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Meditation
A Sermon Given
by Rev. Roger Fritts
on May 18, 2003
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
The power of the mind is the subject of many books and movies. The first
Matrix movie, for example, which came out in 1999 includes a scene where one
child is levitating blocks and another is bending a spoon with the power of
their mind.
When I was a teenager I read books about travels to Asia. I read James
Hilton’s 1933 story, Lost Horizon. Lost Horizon is about four
individuals’ unplanned trip to the mysterious Shangri-La, located in an
isolated location in Tibet. I read Somerset Maughan’s, The Razor’s Edge,
published in 1944, about a young man who travels to India in search of the
meaning of life. I read Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, translated into
English in 1951. It is about the life of Buddha. I read Seven Years in
Tibet, translated into English in 1953, and recently made into a movie.
And I read My Journey to Lhasa written by Alexandra David-Neel, first
published in 1927.
I have never visited India or Nepal or Tibet. However, I have visited a
place where people claim to use meditation to levitate. It is called the "The
Spiritual Center of America." My younger sister lives there.
During my sabbatical three years ago I drove down to Boone, North Carolina
to visit my sister and see for myself the Spiritual Center of America. The
center is part of the 7,000-acre Heavenly Mountain resort established by
followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the man who brought Transcendental
Meditation to the western world. About five million people have studied TM and
there are training centers across America and Europe. I want to tell you a
little about TM today because TM is the McDonald’s or Burger King of
meditation (although this comparison breaks down quicky when you discover that
TM is a strong supporter of vegetarianism).
The Spiritual Center of America also includes the campus of Maharishi
Spiritual University of America, which is accredited by the University of
North Carolina Board of Governors to issue bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral
degrees in Vedic science, the study of consciousness based on classical Hindu
religious writings.
The money for the land came from the inventors of the popular early reading
program "Hooked on Phonics." They sold their program and gave the money to the
TM program to buy the property in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina,
valued at about six million dollars. According to its web site, the Spiritual
Center of America has been created to offer the best of American luxuries in
an atmosphere as serene and pure as the remote forests of the Himalayas.
Permeated by the soft, sweet, nourishing air of deep spirituality [is] . . .
"A sublime air of peace and tranquility, where all the cares and concerns of
daily life melt into an ocean of harmony and nurturing bliss."
The Spiritual Center of America is a beautiful place and the people do look
happy, but you don’t need to go all the way to North Carolina to study TM. In
Bethesda, to become a Transcendental Mediator, you need only call or visit the
Maharishi Peace Palace, located near White Flint Mall. I called the Peace
Palace this week and talked with a friendly, straight forward young man, who
laughed when I told him I was doing a sermon on meditation. He answered my
questions without being defensive and without trying to sell me the program.
At the Peace Palace you can attend introductory lectures on TM. The lectures
are cheerful and encouraging. You will be told that TM is easy, and if done
correctly, it makes a person more blissful and productive.
After the lecture you will be invited to have an interview with a teacher
of TM. The teacher will ask you a little about yourself. She will want to know
if you are on drugs, drink alcohol, or are under psychiatric treatment. You
must be sober and sane, or you will not be taught TM. If you are under
treatment by a psychiatrist, you will be told to come back when the treatment
is complete.
If the teacher thinks you are okay, you will be told to go to a certain
address at a certain time and bring gifts, a handkerchief, some fresh fruit,
flowers, and $2,500 dollars. The money goes to pay expenses and salaries of
the teachers. Someone once told me that when the Maharishi first came to
America back in 1959, he offered to teach people how to meditate for free.
However, the people he taught did not pay attention and did not stick with the
program. So he started charging a fee. He found that if he charged students
they were more likely to learn how to meditate and stick with the meditation
after the teaching was over.
During the private instruction there will be candlelight, incense, and
small pictures of Maharishi and his deceased Indian master. Your teacher will
give you your own private mantra, a sound which, when contemplated, is
intended to enable you to begin your descent into your mind. This giving of
the mantra, usually a Sanskrit word, is the teacher’s special art.
When asked how she knows what sound to give each person, the teacher will
say that it is too complex to explain. Fallen away teachers of TM report that
the secret mantras are assigned based primarily on the mediator’s birthday.
According to TM experts our mind is like the ocean; most of the time we are
floating on the top of the ocean, being tossed and turned by the waves. During
the time a mediator repeats their special mantra for twenty minutes twice a
day she dives deep into the ocean of her mind. The mediator moves away from
the surface into the calm depths below.
Transcendental Mediators have made themselves freely available to
scientists. For example, one study reports that TM reduces risk factors for
high cholesterol and hypertension. A study of health insurance statistics on
more than 2000 people practicing TM over a five-year period, found that
mediators had less than half the number of visits to the doctor and
hospitalizations than other groups of comparable age, gender and profession.
However, although Transcendental Meditation makes some people happier,
healthier and more productive, TM does little to encourage humility. During my
visit to the Spiritual Center of America, I could not shake the feeling that
many Transcendental Mediators are naive, innocent, child-like people who
exaggerate the power of meditation.
We humans have a tendency to regard whatever system of thought we are
currently feeling enthusiasm for as the answer to all the world’s problems.
When we find something that works well for us, there is a tendency to believe
that first, it will work well for everyone, and second that it will solve
almost any human problem. Some Christians think that everybody ought to be
Christian; and if they were, if they could only see the light, the world would
come to live in a state of peace and bliss. Mormons feel a high sense of
obligation to convert non-Mormons to a proper understanding of human life and
destiny.
I suspect that this is a way of thinking that enthusiasts for
Transcendental Meditation have fallen into. On the one hand, meditation is a
good, useful system, worth considering if you are interested in learning
meditation. On the other hand, meditation is not the solution to all the
problems of the world. Some believers in meditation tend to overstate what
meditation can accomplish.
In Philadelphia a researcher has done brain scans on Tibetan monks in
meditation. The scans show decreased activity in the area of the brain that
primarily orients us in space, that part of the brain that keeps track of
which way is up or down, forward or behin, the part of the brain that helps us
judge distances and angles. Our brains interpret the failure to find the
borderline between self and the outside, to mean that such a distinction does
not exist. This may explain why in mediation people feel one with everything.
When people have this experience twice a day, in the morning and in the
evening, they are healthier physically and emotionally.
This morning I can give you some of the basic tools of meditation. I will
not require you to present me with a handkerchief, fresh fruit or flowers.
But, before I list these basic tools for meditation, if you feel moved to
write out a check for $2,500 dollars to support the Cedar Lane Unitarian
Universalist Church I will not object. Certainly writing out such a check will
ensure that you will listen carefully to the rest of my instructions.
First, to meditate we must create an opportunity for quietness. This is
not always easy to do. The hardest part is the deliberate decision to create
quietness and to tell those around us that we want to be alone, that we prefer
not to be interrupted, and that the purpose of this time of quietness is to
permit us to meditate. We feel shy about this admission, as if the desire to
meditate is something to be ashamed of, a confession of an inner weakness or a
selfish desire. But we can choose to see the request for time alone as a sign
of strength. In asking another person for time alone, we are expressing our
knowledge of and gratefulness for that person’s love for us.
Second, to meditate we need to find a comfortable place where our
senses and our mind can be at peace. This may be a room in our house where we
can unplug the phone and sit quietly for half an hour. One space people seem
to like is the chapel of our church. If you are able, you might come by the
church sometime during the week. Often the chapel is empty and quiet, and with
the view of the trees through the windows, it is a wonderful place to pray or
meditate.
Third, to begin our meditation, we need to find a way of cleansing our
mind and our emotions of extraneous, irrelevant thoughts and feelings. We need
to close our eyes, relax our muscles, let our hands relax in our lap and focus
on our breathing.
Fourth, once we feel ready, we turn our attention to a simple verbal
statement that should be memorized before hand. I like these Buddhist words:
Breathing in, I calm my body,
breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment.
Breathing in fresh air is like drinking a cool glass of water. Dwelling in
the present moment, we do not think of anything else. Usually we say if I can
just get through this work week, or if I can just finish school, or if I can
just finish this project, or if I can just hold on until retirement, then I
can relax and really enjoy my life again. We are not capable of being alive in
the present moment. We often postpone being alive to the future. We may never
be truly alive in our entire life. Meditation helps us be present in the
moment, to be aware that we are here and now, that the only moment to be alive
is the present moment. We breath in and say "dwelling in the present moment,"
and we breath out and say in our minds, " I know this is a wonderful moment."
To be truly here, now, and to enjoy the present moment is our most important
task.
Some teachers suggest that we start out doing this for five minutes, and if
it works for you, to build up to fifteen minutes of meditating morning and
evening. We should not seek or expect miraculous results. The aim is to slowly
develop a more collected mind and a steadier step through the ordinary tasks
and experiences of life.
We know what good meditation does, not by any spectacular increase in
wisdom or strength, but by the awareness that from time to time some things
that used to get us down no longer do so as much as they did. Some desires
that once owned us now may be controlled and used intelligently and
moderately. We may sleep a little better, or find that we feel less tired, or
can look calmly and collectively at some prospects that used to frighten us.
But meditation cannot solve all problems. If we are filled by stress
because we work ten or more hours a day, then meditation alone will not solve
our problem. If we suffer guilt because we have been unfaithful to our spouse,
meditation alone will not solve our problem. If we live only for ourselves,
never giving of money or time to help others, meditation alone will not solve
our problem. And if we have a realistic concern about the state of our world,
meditation will not free us of our concern.
We should let the renewed strength and deepened insight that may come with
meditation flow out through us into the world around us, improving our own
enjoyment of life, deepening our human relations, and replenishing our sense
of participation and usefulness in the human adventure.
I will never become a Transcendental Meditator. I cannot see myself
standing at someone’s door with fresh fruit, flowers, a clean handkerchief and
a gift of twenty five hundred dollars. When I see my sister, I cannot resist
the temptation to tease her about grand claims the TM leaders make for their
meditation. Perhaps because she meditates twice a day, she is able to smile,
answer calmly and not get angry with my teasing.
Perhaps she knows that in spite of our differences, I am involved in
religion because I am driven by the same forces that lead her to meditation:
the desire for some sense of meaning, some sense of understanding, some peace
of mind.
Whatever doctrines or symbols we use to describe it, the impulses that lead
us to religion and to meditation are likely to be an uneasy awareness that
life is moving on, and we are missing something that we once knew or long to
have, and that this precious something can be recovered or found if we will
begin to search. There is also the feeling that when we do find the way, it
will lead us to something like home, a place or a condition where we feel
happy and secure in ourselves, close to others around us, and open to a larger
life in which we always dimly felt we had a part.
So we find a few moments in our busy day. We find a quite place. We breath
deeply, slowly, in and out, and we say something like this:
Breathing in, I calm my body,
breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment.
And we are calmer, happier, and better able to face the world.
Office@CedarLane.org
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