it is a moral faculty developed through the process of Theosis.   There are three stages of Theosis: purification, illumination and finally, deification. 

It could be argued that Hesychasic monks have been influenced by traditional eastern meditation techniques, in that the final goal of both is to be deified (the dictionary definition of deify is: “To make a God of; to worship or revere as a God”).  As you’ll read below, my sojourn in heaven taught me the utter folly of thinking anything created by God could in fact become God the creator.  

In 1975 the Benedictine Monk, John Main introduced the world to the Jesus Prayer, a form of meditation based on repetitive recitation of the prayer-phrase “Maranatha” an aramaic phrase that means “Come, oh Lord”.   The World Community for Christian Meditation was founded in 1991 to continue his work, having the mission to, “teach Christian meditation as part of the great work of our time of restoring the contemplative dimension of Christian faith in the life of the church”.   I’m all for “restoring the contemplative dimension of Christian faith”, but that does not mean endlessly repeating specific phrases or prayers.  They might as well join the Hare Krishna devotees on some street corner and chant “blissfully” for the remainder of their life.   The mind is indeed a terrible thing to waste, especially since God created it for the purpose of using it.

It’s interesting to note that in Islam, meditation is considered central to their religion, even to this day:

A Muslim is obligated to pray five times a day (before dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and night). During those times of prayer, the Muslim is expected to focus and meditate on Allah through the recitation of Qur’an and dhikr in order to establish and strengthen the connection between Creator and creation. This, in turn, is meant to guide the soul to truth. This meditation is intended to help Muslims maintain spiritual peace in spite of challenges they may experience in their work, social and family life. In this manner, the five daily times of peaceful prayer are meant to serve as a model for the Muslim’s conduct during the whole day, transforming it into a single, sustained meditation. Even sleep is but another phase of that sustained meditation (3 Al Emran verses 189-194) (6 Al Anaam verses 160 to 163).

Meditative quiescence is believed to have a quality of healing and creativity.^[23] The Muslim prophet Muhammad, whose deeds devout Muslims follow, spent long periods in meditation and contemplation.

After decades of bible study it’s now obvious that Jesus meditated and lived within the community of disciples he gathered.  He frequently went off alone into the wilderness; it is recorded that he prayed for hours in the Garden of Gethsemene; he told us he is the vine and we are the branches, that we must learn to abide in him so we can receive God’s glory; and just before Jesus left this earth he said he was leaving behind, as a gift to every believer, the Holy Spirit, whose purpose would be to teach each believer the things of God and guide them into all truth.   As the old testament tells us, there can be no direct knowledge (WORD) received from God apart from first being still (“Be still and know that I am God” Psalm 46:10).  Being still is a necessity for meditation because unless we still our mind and thoughts we cannot hope to hear God’s “still, small voice”, cannot hope to receive God’s thoughts, God’s WORD.

History makes it abundantly clear that the Catholic Church determined they, and they alone, were the keepers of “truth”.   By the early 4^th century they were determined in their quest to usurp the power and authority of all competing Christian doctrines.  To accomplish this they understood the necessity of having the full legal authority and power of the state behind them, so they developed government alliances wherever possible.  And as luck would have it, the Roman Emperor, Constantine, became their first of many benefactors.   Constantine declared that the entire Roman empire was now a Christian empire; he subsidized the building of many new cathedrals and closed down pagan temples; he gave those Pagan temples and other spoils to the Catholic Church.   

Any true Christian who dared oppose this Catholic/Orthodox religion (whose teachings bore little resemblance to what Jesus Christ taught) was excommunicated, tortured, drowned, beheaded or burned at the stake.  For at least a thousand years Christians were forbidden by the Catholic Church from reading the Bible (the Catholic Church taught that only trained and educated priests, bishops, etc., could understand what they read).  

But what was lost to mankind was even more egregious than a loss of access to the Bible.  Mankind lost knowledge of the possibility of direct access to the Spirit of God, to “the mysteries of the Kingdom of God” (Luke 8:10).  Jesus told his disciples that not everyone was ready to receive this knowledge so he spoke to the masses in parables and explained their deeper meaning to those in his inner circle.   The Catholic Church set up a special Priest class and their monasteries carried on with the ancient Christian tradition of meditation.  But the laity was never told about the importance of meditation to their personal spiritual growth.  The Catholic Church wasn’t about to empowering believers, it was about controlling them and building their religious empire through their tithes and offerings.  

Unbeknownst to the Catholic Church, they were now the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, which declared that, “Perilous times shall come.  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters… unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers… despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof, from such turn away”.  

Many did turn away from the Catholic Church during the Reformation because they began to read for themselves that the power of godliness was Love and spiritual liberty.  The last part of that quote in II Timothy 3:5, “from such turn away”, makes it clear what a true believer’s response should be when we meet someone who has created a “form of godliness”.   

This Catholic rule over mankind was maintained, unbroken, for approximately 1,300 years, up until the Reformation.  Contrary to Catholic theology, the new testament teaches that all believers are members of God’s royal priesthood (I Peter 2:9), therefore every believer has the power to forgive sins, to receive and interpret God’s WORD.   The Protestants rightly opposed the Catholic’s Priest class and left the Catholic Church.  Unfortunately, many of the Protestants who turned away from the errors of the Catholic Church simply substituted new errors for old, being likewise spiritually blind to the mysteries that Jesus taught to his chosen disciples.  Most Protestants replaced Priests with Pastors instead of teaching what Peter declared, that we were all members of the Royal Priesthood.   Same institutionally empowered and blessed class, different name. 

However, there were some spiritual movements that emphasized the priesthood of each believer.   They also believed in that believers should gather into communities.  These included the Anabaptists, Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish, Inspirationists and Quakers.   During their early years it was a common practice to dispense with any formal leader such as a Pastor, relying instead on the active participation of the congregation, to do as the bible instructed: “when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying” (I Corinthians 14:26).   

A few, such as the Inspirationists and Quakers, emphasized the light of God within and the WORD of God as the Living Spirit of Christ.   They believed the Bible was the word about the WORD, that the Word of God is Spirit and Truth, and still given directly to those who seek God through quietness and a listening heart.  George Fox famously argued with a group of priests that it made no sense to call the Bible the word of God since it is not possible for man to buy and sell God’s spirit word.  You can visit my blog to read more detail, in a four-part series I wrote, “What is the Word of God?”.

 

Further Clarification On The  Unique Aspects Of My Type Of Meditation

The purpose of Christianity, if we are to be true to our founder’s teachings, is NOT a heightened state of endless reverie brought about by contemplation or chanting.  Our purpose is “to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1) becoming in the process “Priests of the Lord” (Isaiah 61:6).  And our goal in meditation, which facilitates this purpose of becoming Christ-like (i.e. a servant-priest who delivers the WORD of God) is to abide in Christ and in God.  This abiding, as described by Jesus Christ, is a type of oneness: 

And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.  I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.  I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.   Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.  As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.  And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.   Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;  That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.  And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:  I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. (John 17:13-23)

But this abiding oneness, contrary to the oneness sought after by meditators trained in the Eastern religious tradition, is not a merging type of oneness wherein we lose our identity.  Rather, it is a oneness in experiencing the same heavenly peace and joy, here on earth, that we’ll experience on the other side, in “heaven” (I personally experienced this); it is a oneness in accepting our God-given purpose (once we have taken the time to listen and discover our own personal God-given purpose); it is a oneness in chosing to do God’s will, in harmony with that purpose; and it is a oneness in that we discipline ourselves to hear with our spiritual ears, so we can hear God’s “still, small voice” and receive God’s Living WORD as it is being written on our heart and mind and soul.   These periodic states of abiding oneness equip the servant-priest to endure whatever may come their way, with a thankful heart and a positive attitude that KNOWS, “All things work together for good, for those who love God, for the called according to God’s purposes” (Romans 8:28).

Before I became a Christian I practiced a strict form of Yoga, doing asanas (specific Yoga exercises) and meditation early every morning.   When I became as a little child, accepting Christ into my heart, the changes brought into my life were so profound that I willingly accepted the lack of emphasis on meditation by today’s western Christianity.  Looking back I can see the importance of my 10 year hiatus from meditation, so I could unlearn the eastern philosophy and attendant techniques, so I could learn a better way and gain understanding as to their differences. 

I have asked for guidance by God all along the way and am certain that the meditation techniques I’ve learned are God inspired.  They do not follow the monastic tradition, which tends to focus on objects or specific prayers and is strictly structured.   Neither do I use specific bodily positions or seek after specific spiritual experiences such as “enlightenment”.   My meditation practice most closely resembles the practice among Quakers of old (known as the Religious Society of Friends).   Here is the description given by Wikipedia, in the entry on Meditation:

The predominant form of worship among Quakers, or the Religious Society of Friends, has historically been communal silent prayer or meditation which consists of focusing on the Inner Light of Christ, listening for and awaiting the movement of the “still, small voice within,” which may or may not result in being moved to spoken ministry. This process would of course necessitate the quieting of the worldly mind and spiritual discernment as to what genuinely proceeds from the Light as opposed to one’s own thoughts and feelings.

My spiritual perspective is unique in that it was born out of both my rebirth in Christ and my heavenly sojourn.   To my knowledge, every other spiritual leader, priest, pastor, guru or would be guru alive today speaks of heaven and the spirit realm based on what they’ve read, what has been experienced by others, or what they personally experience from a earthly perspective.   I believe I was chosen and taken to heaven so I would have this unique perspective for the ministry I’ve been given.  This heavenly experience was a gift from God… totally without any desire on my part to have such an experience.   I was fully awake and in perfect health, so there was no near death trauma.  I like to call it a “near life” experience.  To this day I’ve never met or read of another living human being who was taken to heaven while fully awake.   It was that experience, as well as my subsequent meditations blessed by Holy Spirit guidance, that have become the TRUTH filters through which all other knowledge is passed.

 

East And West Compared

What Jesus taught was reinforced by my heavenly sojourn.  Some of the teachings of his Apostles recorded in the New Testament were not.  After years of comparing what I learned as a practitioner of eastern forms of meditation (including New Age permutations), with what I learned in heaven and via subsequent meditations, I have had to conclude that it is of the utmost importance to understand their differences. 

The following chart compares eastern religious concepts (Hinduism, Buddhism, Yoga, New Age) with my own interpretations of Christianity.   My interpretations are unique in that they were primarily taught to me by the Holy Spirit during my meditations, not by other men.  Since I have no experience and very little  understanding of Islam, I make no comparisons with it.

3CCC	EAST
God created mind and body (which includes the brain and sex organs) “And it was good”.  The mind is a union of body (emotions) and spirit.  God gave man the gift of free will, so we could use our mind, body and spirit to determine what is true and what is false.  God created the mind to be used, not denied, its function being to integrate bodily senses, reason and spiritual awareness.	The mind and body (which includes the brain and sex organs) are seen as part of the illusion of duality (Samsara or Maya).  Those born into societies where this religious view predominates are not free to determine their own destiny, since the parallel beliefs of karma and reincarnation give rise to a devolution, into fatalistic acceptance of one’s societal position, ergo a strict class structure.
The mind has limitations but through self-discipline, using both logical reason and spirit-centered meditation, focusing on God’s works, ways and word, those limitations can be overcome.	The mind and body are seen as the enemy and must be denied.  This inevitably leads to asceticism and an attempt to reach a state of enlightenment (Moksha , Nirvana or Samadhi).
Receive the light, be transformed by the light, give the light to others.	Receive the light.  Become the light.  [Fatalistic acceptance and an eternity of opportunity means one can come back again and again until they get  it right.  This gives rise to the general lack of compassion for the suffering of others seen in India.  This truth becomes self-evident for those who travel to India, experiencing for themselves the stark contrast between their society and ours].
Man and man’s spirit can never merge with and become God.  When I was taken to heaven I was given direct spiritual knowledge not obtainable here on earth, revealing conclusively that even to look upon the light of God in it’s fullness would mean the obliteration of the fleshly body.  Furthermore, the holiness I experienced in God’s presence (protected from the fullness of God’s light by a wall of angels) gave me clear understanding that such holiness is beyond the ability of our fleshly body to manifest here on earth.   Also, having once been a hippy who experienced the merging with the light and having knowledge of so-called enlightened gurus (over a 4 decade period) who were obviously far from perfect, I concluded that holiness, perfection and enlightenment are beyond the grasp of us mere mortals while still encased in our fleshly body.  Once we are in heaven the full understanding of this is immediately apparent.	The common experience among those who have attained a state of enlightenment is a merging of one’s “self” with God’s light.  When this happens the person is believed to have become one with God… not just one in purpose but one in all aspects.   However, as has been widely reported by those in the hippy movement, LSD provided experiences that exactly mimic this merging of the light described by eastern gurus.  It must be concluded, therefore, that a sense of merging with the light and becoming God is not conclusive evidence that one has indeed become God.  BODILY FUNCTION
Words have meaning and are important, despite their limitations.  Those limitations are dramatically reduced when we discipline ourselves to HEAR the Living WORD spoken by God’s Spirit.   As it is written, “In the beginning was the word”.	Words are the enemy.  They and their attendant thoughts are seen as unimportant because mankind is seen as insignificant and therefore unimportant.

So, what do my charted research findings mean in terms of how one meditates?  In my “Wisdom Blog: Transform Yourself” entry “Being Still is a Secret Weapon”, I quote from the first principle of my book, “$ecret$ - 12 Principles of Prosperity for Spiritual Entrepreneurs”.  That principle is “Spend Glory to Glory Transformational Time with God”.    Here is a very short excerpt:

I began to meditate/pray for one hour minimum, seeking to listen and understand what God would have me to do rather than just read off a mental list of requests. The results were nothing short of astounding. Each time, about three quarters of the way through my praying, the usual mental disturbances of thought would suddenly be quieted and I would feel this intense connection, this “peace that passes ALL understanding” (Php 4:7) and a joy like no other.  What I had tapped into was nothing less than God’s glory, infusing me and empowering me in ways I could not have dreamed.

Beginning in 1983, when I revisited meditation after a 10 year hiatus from eastern forms of meditation, God led me to embrace a new type of meditation:

·        One that reflects the understandings I gained during my heavenly sojourn;

·        One that integrates the Living WORD concept (God speaks his WORD into the hearts o