TO FACILITATE MEDITATION

TO FACILITATE MEDITATION  - by Huberto Rohden

Certain songs allow proper environment for meditation. Music used as a prelude to meditation should have a concentrative character in order not to cause the dispersion during the act of meditating; of slow mood, with little movement, but preferably be used as a prelude, not as an accompaniment.

The divine and perfect music is the silence. God is silence, and the more silent is man, more he approaches God. Total silence is the absence of material, mental and emotional noise - not to feel, not to think, not to want anything.

Meditation should be done in time and in the most favourable place, for example, in the morning, preferably before sunrise. At night, as long as the person is not tired. Favourable place is a quiet sanctuary that serves exclusively for meditation and prayer.

Body position should be such that the person totally forgets his body. To the Eastern society, the so-called "lotus posture", cross-legged on the floor or a mat, but for the Westerns, which cannot easily assume this posture, should sit on a chair with solid seat and upright backrest.

The penumbra is preferable to light. Slightly light green or blue is calming. Natural incense is favourable for some, maybe unfavourable to others.

One should meditate on an empty stomach. Soon after a large meal is difficult to meditate.

Mystic attitude entails an easy ethics as consequence, whom Jesus calls "For the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load I will put on you is light." (Mt 11-30). However, to reach the mystical state is required to precede a difficult ethics, whom the Master calls the "strait path and narrow gate”, "pre-mystical ethics" that consists mainly of renouncing everything that is not needed for a simple and comfortable life, without luxury.

Daily reading of newspapers, magazines or books with not uplifting content, use and abuse of radio and television, unnecessary visits and conversations, unnatural food, etc., creates a polluted and profane environment unfavourable to true meditation.

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Translator's Note:

Meditation means "concentration upon God. The term is used in a general sense to denote practice of any technique for interiorizing the attention and focusing it on some aspect of God. In the specific sense, meditation refers to the end result of successful practice of such techniques: direct experience of God through intuitive perception." (SRF)

“Meditation and sin are incompatible: either man will stop to sin - or cease to meditate.” H Rohden

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