Loving and directly experiencing G-d and healing the Self: Learning sessions on ChristoCentric Meditation for personal daily practice

Meditating alone in our own quiet time at home or in / with a group is as important as meditating "as a group" for a common purpose. Individual meditation practice allows us to align and connect to the Divinity or the Christ within us. This part of worship which is equally important to the spiritual life was neglected for a long time in many Christian traditions due to the over-emphasis on external communal worship, prayer, and rituals. Personal prayer time was relegated to supplicatory, intercessory, thanksgiving, or contritional prayers, but rarely encouraged as a form of worship or adoration. This led to over-dependence on external guidance coming from "spiritual authorities", instead of the guidance that comes from within- the indwelling Divine Spirit within us, the Christ within us. King Solomon built a magnificent temple made of stone but through the Holy Spirit, the Lord Christ made us into a Temple, where we can connect and experience G-d directly (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Ephesians 2:21-22; Luke 17:21). This is especially true now that we are approaching an era of the waning of Christian Churches and consequently, we should start relying on the Spirit within us for spiritual guidance.

Meditation is not simply sitting in silence or in a relaxed state with eyes closed. It is an oversimplification of a complex process. Assuming for the sake of argument that it is true, but to achieve that state still requires some skill. With the 1001 things that occupy our minds in our day-to-day life, siting down to leave it behind for a few minutes is not an easy task. And if ever, one achieves that, one is only successful in doing a meditation for relaxation for stress-free living. Some people can do it better by watching Netflix with a can of beer!

However, serious meditation for achieving Divine alignment requires hard work and years of striving. When a disciple asked the Christ how to pray, we often hear the short cut directly leading to the wordings of the "Lord's Prayer", but seldom do we hear the entire story in Matthew 6:5-14. He mentioned some do's and dont's, at the same time appeared to have mentioned some allegorical steps to praying: 1-Go to your room; 2-Close the door; and 3-Pray to the Father in secret. "Steps" signify a process, a technicality. Many of us are turned off with complexity, thinking that spirituality is ought to be a simple business. Getting a high school diploma or working for a baccalaureate degree is far from easy, why do we assume that connecting to G-d (who is the Creator of the universe) could be that easy? Christian mystics (as well as Eastern disciples) who seriously practiced meditation struggled for many years (or even their whole life) to achieve this at-one-ment. And some never get to pass the "dark night of the soul" alive and well. We feel this led people to ditch the 1st Great Commandment, in favor of the 2nd (or inverted the process that the 2nd leads to fulfillng the 1st)- which many believe to be easier, that is loving our neighbours as ourselves. But seriously, is it?

It is useless to cry over a glass of spilled milk wondering why the technicalities of prayer and meditation were lost in the Scriptures or who hid or have them ("Mysteries" spoken of in Matthew 13:11). But we can fill the gaps in knowledge on meditation and connecting to the G-d within by using the teachings of comparative spiritual traditions. We explore them in our learning sessions or workshops, and come up with a working hypothesis. It is up to us to prove whether they will lead to our expected outcome or not through regular practice.

Register to participate in the "ChristoCentric Meditation Workshop"

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