Christian Mysticism…physical nourishment for mind and body, spiritual nourishment for heart and soul. Christians, atheists, Buddhists and New Age believers may all practice meditation. Some sincere and concerned Christians who did not grow up with a tradition of meditation wonder whether it can be a healthy practice for them.
Yet it shouldn’t surprise us that non-Christians can access the physical blessings of meditation. The enriching physical showers of meditation nourish those who love Him-and they also nourish those who don’t even know He exists! After all…”He sends rain on the just, and on the unjust too”!
Whatever our beliefs may be, we all live in the world God created. Our lives are always better when we walk in the paths He has laid out for us. And meditation, with effects both spiritual and physical, is part of God’s plan.
More and more, research has shown us the positive physical effects associated with meditation. We’ve seen how the healing showers released during meditation are good for mind and body. And there’s nothing wrong with benefiting from that process. Physical blessings are a part of the natural world, here for us to enjoy, and to nourish and bless us.
But meditation is also a powerful way to open our hearts to intimate relatedness with God. When we engage in the physical processes associated with meditation, we begin to touch the edges of God’s plan for our spiritual lives, coming in through the “back door” by way of our psychophysical experience.
Sometimes, people who are seeking meaning and spiritual experience in their lives reject God, but still enjoy the positive physical and emotional effects of meditation. After a while, they experience the growing openness of their heart, and begin to think of their meditation as spiritual. When that happens, they begin to direct their spiritual longing toward their own psychophysical interactions.