School of Meditation Weekly Teachings

Weekly Teachings 1/7/2012

Hard-wired to Experience Higher States of Consciousness

We looked at the role attention plays in becoming aware of who we truly are. But there is another process that is put into motion by paying attention; parts of our brain are activated/de-activated, allowing a new and more truthful perception of Reality.

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Weekly Teachings 24/6/2012

The Christ Within

We have been looking at how the brain is a beautiful God-given instrument, which allows us to tune into different realities. This different way of perception, this metanoia, can come about gradually by meditating faithfully with all our loving attention focused on our mantra; 

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Weekly Teachings 17/6/2012

Letting go of ego

St Paul’s experience of the risen Christ mirrors our experience of Him in the deep silence of our meditation: “He is a real, risen presence encountered deep within the personal experience of the disciple and new believer.” (Laurence Freeman)

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Weekly Teachings 10/6/2012

What is time?

“It seems to me that we have ultimately to go beyond all forms of thought – even beyond the Trinity, the Incarnation...... All these belong to the world of signs – manifestations of God in human thought – but God Himself, Truth itself is beyond all forms of thought.” (Bede Griffiths OSB)

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Weekly Teachings 3/6/2012

Reading the Gospel

Origen was a native Alexandrian of the 2nd century CE, highly educated in Greek, Jewish and Christian wisdom. At the young age of 17 he was made Head of the Catechetical School in Alexandria, successor to Clement.

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Weekly Teachings 27/5/2012

The Human Vocation

Our next guide is Evagrius Ponticus, who was at first very much part of the established ‘orthodox’ Church in the fourth century CE; he contributed passionately to all the debates that marked the early church, which were basically about who Jesus really was and what his life and teaching meant.

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Weekly Teachings 20/5/2012

Contemplating Nature and Silent Prayer

Evagrius’ ideas of approaching God, through scripture, nature and through pure prayer were a fundamental idea with the Desert Fathers and Mothers: “One of the wise men of that time went to find the holy man Antony and asked him:

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Weekly Teachings 13/5/2012

What are Our Demons?

We looked at Evagrius’ division of the spiritual life into the ‘praxis’ and ‘theoria’. Let us concentrate for a moment longer on ‘Praxis’. We must not forget that our spiritual growth depends both on grace and effort. Grace was paramount for Evagrius , but effort was also important.

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Weekly Teachings 6/5/2012

Meditation as a Road to Self-knowledge

According to Evagrius the way to identify our personal ‘demons’ is twofold: by prayer/meditation and by effort to come to self-knowledge and awareness. An important role here is played by ‘watching the thoughts’: “If there is any monk [human being] who wishes to take the measure of some of the more fierce demons.....

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Weekly Teachings 29/4/2012

Importance of the Emotions

We have looked at Evagrius’ emphasis on becoming aware what our ‘demons’ are, recognizing them, acknowledging them and thus robbing them of their power. He talked about ‘purifying the emotions’: purifying and transfiguring the emotions back to their original state of divinely given energy: Read more »

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