Centering prayer and Eastern meditation.

There has been heated debate for many years as to whether Christianand Eastern meditation are
essentially the same. Let us, therefore,examine the evidence.
Eastern meditation
Eastern meditation originated in Hinduism between 1800 and 1000 years B.C., and in Buddhism
with Siddharta Gautama 566--486 B.C., revered as the Buddha, "the Awakened One." It teaches that
a state of enlightenment and the end of suffering, Nirvana, is reached only by meditation and
following the path of righteousness. Meditation involves four steps: find a quiet place; close your
eyes; pick any word; and say it again and again. This word is called a 'mantra'. The aim is to
transcend thoughts and feelings, to enter an altered level of consciousness, and to move into pure
consciousness, which is the intuition of your true Self, and thus find the god-centre or godenergy.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Eastern meditation became popular in the West in the 1960s with the advent of the Transcendental
Meditation movement, founded in India in 1957 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and popularized by the
Beatles. It offered a program of daily meditation using a mantra as a method of relaxation. Today, it
is offered in two varieties, one with a traditional religious emphasis, and the other with an emphasis
on nonreligious Eastern meditation.
Advantages of Eastern meditation include lower levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, a longer life
span, less anxiety, and a decrease in blood cholesterol. (1) Adverse side effects, however, are many.
In one study long-time meditators encountered problems in 62.9% of cases and 7.4% had
profoundly adverse effects. These included anxiety or panic, tension, pain, confusion, desperation,
guilt, delusions, hallucinations, and suicidal feelings. (2) There exists an association between
Eastern meditation and seizure-like activities.
These are described in the Merck Manual as complex partialepileptic-like signs. (3) Staring, making
unintelligible sounds, mentalconfusion, hearing one's name called, and religious phenomenology
were particularly frequent among the meditators. All of these symptomswere more frequent in those
who spent a greater number of yearspractising meditation. (4)
Christian Prayer
In Christian prayer, we use our minds and hearts. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes no
mention of mantras or of altered levels of consciousness (# 2559 and #2758) and says that some
people view prayer as an effort of concentration to reach a mental void (#2726). Christian prayer is
of two types, vocal and mental. The former uses pre-determined words, the latter is spontaneous.
Prayer is a "Gift of grace" (#2713). Pope John Paul II referred to St. Teresa of Avila who in her life
had rejected the temptation of certain methods that proposed leaving aside the humanity of Christ
in favour of a vague self-immersion in the abyss of Divinity.
In October, 1989, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated in a document entitled Letter
to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on some aspects of Christian meditation, "with the
present diffusion of Eastern methods of meditation in the Christian world and in ecclesial

communities, we find ourselves faced with a pointed renewal of an attempt which is not free from
dangers and errors, to fuse Christian meditation with that which is not Christian ... Some use
Eastern methods solely as a psycho-physical preparation for a true Christian contemplation; others
go further and, ... using different techniques, try to generate spiritual experiences similar to those
described in the writings of certain Catholic mystics." They gave as an example, "The Cloud of
Unknowing" a spiritual work by an anonymous writer of the fourteenth century.
Christian prayer has shown documented health benefits, greater life satisfaction, less Yoga death
anxiety, and lower rates of alcohol disorder. (5) The benefits also included perceived improved
ability to cope with stress, lower rates of depression, lower rates of suicide, and
improved functional ability in chronic illness. (6) No information was available about adverse side
effects of Christian prayer.
Centering Prayer

Centering prayer was introduced in St. Joseph's Abbey, a Trappist monastery, in Spencer,
Massachusetts in the twenty years between 1961 and 1981, when Buddhist and Hindu
representatives and a Zen master gave weeklong retreats to the monks during which time
Thomas Keating was Abbot. The guidelines for Centering Prayer are: choose a sacred word; ignore
all thoughts and feelings; if a thought comes back, return to the sacred word; keep practising until
all thoughts and feelings disappear. You have then reached a stage of "pure consciousness" that is
supposed to put you in direct contact with God. Another prominent advocate for centering prayer
was Abbot M. Basil Pennington, O.L.S.O., who died on June 3, 2005.
Similarities of Centering Prayer and Transcendental meditation:
* Both use a twenty minute meditation
* Both use a mantra to erase all thoughts and feelings
* Both teach that, in this meditation, you pick up "vibrations"
* Both have the common goal of finding God at the centre of your being (7)
Mantra
A mantra is used in Eastern meditation to empty the mind of all thoughts and feelings in order to
reach a mental void of 'pure consciousness', an altered level of consciousness, with the purpose of

finding God at the centre. Father Keating in his book Invitation to Love says that repetition of a
sacred word in Centering Prayer is not a mantra. He tells us that a repeated word is used "not as
a parapsychological experience, but an exercise in faith, hope, and selfless love." (8)

The author of The Cloud of Unknowing, writing about contemplative prayer, said, "Then why is this
work so toilsome? The labour, of course, is in the unrelenting struggle to banish the
countless distracting thoughts that plague our minds, and restrain them beneath that cloud of
forgetting of which I spoke earlier." (9) While the author of The Cloud described the labour needed
to "banish" one's thoughts, Keating says that this should not be a task; one simply lets them go. The
sacred word is always used with great gentleness. (10) Perhaps then, the use of a sacred word in
Centering Prayer, is a mantra, and a very effective one.
Christian prayer is an active process, involving personal communication between an individual and
God. Christian meditation is also an active process, but does not involve personal communication.
It involves contemplation on the mysteries of God illuminated by the truths of the Faith. It is not
Centering Prayer, since it involves the elimination of thoughts, a negative process and is, therefore,
not consistent with true Christian meditation.
Cosmic Energy
Father Keating, speaks of 'Energy Centers', and believes that the body has energy centers called
"chakras." (11) He also states that "As you go to a deeper level of reality, you begin to pick up
vibrations that were there all the time but were not perceived." (12) Father Pennington speaks of
"energies flowing up and down the spinal system." This 'energy' is called 'prana' and, in the Hindu
religion, is thought of as an emanation of consciousness, from Brahman, the Hindu god. The
energy released at creation is called Kundalini, and lies coiled up at the base of the spine. Its
purpose is to arouse the energy 'prana', a vibrational phenomenon, and cause it to rise up through
increasingly subtle 'chakras' until union with god is achieved. (13)
Father Keating holds that "According to quantum physics, various levels of material energy can
occupy the same physical space at the same time. In similar fashion, the divine energy can be at
work in us at all levels that cannot be perceived at all ... The divine energy flows into us ... available
twenty-four hours a day at a maximum strength.... There remains a further energy ... what
theologians call the Beatific Vision ... This is the energy that lights the universe and forms the
whirling nebulae." (14) Fathers Pennington and Keating both seem to conflate the quantum
mechanical theory in the science of physics with 'prana', 'the divine life force' posited by the Hindu
religion and the grace of God, and even the Beatific Vision.
The True Self
At the end of Centering Prayer you reach a point at which you are aware that "If at that point you
can lose awareness that you are aware of no thoughts, you will move into pure consciousness."
This, Father Keating holds, is an intuition of the true Self, that in turn, is the same as God. "God
and our true Self are not separate. Though we are not God, God and our true Self are the same
thing." (15) He explains elsewhere that he means only that we find God at the centre of our being,
by stating that "We might conceive of God as at our deepest center and our true Self as a circle
around it." (Intimacy with God, p. 80). He also said "when you sit down to prayer, your whole
psyche gathers itself and melts into God." (16) This concept of God is gnostic and pantheistic.

In defence of Centering Prayer

Father Murchadh O'Madagain, a priest who lives in Galway, Ireland, has made a vigorous defence of
Centering Prayer. He defends the avoidance by Keating and others of the use of non-traditional
spiritual language, a language that many people find off-putting. These authors decided, he said, to
use more modern language to give explanations in terms of psychology rather than spirituality,
because they thought that this would be more appealing to people who have a perceived idea
of prayer and contemplative life as something only for the "cloister."
To the criticism that Centering Prayer attempts to make the mind go blank, he replies that it is a
means to help a person to be silent and not distracted by thoughts. Centering Prayer, he says, is not
a technique that can cause contemplative love; instead, it disposed one to be more receptive to
contemplation. In answer to objections to the statement that "God and the True Self are the same
thing", Father O'Madagain says that Father Keating maintains that at the deepest centre of
ourselves, we will find the divine presence; he does not claim that the one is the same as the
other.
To the objection that Centering Prayer proponents define original sin as "a way of describing the
human condition, which is the universal experience of coming to full reflective self
consciousness without the certitude of personal union with God," Father O'Madagain agrees that it
is not the traditional way in which original sin is identified. This new definition, he says, does not
water down the definition of original sin in order to make it more acceptable. It is, rather, he
claims, a different way of explaining it.
Father O'Madagain denies that the intention of Centering Prayer is to bring one to the centre of
one's being, but rather, to be present to God. He admits that the language used by Father Keating
is very similar to that used in New Age circles when he speaks of "energies of the unconscious,
higher levels of consciousness, trans-personal psychology, and the presence of the divine within
each person." He replies that it is the Holy Spirit who brings about this work within us and that we
must rely completely on grace.
He admits that Centering Prayer shares with most forms of Eastern meditation the idea of reducing
the intake of sensible information to a minimum. Our thoughts are minimized by the sacred word in
Centering Prayer and by focusing on breathing in Zen, so that we can just "be" and, more
specifically, in Christian meditation, "be present to God." The difference, he says, between the two
practices is in the intention. In Zen, it is essentially to purify the mind in order to reach
enlightenment. With Centering Prayer on the other hand, there is no attempt to "achieve" anything.
It is simply a method to be open to God so that his action may purify us and bring us to union with
him.
Father O'Madagain significantly, however, gives no answer to the problem posed to Father Keating
and Father Pennington's frequent reference to "energy, vibration, and the Kundilini." These are
references to aspects of a pantheistic Hindu godhead.
Spiritual danger
David D. Smithson, MD, warns of the danger of Eastern meditation. "A concern with having the
mind go 'blank' with clearing out all thoughts, emotions and perceptions, is that it could place
one at spiritual risk ... To practice Eastern meditation, however passively, takes one into an
unprotected spiritual void ... that is, a void that could be potentially dangerous and spiritually risky.
It is without the supernatural guidance of Christ." (17) Father John Dreher says that the dangers of

Centering Prayer include the possibility of opening oneself to evil spirits. A person with a problem in
a moral or psychological area can open himself to some degree of demonic influence. (18)
Pope Benedict XVI, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Interreligious Meeting of
Prayer for Peace at Assisi held in 1986, said that it is important not to forget that the attention paid
to that meeting did not lend itself to a concession to relativism in religious beliefs. The Church also
teaches that "Many people are convinced that there is no harm in 'borrowing' from the wisdom of
the East, but the example of Transcendental Meditation should make Christians cautious about the
prospect of committing themselves to another religion (in the case of Hinduism), despite what
Transcendental Meditation's promoters claim about its religious neutrality." (19)
Comment
The decision whether or not to practise Centering Prayer will have to be made by each person with
great prudence. On balance, taking into account the facts and arguments, and also the potential
risks to physical, psychological, and spiritual welfare and keeping in mind some of the strange
statements of Fathers Keating and Pennington about "vibrations," chakras, etc., it would appear
that becoming involved is not without serious risk. "God is not identified with the Life-principle
understood as 'spirit' or 'basic energy' of the cosmos, but the love which is absolutely different from
the world, and yet creatively present in everything, and leading human beings to salvation." (20)
Contemplative prayer should, perhaps be practised by more people than it is at present. That said,
perhaps the advice of St. Teresa of Avila to her nuns should be followed: "To prepare for
contemplation by living a virtuous life, and then to pray in the normal Christian way, using the mind
and the heart. If God so wishes, He will take a person into contemplation." (21)
Green Sisters
"Green Sisters" are Catholic nuns working to "heal the earth" as they "cultivate new forms of
religious culture" and seek a "deeper understanding of the connections between women, religion,
ecology, and culture." These facts are quoted from an interview of Sarah McFarland, author of
Green Sisters. A Spiritual Ecology, Harvard University Press, 2007.
The Sisters' core principle is that God and the cosmos are fused. That belief is the error of atheism,
specifically condemned by Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors. Their network includes Sisters of
St. Joseph, of Loretto, of Charity, and of Notre Dame. For them, Jesus is "... embodied in the
cosmos", and He suffers another "Passion" in the "wasting of the planet." They have substituted
many 'meditation trails' for the Stations of the Cross, in which the events of the Passion of Our Lord
are replaced by 'labyrinths' and 'cosmic walks.' In these venues one learns of the 'Passion of the
Earth' that enables us to 'see' that there is no finite created world, only an ever-expanding universe,
constantly changing, of which humanity is inseparably a part.
The Turtle Island Project
Dr. George Cairns, a minister of the United Church of Christ, and a professor at the Chicago
Theological Seminary, has been a promoter of Centering Prayer since 1986. He was taught
Centering Prayer by Father Thomas Keating, the Trappist monk who had developed that form of
prayer in the 1970s. Cairns is also co-founder of the Turtle Island Project, an organization that
promotes concern for the environment, "North American Theology," and inter-faith prayer based on
the "earth based cultures" of the Celts, Native Americans, and indigenous peoples."

Dr. Cairns also speaks of the "interpenetration of all creation itself ... we are part of all creation, and
all creation is part of us."
References:
(1.) Rosenfeld, Isadore, Dr. Rosenfeld's Guide to Alternative Medicine, New York: Random House,
1996.
(2.) Kutz, I., et al, "Meditation and Psychotherapy: A Rationale for the Integration of Dynamic
Psychotherapy, the Relaxation Response and Mindfulness Meditation." American Journal
of Psychiatry, 142 (1985a) : 1-8.
(3.) Merck Manual, 17th edition, Merck and Co., 1999.
(4.) Persinger, Michael A., "Transcendental Meditation and a general meditation were associated
with enhanced complex partial epileptic-like signs: evidence for 'cognitive kindling'?" Perceptual
and Motor Skills.
(5.) Markides, K.S., "Aging, Religiosity, and Adjustment: A Longitudinal Analysis." Journal of
Gerontology, 38 (1983), Koenig, H. G. et al., "Religious practices and alcoholism in a southern adult
population." Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 45.3 (1994); Koenig, H. g. et al., "Religious
behaviors and death anxiety in later life." The Hospice Journal 4:1 (1988): 3-24.
(6.) Koenig, H.G. et al., Is Religion Good for your Health? The Effects of Religion on Physical and
Mental Health. New York: the Hayworth Pastoral Press, 1997.
(7.) Anne Feaster, "A Closer Look at Centering Prayer; Is it Really Christian Contemplation or a Step
into Hindu Prayer?" Http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
(8.) Thomas Keating, The Method of Centering Prayer, The Prayer of Consent, (pamphlet).
(9.) Murchadh O'Madagain, Centering Prayer and the Healing of the Unconscious, p. 108.
(10.) Ibid. p.109.
(11.) Thomas Keating, Invitation to Love, p. 125.
(12.) Finbarr Flanagan, "Centering Prayer, Transcendental Meditation for the Christian Market:
Faith and Renewal, May/June, 1991. Quoting Thomas Keating, Finding Grace at the Center, Mass:
St. Bede's Publications, 1978, p. 20.
(13.) Basil Pennington, Awake in the Spirit, 1995, p. 93.
(14.) Thomas Keating, Intimacy With God--The Deepening Experience of Centering Prayer. Chapter
9, part 1.
(15.) Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, p. 2.
(16.) See reference #9.
(17.) David G. Smithson, MD, Prayer or Mantra? A contrast between Christian Prayer and Eastern

Meditation, 2006. Seventy-Three Publications. Shawnee Missions. Kansas, pp. 71-2.

(18.) Rev. John D. Dreher, "The Danger of Centering Prayer", This Rock, Nov. 1997. Published by
Catholic Answers, http://www.catholic.com
(19.) Jesus Christ The Bearer of the Water of Life, A Christian Reflection on the "New Age".
Pontifical Council for Culture, Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Feb. 3, 2003. n.
3,4,5.
(20.) Ibid. n. 4.
(21.) See reference #7.
Dr. John Shea is Catholic Insight's medical/bioethical contributer. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Centering+prayer+and+Eastern+meditation.-a0179205856