Meditation differences between New Age & Christianity

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There’s a big difference between how the Bible defines “meditation,” and how meditation is practiced in the new age.

The Bible tells us to meditate upon Scripture day and night -Joshua 1:8 and Psalm 1:2. The word “meditate” in biblical Hebrew is “haggah,” which means to “mutter aloud.” So, we are to quietly speak Scripture aloud to ourselves while reading the Bible. In other words, our meditations need to completely focus upon the Bible. That’s the biblical definition of meditation.

In new age meditation, in contrast, you empty and open your mind. This leaves you vulnerable to demons giving you false messages.

Other new age meditations ask you to focus upon yourself: your heart rate, your breath, your thoughts and your feelings - none of which are trustworthy guides, and which also can lead to becoming self-obsessed.

Mindfulness meditation is the new age practice of noticing your thoughts without judgment, which contradicts the biblical imperative to take every thought captive. Jesus warned in the Sermon on the Mount that our sinful thoughts are equivalent to sinful actions, such as lustful thoughts equating to adultery.

Contemplative prayer and meditation is even worse, because it has you imagining that you are getting messages from God. This is dangerous, because it leads people to confuse their wishful thinking or even demonic influences, with a true message from God. God would never contradict himself, and we have to compare everything with the Bible.

Some new age meditations involve listening to a person guide you through an envisioned scenario of meeting a spirit guide. These guided meditations ask you to notice what the spirit guide tells you or gives you. This is spiritually dangerous, and opens you up to demonic guidance.

In the new age, you are told to trust your feelings, whereas the Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful and we are only to trust God for guidance (Proverbs 3:5-6; Jeremiah 17:9). We can find God‘s guidance by reading, studying, and meditating upon the Bible.

Two of the main problems with mindfulness are: 1. It teaches to notice your thoughts without judgment, when the Bible exhorts us to take every thought captive and Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that our sinful thoughts are equivalent to sinful actions. 2. These Eastern meditations (mindfulness is rooted in Buddhism and Hinduism) lead to altered states of consciousness, when the Bible commands us to be alert and sober-minded to guard against the schemes of the devil.