Tag: meditation

Open Your Heart Meditation

Open Your Heart Meditation

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Here is a detailed, step-by-step, meditation to follow to help one gain a deeper experience.

*Find a quiet place or space where you can be alone and uninterrupted for a period of 5-20 minutes.

*Clear your mind and body of any anxious thoughts or feelings; a favorite prayer, a brief reading or reflection may help in this process. 

For example: “come Holy Spirit, kindle in me the fire of your Divine Love.”

*Find a comfortable posture; sitting erect, relax your shoulders with back straight. Take two deep breaths, starting at the base of your stomach and inhaling slowly with expanded chest; exhale slowly each time.

*It may help to acknowledge to yourself any strong feelings or emotions that may trouble you now or in the past, but do not dwell on these at this time. 

This meditation is designed to “empty “ ourselves of such feelings.

*Starting at the top of your head or hairline, we will work back and down; focus solely on each body feature – forehead, hairline, top of the head, back of the head, etc. 

If you experience tension or stress, do not struggle, gently push it down and release it.

Do the same with any random or distracting thoughts. In addition, if you are too distracted, you can return to deep breathing or your mantra to regain focus. 

Continue working back and down – eyes, ears, back of neck; pay particular attention to those areas where we tend to store-up stress or tension – top of head, neck, jaw, shoulders, etc.

*As you work downward, you may experience an “emptiness,” or “blankness,” or sleepiness or emotions coming to the surface. Generally, these are good signs that we are relaxed and able to release and proceed with our meditation. 

Keep in mind that healing is a process.

*In the upper part of the body(head, neck, shoulders), we focus on “opening the mind” while releasing thoughts, anxieties, tensions, and surface emotions. At the same time, we are increasing concentration and focus.

*As we reach the heart, it is important that we dwell there. 

Open your heart.

Many of our deepest emotions are buried there–in the heart. We are giving release to an outpouring of these emotions. Are we really ready to let go? Maybe not, but again healing is a process.

*It is suggested that you continue meditating through the rest of the body to the toes, releasing pain, and whatever else is found.

*you may choose to complete the meditation with prayer, prayer for others, or a selected reading.

Note: This meditation is intended to be a positive, healing experience. If you are struggling, it is suggested that you come back to it at a later time. If the experience turns negative or dark, seek guidance from someone familiar with meditation and the contemplative way.

Obstacles to Meditation and Contemplation: Part 1 and Obstacles to Meditation and Contemplation: Part 2 and Obstacles to Meditation and Contemplation: Part 3

Obstacles to Meditation and Contemplation: Part 3

Obstacles to Meditation and Contemplation: Part 3

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In recent years, I have been working in Behavioral Health as a chaplain in order to promote spiritual growth as well as other aspects of a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

It is important to share the tools for meditation and contemplation that can often bring hope and sometimes relief to those who are challenged with mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, grief, depression and anxiety, and related issues. 

Group meditation has been a key component of my spirituality groups. Typically, after an introduction and assurances of inclusiveness of culture and religion, we enter a discussion of those things that we tend to bury deep inside. 

Often this includes grief, anger, forgiveness, fear, guilt, and other emotional trauma. But it sometimes includes spiritual and positive emotional experiences that are deemed too personal to share.

From this discussion, we proceed with a meditation starting at the top of the head and “emptying” ourselves of thoughts, feelings, etc. and working downward to the heart. 

We “open our heart.” 

This completes the meditation, but it is suggested that the individual finish the meditation through the rest of the body, in a quiet place, later in the day.

We then share what those in the group experienced in the brief 5-minute meditation. This sharing is often revealing and sometimes brings out stories and group members ministering to one another. 

A handout on meditation (similar to the one at the beginning of this website and in the Obstacles to Meditation and Contemplation: Part 4) and scripture provides an ongoing reference for the patient to reflect on if he or she so chooses.

Check out Obstacles to Meditation and Contemplation: Part 1 and Check out Obstacles to Meditation and Contemplation: Part 2 and Obstacles to Meditation and Contemplation: Part 4

What We Will Find

What We Will Find

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As we begin the interior journey in meditation, fears arise in anticipation of what we will find, how truly weak or sad or uncomprehending we really are.  Also, we start to detach from those external attachments felt so necessary for our daily sustenance and wellbeing.  

Most of all, we become detached from the ‘old self” that is self-absorbed or the self that stays in a comfortable, but often toxic, self-loathing.  The initial step into the unknown is frightening because it is alien to most of our earthly experiences. 

Meditation is a quest for transformation of self from a material, self-centered individual into a spiritual being. 

This newly formed spiritual being, while in meditation, is set adrift from the complex, material world as we know it.  

As meditation deepens, we experience a certain sense of timelessness and centeredness with the universe and the natural order. We enter a state of “mindfulness” in which we begin to experience the joy of the present and the fullness of life as it was created by the Author of life. 

It is a state of being in which all images and earthly desires eventually fade.  It is a harmonious state where one is aware of everything and nothing all at once.  It is a state of “inner being” which is at once attached to all and detached from all.  

We are all, at the center, spiritual beings and, therefore secular meditation can also tap into the wellspring of our being.  

However, we/have the choice of God-centered meditation that can eventually lead to contemplation.  Contemplation is the experience of the infused–Spirit of God, as both creator and guiding force in our lives.

Before we discuss contemplation, it may be well to consider the obstacles to finding the “true-self” 

Transforming Meditation: Part 4

Transforming Meditation: Part 4

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On Thursday, the second day of Lydia’s spiritual care plan, the point was made and accepted, at least intellectually, that Lydia’s mother, husband, and neighbors no longer had power over her.  When fear arose within her, she was to repeat the name of Jesus over and over.

On Friday, the focus was for Lydia to forgive unconditionally.  She must not ask anything of those she is forgiving and she was not to judge them. This is an act of love to forgive another, just as Jesus forgives us unconditionally and he died that we may be forgiven.  

We went through forgiveness for each of the people in her life to get rid of anger and fear.  Whenever anger rose within her, she was to repeat, 

“Father, forgive them, they do not (or did not) know what they do.”  For herself, she was to repeat, “Father, forgive me for I did not know what I was doing.”

The plan was to use Saturday as a follow-up day to observe if Lydia could reduce her fear, then the God within, Who is Love, could work in her.  It was hoped that she could trust and turn herself and her operation over to God’s will and purpose for her.  

The exchanges on Saturday, the fourth day, are the most revealing of the work of the Holy Spirit and follow as noted at the time.  The mother, daughter, and I met in the otherwise empty chapel for purposes of privacy and the spiritual atmosphere.

“Lydia, before we start, I want to mention a couple of things.  Your daughter is sitting with us, but if we get into some uncomfortable areas, she may want to leave or I may ask her to leave briefly, and then come back.  Secondly, I noticed several times when we have met, you start moving your wheelchair backward and disconnect with me.  It is like you are hanging up the phone.  What is that about?”

Lydia responded weakly with her head down, “Sometimes I get tired and just want to go lay down.” 

“Lydia, I know that this work is difficult.  We are on a spiritual journey but we also have to deal with the past – the anger and fear that has built up over the years.   When you start to disconnect from me, I will draw your attention to it?”  

She responded, “OK.”

“Tell me, how you are feeling, Lydia?”  

“Not well, I just want this tumor to go away, to be done with.  I need a miracle.  I don’t know what I will be like after the surgery.”  

I responded, “If God gave you a miracle today and took away the tumor, do you think the anger and fear would go away?”  

Taking responsibility for her anger for the first time in our meetings, Lydia said, “The anger is deep down inside, I need to deal with it.”

I then led the discussion, “Yes, and we talked about forgiveness and to get rid of some of the anger toward your mother, your husband, the neighbor who poisoned your dog, and yourself.  Do you remember your words of forgiveness, let’s say toward your mother?”  

Lydia took a long pause with her head down, then said, “Father, forgive her for she knew not what she was doing.”  A similar phrase was repeated to each of the others and herself.  

I said. “Yes, you did not know what you were doing when you swallowed the lies.  You are a child of God, a beautiful child of God made in his image.  You did not know what you were doing when you put yourself down, you gave up your power.”  Lydia, taking more responsibility, said, “I made some bad decisions.”  

I asked, “Tell me about those decisions.”

“When I decided to get my degrees, I never had any breakthroughs in my scientific work.”  

I asked, “What kind of breakthroughs, give me an example.”  

“DNA, I never discovered DNA.”  

Somewhat curious, I asked, “Did you expect to discover DNA?”  

“No, I was just a lab technician.”  

I then asked who did discover DNA and remarkably she told me the full names of the two men that discovered DNA.  

Back to the subject, I said, “Why was the fact that you didn’t discover DNA a failure?”  She responded, “Because I was living according to the world’s desires, the world’s standards.”  

A short discussion ensued about living to the world’s standards and God’s standards being different. 

Click these links to read Transforming Meditation: Part 1, Transforming Meditation: Part 2 and Transforming Meditation: Part 3

Transforming Meditation: Part 3

Transforming Meditation: Part 3

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On Wednesday, the first day of Lydia’s spiritual care plan, the effort was to separate the offender from the offense.  This is meant to forgive the offender, not the offense since only God can forgive the offense.  In other words, we can forgive the sinner but not the sin. It seemed important to point out that this approach did not mean we were condoning the offense if we forgive the offender.  

We can forgive one another – our brothers and sisters, our neighbors.  

This would be the first step for Lydia in taking back her power that she had given to those who she perceived to have abused her – her own mother, her husband, neighbors, and self.  There was a little perceived success that day except for the initial verbal commitment of Lydia to take the spiritual journey.  

However, in a brief separate meeting with Lydia the next day, I was able to ascertain that she had total recall of everything that was said on Wednesday.  Also, we did identify that the grandmother had physically abused Lydia’s mother.

The second day, Thursday, the focus was on conquering the fear of repeated transgressions.  Lydia had to come to the conclusion that the abusers no longer had power over her.  Otherwise, this fear would drive out any possibility of love entering or her loving those around her.  

On the other hand, what did she gain by not ridding herself of this fear?  It should also be noted that we did not focus on the fear of her brain tumor and the impending operation at this point.  We focused only on the abusers.

Lydia’s mother – Lydia’s fear and low self-esteem arising from her mother’s treatment that was always critical and abusive, and Lydia’s resultant fear that she was never good enough.

Lydia’s husband, who she had finally divorced some years earlier had been frequently violent and verbally abusive.  Fear that she would upset him gave him power over her.  But it was important to point out to her that she had given power over to him and she was still suffering, he wasn’t.

Lydia’s neighbors had sent threatening letters and had poisoned her dog.  The dog was extremely important because it seemed in Lydia’s mind that the dog was the only one who gave her unconditional love.

Other fears that Lydia expressed was the fear of being left alone and that she would wake up and find no one to care for her, a fear of insanity and a feeling of helplessness, too weak to cope and a fear that God had turned His face.

Click these links to read Transforming Meditation: Part 1, Transforming Meditation: Part 2 and Transforming Meditation: Part 4

Meditation Through Images

Meditation Through Images

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The widely popular spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius are focused on scriptural images.  (Spiritual Exercises).  Although I haven’t practiced the spiritual exercises in many years, I had some early experiences while attending retreats at a Jesuit retreat house, the White House, near St. Louis, MO.  

Under the guidance of the retreat master, I was able to experience my own death in front of a statue of Saint Joseph on the grounds.  At once, I was able to comprehend the “fear” of death, to “see” a vision of my own death, and to pass beyond into a peaceful state that was ‘filled up’ with the grace of God.  

Since that time, I have lost all fear of death and have been able to attend to others in the dying process in a hopeful and prayerful way.  Recently, an acquaintance recounted a similar experience at the White House.

Another time at the same retreat house, I was walking and praying the fourteen “Stations of the Cross” on a hillside overlooking the Mississippi River and suddenly experienced Jesus walking beside me after the fourth or fifth station.  He continued with me throughout the remainder of the stations.  

I recall now, many years later, an enlightenment of the suffering that he went through but not in a sorrowful way.  His presence was full of light and hope and peace that kept me in a state of awe for days afterward.  Even today, the “reality” of having Jesus walking beside me has not diminished.

The use of images can be most helpful especially in the early stages of meditation.  Meditation usually seems to start as an intellectual exercise.  It requires a discipline of mind that can be aided by the use of images or mantra.  

For example, a mantra, such as the name of “Jesus,” can avoid distraction or bring someone back in focus after having been distracted.  In the same way, one can “lose” oneself in an image, first as an observer and, then, as a participant. 

For almost a year, I meditated on the “Christo de Limpias” or “Christ of Tears” – a bust of Christ wearing the crown of thorns.  At first, I simply observed the image in order to concentrate my meditation and to avoid distractions. After several months, a vision occurred and I found myself on the cross, wearing the crown of thorns and entering into the suffering of Christ.  

This vision recurred daily for an extended period of time.  During this period, an awesome wonder and ecstasy took over that made me grateful to be there.  Similarly, in recent years, I have frequently experienced pain in the palms of both hands while meditating which serve to remind me of the wounds of Christ.  

In my experience, in both the uses of mantra and images, what starts as an intellectual discipline becomes a deep-felt prayer as one becomes more and more absorbed in the object of meditation.

Meditation: Early Stages

Meditation: Early Stages

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While my early mystical experiences seemed to come directly from God “out of the blue,” so to speak, meditation deepened my faith, my prayer discipline, and from time to time brought the fruits of the Holy Spirit or spiritual gifts.  

In fact, I view meditation itself as a gift. Meditation is the process of reflection that implies a certain initial action but whose object is a state or sensation of “being.” This state of “being” is an intense focus or becoming absorbed in the “now” of the object.  

For example, meditative reflection, especially in the early stages, maybe centered on objects such as symbols, images, events in scripture, an image of God, or even nothingness. 

This latter is a sort of cosmic universe described in many Eastern forms of meditation and even some Western mystics.  Initially in the process of meditation, these objects are separate or external from self.  However, as the process continues and deepens the “self” tends to become absorbed in the object.  

Meditation because it is a reflection, is a process of “turning within” oneself to fully experience the object.  In its focus, meditation attempts to eliminate all distractions to arrive at a state of relaxation without extraneous or wandering thought.  Thus, a quiet place or sacred space without noise or traffic or interruption is usually sought.  A mantra or repetitive word, or breathing exercise may be helpful to set a mood or ward off distraction. 

These aids or techniques of meditation are well documented even by those who would describe themselves as non-religious.  Many have experienced the stress-relieving and concentration benefits of meditation.  However, it is the daily encounter with “self” that is perhaps most beneficial.  

We are free to choose the objects of our meditation and I have always chosen God (and at times Christ or the Holy Spirit) as the object of my meditation.  In this choice, meditation became a daily form of prayer for me since the age of twenty-three. 

My Calling

My Calling

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I recall the first time that I was called upon to “heal” someone through the “gift of healing.”  I was teaching an introductory computer course at a local community college at the time to a very large class of 100 students or more.  

During the course of the semester, a “vision” of one of the students came to me during meditation late at night. The vision was of me laying hands on the student’s head healing her, although I didn’t even know her name.  I found it curious but essentially dismissed it from my mind.  

However, in the next few days, the vision reappeared to me vividly twice more on different occasions during meditation.  After that, I shared my vision with my wife and also asked the student about her and her family.  She related that she was in her early thirties, with two small children, she lived in a rural area and her passion was horses. 

She told me that she had recently been diagnosed with cancer of the uterus and was to undergo surgery after the final exam of my class. Because of my visions, numbering three now, this medical knowledge sent me into a great deal of fright and questioning of my own sanity. 

I strongly resisted the idea that I could be used to heal anyone and, more likely in my mind, I was taking on a “messiah” complex. Nevertheless, I had learned to trust what I received from God in meditation, so I was struggling with a real dilemma.  The dilemma was soon resolved for me.  

As I was putting my five-year-old son to bed saying his prayers and asked that we pray for a student of mine, a woman who was sick, he said, “Did God come to you in a dream and ask you to heal her, like He came to Saint Joseph in a dream?” After this astounding word from the mouth of a babe, I could no longer deny what God was calling me to do. 

After the last class of the term, I asked the student to stay after and told her the whole story of what I had experienced and asked her if she wanted me to pray with her for healing. In an otherwise empty classroom of more than 100 seats, I prayed with her for healing and lay my hands on her head as I had seen in my visions. 

The day after the operation, I visited her in the hospital and she relayed that the surgery had gone well according to her doctor. A week or so later she stopped by my off to excitedly tell me that she was back horseback riding. 

The doctor had examined her a few days after the operation and could find no evidence that he had operated, no cancer, and could not understand her “miraculous” recovery from the operation.  He agreed that she could go immediately back to horseback riding.