From this week we will be dwelling on the nitty gritty of meditation and to start off, that invaluable saying of Christ in Luke 10 vs 2 comes handy. It reads: “THE HARVEST IS PLENTIFUL BUT THE LABOURERS ARE FEW.”
In another breath He says; MANY ARE CALLED BUT FEW ARE CHOSEN.”
I have explained beforehand my inclination to quote the Bible and I need not repeat the sine-qua-non with the little space I am devoting to this weekly column given the time handicap of the readers. If the readers are ready, I can make this series a daily affair.
Meanwhile, the labourers are few is an indication that the Lord’s grace and bounties are unlimited and always ready for us to harvest. Ironically, those that are truly ready for the harvest are very few. That is, those that are well prepared for the worship of God in Spirit are not many.
Even the disciples of Jesus were not all that inclined and it was for that reason Jesus would leave them to go and commune (meditate) with the Father in the wilderness. Of the twelve, only Peter, James and John showed some seriousness; hence, Jesus took the trio into spiritual inflight, which was recorded as the “Mount of Transfiguration” in the Bible.
We blame no one for this because it is in the Grand Design that for the perpetuation of the human species, not everyone will embrace Spirituality and practice accessing the Word of God. This is for the fact that whenever we are meditating, we are actually building our treasures in heaven. At the expiry of life in the coarse material plane, our meditation will earn us one of the heavenly planes referred to as several manshions of the Lord by Jesus.
This is not a story or metaphor, such planes are accessed live by meditators across the world. For correlation, readers are encouraged to read the parable of the sower with deep understanding. We will discuss the parable at length in future.
For now, it is meet we make it clear at the outset that transcendental or advance meditation is only for the deserving. The word ‘transcendental’ is used because there are many variations of meditation. We will find them in yoga and in different groups and institutions that offer meditation globally. While the subject of meditation seems uncommon in this divide, several schools and sects that offer variety of meditation are springing up everyday, for the purpose of solving stress, sleeping and health related issues. Transcendental meditation earns for us what is considered as the by-products attained by peripheral meditation and ultimately unites us with the Word of God.
Because advanced meditation is about letting go of the world and letting in the Lord, it couldn't be for everyone. It is meant for the very few who are willing to sacrifice the whole world, nay even themselves before they can have a glimpse of the inner Truth and absolute Reality. This necessary detachment is what Jesus meant when He said in Luke 14 vs 26: “If a man comes to me and he hates not his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and even his own self, such cannot be my disciple.”
This statement of Jesus which may sound confusing to the average minds is a very straightforward condition-precedent to the worship of God in spirit.
Mulana Rum, a Muslim Saints, was so harsh about it he says: “Gross and worldly minded we are unfit for transcendental flights. Such are barred from the Court of the Lord, having poluted their hearts and mind with thoughts of personal gains, filled with ephemeral honour and all sort of earthly sordid desires. They have thus become slaves of Mammon, passing all days in hoarding up riches and keep going from door to door for the sake of filthy lucre. Yet, Christ said: Ye cannot serve God and Mammon parri-pasu. What a height of hypocrisy!
All these hard-sayings border on detachment. What is holding us down in the world is nothing but our attachment to material things and earthly relationships. They were all contrapted to cushion the effect of our stay during our sojourn in the earthly field, and we are related to them only with our vehicle of expression - the human body. Once we shed the mortal coil, the relationship is lost forever, in the manner a diver who all along was wearing a diving suit drops off the suit, when he finishes his assignment beneath the sea.
Therefore, before aspiring into the transcendental realm, we must primarily purify our mind, with elevating discourses about the whys and hows of the creation. We are to view relationships and things in the right perspective. We are not to give anything the value it doesn't have.
This is of essence because our attachment is one of the weapons of the Negative Power. This, it uses in trapping us in the earthly field. We must therefore understand its antics and gird our loins in preparation to do battle with the Negative Power, who will do everything to resist our inflight as it did with Jesus, all other Saints and anyone who attempts to get pass its domain.
Given the rigid and unwavering conditions, advanced meditation is for those who are dissatisfied with worldly phenomena. That is, the few who want to probe deep into Reality. Those who feel they are in the dark and therefore seek Light. The ones who seek true happiness from the misery and evil of this world. Those who know they are temporary sojourners and have to leave this world one day and want to prepare for it well ahead.
These are the people who are eminently fitted for mystic training. They don't want to be led by the nose like dumb driven cattle, or grope in the dark like blind men. To those who desire to look before they leap, think before they act, meditation is indispensable, and to this group we address the necessities of meditation as follows:
Meditation is to unite our soul with the Oversoul which is known in several languages as God, Allah, Whahiguru, Chineke, Olorun and thousands of other names yet, the Creator is nameless. In effect, all names given to God are mere attributes within the perception of man.
The Supreme Lord is Infinite. He is composed of pure spirit substance. He resides in and permeates the Supreme Region as His headquarters from where He projects into and permeates all regions throughout creation. The Lord is in no way limited. Even if He takes form which He often does, as explained as the Word made flesh, the form doesn't limit Him because He is not limited to that form. The form is only an infinitely small fragment of Himself.
God is the Universal Spirit, moving forth in a living stream, vibrating through all space and entering and vitalizing all that exists through His creative Energy - The Word.
Because God is not in totality in any form whenever He takes on form, His all encompassing nature doesn't limit Him to any form, and as such, no one can point at the totality of God. By the same token, no one can see God alive. All these are not theories or hearsay. The truth of them is available when we practice advanced meditation.
One of the ancient creeds captures this scenario appropriately. From it I culled:
MAN TO MAN SHALL SPEAK; SOUL TO OVERSOUL SHALL REVEAL.
This tells us as long as we operate with our physical body being of duality, we can not perceive God. But in His wisdom and mercy, the Lord had implanted the divinity of Himself in all humans and that is our soul. It is this soul of man that can perceive God, through, of course, the means of meditation. The same soul is the image of God in man. Nothing else. We are God-like, not in terms of having two eyes, nostrils,limbs and all voluntary and involuntary organs available in human beings, as well as other living species.
This leads us to devoting the next series to how all humans are truly God-like or fearfully and wonderfully made as we will find in Psalm 139 vs 14.
