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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AnonymousBosch" data-source="post: 1251118" data-attributes="member: 5255">A lot to unpack here.Understand that there's a repeated pattern of Reform Jew agents attempting to steer Christians towards Buddhism.It is embraced by Hollywood Actors and those in the Media, particularly using Gentiles who have rejected 'western' meaning inferior and problematic Christianity.  You can be an open Buddhist in that system and face no mockery or condemnation whatsoever.I once discussed how my Asian Doctor attacked me out of nowhere for reading one of the Catholic Saints, and told me that Jesus travelled in Asia as a child to spread Buddhism.  Doing some research, I discovered this was all the teaching of a Socialist Russian Jew back in the late 1800's.  Some English researchers a few years later went and tracked down the Monastery in question only to find the Monks had never heard of the writer, and couldn't understand how he could just make a story like that up without any punishment coming his way.About a month back, my Sister was provided with three 'Christian' texts but instantly smelled something was off about the Priest who gave them to her:  "It all sounds very New Age, and I've been there, done that.  It's all lies."  The first book was condemned by the US Bishops Council.  The second was an 'Catholic' Asian Monk from the 60's and 70's condemned by the Vatican.She said the third one was 'The Dark Night of the Soul' by St John of the Cross, so "It's safe, right?"Something niggled at me, particularly as I can recognise she's a few years off that book being useful to her, so I looked up the translator:  a Mirabai Starr, a - sigh - Reform Jew who was raised on a hippie commune, so I instantly-understood it would be a perversion:One review:A review of someone who likes the book:.We all know what that means.Unfortunately, she's in (((academia))), and has a long career of bastardizing the Saints and Doctors of the Church.From reviews of her butchering of St Theresa of Avila:Now, remember, Reform Jews come out of what is known in Jewish History as the Sabaatean-Frankist Heresy.  They believe their Messiah can only return and kill or enslave all the gentiles when everyone is entirely good, or evil, and encouraging evil is the easiest route.The other strand of this is known as the JewBu, (like Leonard Cohen or Robert Downey Jr).  This is the Chabbad strand - Trump's backers, Jared and Ivanka - who reject Jesus Christ as Messiah and instead believe the Messiah was Lubavitcher Rebbe, whose teachings was a NWO 'all paths lead to God' mess, which, for some reason, the Evangelicals don't seem to remotely-register as being something to worry about.This article is very telling:<a href="https://www.cjnews.com/perspectives/jews-become-buddhist" target="_blank">https://www.cjnews.com/perspectives/jews-become-buddhist</a>Note the references to the Satanic Torah and Kabbalah.  Note quotes like this:... which is a complete inversion of Catholic Mystic States.  As such, everything Shinzen says is a manipulation of the truth, so Christians believe all religions lead to God.Meditation is the second lowest level of Catholic prayer, available to all beginners.  It's not remotely Buddhist.  It's a conversation of love between you and God where you experience sensible graces, clear images of the imagination and infused knowledge.  The most familiar form would be the Rosary, which I see as meditative training wheels, which is why it is stressed so hard.  Another familiar form is Lectio Divina, where you peruse a written work, meditate upon what is being read, until God reveals himself sensibly or via infused knowledge.My Sister and I were discussing Infused Knowledge via the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery recently, 'The Carrying of the Cross'.  She said "I kind of understood all the little ways we can hurt each other."  I replied:  "I was once shown that it's a series of small acts of love possible amongst the worst kind of hatred and turmoil".It's really just a simple exchange of love:  God will show you his goodness and why he loves you, and you can tell him you love him in return.If you faithfully meditate regularly and attempt to mortify your passions for about 6-7 months, God then shuts down your ability to meditate, or produce any images of the imagination.  This is known as the passive purgation of the senses, or 'the dark night of the senses'.  You can never meditate after this.  He's calling you to higher, superior forms of prayer.There's nine forms of prayer, though one is contentious amongst the Mystics, going across three 'ages' of the Interior Life.Purgative Life of Beginners1 Vocal Prayer2 Meditation3 Affective Prayer<Dark Night of the Senses begins.  God wants to be loved for himself, not for the good things he gives you>Illuminative Life of Proficients4 Prayer of Simplicity5 Infused Contemplation (Some believe it's separate to the next, some believe its a weak form)<the transition to Mystic States of Prayer>6 Prayer of Quiet<Dark Night of the Senses ends><Dark Night of the Spirit begins.  God wants to be loved even in the blackest night, in the absence of all hope, with simple trust>Unitive Life Of The Perfect7. Prayer of Union8. Prayer of Conforming Union9. Prayer of Transforming UnionEveryone is called to the highest state in this life, but it depends on everyone's willingness to hear the call and willingly-mortify all passions.  He will leave you where you choose to be left, due to your inability to give up your attachments.He's just dumbed down the first four states.  Yes, they're considered discursive, but they're all very different forms of prayer.This is NOT the Prayer of Quiet.  You still use words, just very few, like your blowing lightly on a candle to keep it alight, only when necessary.  You don't concentrate at all.  It is necessary to empty yourself of thought due to what the Prayer of Quiet is.The Prayer of Quiet is your entry into Supernatural Levels of Prayer.  God has seen you fight for him, and struggle to reach him, and sacrifice generously for him.  Now he reaches down, and grabs hold of you because you're incapable of coming any closer to him under your own power.You can make the lower five levels of prayer happen through sheer force of will.  One sign that you have crossed into the Prayer of Quiet is your utter inability to produce this state under your own power.How to describe this...  it's kind of beyond words.  I've experienced it about 9 or 10 times in the last eight months.  It's always come on unexpectedly - so rather than being in a prepared 'meditative' state, it's in the midst of activity.  Suddenly, there's a hush, and an urge to stop whatever you're doing.  Time seems to slow down.  I was walking and saying vocal prayers the first time this happened to me, and confused and terrified of offending God by stopping prayer, I didn't understand what was happening, so kept going.Then I could no longer make a sound vocally.  My voice was silenced.  And with that, so was the world.  All became peace, and stillness, and everything hope and desire you ever had suddenly falls away.  You're fully aware that something completely outside your realm of experience is taking place:  that this is a supernatural experience.  The problem with my first few experiences in this prayer was my inability to shut my internal monologue up.  "What is happening?"  "There is no longer any doubt God exists."  Particularly:  "What do I do?"That was my error.  The point isn't about willing action, you've done all that.  The point is now to be completely passive, to still yourself, and let God do 'spiritual surgery' on your soul.  He's repairing all the broken things inside you that you're incapable of changing yourself.  This hugely-frustrates the Devil, because it's all happening in your Spiritual Soul, the Pneuma, which we share with the Angels.  The Demons only have access to your Animal Soul, the Psyche.  This is why they can use Imagination and memory to tempt you into sin, which is why God shuts down your ability to imagine when Purgation starts.  So, when God is working on you, the Devil doesn't know what is happening, and has no idea how to disrupt this or tempt you further using what used to work, because, his temptations don't work as well.Before this happened, I used to wonder how you could spend eternity in Heaven with God:  "wouldn't you get bored?"  No.  You're complete.  You're home.  Nothing matters because you have everything.  This is so far beyond any secular meditative state to make it laughable, and I can see why those opposed to God want to confuse the issue about what even a taste of Union with God is like.So, you're still, and quiet, then just as suddenly, it ends.  I could talk again.  I could only explain this to someone as being 'let go'.  You were seized by God, then 'let go' and the world is back to normal.As you cross into the three highest states of prayer, you're no longer stilled during this:  you can share this state of higher union with God during activity and work, as long as the prayer lasts.I found an obscure Carmelite work recently, the Book of the First Monks, that had a beautiful description of God talking with a Carmelite Monk, that I recognised:For although you will overflow with indescribable delights as long as you drink form the torrent of my raptures, for two reasons you will not yet be complete:Firstly, because from the very depths of your heart you will desire intensely to look directly upon my face; however you will not be able to see it clearly, "For no man shall see me and live", because "I dwell in an inaccessible light," which no man can see in this life, nor can he see.Secondly, because although you will seek to remain a while in those inexpressible delights which you drink from the torrent of my raptures, yet suddenly, due the fragility of your body, you will be removed from them and returned to yourself.  "For the corruptible body burdens the soul, and this earthly shelter weights down the mind that has many concerns."See it.  Suddenly, you're 'let go'.  How you know it's genuine?  Because you start longing for union with God, with all your heart.  This is why, even though I'm terribly sick, I trudge up the hill each morning to pray at sunrise.  This is why this pops up every morning in the Divine Office."Oh God, my God, I keep watch for you at daybreak.  My soul thirsts for you."The more it's happened, the more I've learnt to just still myself, stop all activity and empty myself, and let it happen.  Don't question it.  Don't analyse it.  Go with it.From here, God becomes more Obscure to you, rather than clarified.  You start to sense him 'through a glass, darkly'.  I entered the dark night by an experience often referred to as 'The Void', where you suddenly experience your Nothingness and God as The All.  I think it was Saint Therese of Avila was told by God, "I am He who is, and you are She who is not".  Suddenly you have a sense of the immense void between you and Him, and understand the mercy he has shown you to even reach down to you.  Rather than thinking I'm graced, note that this happened to a Priest friend when he was eight years old.No, Recollection is simply recognizing that God dwells within you, you being a living tabernacle when you're in a state of grace.  So, to find him, you retreat to 'the little heaven of your soul'.  It only requires stillness in the early stages of learning it.  It can also be called 'practicing the presence of God'.  Sister Maria once told me it's 'a simple glance towards heaven'.  So, I'll be walking, notice the trees blowing in the wind, see God's presence:  now I'm recollected in Him, and Contemplation follows.But she doesn't.  The interior castle is a description of all the states I discussed above.  He's twisting fact to make it seemingly-line up with Buddhist Meditation.  Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection worked in busy Parisian Kitchen whilst in the highest states of prayer.  I can pray in a crowd, in the midst of activity.  A friend of mine recognises when I'm doing it because he senses the state of recollection.  A couple of older Priests I know are so contemplative they seem never to be quite in the world - not absent-minded or senile - just very at peace .Now I've crossed into Mystic Prayer, the idea is to unwill action, because your will would get in the way of God's.  Which would include forced attempts to meditate, which are conscious action.  When I go to adoration, I sit there, utterly-bereft and unreliant on my own power, no longer trying to make declarations of love or force the connection.  It's utter abandonment to God for as long as this state persists.  The result is an increasing peace and trust in God, though you couldn't explain why because nothing obvious is happening.A great book for crossing this barrier into Mystic Prayer is 'Common Mystic Prayer' by Fr Gabriel Diefenbach, which answered all the questions Priests couldn't quite explain for me, particularly why the lack of willed action is necessary to purify you.  It's called a 'passive purgation'.  You can see the obvious problem with Jews trying to force the connection through meditation, under their own will.Anonymous discusses Contemplation, which isn't Meditation, in 'The Cloud...'  This is where JLP comes into things:  what he's doing in that video is known as Centering Prayer.  It's a way to prepare to receive the obscure form of God.  Some monasteries teach it, other's don't.  The Buddhists leap on him due to him suggesting to hold onto one word, like a mantra, to centre yourself on God as evidence that 'all roads lead to God'.I find it an over-complicated and unnecessary process if God can be experienced during the midst of activity.   If you puff the candle, it's only the briefest conscious thought.  Be quiet and drink from the torrent, you know?  God stole my voice a couple of times to still my foolish belief that praying consciously is Doing Something, at this stage of prayer.  There are levels beyond Buddhist Meditation, but you can't get there if you are unwilling to give up the need to act by trusting that you no longer have to, for the time being.Hope that clarifies things a bit more.</blockquote>

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