March 2007 Update:
By Dr. J. Daniel Robinson
Professor of Pharmacy and Medicine
University of Florida
Minister of Spiritual Direction
Quiet Prayer is a process of losing our addiction to our thoughts and coming into the presence of the divine within ourselves and the greater Divine. We use our soul to begin watching how busy our minds are. Once we observe this process, the thought flow naturally begins to slow and our bodies become more restful and peaceful. Many people over the centuries have experienced this process and have called it many different terms. Some have called it contemplative prayer or meditation. The tradition has been practiced by many prophets, mystics and laity over the years.
All the great spiritual leaders e.g. Buddha, Mohammed, and Jesus practiced Quiet Prayer. Jesus often did as the ancient prophets did when he deliberately chose in his mind to exile his body into the “creation of nature” and find silence of his body and mind to nourish his soul. He did this for forty days prior to beginning and all during his ministry he would remove himself from the crowds. He would go into the mountains to be alone to quiet himself, listen and enjoy the presence and love of what he referred to as his Father. By doing so Jesus was teaching his followers to do the same by example since he is held up by many as a model of the highest form of spiritual living.
Even while Jesus remained with his followers he would listen for the prompting of the Spirit within him. When there was healing, he would remind those who were healed that it was their faith of something unseen within themselves that was healing them, a great mystery. When Jesus left this earth, he told his followers that “It is better that I leave so that I can leave my Spirit within each of you” (John 16:7). This is the same Spirit that can guide us into the presence of the divine for eternal wisdom and healing.
A positive attitude toward Quiet Prayer was present during the first fifteen centuries of the Christian era. The “church” was loosely knit and allowed individual followers to actually follow the direct teachings of Jesus.
When theologians have traced the history of “Quiet Prayer”, they often lost some of its meaning depending upon the purpose of their search. The Greek Fathers e.g. Origen highly prized “the intellectual vision of truth” or “theoria”. When they came across the Hebrew word for being in the presence of the holy, “da’ath”, they chose the word “gnosis” to place in the Greek Bible. Gnosis means the knowledge of something involving the whole person. This was more accurate than “theoria” which restricted it more to the mind and didn’t include the body and soul. However, it didn’t embrace the true essence of “da’ath” which includes love.
When the followers of Jesus asked him to tell them about Abba, rather than using adjectives, Jesus decided to tell them a now famous story. By giving them a story he was probably hoping to show them more than mere words can say. He told them the Prodigal Son story whose major theme is the magnanimous, ever forgiving, deep, affectionate love of Abba for us as brought out in the story. The Greek word for this is “agape”. The early Christians began using the word “grace” for this unmerited, deep affectionate divine love. So the Hebrew word “da’ath” means to come through prayer into the presence of quiet grace. Although there may be others, we need no other purpose for Quiet Prayer than to give and receive grace.
Since Genesis states that we are made in the creator’s image, male and female, it is safe to assume that the divine has masculine and feminine traits. In order to include both I will refer to the creative, loving Abba as the Divine. Feel free anytime I use this word to substitute the word you prefer to use. To come into this Divine presence is promised to everyone by Jesus when he said that he would leave his Spirit with each one of us. In order to get to this point we must quiet our egocentric mind.
This pilgrimage to our authentic Self as created by the Divine is a call to follow Jesus out of all the structures, security blankets, and even spiritual practices that serve as props. They are all left behind if they are part of our pretend-self system. We can forgive ourselves for depending upon this pretend self to get us by for the first part of our life. We now need to move past this point and use our true Self and Jesus as our model for true humility. Humility is the forgetfulness of our old self for the moment. To forget self is the most difficult job for us on earth, but we must learn “Not to try.” Only our faith brings our pretend self to an end. It goes by our letting it go to whatever image we have for the great Divine.
The pretend self is an illusion that we created within ourselves for survival a long time ago. It served us well when our adult self wasn’t there to protect us, but it is no longer needed. “Do not hinder the children from coming to me, for such is the Kingdom of God”, Jesus told his disciples (Matthew 19:14). We are return to our childlike innocence before we put on this pretense. We can now use something much stronger, our true Self. It is our way of conceiving who we are and what the world is. “The one who loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39) (Open Mind Open Heart, Thomas Keating, 1992)
The love of the divine will take care of the rest of the journey. However, we are invited to take the first step in faith, experiment and see if we feel comfortable with this divine love. We are allowed to reject it if we choose. It is our free will to be brought into this. It would be counterfeit love if it were forced upon us and be no different in principle from our pretend self.
Establishing our true Self proves our sincerity. Matthew 19:14 may have an additional context, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”. Jesus wanted little children to come because he loves them and because they have the kind of attitude needed to approach the Divine. Jesus said this before a crowd of sophisticated religious leaders who were letting their education stand in the way of the simple faith and humility needed to believe.
This tradition was summarized well by Gregory the Great in the Sixth Century when he described the Latin translation “contemplatio” of “da’ath as the knowledge of the Divine that is impregnated with love. For Gregory, contemplation is the fruit of the reflection on the how the Divine is revealed through scripture and at the same time is a gift. It is a “resting” in the Divine. In this resting or stillness the mind is not actively seeking the Divine but is beginning to experience the taste of what it has been seeking.
In the Middle Ages St. Francis of Assisi found the Divine revealed in nature. St. Francis loved all the creatures who in turn seemed to trust and love him in return. By example St. Francis seemed to be saying to us that the Divine is revealed every day to us in the creation of nature in which we are a part. We can experience this when we place ourselves within its midst. The Celtics integrated the concepts of putting Holy Scripture to music within the context of nature. They capitalized on all the senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. They brought the tabernacle to the wilderness and the monastery to the vineyard in metaphorical as well as many literal ways.
The Celtics built upon the scripture that describes Jesus’ body after his resurrection, “Mary,…Do not touch me, for I have not yet returned to the Father…. I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. (John 20:16,17)” The Celtics of Ireland envisioned that when we received the Spirit of the Divine that Jesus promised that our Soul is in the shape of our body and houses our body (Anam Cara - A Book of Celtic Wisdom, John O’Donohue, 1997). This strong energy field interestingly corresponds to what is taught by all the Eastern mystics and has since been validated by modern Western medical scientists.
The Celtics further envisioned something very similar to the Eastern mystics that the mind must become quiet and still, and be seen as the servant of the soul and the body, not its master. This is exactly what Jesus taught. Therefore, once we train our soul to become the observer of the “busy-ness” of our bodies and minds and allow them to quiet, we can allow the creation of nature, the Word of the Divine, the soothing of music, and the Love of the Presence of the Divine to nurture our souls (Eternal Echoes, John O’Donohue, 1999).
In praying the Rosary the Catholics have integrated the feminine of the Mother Mary into the opening of the soul to Quiet Prayer. The movement of the fingers upon the beads as they gently touch the Rosary is important to the body and the subconscious mind. This movement mysteriously frees the soul to listen for the Spirit to move within as scripture is cited, prayers are said, and the mind is quieted. This is a very powerful prayer tradition for millions of people around the world. It creates sacred space within the body similar to the outward movement of walking the labyrinth.
Tradition in the monasteries over the centuries has shown that Quiet Prayer for a minimum of 45 minutes in the morning and in the early evening brings connection with the Divine and inner peace throughout the day and night. Lay people have found a similar practice creates a similar result. Leaders in this field have found in America that about one-half the people enjoy sitting still while the remainder prefer walking in nature or in a labyrinth. Walking the prayer labyrinth allows the body to move along in a slow rhythm to leave behind the cares of the world, reach the center to symbolize centering the Self within the embrace of the Divinity, and then walking outward in a sacred manner to meditate and reflect upon the experience of centering the soul. With continual practice the presence of the Divine replaces our pretend self with the gifts of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22,23).
A useful psychological tool for modern times to help calm our anxieties and quiet our bodies from all the noise in our environment is “Active Imagination”. It can serve as a gateway from our hectic, busy American lives whether we are on retreat or remain at work or home. We can close our eyes, imagine ourselves in a natural setting and use any one of several techniques taught by Thomas Keating and other spiritual teachers. When Active Imagination is used to bring us into the presence of the Divine, it is called, “Centering Prayer”. It is a contemporary form of prayer of the heart that reduces obstacles so that we can receive the gift of contemplative prayer more easily without requiring us to live in a monastery.
I have taught Centering Prayer for over 12 years to hundreds of laity and ministers on retreats as well as those who have come to me for spiritual direction. Most have spoken afterwards something like, “I have never before felt so relaxed in the powerful presence of the Divine.” Centering Prayer only takes a few minutes to do. Obviously not because I was there, but because they were truly present and of course the Spirit of the Divine is always present to us. If you haven’t tried it, you may want to experience it for yourself and see if you feel a closeness with the Divine that many others have experienced. Centering Prayer is an excellent way to quietly lead into reading scripture and other forms of prayer. It is also an excellent gateway into Contemplative Prayer practiced by the monks and the Catholic, protestant and Eastern mystics for centuries. If you were invited by the President of the United States to be his private personal guest for a quiet lunch on the Potomac would you accept? How about a quiet dinner alone in Paris with the Queen of Great Britain? How about a quiet breakfast with the Creator of the Universe?
Centering Prayer
1. Set aside a sacred place where you can go before you begin each day while you are fresh. This can be the same place for the early evening or it may be different if necessary if this is your freshest time of the day. Light a candle as a symbol of invitation. Whisper an invitation for the Holy Spirit to fill this sacred space with its love, peace and wisdom.
2. Find a comfortable place to sit and breathe in slowly the air of this Holy Spirit of love, peace and wisdom. Imagine it blending with your soul that surrounds your body. Allow your soul to observe as the Spirit fills your soul to overflowing. As it overflows it fills all parts of your lungs, then moves into your heart, which then moves it to all parts of your body including your mind.
3. With each breath your soul, lungs, heart, body, and mind become more and more filled to overflowing with love, peace and wisdom. As you do this your soul will notice certain sensations in you body. Allow all those sensations to flow through your body from wherever they originate to go to the center of your body and then up to your mind. Allow your mind to just love each one of them and restore them back to their source with a warm embrace.
4. As your soul notices various thoughts flowing from your unconscious into your conscious space, generously love them similarly and restore them back to their space. As you do this your soul notices that the flow of thoughts from the unconscious begins to slow slightly. This is okay. Allow the slowing to occur.
5. Imagine your soul is floating down a beautiful, warm, clean peaceful stream of water. This water represents your unconscious love of the Divine around and within you. As your thoughts slowly emerge from this water allow them to softly rest upon beautiful, colorful leaves falling from a blue October sky. Any thoughts which you would like to later revisit let them come to softly rest upon pieces of wood you see drifting around you. You can later gather these pieces of wood at the end of the journey.
6. Continue to drift along in the warm water ever so slowly and peacefully. Eventually you notice as your soul watches your thoughts emerge that they seem to have slowed to a snail’s pace. It feels nice now that you realize you are comfortable just resting inside your soul.
7. Just float drifting along the stream as long as you like.
8. When you are ready, begin collecting any driftwood around you if you like and place it in your pockets and walk slowly out of the stream. Quietly walk onto a soft pathway leading into a beautiful forested meadow.
9. Once inside the meadow you enjoy your quiet walk. As you gently place one foot in front of the other you feel as though your soul is actually moving into the presence of the “Spirit of the Forested Meadow.”
10. As you move along quietly you listen to the gentle breeze in the trees, the smells of the flowers and enjoy the softness of the lush green ferns around your feet.
11. Walking along the path you notice a second path joining yours. The image of someone is walking along peacefully on the other path. This person smiles as it greets you and invites you to sit on a large log along the path.
12. You sit and enjoy each other’s presence. You can feel the warmth and the love of the other. Sit as long as you like, listening for any movement of feelings or words.
13. When you are ready, begin quietly walking slowly along the path to the edge of the forest. Slowly open your eyes and focus on the light of the candle. Reflect on any experiences that you felt. Write down a word or a few phrases that symbolize your journey so that when you see them again they will remind you of your experience.
14. Reflect on the last few journal entries and notice any movements. If you notice any new perspective, make a journal entry.
15. Consider a prayer of thanksgiving. You are now ready to move into “Lectio Divina” or choose from one of the following types of prayer that feel comfortable for you. You may want to experiment with different styles at different points along your journey and in different settings to go with a particular retreat, course of Bible or spiritual study you may be taking.
Lectio Divina
Lectio Divina is a method of “scriptural prayer” proposed for lay persons and monastics alike in the first Christian centuries. Literally it means, “divine reading”. It means that we listen for the Holy Spirit that Jesus left for us in our souls to interpret the holy scripture in our minds. Monastics would repeat the words of the sacred text with their lips so that the body itself entered into the process. This is particularly important in the Celtic tradition to involve the body.
I recommend choosing a particular book in the Bible, e.g. St. John’s Gospel or the Psalms and go in order reading a section each day. The length should be the amount that completes a message for you for that day.
St. Ignatius Style Readings
If the scriptural reading for a particular day involves more than one person, a very popular variant to Lectio Divina is a style used by followers of St. Ignatius beginning in Spain in the Middle Ages. The idea is to read the scripture several times, each time reading it as if you were a different character in a play. You, the reader, imagine what it might have been like to place yourself back into the story at the time it happened take turns being one of the characters each time you read the story. For example, when Jesus told the Prodigal Son parable what it might have been like to be one of the disciples, a member of the crowd, the son, the father, the jealous brother, or even Jesus. If the Holy Spirit is called upon first, this type of reading is very powerful and insightful. It oftentimes demonstrates the many facets hidden inside a story that may only be revealed as we move through life on our spiritual journey.
Meditative Prayer
Meditative prayer is the reflection upon the words of the sacred text. This “sitting with the scripture” allows the Spirit to move within us and open new ways of understanding the full breadth of meaning of the text. It also allows the Spirit time to speak to our soul in a very personal way. There may be some very personal growth messages that can be derived from the scripture that each day presents because of where life circumstances place us on a particular day. Meditative prayer may lead us into a deeper, richer reflection each time we visit the same scripture if our soul continues to grow in terms of understanding.
Oratio
Oration is “affective prayer”. It is the spontaneous movement of the will in response to these reflections of meditation. I oftentimes am so moved by something “that I now see that before I chose not to see”, that I actually speak it out loud. Usually in a soft whisper, but on occasion it has been in a loud “Oh, my gosh!” It feels like an epiphany at times. I am often left in amazement of wondering, “Why has it taken me so long to see something that now seems so obvious now that the Spirit reveals it to me?” I see now probably because I never rested my busy mind long enough to pause and just “rest into it”. I often feel that this is part of what the Sabbath is about.
Contemplative Prayer
Contemplative Prayer is the development of one’s relationship with Christ to the point of communing beyond words, thoughts, feelings, and the multiplication of particular acts. It is a process of moving from the simplified activity of waiting upon the Divine to the ever-increasing predominance of the Gifts of the Spirit as the source of one’s prayer. It defies descriptive words and moves from the mind into the power of the feelings of the body. From there it moves into the luminosity of the soul where experience is the only teacher. It is impossible to explain to someone who has not experienced it, just as it is impossible to explain the taste of a strawberry to someone who has never tasted one. Just as the mystery of the Divine cannot be adequately explained, similarly the mystery of the experience of the Divine defies explanation.
If you can remember a time when you were a child before you heard anything about the Divine, you may actually remember communing with the Divine. Stories “about” the Divine sometimes tend to separate us from our experiences “with” the Divine. Children often experience the Divine quite different from our Old Testament stories about the Divine. Very young children often experience the Divine much like that described by Jesus in the Prodigal Son story if they have loving parents.
Following Centering Prayer and before or after Lectio Divina many often just sit and focus on their breathing or chant a particular sacred word. Some may sit or lie in a very relaxed altered state of consciousness and do or say nothing at all. Some may listen to soothing, spiritual music. This waiting patiently in a relaxed state comes after the thoughts have slowed to nearly non-existent. This Contemplative Prayerful state is very relaxing to the body and mind. It is often more refreshing than sleep. It is a time of nourishment and growth for the soul.
Contemplative Prayer sometimes comes as the rest from close encounters with the Spirit or new insights. But more often it just grows out of a feeling of being loved by the Divine and connecting with our higher Self. It is the warm embrace of moving into the spiritual arms of a very loving Spirit that meets us wherever we happen to be at the moment. There have been some occasions in this state where I have received clarity as to what course my journey is to take. Whether we are feeling elated or broken, sad or joyful, peaceful or anxious, kind or unkind, we are always welcome. We move into this sacred space knowing that we were welcome yesterday and the day before that. It is this practice for the past 18 years that builds my trust. It is not built on a few days of experience, but thousands of days of loving acceptance in the midst of all my own mischief. The divine within us is the gift that Jesus left for us. This acceptance to link the divine within us to the Divine is the promise that Jesus the Christ offers to us all through grace on behalf of the Divine. It is great for me to know that behavioral perfection is unrelated to this great gift and opportunity. Since my faith is weak, my love is not pure, and my ego gets in the way, I have learned to ask the Holy Spirit to give me the faith, love and humility that I need to move into this sacred space. It seems to work.
(History and prayers summarized from Open Mind Open Heart by Thomas Keating, 1992)
