Silence

Meditation is not necessary for salvation. You don’t have to meditate to have a good life or be a good person. The truth is silent prayer is not for everyone. You can run from or otherwise avoid silence and still be perfectly and unconditionally loved by God for all your days. Those things are all true. 

These things are also true. If you want to go deeper on the spiritual journey silent prayer is a reliable portal into the depths. If you adopt a daily practice of silent prayer you are all but assured of growing in your relationship with God. There seems to be a point on the spiritual journey past which you cannot go without some sort of contemplative prayer practice. The key move in a contemplative prayer practice is letting go. Learning to let go may well be the skill that most helps you in life.

Silence and silent prayer is a possibility for you. Union with God is a gift waiting for you in the silent depths of your own soul where you and God are one in the silence.

There are no guarantees with silent prayer, but it is highly likely that your life will get better if you commit yourself to a discipline of meditation. 

Warning: a better life in the contemplative dimension is not a less turbulent life. A better life is defined as one in which the turbulence of life has less control over you. The tyranny of misfortune evaporates over time as you exercise your letting go muscle in the silence.

If you want to start a silent prayer practice I always say start with what you will do. If you set your goal too high, that is, beyond what you will do, then you won’t do it and what’s the point of that? It’ll just be one more thing you’re not doing. I started my silent prayer practice with two minutes of silence. For you it might be 1 minute, or thirty seconds. It doesn’t matter how long it is, all that matters is that you do it. Some teachers say that’s wrong. Maybe it is. I don’t know what’s wrong, I just know what worked for me. I started with two minutes once a day because I knew I would and could do that. My practice is now 20 minutes twice a day, and it is the most important thing in my life. Everything else, all my relationships and all my work rests on the foundation of my silent prayer practice which is my relationship with God and the nurturance of that relationship. Everything in my life springs forth from and returns to the presence of God in the silence.

You don’t have to meditate. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You are loved as is, forever. Don’t change a thing if you don’t want to or you’re not ready to. God’s love for you will never change, no matter what. However, if you want to dip your toe into the silence. Don’t be afraid. Come on in, the water’s fine.