Succeeding in Academia through Spiritual discipline

This is one of my shortest reflection, and is based on my meditation of how my faith has played a role in my academic endeavours. I want it to be used to encourage other students and prospective students of the importance of not neglecting the spiritual disciplines of your faith. I also want to challenge you students to pursue your dream of a university education by applying your spiritual discipline to assist in your secular studies. The same habits formed from these spiritual exercises are those that will help you succeed in academia.

Studying - the mental habits of memorizing Bible verses/committing scriptures and text to memory and reflecting on the meaning of particular passages, messages or concepts - is a very useful habit for academia.

Reading - the at least weekly act of reading the scriptures brings familiarity with words and going through text. This habit is also useful for the times in getting someone used to weekly or daily reading practices, that are useful in academic studies, since most information conveyed in education is done through information transfer from text.

Prayer habits - Those who practice the daily or less regular routine of getting up in the middle of the night or early morning to pray to or petition G-d or to have devotion/quiet time with G-d, develop a habit that will help one to complete assignments or prepare for examinations. Countless time, one will have to forsake sleep to study or complete an assignment. Even those who practice prayer vigils, will be use to conducting an all night exercise that might be quite a useful habit when a paper is due the next day.

Fasting - Sometimes going without food for a period of time in order to get some work done to meet a deadline is important. Those used to fasting will not find it a strange habit to do so when necessary.

Listening to Sermons/Messages - Weekly sermons and messages from the pulpit are like lectures and the way that a lot of academic professors deliver information in class. The Christian/Jewish student will always be accustomed to sitting still for a length of time to listen keenly to the delivery of information, which will help them grasp what they ought to learn. They will have the habit of focusing their attention on a speaker for important information for a length of time.

The Bible and Meditation

I began reading this book: "Meditation and the Bible" written by a Jewish physicists and rabbi, Aryeh Kaplan.


Aryeh Kaplan advocates that the prophets in the Bible did meditation to enable themselves to be used by God to bring forth prophetic revelations. Kaplan argues that while there are two ways to get oneself in mystical states, through drugs and through meditation, the Bible only gives evidence that the prophets got to their states through meditation.

When the person who lent me the book told me about it, I said that that was New Age stuff. The person, who is one of my Jewish students, pointed out to me that David in the Psalms declares that he meditates on God's word.

As I pondered her words, it later occurred to me that since the Devil cannot come up with any original idea, then it must mean that New Age meditation must be a counterfeit of something authentic. Based on this line of reasoning, there is a meditation that is good and not all meditation is "new age". Through this interaction with I realised that New Age is just counterfeiting G-d's Bible recommended meditation.


In the book, the Rabbi - Kaplan, gives us authentic techniques used by the prophets, including getting up in the night or in the early morning separating yourself from people (isolation). Another technique mentioned is just studying nature and marveling at God's works through nature (G-d's creation). Also, the use of music is mentioned. Kaplan suggests that there are hints of these techniques through out the Psalms.

All this got me thinking about what Jesus did to make himself so available to be used by God. What made Jesus so connected to his Father was a mixture of obedience and the practice of meditation, that lead to complete surrender.

I believe Biblical Meditation frees us from the world's distractions and opens hearts and minds to God. That is the difference between Biblical Meditation and New Age Meditation, which depends on drugs, vain repetitions of words, while using several of the authentic techniques used by God's prophets. The Hippies for instance definitely sought to spend time in nature, clear their mind of all distractions and used music.


I want to see how God's meditation differ from the hippies or Satan's counterfeit. Let us read the Bible and see, wherever the term meditates occurs. If you can, browse Kaplan's book. I will let you know more as I go along, and whatever new insights comes up from my discoveries.


Reference:

Kaplan, A. (1988). Meditation and the Bible. York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser.