Tru History of Meditation
If you thought Buddha invented meditation, you’re in for a surprise! If you thought I am an anti-Buddha geek, you’ve already become judgmental. But let’s look at the true origins of Meditation in 2 perspectives.
Meditation as a vanilla technique to focus the mind.
Meditation as a spiritual technique to focus on things above.
Meditation as a vanilla technique to focus the mind came a bit later so let’s focus on Meditation as a spiritual technique. Even before that lets understand what “Meditation” means first.
Meditation is a 3 step process.
Rest your mind.
Put the gazillion things going around you to rest in your mind.
Focus your mind on one thing.
Interestingly enough, the Creator built in the process of meditation into creation. In the Christian Bible, Genesis 2, which is immediately after creation, it reads
“2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”.
Isn’t it fascinating that God setup rest as part of the process! If you read the Bible, there are tonnes of passages where the Creator God asked man to rest and meditate (Thats coming in another article). The Christian Meditation is slightly different from the 3 step process that I defined previously.
Christian Meditation is a 3 step process.
Rest your mind.
Put the gazillion things going around you to rest in your mind.
Focus your mind on one thing - the Almighty God!
But, in saying all of this, I don’t want to discredit the Buddha. Its like that thing that you always had but never knew you had unless someone pointed out to you that you had it. 4000 years later after creation, the Buddha, a gentile, re-invented this technique - to calm the mind and focus on one thing.