by Ray Yungen
Several weeks ago Lighthouse Trails Publishing reported that 17 million Americans were practicing meditation in 2007, which is, up from 10 million in 2003. The Mayo Clinic’s Book of Alternative Medicine cites the statistic that 7.6 percent of American adults engage in meditation. This translates to 17 million people. The fact that this book gives meditation the green light speaks volumes about why meditation has exploded in practice. Mind-body medicine is now en vogue.
This has also led to a wider acceptance of mind-body medicine’s religious counterpart, which is contemplative prayer. As the two continue to gain increasing widespread acceptance, the figure of 17 million will grow exponentially in the near future. Oprah Winfrey has embarked upon a project that has profound implications for the meditation movement. 700,000 of her followers have recently signed up for Oprah’s online course based on Eckart Tolle’s latest book titled A New Earth.
Like all New Age proponents, Tolle expounds upon the necessity of meditation to access the divine. In his book, Stillness Speaks, he makes the point that lasting peace and serenity come only from the “stillness within.” The outcome of this endeavor, he says, is “Knowing who you truly are: a beautiful, divine being.” This mindset is further reflected in the title, Namaste, which he gives his publishing company and means: the god in me bows down to the god in you.
In short, I believe it is has become very apparent that meditation, in all its aspects, will continue to advance at breakneck speed into the mainstream American culture. Christians need to educate themselves to the dire necessity of giving a biblically based response to this phenomenon, for it has been my experience that the type of meditation we are speaking of here, never leads people in the direction of the Gospel of the grace of God, but instead seduces them into believing they ARE God.
