A Look at Prayer and Meditaiton

If Prayer is Talking to God . . .
Is meditation listening?

Woman Praying

I wasn't brought up in a particularly religious fashion. I watched my mother's mother start her day by lighting a cigarette and saying the rosary along with the Cardinal on the radio. My mother, who grew up Catholic and went to Mass every day as a girl, now lights candles and says prayers at the chapel in the mall.

I sometimes went to church with my grandmother, my father's mother, who was the church organist and choir director at the Methodist church. She also ran the church fair each summer. As I was growing up, my father was in search of inspiration on Sundays, he took me on trips visiting every Protestant church within an hour's drive looking for a minister with a message.

My prayers back then were probably the short prayers like, "Help Me," or "Help them," or "Thank you," and maybe I begged for favors, and made deals with God if things would go a certain way. I occasionally said grace when we ate with our grandparents. Before I was a teenager, my cousins, who were evangelical Christians, regularly called me a heathen. I wasn't sure what that meant, but it didn't sound good.

As a meditation teacher with a 20+ year formal meditation practice, I find that prayer has become more essential for me, and it evolves constantly. A few years ago I began the practice of praying before I meditate. With eyes closed, I settle my awareness in my heart center. Sometimes I say a prayer of thanksgiving, or ask for something, other times I pray for insight into a situation or for relief of the suffering of others.

The prayer I find the most peaceful is "Thy will be done." And the prayer I say most often, as I sit with my eyes closed, is "Come to me", praying or inviting the direct experience of God or Love. Then I let the prayer go and begin my meditation. The more I mediate, the more I want to experience God directly.

Have you ever heard the saying, "Prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening"? I loved it the first time I heard it years ago, but the more I meditate, the more I feel the saying isn't quite right. Yes, prayer is talking to God. But the meditation I do is best described as a way to relieve the build-up of stress in my mind and body.

I don't have an extraordinarily stressful life, but my busy work schedule, impurities in the environment, and ideological conflicts can cause stress. Sometimes my stress is caused by not completely digesting my food, not getting a good night's sleep, ignoring the wisdom of my body, or not feeling my emotions when they come up.

Stress creates physical impacts, but it can also trigger reactionary emotional or mental responses. It can change our perception and limits the ability to see possibilities in each moment. Stress can also dim our experience of the sweetness of life and can get in the way of inner peace.

Meditation helps to dissolve the stress layer that can build up if not dealt with. In meditation the nervous system settles down, and this allows the release of stress and impurities. Then we can become more attuned to subtleties and our sensitivity increases. Sensitivity and silence are important benefits of meditation, and are required to be good listeners. The poet William Blake wrote, "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up and sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."

Sages who meditated daily in ancient times (and even some today) had very refined nervous systems. Meditation made it easy for them to tune into their intuitive intelligence. The Sanskrit term for this is buddhi, a word that describes our true wisdom - an inner wisdom that is distinguished from the mind, or intellect and ego.

These days the common word for this inner wisdom is intuition, a word derived from the Latin intuitio which means seeing within. Intuition isn't always about seeing with your mind's eye; some people listen to their internal wisdom - they hear a whisper or a shout. And there are others who feel a physical response to a question or a choice. Whether you use it or not, you have it. Everyone does.

So yes, prayer is talking to the divine, however, I find meditation getting ready to listen. It is a practice that purifies and refines the nervous system so as we walk through the world, we are more sensitive and have a greater sense of peace. We can more easily attune to the wise whispers of our soul or those of the divine. This is when I believe we should be listening. What do you think?

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