|
lines
Stranger


Registered: 08/06/08
Posts: 1,409
Loc: USA
Last seen: 3 years, 9 months
|
Ancient Christian Meditation
#12884920 - 07/11/10 10:46 PM (13 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
this article is about an ancient form of christian meditation that has been discovered by americans. This meditation is of the traditions of the orthodox christian church, a church which is prominent in eastern europe
http://www.stmaryorthodoxchurch.org/orthodoxy/articles/2010-06-13-meditation.php
Quote:
Ancient Christian Meditation Discovered
Original Article found at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norris-j-chumley-phd/ancient-christian-meditat_b_604166.html
A prayer used some 2,000 years ago, still in use by monks and nuns in far away caves and monasteries but mostly unknown to the rest of the world, is the subject of a new documentary feature film and book. It's called Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer and focuses on a prayer thought to have first been practiced by the Apostles.
Most of us want peace and happiness in our lives; that's what we live for. Sometimes it may feel that true peace and spiritual contentment are impossible in this chaotic world of stress, speed, over-stimulation and overstretched finances. At times, the desire to run away to some distant land may be highly tempting.
Most of us cannot just retreat to a cave or monastery where we can be totally contemplative, meditating and praying with God without disruption. We don't have the luxury of leaving it all behind. The answer is to integrate meditation and prayer in all of your daily activities. Like the Apostle Paul suggested, pray constantly. The Jesus Prayer is the perfect meditation. It's like a Christian mantra.
Monks, nuns and spiritual hermits have left their troubles in the "civilized world" behind for centuries, initially escaping to the Egyptian desert. One of the earliest Christian monks was Saint Antony, a man determined to find God in silence and isolation. Born to a wealthy Alexandrian merchant family, one day he passed by a church and heard the minister reciting the words of Jesus, "Go, sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and come and follow me." He took those words to heart and at the age of 34, gave away his entire inheritance and retreated into the desert. He found an abandoned tomb and lived alone there for many years. In the desert he not only found a way to abandon his material desires, he learned to live with very little water or food, seeking only prayer as sustenance. Saint Antony, considered by some to be the father of all monks, recited the Jesus Prayer over and over, seeking only the mercy of his lord Jesus Christ.
This ancient prayer has been passed down through generations. Initially recited verbally, it was ultimately written in obscure instruction manuals intended only for monks. It was kept in secret, only to be revealed as part of a dedicated life of isolation. Some spiritual counselors advise using it only with the help of a disciplined guide, in the context of a life devoted to monasticism. Others say that anyone can use it.
Still in use some 2,000 years later in monasteries and churches that grew out of the Egyptian desert and spread to Greece, the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, Slavic lands, and Russia, the Jesus Prayer is now being revealed to those of us in the western world.
There is no longer a need to become a monk or nun to know and use this prayer. It isn't necessary to leave your family, work or home behind and renounce everything. The prayer, Kyrie Eleison in Greek (Lord have mercy), or the Jesus Prayer, has great power. The documentary feature film and companion book from HarperOne, Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer, will introduce methods for using this prayer early next year, so that anyone can use it at any time and in any place.
Travelling with camera crews to ancient lands of peace and solitude, for the first time on film hermits, monks and nuns in caves, monasteries and convents share this ancient mystical prayer with the outside world. Based on a book The Spiritual Meadow, written in the seventh century, a priest, John Moscos, takes a student, Sophronious, to meet monks seeking spiritual words of wisdom. In the new film and companion book Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer, Very Rev. Dr. John McGuckin and I retrace their steps, bringing the wisdom of both ancient saints and living Christian sages and spiritual masters to you.
We travel to the oldest existing monastery on earth, St. Antony's, in Upper Egypt bringing you inside St. Antony's mountaintop cave where he lived for 46 years. You'll meet the staretz, or living spiritual master, Father Lazarus, and hear his explanation of what exactly this simple prayer is, and how to use it. We bring you along on a journey to Mt. Sinai, the place where God spoke to Moses. We introduce you to the wise old men of St. Catherine's monastery, built in the late fifth century. Seeking only a word and a prayer, we take you to Greece and holy Mount Athos, a peninsula of peace profound where only monks live since the 10th century. As Christian nuns and monks fled to eastern provinces since the fall of Constantinople in 1453, we travel their routes to Eastern Europe, to Romania, Ukraine, Old Russ, and Russia.
Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer is almost finished. Look for it around Easter of next year, but in the meantime, please join us on the journey with a few sneak peeks at www.MysteriesoftheJesusPrayer.com
|
c0sm0nautt

Registered: 05/19/08
Posts: 10,303
Loc: The Astral Realm
|
Re: Ancient Christian Meditation [Re: lines]
#12885230 - 07/12/10 12:05 AM (13 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
Cool! Too bad they don't give us the transcript of the prayer. It's a shame mainstream Christianity doesn't have something similar to the Buddhist mantra - something simple yet holding much numinosity. I remember the first time I sat with Om Mani Padme Hum... well actually I posted about it here, hehe. http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/10729402#10729402
|
lines
Stranger


Registered: 08/06/08
Posts: 1,409
Loc: USA
Last seen: 3 years, 9 months
|
Re: Ancient Christian Meditation [Re: c0sm0nautt]
#12885256 - 07/12/10 12:13 AM (13 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Prayer
Thats the prayer right tehre, the wiki article says the words of the prayer and its history.
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 1 day
|
Re: Ancient Christian Meditation [Re: lines]
#12893199 - 07/13/10 02:36 PM (13 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|

Eastern Orthodox Christianity, as practiced by the mystic monks of Mt. Athos, Greece, use The Writings of the Philokalia (Love of Beauty/The Good). The exercises are phenomenologically similar the to certain Hindu and Buddhist Yogas, utilizing breathing, following the breath from head to lungs, visualizations, and repetitive prayer. I picked up this copy in Troy, NY in 1976, and learned to use it as the anonymous pilgrim in this book, which I Highy recommend for anyone interested in mystical Christianity:
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
|
lines
Stranger


Registered: 08/06/08
Posts: 1,409
Loc: USA
Last seen: 3 years, 9 months
|
|
I heard about those guys beforee but I never knew what their specific practices were. Those books look really interesting.
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 1 day
|
Re: Ancient Christian Meditation [Re: lines]
#12893425 - 07/13/10 03:29 PM (13 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
"You know that our breathing is the inhaling and exhaling of air. The organ that serves for this is the lungs that lie round the heart, so that the air passing through them thereby envelops the heart. Thus breathing is a natural way to the heart. And so, having collected your mind within you, lead it into the channel of breathing through which air reaches the heart and, together with this inhaled air, force your mind to descend into the heart and to remain there."
Poem / quote n° 2810 : Nicephorus the Solitary, Christianity, Orthodoxy Source : Nicephorus the Solitary, adapted from Writings from the Philokalia on the Prayer of the Heart, translated by E. Kadloubosky and G. E. H. Palmer (London: Faber & Faber, 1990).
http://www.onelittleangel.com/wisdom/quotes/saint.asp?mc=301
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
|
lines
Stranger


Registered: 08/06/08
Posts: 1,409
Loc: USA
Last seen: 3 years, 9 months
|
|
Another relation between breathing and the heart is is that often people who have lung diseases they will develope heart problems.
|
blewmeanie




Registered: 10/01/06
Posts: 28,984
Loc:
|
Re: Ancient Christian Meditation [Re: lines]
#12893591 - 07/13/10 04:11 PM (13 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 1 day
|
Re: Ancient Christian Meditation [Re: lines]
#12895690 - 07/13/10 11:17 PM (13 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
Uh, yeah. I was in my cardiologist's office today and saw medical literature on cardio-pulmonary disease, but obviously the two systems are integrally related. The heart pumps blood through the lungs for gas exchange, which in turn effects every cell of the body. The spiritual stuff might start with the physical, but passes through the Subtle and Causal planes, where all components take on more energetic and less physical characteristics.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
|
Forever White Belt
Stranger


Registered: 04/27/10
Posts: 237
Last seen: 4 years, 6 months
|
|
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said:

Eastern Orthodox Christianity, as practiced by the mystic monks of Mt. Athos, Greece, use The Writings of the Philokalia (Love of Beauty/The Good). The exercises are phenomenologically similar the to certain Hindu and Buddhist Yogas, utilizing breathing, following the breath from head to lungs, visualizations, and repetitive prayer. I picked up this copy in Troy, NY in 1976, and learned to use it as the anonymous pilgrim in this book, which I Highy recommend for anyone interested in mystical Christianity:

How its possible to find books like these where I live I don't know... But Thank you once again Markos for pointing out good books!! Im still knee deep in the alchemy books you pointed out a while back!!
-------------------- The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. J. B. S. Haldane The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world. Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
|
Freedom
Pigment of your imagination



Registered: 05/26/05
Posts: 5,851
Last seen: 34 minutes, 44 seconds
|
|
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: "You know that our breathing is the inhaling and exhaling of air. The organ that serves for this is the lungs that lie round the heart, so that the air passing through them thereby envelops the heart. Thus breathing is a natural way to the heart. And so, having collected your mind within you, lead it into the channel of breathing through which air reaches the heart and, together with this inhaled air, force your mind to descend into the heart and to remain there."
Poem / quote n° 2810 : Nicephorus the Solitary, Christianity, Orthodoxy Source : Nicephorus the Solitary, adapted from Writings from the Philokalia on the Prayer of the Heart, translated by E. Kadloubosky and G. E. H. Palmer (London: Faber & Faber, 1990).
http://www.onelittleangel.com/wisdom/quotes/saint.asp?mc=301
I was just reading this:
Shambhala The Sacred Path of the Warrior
Specifically a chapter about the heart, which contains:
Quote:
When you slouch, you are trying to hide your heart, trying to protect it by slumping over. But when you sit upright but relaxed in the posture of meditation, your heart is naked. Your entire being is exposed - to yourself, first of all, but to others as well. So through the practice of sitting still and following your breath as it goes out and dissolves, you are connecting with your heart.
I was surprised to read this chapter because it seems the foundation from Trungpa's perspective is to connect with the heart, through breath, but I've never heard that described as the purpose of breath meditation before.
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 1 day
|
Re: Ancient Christian Meditation [Re: Freedom]
#12898138 - 07/14/10 01:49 PM (13 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
Posture manifests the inner. There is a difference between 'posturing' from ego, puffed-up, chest out, stomach-in, and being led by the Heart, like one has a Sacred Heart just outside one's chest, drawing one forward. I strive for 'counselor transparency' in my field, which is opposite of 'analytical obscurity.' The analyst never addresses personal questions, but remains darkened so as to be a screen for projections - the transference. Transparency is true nakedness. People get physically naked, have impersonal sex, but have no idea what it means to be naked (like in the Beatle's White Album, Revolution 9, about acid - "It makes you naked.") Shut out light, shut out love.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
|
|