Do you ever meditate? If so, think about who taught you, and how you do it. Do you ever pray? If so, think about who taught you and how you do it.

For many of us raised Christian, we learned to pray in church. Prayer was thanking God or praising God or asking God. It was done with words, sometimes said in unison or by the pastor on behalf of all.

Many of us learned to meditate later in life, when we discovered Eastern religions.    Meditation was a structured experience; using some technique to go within where we could sense, feel, understand the Divine.

The “Meditation Station” defines the difference this way as saying that “during prayer, we ask God for something … during meditation, God speaks to us.”

The Shalem Institute says that contemplative prayer is a “loving quality of presence in which one is open to things just as they are.” Meditation is when is doing something structured – such as repeating a mantra.

Anne Lamott says there are two prayers: “Help me, help me, and help me.” And “thank-you, thank you thank you.” Robert Benson says “I try to remember that all of my time in prayer has not been glorious, and so the fact that things are not so glorious, does not release me from my obligation to say prayers.”

Not all prayer is verbal. Dorothy Day said that she sometimes had no words for prayer, but needed to pray with action, like feeding the poor.

 

Does Swedenborg distinguish prayer and meditation in his writings? Yes!   In Arcana #2535, he says:

Swedenborg sees the Lord’s Prayer as especially powerful.

The ideas of my thought were then always opened toward heaven, and countless things flowed in, so that I observed clearly that the ideas of thought taken from the contents of the Prayer were filled from heaven. And such things were also poured in as cannot be uttered …A 6619

 Swedenborg seems to see prayer as speech with God primarily for the benefit of another.

He sometimes uses “meditation” in a negative sense:

Other times he uses “meditation” as a kind of union with God:

Pleasure in these sights, I came into my spirit. TC 1, 112

Neurotheology  looks at prayer and meditation in terms of our brain. The field of Neurotheology:   combines the study of brain with theology. Many of these studies look at prayer ad meditation as one, and see that they produce brain change.

Here is one recent study:
Spiritual healers from around the world – including Jews leaving prayers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Buddhists praying in monasteries in Nepal and France, Carmelite nuns in Baltimore offering prayers during vespers, and Moravians, Baptists and fundamental Christians praying during church – each simultaneously prayed for one of several designated groups in the study.

All of the groups did better than the standard care group, with those receiving distant prayers doing best.

These studies are confirming that people are able to influence the health and well-being of people being prayed for, even across great distances, and even when those doing the praying do not know the people they are praying for.

Numerous experiments involving prayer and distant healing have also been done involving animals and plants. One such study found that healers can increase the healing rate of wounds in mice.

“Critics often complain that if you see positive results in humans it is because of positive thinking, or the placebo response,” said Dr. Larry Dossey, a retired internist in Santa Fe, N.M., and author of numerous books on spirituality and healing. “Microbes don’t think positively, and are not subject to the placebo response.”

This approach of Swedenborg’s appeals to me.  I see prayer s extremely important in life.  But, yet, to pray to God is to see God and me as a dualism. Praying utilizes the dualism, rather then making it disappear.  Praying is the dualistic approach to God that has powerful effects on our own healing and that of others.

Swedenborg speaks of the regeneration process as leading us into oneness with the Divine, to the Divine Human or God-man.

It seems that most writers see prayer as a useful and important form of dualism that has powerful healing effects on others.

Yet, Swedenborg also sees as regeneration as increasingly moving beyond the dualism.  I wonder if “union” itself is a form of prayer.  Perhaps it is a force for healing.  Phineas Quimby said that he brought about healing by moving beyond dualism in his mind, and teaching others to do the same.

 

I invite you to explore this topic with me this month.  What are your experiences with prayer and meditation?  Are they each an important and distinct part of our relationship with God?  Can we use both states for healing ourselves, others, and the planet?

Our opening song was a beautiful Christian hymm about seeing Jesus in the garden as separate from me.  This is a zen meditation garden.  How do you experiece it?