Quotes about Meditation

We cannot effectively pursue holiness without the Word of God stored up in our minds where it can be used by the Holy Spirit to transform us. Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, 180

What was it that caused such a dramatic mood change in the heart of the writer? He turns from the circumstances at hand to the Lord.

Sometimes I long for a convent cell, with the sublime wisdom of centuries set out on bookshelves all along the wall and a view across the cornfields--there must be cornfields and they must wave in the breeze--and there I would immerse myself in the wisdom of the ages and in myself. Then I might perhaps find peace and clarity. But that would be no great feat. It is right here, in this very place, in the here and the now, that I must find them.

Each time, before you intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!

Nobody matures past his or her need for prayer and meditation.

There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.

Whatever you dwell on in the conscious grows in your experience.

My religion teaches me that whenever there is distress which one cannot remove, one must fast and pray.

A great part of life consists in contemplating what we cannot cure.

So if meditation did liberate you from obedience to these feelings, it would be, in a certain sense, dispelling an illusion—the illusion you implicitly subscribe to when you follow the feeling, the illusion that the rage, and for that matter the revenge it inspires, is fundamentally "good." It turns out the feeling isn't even good in the basic sense of self-interest.

In the fable, the garden is a symbol for the mind.

The second exercise is a favorite of Yogi Raman's. He used to go an entire day without speaking, except in response to a direct question." "Kind of like a vow of silence?" "Actually that's exactly what it was, John. The Tibetan monks who popularized this practice believed that to hold one's tongue for an extended period of time would have the effect of enhancing one's discipline.