From Anxiety to Peace

Spiritual awareness and growth are high priorities for many people today. Meditation is the path to growth, the way to deepen our own commitment to life. In the tradition of meditation the space for the expansion of our spirit is to be found in silence. Through contact with the Life Source we can begin to understand the mystery of our being and to realize our potential to enter into fullness of life, fullness of love, and fullness of wisdom. The practice of meditation is quite simple, but it requires discipline in repeating a mantra again and again. Once rooted, it flourishes.

John Main, a Benedictine monk, was born in London in 1926. During his youth his teacher was a Hindu monk, Swami Satyananda, who taught him the technique of Hindu meditation. Later Main discovered that similar practices existed in Christian tradition. When he entered the Benedictine order, he resumed the practice of meditation, finding in the writings of John Cassian a parallel with mantra meditation: the suppression of thought and image, the repetition of a short phrase to facilitate this letting go, and the concept of the poverty of spirit throughout prayer. Main brought Christian mediation to the 20th century and proposed it to contemporary women and men seeking deeper spiritual growth in their lives. He moved to Canada in 1977, to open a house of prayer in Montreal and died in 1982.