Meditation
The spiritual discipline of meditation is supported by numerous passages in the scripture. The most relevant is in Joshua 1:8, where God tells Joshua:
8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
The aspect of bible study will be addressed on the next page of this essay. The physical aspect of meditation is partly founded on Psalms 46:10:
10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
In essence, meditation is a quiet contemplation of the scriptures (or scripturally based devotional works) either after reading them or praying about them. The goal is intended to help people think of the implications of the scriptures or their prayer and internalize them preparatory to living them out. Contrast this with the Eastern form of meditation, where the goal is to not think of anything at all. While our thoughts are certainly like dirty bath water, the possiblity of preveniently generated thoughts from the Holy Spirit being eliminated by the Eastern style of meditation is like tossing both tub and baby out with the bath water.
The symbiotic aspects of meditating should be obvious: The Inner Man is in a state where thoughts generated by the Holy Spirit are most likely to be considered and selected. Meditation is intended to facilitate Symbiote-to-Host communication. Enhancing the production, identification, and understanding of thoughts generated by the Holy Spirit is the goal of Stage 2. Indeed, if it is granted that "meditation" embraces the possiblity of God giving you ideas as a result of you being in a meditative attitude, then "meditation" and "Stage 2 results" are one and the same.
We will not replicate here that which will require whole essays to outline the protocols required and involved. However, to give a foretaste of the potential that Symbiosis poses to improve the practice of this Spiritual Discipline (and to encourage some who are not doing so to start), I recommend, after finishing reading a biblical passage or other devotional work and prior to meditating, that you deliberately state to the Holy Spirit Symbiote within you your intention of being receptive to thinking about and investigating, any wild, crazy, or off-the-wall thought that does not contradict scripture. Meditate next, then follow up by doing what you promised to close the protocol loop and grant permission for the next round. Be serious by having pen and journal/paper/notebook handy. You don't have to accept everything blindly, but don't panic and reject everything blindly either. You want to be like the noble Bereans, who unleashed the systematic analysis that the Greeks made famous upon the Jewish Scriptures to prove the thoughts presented to you. At the beginning, the natural heart will say more than the Spirit, but persistence in doing your part grants permission for the Spirit to suppress the noise and strengthen the signal.
I have seen people who were frozen when it came to acting or believing suddenly becoming overnight valiant faith heroes with almost limitless courage and boldness. What made the difference? They already had the confidence that, if they knew God's will, they would do it without hesitation and with great courage and confidence because they believed that "God wants it, it's a sure winner!" Their hesitation was that they didn't know what was God's will. They were told of the dangers of presumption, which is acting as if the will of God was known when it was not known, or the opposite was God's will! Obviously, presumption is a great failing, but the answer to presumption is finding out what God's will truly is, not standing frozen and paralyzed in continued uncertainty. God's enemies are very cognizant of this, and do whatever is necessary to sow doubt as to what God's will is, or they sow doubt in the Christian's mind about the certainty of his knowledge. They are often aided by well-meaning, but falsely pious, christians who believe that ignorance is the equivalent of humility, safety, or caution. They are also aided by those Christian pharisees who fear one empowered by God challenging their fiefdoms as Jesus challenged the Jewish pharisees. In the end, they pose to the Christian the same question Satan posed to Eve: "Did God REALLY say that? Are you SURE? Really REALLY SURE? I mean, you got it while MEDITATING! Everyone does that! Are you SURE?" These bound christians were freed by the truth of what God's will really was: that knowledge turned them from wimps into virtual Angels of the Lord. If Symbiosis is true, then the Holy Spirit, who IS God, is leading us to the truth of what God's will is by the thoughts He is throwing into the Bitsream. Establishing the protocols so that we can be certain of the content of that communication, and thus God's Will, is the goal of Stage 2.
Meditation is almost exclusively performed in a solitary and quiet location where one can "hear one's own thoughts". Isaac meditating at dusk, Jesus going into the wilderness before his ministry started, and Paul going to the deserts of Arabia to absorb and process the revelations given to him are examples. However, do not be fooled by its "slow pace": experienced musicians go slowly at first through difficult sections with the goal of learning how to do it at the rate the score requires. Continual and regular meditation, combined with the other disciplines, is practice for the time when quick response and reaction is required. Jesus spoke of a period of future crisis where meditation would be too slow and pre-meditation useless. The Symbiotic Conversation goes into high gear, and the Homo/Deus combination performs marvels that flummox and astound its predators.
Prev Page Next Page
Pg-1 Pg-2 Pg-3 Pg-4 Pg-5 Pg-6 Pg-7 Pg-8 Pg-9 Pg-10 Pg-11
Leave Feedback for This Page