In "Awareness and Contemplation" by Anthony de Mello, he talks about how awareness exercises "can be taken to be contemplation in the strict Christian sense of the word." But first he explains that prayer means "communication with God that is carried on mainly through the use of words and images and thoughts, and contemplation is "communication with God that makes a minimal use of words, images, and concepts or dispenses with words, images, and concepts all together. Our contact with God is generally indirect, which would be through images and concepts. Anthony talks about how words and images interpose between us when we're trying to communicate. He suggests that silence can sometimes be the most powerful form of communication. When we first experience God directly, people feel as though it's a blank feeling, like their efforts at praying aren't working, and that it's a waste of their time. But that's the feeling one is supposed to get, instead of going back to thinking and speaking with God. God will "make it impossible for them to use their mind in prayer." When people feel that darkness and nothingness, it's actually God's full activity in them, it just doesn't feel like it. Yet, once that feeling because more of an actual feeling, and something other than idleness, people will realize that it's actually real and fulfilling them. De Mello says all you have to do is "abstain from all thoughts and words while you are at prayer and leave the Heart to develop itself." He talks about how hard it is to silence the mind, how it's an endless stream of thoughts flowing on end. In order to keep one from letting the mind wander, it's good to have a phrase to keep your mind in a thoughtless state, such as "Lord God." There's a time for contemplation and meditation, and there's a time for action. Yet, "in your time of contemplation you must vigorously reject all thoughts of whatever nature as being destructive of this particular form of communication with God." Anthony ends with a quote said by Saint Teresa of Ávila, "The important thing is not to think much but to love much," and if you do this during prayer, God will help you through your tough times.
I personally agree with what de Mello explained as what prayer and contemplation were, and the differences between them. We as humans get distracted very easily from God, because we have so much in this world to be distracted by. Trying to keep images and thoughts out of your head is really going to progress your prayer and get you closer to God. Personally, when I'm in complete silence praying, I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling, so I take it that I'm doing it wrong, that I'm not actually getting anywhere at all. But de Mello says that feeling nothing is how you're supposed to feel, how it's supposed to feel at first. It's actually something, not just nothing. Feeling idle and nothing is God's golden moment in your prayer time. It's him at his fullest, and we're just not aware of this feeling. In order to get to this though, we must abstain from all thoughts. We all have a hard time being thoughtless, because in our minds is an endless stream of thoughts. One thought pops into our minds and other thoughts branch from that. So the thought of being thoughtless (ohh the irony) seems almost impossible. But trying this might be our best option. Maybe being thoughtless for some time might not be so bad, as long as we get to experience God. Though having a phrase to bring you back to your thoughtless state could be a key accommodation. St. Teresa of Ávila's quote did make an impact though, because sometimes thinking leads to over thinking, and over thinking is never good for anyone. So if we stop thinking so much, and start loving more, maybe prayer would come a little easier to all of us.
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