Why We Meditate

I'm reading James Finley's Christian Meditation. Do you know it?

Wow. It's been a long time since I've underlined something on every page of a book. I even copied one paragraph and laminated it, and it's now nearby when I meditate in the morning:

**We sit in meditation so that the last traces of our tendency to identify with egocentric consciousness might finally dissolve as our habitual base of operations.
**We meditate that we might continue thinking, but no longer live by thought and all that thought can comprehend.
**We meditate that we might continue remembering, but no longer be limited to memory or all that can be remembered.
**We sit that we might continue willing, but no longer be limited to our own will or what our will is capable of attaining.
**We sit that we might continue feeling, but no longer be limited to our feelings or all that can be felt.
**We sit that we might continue being our bodily self as long as our life on this earth shall last, but no longer be limited to our bodily self and all the bodily self can be.
**We sit that we might live in God, and for God, and by God in all we do and say.
**We meditate that we might live in a habitual awareness of God living in us, for us, and by us in all that we simply are.

Comments

Jennifer said…
Wow! Sounds like a great resource. Reading this excerpt makes me wonder if I have ever truly meditated.
Jan said…
Those quotes are wonderful. Hit me inside. What I want, but also what I avoid--like the cartoon I put on my blog about the "cloud of unknowing." I balk and don't.
It is a powerful spiritual practice whether individually or in a group. I find it is always the ego part which is the last to go.
RevDrKate said…
Oh. My. Goodness. Bring on the laminator!
Jan said…
Katherine, there's an award for you over at my blog.
Carolyn said…
I got to catch up tonight by reading your last entries. Your honesty and willingness to discover and grow inspire me. Thank you for your most recent post, the Finley quotes, that call me to begin meditating again. CCW

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