Episode 3

Spirituality 101 - Meditation

In this third episode of the 'Spirituality 101' series for the Deeper Dive Podcast, Dr. Robert Carrillo introduces meditation as a practice for spiritual development within Christianity. He explains its historical roots, its benefits, and practical steps for beginners. Drawing from biblical examples and his personal experiences, Dr. Carrillo discusses how meditation helps improve mental clarity, emotional stability, and spiritual connection with God. The episode also addresses common misconceptions about meditation and provides guidance on starting a meditation practice. Join us as we explore the transformative power of focusing on God's word and principles through meditation.

00:00 Introduction to the Deeper Dive Podcast

00:39 Introduction to Spirituality 101

01:07 Understanding Meditation

02:30 Biblical Foundations of Meditation

05:06 Jesus and the Practice of Meditation

11:09 The Benefits of Meditation

13:39 Practical Tips for Beginners

20:32 Resources and Upcoming Events

21:53 Conclusion and Next Episode Preview

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OC Church of Christ

Transcript
Marcel:

Welcome.

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Welcome to the Deeper Dive Podcast

brought to you by the OC Church of Christ.

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The Deeper Dive Podcast is about going

deeper into God's word and learning

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new insight and taking a fresh look at

the verses that impact our daily lives.

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Today's episode is part three to.

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"Spirituality 101" by Robert.

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Carrillo.

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So, get your scuba gear and

let's dive deep into God's word.

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Here's Robert Carrillo.

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Robert: Hello everybody, Robert

Carrillo here, and we continue

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in our series, Spirituality 101.

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And it's an introduction to some of

the practices and some of the goals

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and techniques, uh, of spirituality.

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spiritual development and specifically

sometimes spiritual formation as well

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as some of the details behind this.

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And, and these are all introductory.

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This is the one on one series.

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And so today I want to, I

want to talk about meditation.

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This is a, just a very, uh, uh,

introductory look at meditation,

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uh, for, for, for those who

really don't have experience.

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I know that many of us do already.

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A lot of people meditate and

that's a wonderful thing.

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But I also know that a lot of

us have never done this before,

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particularly in our fellowship in

the International Churches of Christ.

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A lot of us have not have no experience.

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And a lot of us in the ministry even

have never had any experience or we maybe

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had experience, but from a different

angle, not necessarily a spiritual angle.

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So.

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We're going to talk about that.

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Okay.

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So basically what, you know,

what is meditation, meditation?

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I pulled up a couple of definitions.

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Meditation is a practice where an

individual uses a technique such as

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mindfulness or focusing the mind on a

particular object, thought or activity

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to train attention and awareness

and achieve a mentally clear and

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emotional, calm and stable state.

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Okay.

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That's kind of a mouthful,

but it gives a good, broad

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overview of what is meditation.

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Another definition meditation can be

defined as a set of techniques that are

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intended to encourage a heightened state

of awareness and focused attention.

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Meditation is also a consciousness

changing technique that has been

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shown to have a wide number of

benefits on psychological wellbeing.

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So, um, the, there are, there are,

you know, the, the, it is absolutely

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Um, very much in the history of

Christianity, a part of spirituality

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and not just Christianity, but

in the Old Testament as well.

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Um, meditation can be defined as a set of

techniques that are intended to encourage

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a heightened state of awareness and

focused attention on God's word, Christian

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principles and the spirit of God.

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the spirit of God and God himself.

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So that's kind of more where we're coming

at it from and where I'm being trained in.

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Um, as I've shared in the other videos,

you know, I'm, I'm getting my doctorate

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at Fuller seminary and, uh, I've

personally been meditating for about a

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year and, uh, it is, wow, changed my life.

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And in one sense, I would say, I,

you know, I, um, If it was up to me,

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I probably wouldn't do any classes

or anything for five or six years

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until I've had even more time.

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But I've been blessed so much

and I know there's such a hunger.

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I said, well, I'm going to share what

I know and then we'll have advanced

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meditation classes in the future.

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But I'm also going to pull

in some teachers of people

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who've been much more involved.

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Um, Psalm 77, 12 says, I will

consider all your works and meditate.

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on all your mighty deeds.

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You know, I meditated on this Psalm

and it was really so powerful.

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It is so powerful.

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It really impacted me.

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Uh, Psalm 143, another Psalm,

classic Psalm for meditation.

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I remember the days of long ago,

I meditate on all your works and

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consider what your hands have done.

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You know, meditation is, is, is a very

practical, spiritual, Uh, discipline

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that helps in many, many ways.

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And we'll, we'll get

into that in a second.

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Um, it comes out of the tradition

of silence and solitude of

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prayer, of contemplation.

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These are all very biblical terms.

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And, and, and I'm saying this

and I'm putting a little bit

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of emphasis here because.

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I know that some people are afraid that

meditation is really a Buddhist thing,

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or really an Eastern religion thing,

and, and, you know, what I say to that

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is, well, first of all, it's, it's rich

in scripture, so it's been around a long

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time in Christianity and in Judaism.

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And, and, and I think we should also

remember that, that Christianity

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is not actually a Western religion.

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I mean, we, we have a Western

mindset with which we approach our

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Christianity, but Christianity is

from the Middle East, not the Midwest.

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I mean, it is an Eastern religion.

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So this, this way of thinking and

approaching things is the way of Jesus.

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And it is the way of the culture

in which, uh, our faith and our

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religion Jesus had a very strong

practice of silence and solitude.

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Very early in the morning, while

it was still dark, Jesus got up

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and left the house and went off to

a solitary place where he prayed.

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And we, we, that little scene right

there, where Jesus kind of sneaks off

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to go and pray and spend time with the

Lord, to have some silence and solitude.

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Which is, you know, the

very heart of meditation.

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We see it in Matthew 14, verse 13.

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We see it in Mark 1, verse 35.

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We see it in Mark 6, verse 32.

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We see it in Luke 4, verse 42.

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We see it in Luke 8, 29.

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I mean, this was a

regular practice of Jesus.

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And somehow, in the Western version

of Christianity, we've dropped it.

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You know, the Eastern Christian

denomination, they still meditate,

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you know, the Eastern Orthodox Church.

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Meditation is a big

part of their practice.

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And we have, we tend to have a

prejudice against it because of that.

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We tend to have a fear of it,

but it's important to realize

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that this is what Jesus did.

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And there are very good reasons for that.

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You know, in 18.

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And we all who with unveiled faces

contemplate the Lord's glory are

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being transformed into His image with

ever increasing glory which comes

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from the Lord who is the Spirit.

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Right?

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We've run into this before.

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We've read other similar scriptures

as well as this one that, that in

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contemplation, what is contemplation?

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Contemplation is a form of meditation.

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It's where we focus and we think

deeply about something, right?

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And we focus on a scripture, we focus

on teaching of God, we focus on a

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concept of God, and we contemplate,

we take the time to slow down

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everything and focus ourselves.

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And this is part of what makes meditation

so powerful is, is we generally tend

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to have what is called the monkey

mind, you know, just jumping around

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thoughts, bouncing around everything.

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But this is our ability to focus

and contemplate contemplating

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is incredibly important.

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And we contemplate the Lord's glory is how

God is able to change us and transform us.

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I talked about that in

the introductory video.

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Um, and this is very God centered.

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And I think that's

important to understand.

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It's probably one of the biggest

differences between some of

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the Eastern religions and their

form of meditation versus ours.

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And I don't want to oversimplify, but.

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where, where many of the popular

meditations are, are you centered?

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Christian meditation is absolutely

God centered, you know, God

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centered, you know, it's all about

God and how we relate to God.

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It's actually caught on quite a bit.

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It's become quite popular.

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Um, And it, you know, as I said before,

it has a long history and in the Old

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Testament, it's translated, meditate is

translated from Haga, which is to sigh

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deeply, to, you know, to, to, to how,

to, to kind of speak or iterate from deep

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down inside, or, or the word Siha, which

is to repeat, to, to rehearse something,

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to say something again and again.

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And some of the meditation prayers are,

are reciting things or affirming things.

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But this goes way back.

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600 years old.

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This is something brand new.

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It's, it's coming back.

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In Western Christianity, I should

say not coming back in West.

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It's coming back into Christianity in

the Western part of it because Western

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Christianity, which is what we, most

of us are familiar with that are

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probably watching this Protestantism.

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Um, it's in even much of Catholicism

dropped this, although it's not.

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from Catholicism.

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They're, they're, they have a

strong history with meditation.

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But the Protestants do not.

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And, and part of it is our whole

issue with everything has to be

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rational and logical and, and

that's a whole nother Lesson, but,

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um, it's been around a long time.

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The number of people practicing meditation

more than tripled just since:

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So this is spreading, this is

becoming, and, and like many things,

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when something new comes along, some

people fear it and go, oh no, get

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away, it's, it's evil, it's, it's a,

it's a trend, it's a popular thing.

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But the fact is, like we've already

established, it's not a trend.

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It's something that's

been around a long time.

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Some people will approach it as a trend.

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And that's going to happen, but the fact

is what real meditation is about has been

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around for thousands of years, literally.

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And it is, plays a big part in

the whole theology of God and

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understanding relationship with God.

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Um, global statistics show that

across the world somewhere between

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200 and 500 million people meditate.

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This is, this is, I, I just saw a

documentary where the guy said that this

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is the future religion of the world.

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People are beginning to realize

the value of this meditation and

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how much more Is the value of it

when it's centered on God, right?

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So in since 2012, the number of children

meditating has increased more than 800%.

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You know, what is, what has been,

what is foreign and under suspect to

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people in my generation is interesting

to millennials and generation Z

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is going after it with a zeal.

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You know, and I think this is going

to be a good thing for helping people

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to learn about God, to grow in God,

and that once again, as I said, it,

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it, it's going to help lots and lots

of people connect in God, with God

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in ways they never dreamed of before.

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Even older Christians.

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My experience, me personally as an

older Christian, I, I feel like I

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found, you know, I got the remote to

the cable, the cable box, you know,

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all of a sudden I have so many new

ways and exciting ways to connect.

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with God through meditation.

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Um, and there's so many

benefits to meditation.

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I mean, it's, it's, it's almost

ridiculous how much it helps.

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And the fact that we don't know, you

know, it's, it's been scientifically

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research, why proven to, Boost immune

system, lower blood pressure, decrease

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pain, relieve depression, increase

productivity, promote creative thinking.

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It literally thickens the

prefrontal cortex, where the

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higher reasoning happens, where we

understand deeper things of God.

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It literally thickens that.

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It reverses the effect of aging even, uh,

proven to improve health and well being.

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In general, improve emotional well

being, increase happiness, improve

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personal relationships by helping us to

de stress and to overcome the anxiety

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and fears and conflicts and, which,

you know, fear and anxiety plays a

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huge role in conflicts, uh, benefits

family and communities at large.

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I mean, just in general, a

household can be blessed.

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But even one person meditating, let

alone everybody, because especially in

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a Christian house where what it means is

our connection to God and our awareness

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of God is becoming so much stronger.

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Um, Google Scholar turns up almost 700,

000 research documents on meditation

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and among them imaging studies that

show increased activity in the brain

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regions associated with attention,

a higher volume of gray matter.

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This is what I was talking about with

the frontal cortex and lesson lesson

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amygdala response to emotional stimuli.

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The amygdala response back here

where we have all the stress and

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anxiety that actually shrinks.

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In the frontal cortex, where

we have compassion, and love,

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and, and, and, and, and peace.

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These concepts are, are handled, that

grows, and strengthen, literally like

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a muscle that you're working out.

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You know, which is a beautiful thing, and,

and, and, and, and what I love about this

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is it's been true to scripture all along.

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This is what scripture's always taught.

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The importance of contemplating the

Lord's glory, of meditating on His

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law, and on His deeds, and on His

words, and allowing that all to happen.

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So, um, that's a general quick

introduction to what meditation is.

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I'm going to give you some

practicals because, again, this

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is geared towards the newbie.

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You know, uh, the person

learning to meditate and

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learning what this is all about.

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Uh, this is the way,

okay, this is the way.

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Um, first of all, I'm just

going to say start simple.

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Don't go, I'm going to go meditate for

an hour or meditate for a half hour.

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Um, it will probably be agonizing.

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For most people it is.

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Uh, I started with 10 minutes and I got

to tell you, 10 minutes was a challenge.

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Um, I have so much what is,

what, what I referred to

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earlier, the monkey mind, right?

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Monks call it the monkey mind.

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The monkeys are always jumping around and

you've got thoughts bouncing all over.

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And it's taken time learning how to

focus, how to calm my mind, and how

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not to be, uh, just knocked around,

you know, by all the monkey mind stuff.

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Start out simple.

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Ten minutes.

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Start slow.

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Start slow.

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Don't, and what I mean by that, I

mean you, you take a deep breath, you

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calm yourself, you slow things down.

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What, your brain is not going to

slow down actually, it's going to

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increase in awareness, but in a

sense you slow down the monkeys,

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you slow down the world around you.

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You don't try to take on too much.

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Um, be patient, be patient with yourself.

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Uh, what, what you're, you're trying to

do is relax your mind and your heart.

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Scolding yourself isn't going to help.

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It's counterproductive.

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And what do I mean by that?

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Well, we, we try to focus on something

and we can't and next thing you

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know, we're thinking about what

we're going to have for dinner.

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We're thinking about the, something

somebody said that hurt our feelings

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or something, an argument we got into

last week and, and it just bounces

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around and we say, man, doggone it.

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I can't do this.

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Don't do that.

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Don't do that.

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When your mind wanders, it's okay.

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What you, the, the, the examples I've,

I've learned is, and I'm, and I'm, and I'm

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stealing these from different teachers.

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I'm, I'm taking their analogies,

which are very helpful for me.

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One that I was given was, imagine

you're sitting by a highway, or maybe a

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freeway intersection, and your thoughts

are like all the cars driving by.

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Some are stopped, some turn left,

some turn right, some keep going.

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I'm, I'm, I'm.

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Don't get in the cars and go with them.

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And if you find yourself in the car,

just pop back to the corner again.

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And get back in your little chair.

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You're sitting in your beach

chair, and you're just watching

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all these thoughts go by.

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And, and, and, and don't scold yourself.

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Don't be mad at yourself.

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I can't do this.

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Don't worry.

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Like I said, the first, especially the

first times, can be very challenging.

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One of my professors said, I just

want you to spend ten minutes silent.

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And and thinking about

nothing but your breathing.

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And I couldn't do it.

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I just, my brain was bouncing everywhere

and I kept looking at the clock.

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When is my 10 minutes up and now I

can sit and 45 minutes goes like that.

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It's just, Whoa, where'd it go?

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And I just, I have such a great

time, but it's taken time.

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It takes time.

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So you gotta be patient, be steady.

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In other words, keep doing this.

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If you can daily is great.

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Even if it's Monday through Friday.

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And you get up and you spend 10

minutes where you're in a quiet place.

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There isn't a bunch of stuff

going on around you and you just

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focus on your breathing or there's

lots of great YouTube videos.

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I'll talk about that in a second

that can help, but you just focus

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and just be still for 10 minutes

and then you feel better with that.

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You add 10 more minutes and

add 30 minutes, you know, be

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steady and be kind to yourself.

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Don't rebuke yourself.

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Don't get on because

that's counterproductive.

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That just gets your brain all upset again.

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You're trying to calm things down.

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You picture one analogy I heard

is, is like a jar of river

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water and it's always shook up.

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It's always shaking.

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So you got mud and rocks and leaves

and all kinds of stuff floating around.

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This is setting it down

and not touching it.

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And everything settles and the

water clears up and you can

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see that's what you're doing.

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You're learning to settle yourself.

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You're learning to be still and

know that God is God, right?

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Uh, you're breathing.

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You breathe in through your

nose and out through your mouth.

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And you breathe, you breathe all

the way down to your stomach.

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Your stomach should go up and

down when you're deep breathing.

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Not quickly, cause that'll heighten

you, that'll, that'll, you slow breathe.

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And not so much that you get panicky.

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Some people, when they breathe

too slow, they panic like they're

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going to suffocate or something.

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And there are breathing

many different kinds.

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And actually, I'm going to

do a video just on breathing.

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But, slow down, calm your breathing.

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Breathe in, through your nose.

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And out through your mouth.

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Center your mind, you center yourself.

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And, and, and we'll be, I'll do a

video on centering or just picking

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a word or, or something you look at

a candle or a word or that you learn

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to focus yourself on, you center.

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There's mindfulness breathing meditation.

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There's affirmation meditation.

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There's Lectio Divina.

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These are just different types.

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There's a body relax.

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There's where you're able to just turn

off all the fight or flight mechanisms.

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These are all different types.

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And I'm going to do videos on all of them.

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Uh, when you, when you meditate,

position yourself well.

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I mean the classic, you know,

Buddhist meditation when you're

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sitting with your legs folded.

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Great, if you can do that, awesome,

but you don't have to do that.

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You can sit there with your feet

planted on the ground in a comfortable

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place, again where you're not

going to be disturbed too much.

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And you position yourself

comfortable, sit up.

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You can lay down and meditate.

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Great.

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But.

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I will tend to fall asleep if I do that,

and, and several other people that I've

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helped with meditation, that's what

they did, they fell right to sleep.

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If you're a hard working, burning the

candle on both ends kind of person,

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you will certainly fall asleep.

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Um, so I say sit up in a comfortable

place, if you can cross your

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legs, great, if not no worries.

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You close your eyes, you breathe

in deep and slow, in your nose,

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out your mouth, you focus on

your breath, you focus your mind.

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And your thoughts on your breath.

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You feel it coming in.

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You feel it filling your lungs.

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You feel it all the way down

to your stomach and then you

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exhale through your mouth.

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If you don't want to exhale through your

mouth, you can exhale through your nose.

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That's fine.

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It is better by far to breathe

in through your nose though.

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And I'm going to be sharing different

things that are coming up to help with

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these different kinds of meditations and

different kinds of practices to help us.

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Um, spiritual learning labs, spiritual

retreats, spiritual resources.

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There's some great apps, meditation

apps, contemplation apps.

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Um, there are some great spiritual

websites, spirituality websites.

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We've got conferences, even

in, in, in our group, we've

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got some conferences coming up.

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We'll be letting you know about that.

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Um, forming workshops, spiritual

forming David tackles, uh, uh,

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workshops, which are fantastic.

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Uh, and I would recommend his book,

read it now, you know, Forming

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a Work of Grace by David Tackle.

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Contemplation workshops,

learning how to focus ourselves,

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learning how to contemplate.

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And there's podcasts out there as well

as I'm going to be doing some of my own.

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But these are just the resources

I'll be sharing with you guys.

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This is the book, Forming

the Work of Grace.

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This fall we're going to do a 12 week

series and there'll be several of them.

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We'll also be doing some

facilitator training.

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Which I think will be fantastic.

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And I'm going to have a, basically

a bulletin board, but an electronic

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bulletin board, calling it under the

broom tree and the spirit of Elijah

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being taken care of by the Lord's angel.

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So if you'd like to learn more about

it, sign up the way of the pilgrim.

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Um, I think it's going to be fantastic.

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And, uh, it's a great journey, the

spiritual journey, peace be the journey.

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God bless you.

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Buen Camino.

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Thank you, Robert.

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Again, this episode is part

three of a five part series.

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Our next episode.

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We'll be on meditation again,

but this time on breathing.

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Thanks for listening to deeper

dive by the OSI church of Christ.

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If you want to get connected to us

or want to donate to the program, go

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to our website O C church of Christ.

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Dot com or through social

media at the OSI church.

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Join us next time for part

four of spirituality, 1 0 1.

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Deeper Dive
In-depth Bible Study from the OC Church of Christ

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