Meditation is fundamental and essential to Christianity. In Christianity sin means to "miss the mark." That is, to sin means that one is not aligned with the intentions of God for your life. All too often sin is interpreted as moral failure. But one doesn't sin because one fails or transgresses morally; one fails morally because one first sins. But what is sin?
If sin means 'missing the mark', this means that one has fallen off the path of living according to one's faith, belief and commitment. In the Kath-Upanishad it asserts that "the path to salvation is narrow and as difficult to walk as the razor's edge." The same is surely true in Christianity although sometimes Christians seem to understand it to be a kind of "comfortable Christianity" in which a quick repetition of a confessional acceptance of Christ as your Lord and Savor is sufficient. I suspect this isn't the case. It is well necessary but not sufficient.
It seems to me that the God of Love requires a communion with the truth of that love and a oneness with Divine Being. In short it invites one to be in communion with that Love itself as one's very own being and way of being-in-the-world. The place of meditation is to establish and maintain this communion. After all, in the Gospel of St. John, chapter 14: 19, John writes, the "spirit of His Truth" will help and guide us. Here John refers to the Holy Spirit as our Advocate. It continues:
"The world cannot accept him (the spirit of the truth of the Christ), because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long the world will not see me but you will see me. Because I live you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me and I am in you."
In that last line of quotation from John, he punctuates the Oneness of the Father Divine, Jesus as the Christ who is one with God and in us,and finally, you and me who are in Christ. This "trinity" is fundamental. It is here that meditation is that practice of communion in which one realizes this Oneness with Christ and God. Any prayer which addresses God or petitions God must come from this place. It is meditation that brings us to that place, the place in which God may be authentically addressed and listened to in prayer. Finally in that "communion" of meditation, prayer and meditation become one. Father, Christ and Disciple are united in the Holy Spirit of Godhead. One abides in meditation and one's life becomes a living prayer.
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