I’ve often heard from adherents of the Dharmic Faiths that their faith is more mystical than their Abrahamic cousins. Meditation is seen in many traditions as being an important path to attaining deeper mystical experiences. Are the insights gained deeper and more profound? Is that really true? What does meditation mean to you and where does it belong in your worldview? Are adherents of the Dharmic Faiths really more mystical and contemplative?
The Bible does teach that one needs to meditate on what they read in God's word. There is a reason why not everyone understands what it says, even when some teachings are very clear and easy to comprehend. For example the Bible teaches that the soul ceases to exist at death, and that death is a sleep-like state, and that there is a future resurrection. But many people, even if you read them a scripture stating that will not understand or believe.
I recently on this board was conversing with someone and quoted various different scriptures that all said the same thing, that the ones called to heavenly life are sleeping in death awaiting the return and manifestation of Jesus Christ to be raised from the dead to heavenly life. The person told me that my interpretation of the scriptures was wrong, even though I wasn't interpreting anything. Just quoting scripture word for word.
The Bible also warns against spiritistic practices. When one clears their mind in rittualistic meditation they leave it open for attack from the unseen, wicked spirit forces.
I will share with you a few scriptures on the subject.
The man of God who reads in an undertone the word of God day and night and pays attention to its word will be happy by doing it:
Happy is the man who does not walk according to the advice of the wicked
And does not stand on the path of sinners
And does not sit in the seat of scoffers.
But his delight is in the law of Jehovah,
And he reads His law in an undertone day and night.
-Psalm 1:1, 2.
Therefore, I appeal to you by the compassions of God, brothers, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, a sacred service with your power of reason.
-Romans 12:1.
In Romans a Christian is told to use his "power of reason." That is ones mental facilities, the ability to think, to ponder, to reason on things and come to correct conclusions. So the abuse of substances that would remove ones ability to think properly, or rituals where one gives up his power of reason would be against the Bible and in fact quite dangerous. For then they leave their minds "swept clean" and open to anything. Jesus stated it this way (talking of unclean wicked spirits that have been expelled from a man):
"Then it says, ‘I will go back to my house from which I moved,’ and on arriving, it finds the house unoccupied but swept clean and adorned. Then it goes and takes along with it seven different spirits more wicked than itself, and after getting inside, they dwell there; and the final circumstances of that man become worse than the first. That is how it will be also with this wicked generation.”
-Matthew 12:44, 45.
The house is the man, his mind. It is unoccupied, so the man even after Jesus having expelled the demons from him does not fill his mind with wholesome spiritual truths from God's word and ponders and absorbs himself in it, leaves his mind empty, much like the mystical spirititisc teaching from the east about emptying ones mind in meditation to be filled with spirits. Who fills that void? Yes, unclean wicked spirit forces.
One more scripture that comes to mind is the admonition Paul gives to Timothy about meditation on God's word:
Ponder over these things; be absorbed in them, so that your advancement may be plainly seen by all people.
-1 Timothy 4:15.
Some Bible translations use the word "meditate" for ponder, the KJV does, if you check the quoted verse on the KJV provided on this board you will see that.
So the meditation on God's word, with his holy spirit, would be deep contemplation on it. This is how God's word is revealed to a person. By his first of all praying for holy spirit, then reading God's word, then asking for understanding, and meditating, that is pondering, being absorbed in it. God's holy spirit knows the requests of the person seeking knowledge, and God gives wisdom freely to those asking him of it, and he will open their minds wide to the wonderful glorious teachings of truth and light!
I would like to go briefly to the type of meditation of many in the world, and who adhere to sprititistic practices, many from the east, where they do just the opposite of filling their minds with wholesome truths from the Bible. Rather they are taught to clear their minds and leave them void so that it may be filled with spirits from outside.
This teaching is found in and stems from Hinduism. The practice of Yoga involves this spiritistic practice. A master of Yoga is known as a Guru. And there are cases of gurus who receives supernatural abilities, possesses, visions, etc. But notice what the father of Yoga states about such. His name was Patanjali, and in his work
Yoga Sutra he says that these powers and abilities come from wicked spirits, he called them evil celestial beings. The swami there is "
warned against striving for such sorcerous powers and stressed the need for totally avoiding them." -
Tantrism, Benjamin Walker, 1985, page 132.
The
Katha Upanishad (1:2:23) teaches that truth cannot be known through scripture, only mystic experiences alone. The Hindu swami Sivandada, quite in contrast to the Bible's admonition to use one's "power of reason" says "Intellect is a hindrance. That which separates you from God is mind."-
The World of Gurus, page 77.
Hindu mystics practice Yogic meditation so they can dull their intellect and experience trances, feelings of ecstasy. Those who attain such a state ares said to have achieved moksha.
By doing such meditation and emptying the mind and deadening ones senses one can see and hear strange things. Some such meditation combined with fasting, drug-taking, isolation, and torturelike activities that deprive the mind and cause hallucinations can be attend by 'mystical' events of the kundalini type.
Some Yogis claim to achieve oneness with the spirit world by such practices of meditation. Here is an interesting observation from R. C. Zaehner in his book
Mysticism Sacred and Profane:
This emptiness is dangerous for this is a ‘house swept and garnished,’ and though it is possible that God may enter in if the furniture is fair, it is equally likely that the proverbial seven devils will rush in if . . . there is no furniture at all.
Gurus even warn new disciples that Yoga can expose its adherents to demonic influence. If the true God were behind such spiritistic practices there would be no need for such warnings would there?
