Religious Experience through Communion, Meditation, and Worship

Experiments in Personal Religion: Study II
Religious Experience through Communion, Meditation, and Worship
H. N. Wieman

How to Get the Benefit of Private Worship

The method of worship best adapted to one person is not always best for another. And the same person in different moods and circumstances will modify his method of worship to suit his need. Hence the suggestions we are about to make must not be taken as rigid rules. We can help one another by making these suggestions. But each must work out his own method. No study of rules and instructions ever enabled a man to swim the first time he jumped into deep water. He had to learn by practice. The same is true of worshipful meditation and communion.

Let us mention first three general conditions or preconditions which are helpful to worship.

The first of these we mentioned earlier. One must be living earnestly. One must not shirk the heavy responsibilities. One cannot swim in shallow water. One must venture out to depths where wading is difficult. If one is to worship successfully he must venture out into the depths. That does not mean that one must do something conspicuous before the world, or seek trouble. It merely means that one shall assume the tremendous responsibilities that await everyone who takes life seriously. It means, for example, if one is a parent, that he shall not treat his child merely as a plaything, but shall assume the enormous responsibility of that child's highest development. No matter how apparently circumscribed one's life may be, the great responsibilities are there for him to bear if he will shoulder them.

The first precondition of effectual worship is, then, that you take life seriously.

The second is sincerity. That means you will not take into your worship any beliefs concerning which you have any doubts. For example, suppose you doubt there is a God. Then do not try to believe there is a God. You can worship better without that belief if you are not absolutely sure of it. Discard any belief and every belief which you cannot hold with complete sincerity. Whenever any belief puts you under a sense of constraint, or gives you a feeling of unreality in your worship, pitch it out. Absolute sincerity, complete honesty with yourself, is indispensable to helpful worship.

A third precondition to worship is seclusion. Even a worshiping group should seclude itself. That is what a church building is for. But in private worship the individual should be alone. Of course one may achieve this required solitude of mind in physical association with others.

But it is best to go to some place where you can be completely alone, preferably at night just before retiring or soon after arising in the morning, or both. The ideal place would be a mountain top at night. That was where Jesus went for his private worship. But for most of us most of the time that is impossible. Some room will serve, especially if you can so shut yourself in that you need not fear others will hear you even when you speak aloud.

This need for solitude for worship arises out of the nature of private communion and meditation. To worship in this fashion means to cease the conduct of ordinary affairs in order to give your whole attention to that feature of your total environment which is supremely important for all human living. It means to turn from the lesser things in order to give the whole attention to God. If one does not believe in God one can call him by another name. I have a little son whom others call Robert, but whom I call Bobby. If you prefer to call God by another name, no harm is done. If the word God brings up doubts, then think of that behavior of the universe, whatever it may be, whether known or unknown, which is most helpful to human kind when we make right adjustment of our own activities to it. God is the supremely important object for all human living, whether or not you call him by that name. To worship is to give your whole attention to this supreme thing. To do this it is necessary to isolate yourself in order not to be distracted by lesser things.

What we have mentioned thus far-earnestness, sincerity, isolation -are the preconditions of worship. Let us now enter into the act of worship itself.

1. The first step in the act of worship is to relax and become aware of the all-encompassing presence. It is difficult to describe just what we mean, as difficult as to describe the acts by which you swim or walk or breathe. Another way of saying it is that we empty the mind and cease to think about anything in particular, yet are not in a state of stupor. It is a state of awareness. Awareness of what? Of that total encompassing presence which sustains you and shapes you and in adaptation to which all your life is lived in so far as it is lived well, and in so far as the greatest goods of life are attained by you. This presence is God; but if you have doubts about God, call it a certain behavior of the universe, or ozone, or electricity, or ether, or innumerable atoms, or any other misconception of God you may prefer. (We are trying to explain how one can worship and at the same time cast out every belief concerning which he has doubts.) Better let belief in God force itself into your mind against your will than try to hold it when it seems to be slipping away. Whatever you do, be honest.

This first step in the act of worship, then, is relaxed and empty-minded awareness of the all-encompassing presence.

2. The second step is to think of how this total process of atoms or electricity or ether (of course it is God) is working upon you and in you and through you to shape the cells of your body and the impulses of your mind into the likeness of Jesus Christ when you make right adjustment to it. If this thought about Jesus gives rise to any doubts, then think of that noblest kind of personality, that highest degree of health, that clearness of mind and greatness of purpose which may be yours when you make right adjustment to this total process of God. No matter how you may doubt your own possibilities, at least there is a maximum of nobility, a maximum of health and mentality and purpose of which you are capable, however small that maximum may be.

When we say one thinks about it, we do not mean one must know what that maximum is nor what shape it will assume. In fact one does not know except as he can see the maximum realization of these possibilities in some historic form as in Jesus. But you do not need to know what your highest possibilities are to think of them in the sense here indicated. You need merely to hold in mind that there are such possibilities for you, however, undefined and unexplored, and that they are to be attained through the working of this all-encompassing Reality.

This second step in the act of worship is, then, to call to mind the fact that you have a total maximum of possibility for good which God will accomplish in you and for you in so far as you make right adaptation to him.

3. The third step is to face the chief problem with which you are struggling. If you live earnestly you are always struggling with a problem which taxes your powers. You are in deep water where wading is difficult. So, in this third stage, after you have become aware of God (called by another name if you prefer) and of your own maximum but undefined possibilities through God, then face your major problem. Survey it as comprehensively and acutely as possible to find what most needs to be done.

4. The fourth step is to analyze yourself and find what mental attitude or habit of any kind needs to be corrected and readjusted in yourself in order that your activities may so fit into the behavior of things that the problem can be solved. What habits, not only of word and overt deed, but of inner attitude and secret impulse, must be changed in yourself in order to fit yourself into the working of the all-encompassing Presence. Your task is to adapt your activities and total personality in such a way that you can "mesh in" with that behavior of the universe through which the greatest good can be attained.

But one must face the fact that this survey and analysis of self in face of his major problem may lead to radical change, or even total abandonment, of that program which he has been following. One may find that he is seeking the wrong things or has mistaken his problem. To make such a discovery is one of the great goods achieved through the worship we are describing. As a result of such worship one may turn right about and go in another direction. However, this is by no means the necessary result. The more common result, perhaps, is to find a way to carry through the task one has undertaken.

5. When you have discovered what readjustment is needed in yourself in order to make right connection with the behavior which is God, you must formulate this personal readjustment in positive terms. You must never stop with a merely negative attitude. The overcoming of a fault is always a positive constructive operation. It always consists of making some right adjustment in order to correct the wrong adjustment. This right adjustment must be formulated in mind as clearly, concisely, and accurately as possible. Put it into words. For example: "I am sensitive and sympathetic to the thought and feeling of others." Or: "I remember every detail when it is needed." Or: "I am calm and winsome and adaptable." Or whatever your need may be.

Some one may say: But the chief problem that engages me in worship has nothing to do with myself. I am praying for some one in Africa or otherwise far removed from anything that I can say or do or feel. No adjustment in myself can be of any avail whatsoever. My answer is: Anything which deeply interests you does have something to do with yourself. It has everything to do with yourself. If you pray about it, then it is through wh'at you do, i.e., through your prayer, that any good is accomplished. Either your prayer is effective or it is not. If it is effective then it is because you pra I yed. That means it is effective because of the personal adjustment which you make to the potent working of your total environment. Let no one think genuine prayer is merely a mouthing of words with no adjustment of the total personality to the total environmental working of God.

So we say the fifth step in worship is positive statement to yourself of the required adjustment of your personality in light of the major problem which concerns you, so that God can work his good.

Some will wish to take a sixth step, that of verbal repetition, preferably spoken aloud to yourself, of this required adjustment of your
personality. "I am quick to see and feel the need of another." "I am simple and honest in all my dealings." "I think profoundly, comprehensively, and accurately." I am this or that, or I feel some way or another toward certain things or persons. What it is you repeat and the numb--r of times you repeat it will, of course, depend on what you have found to be the required adjustment of your total thinking, feeling, willing, doing personality.

The words repeated are not necessarily prayers to God, although one may so apply them to God if he chooses. The communion with God has already been accomplished in the earlier stages of the worship as previously described. What one is now doing by this repetition is to reap the benefits of that worship and enter into a realization of the possibilities which it has opened up. Through this repetition of words you are simply establishing as an enduring habitual attitude of the total personality that adjustment to God which you have attained through worship. You are sealing, conserving, "nailing down" the benefits of that worship.

This repetition of words by which a personal attitude is established is the last stage in the complete act of worship. It should not be done with any sense of strain or anxiety, but in the spirit which the preceding worship has engendered.

We suggest the foregoing program as an experiment in personal religion. If you will try it every night just before retiring for three or four weeks we believe you will note some very marked results.