How do we Listen to God?

An Introduction to Christian Meditation

Recently when I sent out an invitation for a workshop on meditation, I received an angry response from a young lady. It said,

I've heard of this meditation where you concentrate for long periods of time over "Nothing". It's a Hindu concept so in other words you're promoting practices from a pagan religion. You will never have control over your thoughts so it's much better to give that control to Jesus and give up your ways of leading people astray and wasting their time by helping them to concentrate on "nothing".

Instead of responding to her personally, I am choosing to write this open response because she has voiced her opinion about meditation representing a large movement within Christianity. Although I am a Christian too, I am not affiliated with that movement. My attitude and approach to meditation is very different from that of this young lady, and here I am making an attempt to explain how I differ.

This young lady correctly understands meditation as an exercise of human mind when she defines it as “concentration on nothing for a long period of time”. This exercise helps me control my thoughts, feelings, and desires rather than they control me. She would agree with me in affirming that all people need to gain the ability to control one’s own thoughts, feelings, and desires to lead a successful life. The difference between us is in our understanding of how to achieve such control. She believes that I should not even try to control my thoughts, feelings, and desires; all I have to do is to let Jesus control them for me. Trying to control one’s own thoughts is unchristian or even anti-Christian according to her.

Controlling my own thoughts and letting Jesus control them may sound contradictory, but on close examination we can realize that they are complementary. If I want to give the control of my mind to Jesus, I must request Jesus to do so. How would I communicate with Jesus? I must have the ability to focus my mind, see Jesus in my mind, and communicate my innermost desire that I want Jesus to be my Lord. Thus even if you want to let Jesus control your mind for you, you have to take the first step of focusing your mind in order to make that connection with Jesus and communicate your intention.

What is Meditation?

A Christian is someone who accepts Jesus as his/her lord. He chooses to live according to the will of God rather than according to his own will. But this does not mean that he will evade the responsibility to live his life. I understand that the ability to control my mind is just another skill like the ability to write, to ride a bike, to swim, to type, to dance, or to play music. How did I gain the ability to read and write when I was a child? It took several years of regular practice and effort. I couldn’t hand over the responsibility of reading and writing to Jesus. I needed to learn to read first in order to read about Jesus. How did you learn to ride a bike? How did you learn to swim? How did you learn to use a keyboard to type? All these skills required a lot of time, effort, and patience from you. The ability to control and manage our mind is just another skill we can and should learn. Actually all people can control their mind to some extent, for without it, living would be impossible. The ability to control our mind better can make our life easier and more successful. Meditation is nothing but the training and practice that makes it possible.

If meditation is nothing but an exercise, one might wonder why it is associated with religion. A skill such as swimming or riding a bike is not associated with any religion, but why this skill? According to the young lady, it is “a Hindu concept”. In my understanding, meditation is promoted not only by Hinduism, but by all the religions in the world in various forms with slightly diverse meanings. A simple search online will reveal that meditation exists in all religions. They promote meditation because it is beneficial to human well being as individuals and as communities. Even people without any religion promote meditation.

Meditation in Christianity

The young lady is not aware that meditation is central to Christianity as well. Meditation exists mostly as a part of prayer in Christianity. Prayer is defined as communication with God. A communication involves not only speaking to God but also listening to God. We can’t listen to God with any of our five senses; we need to focus our attention to a sixth sense within us in order listen to God. We need to withdraw our attention from our five senses, our thoughts, and our feelings, and we need to listen intently for the voice of God. Such listening to God keeping the mind still and withdrawing our attention from our five senses is meditation. Unfortunately, in many present-day churches, prayer means nothing more than talking to God. They tell God whatever they want to tell, and leave it there without caring to listen to what God wants to say.

It is not possible to talk to God all the time; but it is possible to keep our mind receptive to God all the time. This is probably what St. Paul meant when he exhorted Christians to pray ceaselessly. Keeping the mind focused, receptive, and attentive all the time is the goal of meditation. The liturgical worship of traditional Christianity is structured in such a way as to help the participants to have a communal meditation. Traditionally, Christians pray seven times a day. In the modern evangelical churches, Sunday worship and other prayer meetings consist of meditation of the scriptures punctuated by devotional songs. In many of them, the congregation sits while listening to a sermon, but stands up while they sing the devotional songs. When an entire congregation on their feet raises their consciousness and flow upon the tide of a melodious devotional song, it is an excellent example of a communal meditation.

The young lady defines meditation as concentration on nothing. I think this is an excellent definition. In our day-to-day life we pay attention to various things around us. When you watch the TV you pay attention to what you see on the screen. When you talk to your friend on our phone, you pay attention to what you hear. When you eat your food you pay attention to how it tastes. But when you are having a conversation with God, where do you pay attention to? You can’t listen to God with your five senses. You can’t listen to God with your thoughts or feelings. Then how do you listen to God? You need to withdraw your attention from all the five senses. You also need to withdraw your attention from the thoughts and feelings that pass through your mind. When you withdraw your attention from all these, where is it now? The young lady is absolutely right here. Our attention is on nothing. When we keep our attention active and alive, but keep it withdrawn from everything we usually pay attention to, a sixth sense slowly becomes active. We begin to listen to God.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” Jesus told us. God is like the Sun. We can’t look at it straight. We can only see the reflection of the Sun in clear water. Similarly, no one can see God straight, but we can see a reflection of God within us if we manage to make our heart clear and pure. Meditation is nothing but sweeping our heart clean from all thoughts and feelings that disturb it.

The psalmists exhort us to look at God. Look to God that you may be radiant with joy. Ps. 34: 5. Then you will gaze on the Lord’s beauty. Ps. 27: 4. The psalmist also confesses, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Ps. 42:1. For God alone my soul waits in silence. Ps. 62:1. These are some of the ways in which the psalmists have described and explained meditation.

Before conclude, I must say that I feel sad at the young lady’s approach to other religions. Hinduism is the way of life of a billion people in the world, and it produced such jewels like Gandhi, Tagore, and Vivekananda. All religions exist for the well-being of humankind. How would a Christian feel if he/she happens to hear a similar derogatory comment from a Hindu about Christianity? Jesus advised us to treat others as we want others to treat us. If we talk respectfully about people of other religions, they would be respectful to us as well.

For further reading:
Dr. Joseph Thomas  Rev. Dr. Daniel Thomas  Edith Schlosser  Daryl Sanders  World Community for Christian Meditation