Word into Silence

John Main

Summary of main points

• Christian Meditation is about becoming aware of our divine origin: “as we become more and more relaxed in
  ourselves, and the longer we meditate, the more we become aware that the source of our new-found calm in our daily
  lives is precisely the life of God within us.” (p.2) We become aware of our divine origin: we are to “turn to our own
  nature with total concentration, to experience our own creation first-hand and, above all, to turn to and experience
  the living Spirit of God dwelling in our hearts.” (p.5) (see also p.16/18) and “we seek not just to think about God,
  but to be with God, to experience Him as the ground of our being.” (p.5) (See also p.24 –29)
  
• Our consciousness has been transformed by Jesus: “ Jesus by giving us His Spirit has dramatically transformed the
  fabric of human consciousness. Our redemption by Jesus Christ has opened up for us levels of consciousness that
  can be described by St Paul only in terms of a totally new creation.” (p.2) leading to “life... in all it fullness”. (p.19)
  
• The Spirit of God dwelling within us is the central reality of Christian faith: “The living Spirit of God dwells within
  us, giving new life to our mortal bodies. The all-important aim in Christian meditation is to allow God’s mysterious
  and silent presence within us to become more and more not only a reality, but the reality in our lives; to let it
  become that reality which gives meaning, shape and purpose to everything we do, to everything we are.” (p.3)
  
• Meditation is paying attention: It is “concentration, the focusing of our whole being, all our energies and faculties
  upon a single point.” (p.44) It is “selfless attention” (p.3), “we turn the searchlight of consciousness off ourselves
  and that means off a self-centred analysis of our own unworthiness.” (p.51)

• Leaving thoughts behind leads to silence: “Leaving all these thoughts and imaginations, we seek to follow Him in
  the purity of our heart.” (p.16)“In a deep creative silence we meet God in a way that transcends all our powers of
  intellect and language”…”a silence where we have to listen, to concentrate, to attend rather than to think.” (p.7)
  
• Be relaxed, but alert: “in meditation we come to experience ourselves as at one and the same time totally relaxed
  and totally alert. This stillness is not the stillness of sleep but rather of total awakened concentration.” (p.8)
  
• The mantra helps to still the mind: “The task of meditation is to bring all of this mobile and distracted mind to
  stillness, silence and concentration”. To achieve this, “Cassian recommended anyone who wanted to learn to pray,
  and to pray continually, to take a single short verse and just to repeat this verse over and over again.” (p.9)
  
• Maranatha is recommended as a mantra: “The mantra I recommend is the Aramaic word ‘maranatha’, which
  means, ‘Come Lord. Come Lord Jesus.” “I prefer the Aramaic form because it has no associations for most of us and
  it helps us into a meditation that will be quite free of all images.” (p.9) (See also p.52/53)
  
  <<< Previous page
  Next page >>>