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Tuesday, August 17, 2010

"An empty mind is the devil's workshop."

"Be careful about emptying our minds," my friend reiterated after our taichi class last night. During the cooling down routine, our taichi teacher had asked us to empty our minds and relax our bodies. "I said a prayer when she asked us to empty our minds," my friend added. Coincidentally, I had also said a short prayer taught by a pastor friend: "Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." This is the Jesus Prayer of the Eastern Orthodox Tradition.

Some years ago when I was under severe stress which contributed to an illness, my pastor friend taught me the spiritual exercise of Silento (Silence) to mediate and relax my mind and body. The purpose of this exercise is to focus our attention on Jesus and discard all other thoughts in our minds. Here's how it's done:

Relax and take deep breaths.
While inhaling, pray in your heart: "Lord Jesus Christ , Son of God".
While exhaling, pray in your heart: "Have mercy on me, a sinner".
Repeat 10 to 20 times.
(Source: "Conversation with God - praying in the Scripture" by Goh Nai Li)

My pastor friend also taught me to relax my head, neck, shoulders, chest and abdomen progressively in tandem as I inhale and exhale while reciting the Jesus prayer in my heart. I find this spiritual exercise to be very helpful in quietening my heart and mind.

Granted that we should focus our hearts and minds on God when we enter into communion (conversation) with Him, but why is it risky to empty our minds as part of physical and mental relaxation?

Jesus tells the story of an evil spirit who comes out of a man. It goes through arid places seeking but not finding rest. So the evil spirit decides to return to the house that it left. It finds the house unoccupied and swept clean. Then it brings into the house another 7 spirits more wicked than itself. And so the man is worse off than before. (Matt 12:43-45)

The moral of the story? Just cleaning up one's life without filling it with God leaves plenty of room for Satan to enter (Life Application Study Bible). Likewise, emptying our minds during meditation or for relaxation and leaving our minds unguarded even for a moment may give the evil one a foothold in us.

Another friend had also advised me several years ago against learning yoga, as yoga teaches the practitioners to empty their minds. "An empty mind is the devil's workshop," she said to me. I didn't pay attention to her advice at first and proceeded to attend a 2nd yoga beginners' course. In the middle of this 2nd yoga course, I found my mind blanking out for a few seconds during the "corpse pose" (part of yoga cooling down routine, whereby we stretch out on the floor, totally relaxing our bodies and emptying our minds). This jolted me - gosh, I had emptied my mind for a few seconds! I promptly quitted the yoga course.

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." (Philippines 4:8)

The same friend told me that she has been learning to memorise this verse to try to prevent the occurrence of memory loss due to ageing. Selwyn Hughes, the Welsh preacher, suggested in one of his devotions (Everyday with Jesus) that the first thing on our minds when we wake up in the morning should be God and the last thing on our minds when we go to bed in the night should be God. Godly advice worth taking up.