Hey Dog, copied your post here on the benefits of meditation = prayer

That is tempting for a christian to think they are pretty similar, but no, not really!...... I spent years praying (Speaking in tongues and otherwise). What is totally missing there is any teaching of technique or discipline in practice.

It sort of goes like this........ You get down and close your eyes, then start speaking in tongues. You try to think wholesome and godly thoughts as you do, perhaps think about the problems you'd like him sort out, maybe think of the blessing you'd like him to bring you, a good amount of adoration and nice thought about god etc. The main thing is, you are not taught how to train your mind at all. It is simply assumed that if you are speaking in tongues, you are tuning in somehow, (but really, you've spent about 13 of your 15 minutes with your mind racing around from "oh shite, did I leave the airconditioner on" to "man, I'm so horny, I want a wife soooo bad" to "gotta take that library book back this arvo" to............. You know the deal!

The mind is a wild bull most of the time. You can spend a half hour in tongues, and all you've done is blabbered away and are in as much stress as you were when you began. You make an enormous assumption when you think that meditation is just like that. I'm not saying there's no benefit in tongues, but what is DEFICIENT is the training and understanding of technique. With a bit of meditation training, you actually could speak in tongues as a meditation mantra if you wish, but you have to understand the practice first. Meditation has distinct benefits.

Stress is one of the most destructive and damaging things in our lives (physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually). Unless we learn practices of relaxation, we may be stressed around the clock and not even be aware of it. Meditation can be a tremendous antidote to stress, bringing awareness, clarity of mind, peace, and many health benefits. To focus on some principles of practice, meditation is about getting out of our mind and into our senses, becoming aware of what is right here, right now. Most of us allow ourselves to be prisoners of our mind, being stuck in the past and the future. Hopes and aspirations for the future can be a real trap (like a will-o-the-wisp). The only thing that is real is HERE and NOW. To experience (taste, hear, see, feel, touch) what is here right now is an immeasureably beautiful and transcendant state to be in, and it is available to us so freely. Many feel that this itself is the kingdom of god. It is right in front of us, right under our noses, and people ignore this and instead chase pipe dreams of some future place they hope to go to after they die!............UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!

The benefits of meditation are scientifically proven, and are known to have many positive physiological affects. One of the most absurd notions I have heard of is when christians try to demonise the practice of meditation as somehow 'occult like' or sinister. Just one more form of fear and mind-control I expect! There is absolutely no threat or risk to the faith of a christian to practice meditation. Associations of meditation with other religions are purely irrelevent.

You say that the dif is "God hearing us, not buddha". OK, whatever turns you on!. For the record, buddha doesn't hear, because he was a mortal man like you and me. He never was (or claimed to be) a god. He was a guy that sat under a tree and contemplated a few things. The realisation he came to was "I am awake" and......(well that's a whole other story)! Your other comments were about the HOPE offers in the bible for an afterlife. I maintain that nobody knows. I guess if there's a god then he does, but he has made nothing unquestionably clear to that affect. All there are are promises in an ambiguous book-nothing more. Well, many will cling on to hopes as they believe in certain promises or theories of an afterlife. The focus that I referred to above (being aware etc) is what I subscribe to..... APPRECIATE THE KINGDOM OF GOD HERE AND NOW.

See the beauty that is all around us. I live in awe of the spectacle of life that presents itself everyday, in all sorts of places and people. I reckon that's where its at, right under our noses all along. Not wrapped in a thousand layers of paper that you have to wade through before you experience the majesty of our creator. We just have to tune in!

Dog.