In February 1968 the Beatles collectively decided that material success was not enough to fill the void in their lives, so they decided to explore “spirituality.” They traveled to India to meet with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the man who developed Transcendental Meditation™. Originally, the Maharishi was a simple Hindu monk, but he soon became somewhat of a celebrity in the West. Musicians, movie stars, and millionaires began going to him for advice. He trained hundreds of thousands of people in the ways of TM, and in the process became very wealthy.
Today, the Maharishi’s organization is still hard at work, though they have left the counterculture behind and are now considered mainstream. They have the ambitious goal of creating heaven-on-earth through TM, and have made the claim that meditation (among other things) reverses the aging process, reduces the crime rate, and lowers blood pressure. They lead high-priced corporate seminars with the promise of improved job performance and increased job satisfaction.
To this day, due mainly to the amount of press the Maharishi received in the sixties, many people associate the term “meditation” with the Maharishi and TM. In fact, if you stop the average person on the street and ask them about meditation, chances are they will talk about sitting cross-legged in a trancelike state, reciting a mantra, and attempting to enter a state of “nothingness.” In other words, most people on the street know very little about meditation.
Unfortunately, the same can be said for many Christians. Many devout followers of Jesus Christ are convinced that meditation is suspect. They identify meditation with new age, occult, or eastern religious practices. Jeanie Miley, in her book Creative Silence, talks about her rude awakening to the ignorance and suspicion of many Christians about this subject. “As a fourth generation Baptist, a minister’s wife, and a Bible teacher, I was appalled at being asked if I was ‘new age.’ It never occurred to me that a concept that permeates scripture … would be held suspect, or that ‘meditation’ would become such a hot word.”
The words “meditate” and “meditation” appear about two dozen times in the Bible. In the Psalms, we are encouraged – and even commanded – to meditate. The apostle Paul encourages us to meditate. As we look at the lives of Bible heroes, we see them making meditation a regular habit.
What is Christian meditation? It is concentrated reflection. Eastern meditation focuses on emptying the mind; Christian meditation focuses on filling it. Christian meditation always has an object. We don’t simply meditate, we meditate on something – a Bible verse, a scriptural concept, or an attribute of God. It is this concentrated reflection that allows us to internalize the truth we’re holding up in our minds.
The practice of meditation is essential for Christians today. It’s not a practice reserved solely for monks and people who lived generations ago. We need it more than ever today. We live in a world of information overload, where we train ourselves to skim through our reading and surf TV channels and web pages. Just to survive the onslaught, we unconsciously sift through the information that comes our way. We pay little attention to most everything we read and hear — only allowing in the things we find instantly relevant, extremely interesting, or outrageously shocking.
The spiritual truth we so desperately need doesn’t often meet those criteria at first glance. We often need some personal study or outside help to understand its meaning, and sustained reflection to appreciate its relevance to our personal needs. As Christians, we believe that God “speaks” to us through the Bible – which is why we call it “God’s Word.” But the question is – how can we listen? In the “scan and surf” culture we live in, it’s getting harder to really listen – and this is why we need meditation so badly today.
The next time you hear something about meditation, try to discern what kind of meditation is being talked about. Think of ways to practice Christian meditation in your own life. It’s not something only for old age monks and new age yogis. It’s for present day Christians – and we need it now more than ever.