Fr John Main OSB, “Religious Love,”

Fr John Main OSB, “Religious Love,” THE WAY OF UNKNOWING (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 115-116.

By opening our hearts to love at the deepest and most silent level of our being, we are not repressing human knowledge or rejecting human values or relationships. On the contrary, all of these are enlightened; that is, we see them in a new light, in a transcendent light. We see a new light in them. The extraordinary thing about the Christian message is that this light is not less than the light of Christ, the light who is Christ. The call to us to enter this light is for each of us to know from our own experience. . . .that Christ’s light shines in our hearts and that the first task of our life is to be open to it, to be bathed in it, to be made whole in it and so see with it. [. . . .] Meditation is our journey to that light. 

Prepare to Meditate

According to the codifier of Yoga Science, Patanjali, the method of meditation is not that something, which one immediately does. It’s the seventh step in the ladder of yoga. In the ladder of yoga, it’s the seventh step. It means you are not prepared to practice meditation, yet you pose to meditate.

What should be the preparation of meditation?

According to Yoga Science: Sa tu dirgha kala nairantarya satkarasevito drdha bhoomih (Translated from Sanskrit, YS I.14 That practice when continued for a long time without break and with devotion becomes firm in foundation). To break the habit pattern, to change the grooves that you have created in your mind, you have to constantly practice meditation, regularly, every day, at the same time. 

Why at the same time?  Why do we stress much on the time?

Because, your mind is conditioned by time, space, and causation. 

Time is a great factor in your life; it’s a great filter in your life. If you understand what time is, perhaps you will learn to annihilate time.

--How to tread the path of Superconscious Meditation--

John Main

John Main (1926-1982) has been acclaimed as one of the great spiritual teachers of the twentieth century. He became a Benedictine monk after diplomatic service in the Far East and then teaching law at Trinity College, Dublin. By his life and teaching, John Main has helped restore to Christianity its own tradition of meditation and enabled many to discover its transforming power for themselves. He founded an open Benedictine community in Montreal from which sprang The World Community for Christian Meditation, a worldwide spiritual family linked by the daily practice of meditation.

When thoughts come to mind

Whatever thoughts come into your mind, 

whether they are good thoughts or religious thoughts, 

holy thoughts or bad thoughts, let them go and say the mantra. 

 (John Main, The Hunger for Depth and Meaning)

Meditation is the way of learning to be

Meditation is the way of learning just to be. To be who you are in the presence of God; to be who you are in complete simplicity. And that’s what the mantra leads us to when we learn to be faithful to it.  (John Main, The Hunger for Depth and Meaning)

Essence of Meditation

The essence of meditation is not the technique but what John Cassian called ‘purity of heart’. (John Main, The hunger for depth and meaning).

Are you fearless?

"Can one meditate, can one’s mind become one-pointed without being fearless? Not possible... Fear is one of the  primal urges and it’s because of the sense of self-preservation. As long as you are aware of yourself, you are afraid of others, who is going to hurt you? But the day you don't have that thought you are free! Meditation then starts..." 

Swami Rama