tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post1817623635421984996..comments2024-03-29T15:13:42.610+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: Meditation is 'power' and therefore a means, not an end - the possibilities and purpose of Christian meditation Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-58507522861324855852015-07-18T19:15:18.696+01:002015-07-18T19:15:18.696+01:00Meditation is a subject that perhaps comes up more...Meditation is a subject that perhaps comes up more often in Orthodoxy than in other sects , because it was practiced in some form by the earliest Christians whom we take most of our traditions directly from and carry them forward without too much alteration. Your post has encouraged me to look into some of this for myself, perhaps parsing words from Evola's 'Meditation on the Peaks' as a handy companion guide.Clear Watershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01067495451323861530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-1819938121023972002015-07-17T14:23:28.752+01:002015-07-17T14:23:28.752+01:00Meditation stimulates different mind-states.
Many...Meditation stimulates different mind-states.<br /><br />Many of these states are emotionally powerful and creative. They have a hyper-real quality which can subjectively feel intensely potent or primal. They can also feel extraordinarily gentle and light. The range of mind-states that a person can experience is wide and deep, and I would compare to the range of emotions that can be induced through the best of classical music. Poets, artists, composers and mystics all seem to have found means to enter these states, and the range of work that is produced seems to loosely map to the range of states. In my experience when creating art from one of these states, the objective is to provide a form that allows a person who is encountering the art with a stimulus to enter something akin to the same state.<br /><br />The traditional arguments against these states from a religious point of view is that they are not grounded and can fly off in all manner of direction. One analogy I read suggested that they are like gasoline which used in an engine can do useful work, but when simply burnt without constraint can do little of use and may start a destructive fire. On the other side, an engine without fuel does no work.<br /><br />One of the classic works on this from a Christian perspective is, "The Cloud of Unknowing". see http://site.paracletepress.com/samples/exc-cloud-of-unknowing-essential1-20.pdf<br /><br /><br />Nicholas Fulfordnoreply@blogger.com