Meditation is not something new to the Christian experience but is deeply rooted in Christian tradition. However many Christians have lost touch with the ancient tradition of prayer. Meditation involves coming to a stillness of spirit and a stillness of body.

The extraordinary thing is that in spite of all the distraction of the modern world, this silence is perfectly possible for all of us. To attain this silence and stillness we have to devote time, energy and love. The way to set out on this pilgrimage is to recite a short phrase, a word that today is commonly called a mantra.

The mantra is simply a means of turning our attention beyond ourselves, a method of drawing us away from our own thoughts and concerns. The real work of meditation is to attain harmony of body, mind and spirit. This is the aim given us by the psalmist “Be still and know that I am God”

St Paul wrote that “we do not know how to pray, but the spirit prays within us” (Rom 8:26). What this means in the language of our own day is that before we can pray we first have to learn to become still, to become attentive. Only then can we enter into loving awareness of the Spirit of Jesus deep within our heart.

Meditation, known also as contemplative prayer, is the prayer of silence, the place where direct contact with Christ can occur, once the never ceasing activity of the mind has been stilled. In meditation we go beyond words, thoughts and images into the presence of God within.

St John of the Cross says “God is the centre of my soul”. Julian of Norwich says “God is the still point at my centre”. Meditation is this daily pilgrimage to one’s own centre.

The tradition of the mantra

The mind has been described as a mighty tree filled with monkeys, all swinging from branch to branch and all in an incessant riot of chatter and movement.

When we begin to meditate we recognise this as a wonderfully apt description of the constant whirl going on in our mind. Prayer is not a matter of adding to this confusion by trying to shout it down and cover it with another lot of chatter.

The task of meditation is to bring our distracted mind to stillness, silence and attentiveness. In order to assist us to come to stillness, we use a sacred word or mantra.

It was John Cassian who greatly influenced St Benedict and who introduced the use of a prayer verse or mantra to Western monasticism in the late fourth century. Having himself received it from the holy monks of the desert; Cassian placed its origin back to the time of Jesus and the apostles.

Cassian recommended that anyone who wanted to learn to pray should take a single short verse and simply repeat this verse over and over again.

In his Tenth Conference on prayer, he urges this method of simple and constant repetition as the best way to casting out all distractions and trivial chatter from the mind, in order that it might rest in stillness with God.

The teaching of Cassian on prayer is based on the words of Jesus in the gospels “when you pray do not be like the hyprocrites ............ but go into your private room and pray to your Father who is there in the secret place. Do not go on babbling like the heathen, who feel that by their many words they will be heard. Do not imitate them. Your father knows what you need before you ask Him.  (Mt 6:5-8)

The mantra and the practice of meditation

There are various mantras which are possible for a beginner, but if you have no teacher to help you, you should choose a word that has been hallowed over the centuries by our Christian tradition. Some of these words were first taken over as mantras for prayer by the Church in its earliest days.

One of these words is “MARANATHA”. This Aramaic word means “Come Lord, Come Lord Jesus”. It is the mantra recommended by Dom John Main (1926-1982), a Benedictine monk who has put contemporary language into this ancient teaching of prayer.

It is the word which St Paul uses to end his first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 16:22) and the word with which St John ends the Book of Revelation (Rev 22:20). It also has a place in some of the earliest Christian liturgies.

This Aramaic word is preferred because it has no visual and emotional connotations and its continuous repetition will lead us over time to a deeper and deeper silence. The focus of repeating the mantra is Christocentric.

This means that it is centred on the prayer of Christ which is continuously poured forth in the Holy Spirit in the depth of each human being. Thus, in this way of “pure prayer” we leave all thoughts words and images behind in order to “set our minds on the kingdom of God before all else”. In this way we leave our egotistical self behind to die and rise to our true self in Christ.

Meditation therefore is an inner journey of silence, stillness and simplicity and is the missing contemplative dimension of much Christian life today. Meditation is a pilgrimage to our own centre, to our own heart. To enter into the simplicity of it demands discipline and even courage.  We need faith, simplicity, we need to become childlike.

If we are faithful and patient meditation will bring us into deeper and deeper realms of silence. It is in this silence that we are led into the mystery of the eternal silence. It is in this silence that we are led into the mystery of the eternal silence of God.

That is the invitation of Christian prayer – to lose ourselves and to be absorbed in God. Each of us is summoned to the heights of Christian prayer, to the fullness of life.

What we need however, is the humility to tread the way very faithfully over a period of years, so that the prayer of Christ may indeed be the grounding experience of our lives.

Michel Legault, National  Coordinator Canada, World Community for Christian Meditation, will be in Trinidad April 21 and 22 to give a series of talks. Look out for details of venues.