John Main OSB – författare

John Main understood that the remedy for the malaise that affects individuals and nations alike was the love of Christ. He taught that when we build our lives on the rock-like foundation of this love, we become rooted in the ultimate reality, and the winds and storms of life, and even death itself, no longer have power over us. In the short chapters of this book, he shows how we can find the way to this foundation and root ourselves in the eternal love that nothing can destroy.The way is simplicity itself, but it is also a way of dispossession. Daily meditation brings us to the place where our lives become wholly immersed in the Spirit of God, but it requires that we come empty handed and prepared to walk the way of unknowing.

Fully Alive is a previously unpublished book by John Main, one of the 20th century's most influential spiritual teachers, who reintroduced to the contemporary church the practice of contemplative prayer - a tradition that had been lost since the era of the Desert Fathers.John Main's teaching is striking for the depth and richness of its simplicity. This is a practical prayer companion for every stage of the contemplative pilgrimage.At a time when religious faith is often seen as socially embarrassing, and many Christians underestimate the mystery and wonder of their own tradition, John Main is a challenging teacher. He is deeply traditional and his faith is personal, heartfelt and explicit. He issues a demanding yet realistic call to practise regular meditation as a spiritual discipline so that silence may do its radically transformative work and reveal the meaning of goodness and love.During his lifetime, hundreds of groups gathered at his monastery to learn meditation from him and this book is based on his talks to them. His words are directed not to more words and thoughts but to entering the experience of silence in regular times of practice.Today, through the worldwide family of prayer he founded, the World Community for Christian Meditation, many thousands of people in countries across the world continue to discover the transformative effect of being silent before God.

We now take it for granted that aspects of the monastic life can sustain our daily lives in the world, but we owe this understanding to John Main, whose vision of a 'monastery without walls' has grown into a worldwide network of people who today practice Christian meditation. This is his classic book on how to practice contemplative prayer, or Christian meditation. Stepping aside from the busyness of our daily lives and being still in the presence of God is the key to discovering our true selves and knowing God as 'the ground of our being'.