Reddit reviews Open Mind, Open Heart 20th Anniversary Edition

If you enjoy praying, then you might consider Centering Prayer which is a form of Christian meditation. The full manual for it is Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating.

As for the nausea, etc, you could be trying too hard. Relax. If it is too much just stop the meditation (or ignore it) and breath/lie down and let the feelings do their thing. When you can get up, get up and go about your day.

Here we go:

First, the first language of God is silence. I wish it were different, but silence seems to be the case. To speak in that language, you will have to cultivate silence yourself.

Second, knowledge of God is not something to be achieved, gotten, or acquired. It is something given to you by God... a "grace" if you will. The best and only thing you can do is make yourself available... in silence... for this grace to manifest within you if and when He grants it. It could be a very long wait. The idea of "faith" is tied in there somewhere I'm thinking...

Third... although God is there within you... you are not God and he is not you. But you are within him and he is within you.

See? There's no logic to it... indeed, it defies logic.

So, there's a method of Christian prayer called "contemplation". Its an ancient form of Christian prayer, and while there are parallels in other faith traditions, they differ from this approach in some significant ways.

Here's how to do it:

Sit quietly for a while... 20 to 30 mins. Pick a simple word like "rest" (there is NO significance to this word, that is just the one I use), and when a thought comes to you (it will...don't stop it), just quietly introduce the word into your mind to bring you back to quiet. If you find yourself "investing" in a thought, don't get angry at yourself, just gently go back to your word. The idea here is to let the thoughts come and go... remain "detached" from them by using your word. Set a gentle timer to go off at the end of the prayer period... nothing too jarring.

This is a form of contemplative prayer, and if it strikes a chord with you, its something you can do twice a day for 20-30 mins at a time. The fruit of this prayer is NOT found DURING the prayer, but at other times. You may find that you become practiced at detaching yourself from thoughts and open yourself to something better.

There is a lot more to this than there is space to lay out for you here, so I'm going to suggest a couple books that might interest you:

Open Mind, Open Heart, by Thomas Keating

Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, by Martin Laird

So, many people have discovered over the centuries (and to their surprise), that God is already there within them... all of us as it turns out. I'm going to suggest to you that you take this on as an experiment... a serious one. This is work, and I'm suggesting you do this for a YEAR... at the end, I think you will have... I'm betting on it... a fresh perspective.

Perhaps then, you might find yourself wanting to dive into the Bible a little. It really IS a remarkable, and fractal, library. I'm an engineer, and I have an appreciation for complexity (as well as an appreciation for silence)....

Why Buddhism is True

Feeling Good

Things I have lying around that I intend to read real soon, roughly in this order:

Streams of Living Water

Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail

Eckhart

Open Mind, Open Heart

Accidental Saints

Anything by Thomas Merton is excellent. Contemplative Prayer and New Seeds of Contemplation can be good starts.

Richard Rohr, Henri Nouwen and Thomas Keating will also be good readings.