The Art of Talking With God

How do you begin to create an intimate relationship with the One you love? By speaking often to your Beloved, calling your loved One by name, praising, complimenting, and noticing all of the special qualities of the One you love, you become even more appreciative and feel close enough to ask your Beloved to help you with what you need, and to be thankful when you receive that help.

Conversing with God is very simple and considered one of the safest forms of meditation, yet many people feel that it is one of the most powerful of all of the meditative techniques. As difficult as it is to speak about God, Who is infinitely beyond anything we can imagine or put into words, it is very easy to speak to God.

Just 20 minutes a day of speaking to God will make a tremendous difference in your life.  You will find that many of the things that bother you will lose their power to disturb your happiness. Your relationships with others will improve. You will never feel lonely when you strengthen your relationship with the Master of the Universe and feel the presence of your Best Friend in your life every day. All of your dreams will seem much more possible to achieve.

Pour out your own words in the language of your heart before the Master of the universe. This can include compliments, complaints, excuses, words seeking acceptance & forgiveness, and words of praise.

Speech has a great power to awaken a person spiritually. The meditation must be spoken out loud, at least loud enough for honesty.

Your conversation with God should be in the everyday language that you normally use. Then it will be easy to express your deepest thoughts and feelings and your heart will be drawn up after the words. Express everything that is in your heart and tell it to God.  Thank God for every blessing in your life. Ask God for everything you need, no matter how large or small.

The breath of the sigh is drawn from the breath of life with which God created the world. When you breathe long and deep, you draw in new life. The sigh you let out because you are far from holiness breaks the bond of impurity which was trapping you. Then the soul can draw nearer to the body and whisper its message of Godliness.  Be sure to sigh from the depths of your heart and draw in a full measure of the breath of life.

Crying is a very powerful way to communicate with God. Crying should never be forced or anticipated. But when you reach the deepest expressions of your heart, it is inevitable that you will sob with profound feeling whether from pain or joy which ultimately unify in the highest emotion. It is only when the heart breaks open that true change can take place.

Make every effort to set aside at least an hour each day to meditate by yourself in a field or forest or in a room. Everything else will try to take that hour, but you must remain stubborn. If you can’t find an entire hour, then begin with 20 minutes or even 10 minutes. The most important thing is to be consistent. Claim your holy time and space, and let nothing interfere with it.

Set aside a specific time each day and return to the same place, if possible. Late at night or early in the morning, when most of the world is asleep, is the time of least distraction, but any time is good if you can keep to it consistently.  Calmly review your life and consider if what you are doing with your day is worth devoting your life to, for your life consists of what you do with your days.

Choose a place to meditate where you will be alone and undisturbed and where no one can overhear you no matter how loudly you shout, laugh or cry. It should be a place where you will not be aware of any other person in the vicinity. When you meditate, you should concentrate on the awareness that you are alone with God and nothing else exists. Eventually you will reach the point where you are no longer aware of yourself and then your entire awareness will be of God.

Take a moment to concentrate on the Master of the Universe and prepare yourself to face the One Who created you, and the One to Whom you will be speaking.

How do you begin an intimate relationship? By calling your loved one by name. Rebbe Nachman once said that when a person is meditating and all he can say is “Master of the World!” this is also very good. Saying this with feeling over and over again is a very effective way to begin the meditation, especially if you are having a hard time deciding what to say.

It is natural to want to make requests of God and to complain about the things you lack.  But the very best way to begin meditation is to count your blessings.  Make a list of every good thing in your life and every good thing about yourself and thank God for every one of them.

Beg and plead to come close to the Master of the universe and to serve God in truth. Be tenacious like a child nagging a parent. Ask in every way you can think of.

Rebbe Nachman began each day by asking God to guide him in doing His will. “This way,” he would say, “I have no worries. I rely on God.”  Start your day by asking that everything go according to God’s plan, that you act in accordance with God’s desire for you. Pray, beg, beseech God to bring you closer, to come close to you, to reveal more light in the world, to increase your faith and break your bad habits.

One must pray for everything! Although the main thing to pray for is closeness to God, still you must pray for all your needs: good health, success and livelihood, family & friends, even a new button for your coat. Trust that God will provide you with everything you need if you ask for it, and if it is according to God’s desire for you. It is often easier to speak intensely from the heart for our material needs. If you feel embarrassed that you are pleading so much for material things, eventually you will pray for the spiritual, too.

Ask God to bring healing and peace to the world. Pray for the hastening of the Messianic Era when pain and suffering will cease, and heaven and earth will unite.  Speak to God about what the World-to-Come will be like and ask the Master of the universe to show you your part in bringing it about. If you feel your life is pretty good the way it is and you don’t really need anything, don’t forget to ask God to ease the suffering of others.

Think of everything about which you can feel grateful and thank God for all of the blessings in your life and in the world. Each day, out-do yourself in words of praise of the Creator.

[Try a few out on your family, too, and see if your home life doesn’t improve!]

There are always difficulties when you try to do something holy. The greater the goal for which you yearn, the bigger the obstacles and barriers that are sent in order to strengthen your desire. The main thing is that your heart should be strong and firm.  Then nothing can stop you!

Spiritual progress is not linear. Rebbe Nachman taught that periods of ascent from one level to the next are preceded by periods of descent when one is faced with trials and obstacles that must be overcome. This can be discouraging unless one realizes that a fall is a signal that an ascent is close.

Everyone experiences periods of rebellion against discipline, even when the discipline is a pleasure. When one has accepted the inner discipline of meditating every day at a specified time, the will pops up and says, “Don’t I have a choice?”. Rebbe Nachman taught, “If you want, you do; if you don’t want, you don’t do.” Remember this when you find yourself resisting your meditation or when you feel caught up in your old habits and old thinking. What you truly want, you will do.

When you feel very far from God, when you feel your efforts are not bearing fruit, start serving God as if you had never done so before in your life. This is one of the most basic principles of serving God. We must literally begin all over again every day. Say, “Today I am beginning to attach myself to You.” All of your previous effort was preparation for this new beginning today.

Sometimes you will find when you begin your meditation that your lips are sealed. You have nothing to say and no way to begin. Nevertheless, the very fact that you are making the effort and preparing yourself to speak to God is beneficial. Even yearning to speak and come close to God is a meditation.  You can even make this inability to speak be the meditation by calling out to God that you are so far away you cannot even speak and by asking for God to come close to you and open your mouth so that you can express yourself fully in the light of the Divine.

Sometimes you will fall so far from God that you will not even know to Whom you are speaking, or if God is listening, or even there for you.  The simplest way to begin is from wherever you are.  No matter how low or how high you feel, ask: “Where?  Where are you, God? Where is Truth?”  Asking, “Where?” makes no demands on your faith or weakness. Whether you are firm in your faith or completely detached from religious belief, asking “Where?” immediately aligns you in relationship with God and brings light into the deepest darkest places of the soul.

Everyone experiences distracting or negative thoughts during meditation. Giving charity before meditation helps minimize extraneous thoughts (A tzedakah box for giving charity is essential to have in your home!)  Especially through giving charity for Jewish causes in Israel, we merge with the Holy Land and gain extra spiritual strength for meditation. Rebbe Nachman also recommends clapping your hands to purify the air when you have distracting thoughts. The sages advise us to do three things to eliminate distracting thoughts:

1.  Observe them

2.  Release them

3.  Replace them with holy thoughts.

Your thoughts are completely in your power! Two thoughts cannot exist in your mind at the same time. Thought is like a little child who stubbornly tries to go in the wrong direction. As soon as you notice your thoughts going away from your meditation, take them firmly, but gently, by the hand (so to speak) and focus them back on the meditation.

If you are embarrassed to begin, if you just can’t speak, if you’re depressed or busy, if there seem to be too many obstacles, or if speaking to God doesn’t seem to be working for you — DON’T GIVE UP!  Just keep trying. Return day after day to your special place and begin again.

(With permission from www.holysparks.com)