John Main (1926-1982), an English Benedictine monk, pioneered the practice of Christian meditation. His genius was to recover a way into the contemplative experience for ordinary people within the Christian tradition. Hailed by Bede Griffiths as the "most important spiritual guide in the church today, " Main's work inspired the foundation of the World Community for Christian Meditation and a network of hundreds of meditation groups around the world.

John Main introduces the practice of Christian meditation for modern people who wish to deepen their spiritual lives.

We take it for granted that aspects of monastic life can sustain our daily lives in the world, but we owe this understanding to John Main, a Benedictine monk who pioneered the idea that the desert tradition of meditative or contemplative prayer, which had largely been forgotten in the West, was for all Christians. At his monastery in London, he started teaching this way of prayer to lay groups and a network of meditation groups came into being, quickly spreading throughout the world and renewing a sense of the Church as a fellowship rooted in prayer and contemplative action. Bestselling books soon grew out of his talks. This simple, practical guide to 'pure prayer' teaches that by ceasing to struggle to find words and images by which we all too easily try to control God, we give God freedom to be himself in our hearts and we begin to pray with 'the mind of Christ', as St Paul teaches. In a nervous world saturated with image and endless self-commentary, this is a nourishing, life-giving stream of hope and refreshment.

John Main understood that the remedy for the malaise that affects individuals and nations alike was the love of Christ. He taught that when we build our lives on the rock-like foundation of this love, we become rooted in the ultimate reality, and the winds and storms of life, and even death itself, no longer have power over us. In the short chapters of this book, he shows how we can find the way to this foundation and root ourselves in the eternal love that nothing can destroy. The way is simplicity itself, but it is also a way of dispossession. Daily meditation brings us to the place where our lives become wholly immersed in the Spirit of God, but it requires that we come empty handed and prepared to walk the way of unknowing.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1913 Edition.

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars.The Age of Enlightenment profoundly enriched religious and philosophical understanding and continues to influence present-day thinking. Works collected here include masterpieces by David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as religious sermons and moral debates on the issues of the day, such as the slave trade. The Age of Reason saw conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism transformed into one between faith and logic -- a debate that continues in the twenty-first century.++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++<sourceLibrary>British Library<ESTCID>T122822<Notes><imprintFull>Edinburgh: printed for Bell and Bradfute, J. Dickson, and W. Creech, 1797. <collation>xvi,412p.; 8

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1913. Contents: widow asceticism; haunted widow; immolated and suicidal widow; woman as funeral and memorial tribute; widow service; in court circles; widow-priestess; taboo on widow marriage; blood sacrifice of women for divine service; on amorous gods; wife-priestess; priestess wives; vowed offspring; chastity in sympathetic magic; magical virtue of chastity; occasional religious continence; chastity in Gainism and Buddhism; chastity in Christianity; review; bibliography.

1913. Contents: widow asceticism; haunted widow; immolated and suicidal widow; woman as funeral and memorial tribute; widow service; in court circles; widow-priestess; taboo on widow marriage; blood sacrifice of women for divine service; on amorous gods; wife-priestess; priestess wives; vowed offspring; chastity in sympathetic magic; magical virtue of chastity; occasional religious continence; chastity in Gainism and Buddhism; chastity in Christianity; review; bibliography.

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

In this, the last book he wrote before his death, the spiritual writer John Main characteristically turns to the source and focus of all his inspirational teaching about prayer - the presence of Christ. He writes, 'Learning to meditate is the most practical thing in the world. You require only one quality when you begin. That is seriously to want to learn - The central message of the New Testament is that there is really only one prayer and that this prayer is the prayer of Christ. It is a prayer that continues in our heart day and night'. A striking feature of the book is its emphasis on simplicity and moving beyond 'techniques' of prayer.

The Benedictine monk John Main is acclaimed as one of the great spiritual teachers of the 20th century, restoring to the Church its historic contemplative dimension and opening up the monastic tradition to men and women living in the world. His teachings still continue to lead people in the way of silence, stillness and simplicity which are so much needed in our modern world. Here he opens up deeper insights into the kind of prayer that enables us to bring the whole of our being to God, and to let the power released into the world by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus flow through our hearts and into the world.

Contents: widow asceticism; haunted widow; immolated and suicidal widow; woman as funeral and memorial tribute; widow service; in court circles; widow-priestess; taboo on widow marriage; blood sacrifice of women for divine service; on amorous gods; wife-priestess; priestess wives; vowed offspring; chastity in sympathetic magic; magical virtue of chastity; occasional religious continence; chastity in Gainism and Buddhism; chastity in Christianity; review; bibliography.

Learning to meditate is the most practical thing in the world. You require only one quality when you begin. That is seriously to want to learn to mediate.The central message of the New Testament is that there is really only one prayer and that this prayer is the prayer of Christ. It is a prayer that continues in our heart day and night. John Main describes this prayer as the stream of love that flows constantly between Jesus and his Father. This stream of love is the Holy SpiritIt is John Main's conviction that is it the most important task for any fully human life that we should become as open as possible to this stream of love. In order for us to do this we must learn a way that is a way of silence - of stillness - and this by a discipline that is most demanding.John Main talks about the many aspects of silent prayer: the way of the mantra, leaving distraction behind, fullness of life in love and silence. A striking feature of the book is its emphasis on simplicity, on transcending self-consciousness and moving beyond techniques of prayer.

We now take it for granted that aspects of the monastic life can sustain our daily lives in the world, but we owe this understanding to John Main, whose vision of a 'monastery without walls' has grown into a worldwide network of people who today practice Christian meditation. This is his classic book on how to practice contemplative prayer, or Christian meditation. Stepping aside from the busyness of our daily lives and being still in the presence of God is the key to discovering our true selves and knowing God as 'the ground of our being'.

Many thousands of people across the world have found their spiritual lives enriches by the daily practice of Christian meditation, the method of silent prayer taught by Benedictine monk John Main. It is a tradition which draws on the ancient wisdom of the Bible, the Hindu Upanishads and the early Christian Desert Fathers.John Main wrote several books on contemplative prayer before he died in 1982, but this collection is the only one to draw the essence of all his teachings into one volume. Paul Harris has devotedly selected the essential extracts from each of John Main's works and arranged them here in an attractive and practical daily readings format.>