Does Meditation Lead to Passivity?

I had an interesting conversation recently with Father Ian, an Episcopal priest who serves a nearby community.  Father Ian carries on a significant social action ministry and is very committed to social justice.  As we talked about this newsletter and the Christian forms of meditation, he posed a significant question.  He asked, “Will your efforts to teach meditation lead to a withdrawal from the social problems we are currently facing?”

This question is especially important now, as our country and the world seem to be roiling with political and social turmoil.  The newspapers this morning are reporting that President Trump has been bragging about “taking away the freedom of speech.”  This is simply the latest of many elements in the political disruption caused by the new administration.  In the face of these kinds of challenges, Father Ian’s question must be taken very seriously.

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Father Ian’s concern is made more poignant when you understand the history behind it.  In the 17^th century, in both the Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions, two complementary movements arose and gained great traction with believers.  Pietism for the Protestants focused on devotional Bible reading in small groups for the purpose of deepening one’s personal relationship with God.  Inner transformation was valued here over theological precision.  The early Methodist movement, with its emphasis on small groups meeting with a spiritual elder, was an example of this Pietist movement.

Quietism was a similar movement within the Catholic Church, emphasizing inner stillness and contemplation.  The notion here was that the soul should remain passive and receptive, letting God do his work within each believer’s soul.  Here, especially, there was a focus on surrendering one’s personal, ego-driven desires, and contemplative prayer was seen as the highest form of Christian devotion.

With both Pietism and Quietism, followers tended to withdraw from the world and worldly activities.  In contrast with those around them at the time, their activities seemed passive.  Rather than actively participate in social or political controversies, these followers of Jesus withdrew from the events of their day.  Father Ian’s concern, if I understand him accurately, is a concern that the events of our day call forth a very different response from the faithful.

There is indeed some truth to the notion that the more one deepens in meditation, the more one withdraws from the events of this world.  That being said, the situation is far more nuanced, and these nuances cry out to be explored, given our current fragmented political situation.

The central teaching that permeates our Lord’s work on this earth is the centrality of love.  Jesus enjoins us to love God with all our hearts, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  In case his followers didn’t understand exactly what he meant by love, he showed them by consorting with the most despised members of his society.  He broke bread with the poor.  He hung out with tax collectors, including the tax collector Matthew who is reputed to have written the gospel. 

Jesus appears to have avoided both the political and religious aristocracies of his time.  There are no accounts of Christ having dinner with the powerbrokers, the elite, or the wealthy.  In fact, he tells the story of a rich man wanting to throw a party and sending his servants to invite the powerful and well-to-do.  These so-called ‘fortunates’ all refuse his invitation, so he sends his servants out a second time to invite the poor and the destitute.  These are the people with whom Jesus typically rubs shoulders.

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So let’s bring this to the present day.  In virtually every newsletter I have written, I have encouraged you to meditate daily.  Given Jesus’s example, we need to look at what meditation does.  Does it, in fact, open our hearts to the kind of love that Jesus describes, or does it push us, willy-nilly, into an avoidance of the world around us?  Here is what I have found from my own experience of meditating for decades.

I started to meditate in the late 60s, another period of great political and social upheaval.  During those days, I saw myself as a revolutionary; I took part in marches and demonstrations, and I called for the violent overthrow of our government.  In addition to these political proclivities, I had the explicit of agenda of wanting to draw closer to God.  In my understanding at that time, this also meant withdrawing from the political agitation I had been involved with.  My pursuit of a closer relationship with God was clearly ego driven; I wanted that experience for my own selfish gratification.  As a result, I felt I had to turn my back on the world and the needs of others. 

This isn’t something I am proud of, but I suspect that this ego-centered approach probably underlies most people’s turning to God.  We simply find that the world is not satisfying, so we turn to God for our own self-satisfaction.  If you can step back a pace, it’s really kind of ironic.  You begin your spiritual journey to satisfy your ego’s drive to be special, but as you continue, you discover your connection with every other living thing.  You realize you’re not so special after all, and as a result, you end up relinquishing the ego.

As you continue to deepen your journey, you find your heart being opened in strange and unexpected ways.  You see a video clip on television of a building being bombed or a starving child with a distended belly and tears falling from his eyes, and you weep.  Slowly, and without noticeable markers, you find your heart being changed.  When you see someone else’s pain, you find yourself being touched more and more deeply.  You find that their pain has become your pain too.

Ultimately, this pain forces you to change your ego-driven ways.  You find yourself more and more concerned with the needs of others.  You begin to change your selfish behaviors, and sometimes you even surprise yourself with these changes.  It’s no longer enough to have your precious quiet time with God.  You have to DO something.  You feel called to make a difference in some way.

This is the result of your efforts to be more and more open to the Divine.  Your spiritual practice has opened you to an awareness of your ego’s domination over your behavior.  As you become aware of your extreme self-centeredness, you are naturally repulsed.  You find yourself backing away from these self-centered behaviors.  The love which has been engendered in your heart starts finding ways to express itself.  Maybe you find yourself signing a petition; maybe you find yourself donating money to alleviate someone’s pain.  Whatever the means that this love is expressed, you find yourself caring less about your own needs and more and more for the needs of others.

The central feature of all spiritual journeys is an increasing openness to the interconnection of all living beings.  That is to say, the central feature of the spiritual journey is the development of love – putting the satisfaction of our own personal needs aside so that we can address the needs of others.  As Jesus summed it up so concisely, “Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for another.”

This kind of love is diametrically opposed to rock throwing and slogan shouting.  It’s diametrically opposed to masking your face and hiding.  It’s diametrically opposed to running away from confrontations with the authorities and those in power.  These behaviors are simply ego driven, and that’s clear for everyone to see.

The kind of love which Jesus describes is open and comes from the heart.  It’s slow to anger.  It is nonviolent, just as Gandhi and Martin Luther King have shown us.  And it’s far more difficult to love in this way, because it requires a change of heart.  It doesn’t find its origin in anger; its origins come from opening our hearts and receiving God’s love.

So, the bottom line as I understand it is that regular meditation will slowly and gently open your heart to God’s love.  This involves a twofold behavior change.  First, we change our behavior by incorporating meditation as a regular part of our daily life.  This change is typically driven by our desire to draw closer to God.  The important point to notice here is that we start meditation as a result of our egos’ desires.  

Second, as God gently opens our hearts, we find that there is more love in our lives.  This increase in love sensitizes us to the pain that others are experiencing.  The more we feel this pain, the more we are moved to address and resolve it.  We are moved in this way because it is no longer somebody else’s pain – somebody out there.  It has now become our own pain.  And, like Gandhi and Dr. King, we find that we cannot rest as long as others are being persecuted.

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Examining this process, we find that the love that Jesus speaks of is quite different from our popular conceptions of love.  The popular conception of love seems to revolve around butterflies and happiness, and looking at the world through rose- colored glasses.  It has nothing to do with self-sacrifice, and often revels in self-indulgence.  It is the opposite of Christ’s sacrifice of himself on the cross.

Going deeper, Christ’s most significant sacrifice was not so much the sacrifice of his body.  Rather, the deepest and most difficult sacrifice was that of his ego.  We see this in his prayers in the garden of Gethsemane, when he reportedly sweats blood and asks his father to take the cup he is about to drink, namely his looming crucifixion, away from him if possible.

It’s strange, isn’t it, that if we truly follow Jesus, we will need to submit to a crucifixion.  Ours is not a crucifixion on a visible cross; rather, our crucifixion happens, moment by moment, as we relinquish our selfishness and the demands of our ego.  As each of you know, this is a difficult road that we travel.  However difficult it may be, we can be confident in our Lord’s continued guidance and care.

I hope this addresses Father Ian’s concern, and any concerns that you might have had about the path that lies ahead and our ultimate destination.  We are the Lord’s people, and we are his possession, not our own.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

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That’s all for this week.  Again, I encourage you to continue with your daily meditation practice.  You will find instructions in this regard in some of our previous newsletters.  So, if you are one of our newer subscribers, you may want to dig into our archives.  In our past newsletters, specifically in #5, 7, 21, 27, and 33, you will find instruction in several of the traditional forms of Christian meditation.  All of the practices you’ll find in this newsletter have been developed by those spiritual elders who have come before us.  You can trust that their continued practice will ultimately bring you into union with God.

With love,

P.S.  Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class.  If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web.  If you have an interest, please write me at [email protected]. 

Humility as a Tool  → Letting go → Fear → Openness →  Acceptance & Growth

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