Overcome disturbances in prayer and meditation

When you pray or meditate, you walk the path into your inner self. When you are on the road in prayer or meditation you will encounter all kinds of disturbances. What kind of disturbances you meet depends on a few factors:

1. Your own memories and your own past life.

2. The environment in that you meditate or pray.

3. The focus of your concentration and the spiritual forces that may try to stop you from reaching your goals.

All disturbances come to you in the form of energies that distract you from your focus. To overcome these disturbances you also need energy. Depending on how strong the distractions are, you need more energy. This may turn your prayer or meditation into an exhausting spiritual fight. When you get more experience with prayer or meditation you will gradually get stronger and learn to win these energy fights.

Exercise 1 – Pray and Meditate about an Episode of your Past Life (30 min)

What you want to reach with this meditation is that you receive a new view on this episode. Think of this period of your life and ask the question what is the meaning of it. When you do this for some time, you will notice that all kinds of memories come back. Together with these memories, thoughts and feelings will come up in you. In meditation and prayer you don’t just want to have thoughts and feelings, but you want to go beyond that to deeper levels of yourself.

At this stage of your prayer or meditation you may be tempted to dive into these thoughts and feelings. The result of doing that will be that you don’t really progress to a higher level. Therefore, don’t let yourself be overwhelmed by these thoughts and feelings, but just notice them as something passing by on your road of meditation.

Go back to the question you asked about the meaning of this episode of your life. Keep asking this question and answers will come. Depending on how complex and meaningful this life period is for you, it may take longer time before you receive meaningful answers. You may have to pray or meditate about this question for many hours or even days and weeks until you are finished.

When you receive answer to your question you will notice a clear difference between these answers and the thoughts and feelings which also came up. Such answers will strike you as a revelation or an inspiration and will give you new insight in yourself.

Exercise 2 – Pray about the Purpose of Life (30 min)

Pray or meditate about the purpose of life. Just like it happened in the former exercise, you will see that your mind will try to wander away from the subject of meditation. Do not go into these thoughts and feelings, but place them in a kind of mental notebook and turn back to the question of your meditation. It is not the purpose of prayer and meditation that you think or get overwhelmed by feelings. However, the thoughts and feelings you get are meaningful because they tell you something about yourself and about possible external disturbances of your meditation. Therefore, you objectify these thoughts and emotions by placing them in your mental notebook. In that way you don’t anymore forget them but they will also not disturb your prayer or meditation.

Repeat this meditation as often as needed until you have receive new insights in the purpose of life.

Meditation or prayer about the meaning of life is meaningful enough to repeat this throughout your life. In this way you will get deeper and deeper insights.

Concentration in prayer and meditation

What is meditation and what is prayer?

Both are practices of concentration. They are methods of disciplining the mind to be concentrated on your inner world. This state of being is in some contrast to the normal life of most people in which their mind and body are occupied by external activities.

The key ability that you have to acquire for both meditation and prayer is concentration. You can of course also be concentrated on something external, for example a task you do with your body.

Concentration in prayer and meditation differs from concentration on external activities mainly in the focus or direction. In meditation and prayer your concentration is directed inwardly and with external activities your concentration is directed outwardly.

Eventually we must learn more about the differences between prayer and meditation. For now it suffices to say that prayer is concentration on God and meditation is concentration on a great variety of aspects of your own inner being.

Exercise 1 – Meditation on Light (20 min)

Sit in a quiet and relaxed position. You may sit on the ground with your knees bent as in a lotus position, or you may sit on a chair. Imagine that your head is filled with a sphere of light. Try to keep this image of light in your head for 20 minutes. When you do this, your mind may attempt to wander away to all kind of thoughts. Imagine that the light in your head dissolves all these other thoughts until eventually there is only light in your head.

Exercise 2 – Concentrate on Your Breathing (20 min)

Sit in a relaxed position and observe your own breathing. Do not change your breathing in any way, but only study how you breathe. There are many meditation methods based on breathing, but the most important in all of them is to learn to concentrate on your breathing while letting your breath flow naturally.

Exercise 3 – Concentrate on God (20 min)

Try to concentrate on God without thinking anything in particular. When you do this, certain feelings or thoughts may come up in you. For example, questions may arise if God really exists or where God is. You may also get feelings frustration or anger. Let these thoughts and feelings pass by during this meditation as if they don’t belong to you. Do not pay attention to them until your meditation is finished. After you completed the meditation you can take time to think about the content of such thoughts and feelings.

Two evolutionary ways to build strong constructions - The shell construction and the skeleton construction

The construction of a house can be compared to the creation of a body. When we study how God created bodies of animals and how architects designed constructions of houses, we can discover a striking resemblance.

When you make a house, or when God created a body, it is always necessary that such a house or body is constructed in strong ways. There are two fundamentally different solutions to this problem. Let us call the more simple solution the SHELL-CONSTRUCTION, and the second, more advanced solution the SKELETON-CONSTRUCTION.

The shell-construction is applied in the creation of, for example, mollusks. God put an external shell around the soft body of an animal. The strength of the construction is entirely in that of the shell of harder material on the outside. In architecture, that solution is chosen when a building is made with walls of concrete plates, or with walls of brickwork, or with walls made of wooden plates.

The skeleton-construction is applied in the creation of all animals having a skeleton inside of their bodies. This type of construction is also applied for buildings. For example, when a wooden skeleton is made, and afterward the walls are filled up with some material linking the skeleton.

Of course, when we study buildings, we can see that in many of them there was applied a mixture of these two construction methods.

The shell-construction is a more primitive solution to make a strong body. The skeleton-construction is more advanced, as it allows a maximum of creativity in the use of materials and forms for the building.

All animals which were created according to the principle of shell-construction share more or less the same form. Animals with skeletons could be created in a great variety of beautiful forms, allowing for even more functions to be fulfilled with such bodies.

When furniture is made, for example a table or a cabinet, the same two construction methods can be applied. A simple, but not so strong cabinet is made by linking together a number of wooden plates. Then that cabinet is finished. The form always is rather simple. The strength of the cabinet entirely depends on the material of the plates, and of the connections between the plates.

When a cabinet is made by first making a strong skeleton, in many possible forms, then that cabinet can be finished using a great variety of materials. Such cabinets are always strong, and can be made in very beautiful ways.

When the skeleton-construction is used for houses, then we have many advantages:

1. Strong basic construction

2. A great variety of construction designs is possible

3. A large choice for "fill-up materials"

4. Possibility to finish the building in many creative forms

5. Allows people to have a big part in building their own house.

The prayer to come to prayer

THIS IS MY PRAYER THAT I CAN COME TO PRAYER.
I WANT TO PRAY TO GOD,
BUT I CLOSED THE DOOR TO YOU.
YOU, GOD, ARE GOOD.
YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO ME,
BUT I SEPARATED FROM YOU.

PLEASE, GOD, SHOW ME,
HOW I CLOSED MYSELF FOR YOU.
WHAT SIN IS IN ME?
PLEASE, ALMIGHTY GOD,
SHOW ME WHAT I MUST CHANGE IN MYSELF,
SO THAT I CAN BE PURE AND HOLY,
TO RECEIVE YOUR GUIDANCE.

IS THERE EVIL PRIDE IN MY HEART?
THEN I MUST NOW HUMBLE MYSELF.

DID I COMMIT A SIN RECENTLY?
THEN I MUST EXPOSE IT AND REPENT FOR THAT SIN.

DO I REALLY WANT THAT YOU SPEAK TO ME,
OR DO I WANT MY OWN WILL DONE?

AM I WELL-LISTENING TO YOU,
OR IS MY HEART NOW CLOSED?

IS THERE FALSE LOVE IN MY HEART?
THEN I MUST REPENT FOR THAT WRONG.

DID I HIDE A SIN OF MINE?
THEN I MUST NOW OPEN IT.

DID I SPEAK LIES?
THEN I MUST SPEAK THE TRUTH NOW.

AM I ACCUSING YOU?
THEN I AM CLOSING YOU OUT.



IT IS MY PRAYER AND PROMISE
THAT I DO NOT SPEAK THIS PRAYER
WITH IDLE HEART AND HYPOCRITE LIPS.

MY GOD THE CREATOR,

YOU WILL SPEAK TO ME

THIS I BELIEVE AND THIS IS MY HOPE

The Four Seasons

1. {SOON THE SUMMER WILL RETURN

WITH ALL ITS JOY AND CHARM

FLOWERS BLOSSOM

BIRDS ARE SINGING

AND GOD HIMSELF GIVES LOVE TO EV'RYONE (2X)}

LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA

COME DANCE, COME DANCE, COME DANCE (2X)

COME DANCE AND SHARE IN SINGING

SOON THE SUMMER WILL BE GONE

WILL BE GONE WITH ALL ITS JOY AND CHARM

FLOWERS BLOSSOM

BIRDS ARE SINGING

AND GOD HIMSELF GIVES LOVE TO EV'RYONE

2. {SOON THE AUTUMN WILL RETURN

WITH ALL ITS PEACE AND STORMS

LEAVES ARE FALLING

BIRDS ARE LEAVING

AND GOD HIMSELF GIVES LOVE TO EV'RYONE (2X)}

LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA

COME DANCE, COME DANCE, COME DANCE (2X)

COME DANCE AND SHARE IN SINGING

SOON THE AUTUMN WILL BE GONE

WITH ALL ITS PEACE AND STORMS

LEAVES ARE FALLING

BIRDS ARE LEAVING

AND GOD HIMSELF GIVES LOVE TO EV'RYONE

3. {SOON THE WINTER WILL RETURN

WITH ALL ITS SNOW AND COLD

LAKES ARE FREEZING

BEARS ARE SLEEPING

AND GOD HIMSELF GIVES LOVE TO EV'RYONE (2X)}

LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA

COME DANCE, COME DANCE, COME DANCE (2X)

COME DANCE AND SHARE IN SINGING

SOON THE WINTER WILL BE GONE

WITH ALL ITS SNOW AND COLD

LAKES ARE FREEZING

BEARS ARE SLEEPING

4. {SOON THE SPRINGTIME WILL RETURN

WITH ALL ITS FRESH NEW LIFE

BUDS ARE SPROUTING

BIRDS RETURNING

AND GOD HIMSELF GIVES LOVE TO EV'RYONE (2X)}

LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA, LALA

COME DANCE, COME DANCE, COME DANCE (2X)

COME DANCE AND SHARE IN SINGING

SOON THE SPRINGTIME WILL BE GONE

WITH ALL ITS FRESH NEW LIFE

BUDS ARE SPROUTING

BIRDS RETURNING

AND GOD HIMSELF GIVES LOVE TO EV'RYONE

The prayer of daily relation to God

MORNING

Thank You, my God, for the rest of the night

Thank You, My Father, for the life that I got

The sun shines, it is a beautiful day

You gave it to me, time to rise up

What, my Father in Heaven, my Parents in my heart

Shall I do today, what is it that You planned?

Answer my prayer, I beg, that I may know Your will

Then I jump into this day, to fulfill what You will.

NOON

My Father, the day is already bringing fruits

How do You think, I am doing Your wish?

Is it alright with me? Do I please You?

Was my morning's doings to Your liking?

How do You feel, my Father, over this day?

Are You pleased, and happy today?

Or are You sad, or angry? Can I help You, I ask

With Your problems? Can I do something special?

What is Your will for the rest of this day?

What are Your thoughts about what keeps me busy?

I thank You, Father, for this day of creation.

EVENING

Almost the day is over, still the sun is shining

Look, my Father, how beautiful!!

You can be proud of what You created

What You give to all men equal, evil or good

Hear the birds singing still, and preparing for night

Wonderful You created them, to our all's delight

How was my day, growing in Your love?

Are You happy, or did I miss a point?

Came there sin in me? ...Show me how...

Now I can still correct it, and get me okay

What is Your will, for this evening today?

NIGHT

The day has passed, the moon now shines

The stars in the sky, wide and open, twinkle

I look at Your vastness, everywhere are You

The people don't know, how great You are

My life is in Your hands, Your will my only guide

Make my mind open for what I did wrong today

Now, at the end of the day, please cleanse my heart

Give me dreams, about my future

Speak to me, and tell me your guidance

I need You my Parents, and You need me

You give me Your love, and I try to return it

I am Your child, and in Your arms covered

Please, make me wise and faithful

As Your child should be

With clean heart and mind and body

I lay me to rest, when You tell me

And after my rest, I start a new life

A new day, given by You, my Father.

Song: The beauty of creation

1. STEEPEST MOUNTAINS, DEEPEST VALLEYS

GOD CREATED ALL

THE PENGUINS AND THE DAFFIS

GOD CREATED ALL



REFRAIN: CLEAREST WATER SPRINKLES

SUNLIGHT MAKING TWINKLES

SHIMMERS IN THE TWILIGHT

ATE, ATE, -- EVER BRIGHT



2. BUTTERFLIES AND ALL ONE-DAY-FLIES

GOD CREATED ALL

CROCODILES AND EVEN LICE

GOD CREATED ALL



3. CAMEL'S HAIR AND PEACEFUL HALUS

GOD CREATED ALL

SHIT OF COWS AND MARIBUS

GOD CREATED ALL



4. WIDEST OCEANS, CLEAREST WATERS

GOD CREATED ALL

THE FISHES AND THE OTTERS

GOD CREATED ALL



5. FARTHEST STARS AND SHINING FULL MOON

GOD CREATED ALL

FOGGY CLOUDS AND STORMS SO STRONG

GOD CREATES IT ALL



6. ALL CREATIONS ON THE GREEN EARTH

GOD CREATES IT ALL

EV'RY DAY AND EACH NEW BIRTH

GOD CREATES IT ALL



PS: Daffis and halus are animals in spirit world