The Holiness of Nude Meditation
- -Teaching by The Reverend Dasa William Griffith
- May 15, 2015
- 6 min read
We all seek to feel the very presence of God. We all desire to know Him, though we feel we can not touch Him or see Him. We often forget that God created us in His image. Male and female created He them.
There is something spiritually liberating when we release the standard, conventional boundries that the mainstream culture places on you. Nude meditation and prayer allows the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual benefits of conventional meditative practice. The one nude meditation adds is a focused primal connection that is monumental in a society full of restraints.
In the Western World, we spend a great deal of time and energy in maintaining the pride of our ego. Pride is the standard by which we measure our “self”. As an example, we come into this world naked and are given a name and a number. We are given clothes. This is NOT who we are.
We are a divine, eternal spirit that is currently housed in a shell the world sees and judges. What they call us, how they see us becomes our identity and translates to our ego. We enjoy, it would seem, playing into this mortal trap. But until we reach the fundamental truth that our name, our body, the clothes we wear to impress the world and the vehicles we drive are all designed to fuel the ego.Our culture teaches this from our time of birth.
The Christ told us that in order to be a true disciple, a true follower of THE WAY, we must deny ourselves daily, pick-up our cross and follow Him. This totally turns the way of the world upside down and goes against the grain of the ego.
For us to feel as though what we see in the mirror is who we are is a flawed concept that totally ignores our spiritual selves. Remember, God created us in His image. In fact, Jesus the Christ told us that as His disciples, we would be empowered as He was empowered if we believe in Him.
“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12) Meditating and praying nude takes us back to when we were one with God. Naked is how we came into the world and whether we wear a Hugo Boss suit or soiled rags salvaged from a dumpster, whether we drive a BMW or push a shopping cart on Skid Row, all of God’s human creation comes into the world naked. And naked we will leave it. Ashes and dust, from start to finish. The Spirit is who we are, not the body we occupy.
Nude meditation and prayer returns us to the initial point when we were, and still are, in direct communion with God. Christ on the cross, naked and bloody, returned our potential for our Eden.
With the Spirit, there is no Gucci suit or pair of Prada shoes to enhance or strengthen who you are in the eyes of God. It is just you, naked before God and your Spirit. Both God and our Spirit are always with us because it is who were were created to be. But we tend to closet them in favor of feeding our ego and our pride.
God the Father knows you. God is in you and you are in God. In Christ, there is no separation. Every distraction in your daily routine, every message bombarding you out of Madison Avenue, tell you that ego is who you are. They drive you to feed it. It is important, critically so, to recognize distractions as tools to suffocate your spiritual self. They are lies, each one. The truth that can not be debated is, quite simply, YOU ARE.
We are not our bodies. We are not our minds. We are not the car we drive or the clothes we wear. WE SIMPLY ARE.
Your meditation and prayer time should be about you and God in intimate communion. It should be a time free from judgements, shame and the false sense of who the world says you are.
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Before you start this exercise, it is best if you have abstained from sexual activity (including masturbation) for at least seven days. Here is an initial meditation exercise I want to teach you to begin the journey to feeling the presence of God with you and in you.
1) Take off all of your clothes. You have nothing to hide or to be ashamed of. God created you. He knows you. If you wear glasses, take them off. You will not need your eyes to see what you will need to see. Take off your rings, earrings and any other jewelry you may be wearing. It does not add to your value because that is NOT who you are. Anything that you did not come into the world with needs to be shed.
2) Be as comfortable as possible. Sit with your legs crossed, in the lotus position. If you can do this somewhere in nature, I would prefer this for you.
3) Close your eyes and focus on the breath coming in and out of your lungs. Rest the palms of your hands on your knees.
4) Breathe in deeply through your nostrils and exhale, exhausting all your breath, through your mouth. Do this steadily as you feel a sense of calm around you. Leave everything about your day behind you now.
5) Listen as though you have never listened to anything before. Approach every sound as new. The planet is one huge, beautifully crafted mystery from the hand of God.
6) Keep your eyes closed and begin exploring the world around you, utilizing your sense of smell, hearing, touch and taste. Begin to feel the common bond between body and earth, Spirit and God. Take in every experience as a new one. There is neither good or bad. Your body is part of the earth, as God fashioned it. From the earth your body was formed and to the earth it will return. But your spirit is His spirit, as we are created in His image. Therefore we are eternal.
7) Breathe. Be still and become the very world happening around you. You are one with God and He is all that is and ever will be. He is three in one and the Alpha and Omega.
8) Stay in this meditative state from 30 minutes to an hour. If you have set a longer period aside for this meditation, that is wonderful.
9) Slowly allow yourself to come back from this meditative state, naked before God.
10) Take the peace and tranquility of His presence now into your prayer time.
11) Place your hands together with the heel of your palms together and fingers together in a prayer stance. Bring your hands into the center of your chest and use the prayer the Christ outlined in Matthew 6:9-13. Meditate on the essence of the prayer to keep your line of communication open with God.
“Pray like this, OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE YOUR NAME. YOUR KINGDOM COME, YOUR WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD, AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS, AS WE ALSO FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS. AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL.”
Now, I use prayer beads for perpetual meditation and prayer during the day. These can be helpful and often reciting the Our Father as a mediative practice keeps us focused for our personal time alone with God.
As a follower and disciple of the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, allow your commitment to Him and His Way to be strengthened in the spirit of what Saint Jerome once wrote, which became an old Franciscan credo for the Order: “NUDUS NUDUM CHRISTUM SEQUI.” (Follow naked the naked Christ).
During times of fasting, increase your meditative and prayer time. Know that you do not need a format to communicate with God. The Our Father, as this prayer has become known, is a way to open up your time and conversation with God. Talk with God. Have a conversation with God.
Remember also, that pure silence can be one of the most effective ways to pray as well. There is a place for it in this practice and during your day. We must remain silent from time to time in order to hear God speaking to us. We talk AT Him so much that we never stop to listen for His answer.
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