“Magical Prayer”

We humans are seemingly ‘hooked’ to our achievements. We are convinced that we, as the human race, have made phenomenal strides of progress towards improving the quality of life that we endeavour to live. Certainly, our accomplishments within the parameters of our material, physical and intellectual life, have been quite astounding. Our technology, inspired ever so passionately by our intellect, continues to surpass all the goals we set it, as we journey on the path of an unending and relentless pursuit of comfort and uniqueness. Each new ‘discovery’ and ‘invention’ challenges our insatiable intellect to discover an even ‘better’ one that will answer the problems posed by the previous one! A self-perpetuating cycle of ‘invention / containment / invention / containment / invention’ on and on and on! Remember the gist of all those ‘God Father’ films? – “Here is an offer you can’t refuse. Pay us to protect your establishment from destruction by us!!!” In the same way, our ego persuades us to invent ‘new’ things so that our intellect can find the solutions to the problems created by our own inventions and, in this way, the ego continues to pull our emotional strings!

However, whilst we have ‘changed’ and ‘advanced’ the material, physical and intellectual quality of life, we have remained almost completely in the dark in our pursuit of God, Religion and Prayer. We continue to be mesmerised with ancient dogma and ritual and the belief that God is a judgemental entity. No ‘new’ discoveries have been made in this direction because words such as “wrath, hell, damnation, devil, blasphemy and sacrilege” are flung at us by our would-be detractors who view any deviation from traditional belief as an insult to Divinity.

And so, we continue to look for political solutions for non-political challenges, social solutions for non-social challenges, and military solutions for non-military challenges, always ‘forgetting’ that our challenges are spiritual and that we need spiritual answers!

In this weave of the tapestry I am guided to introduce that part of the spiritual answer that we refer to as “Prayer”. I call it “Magical Prayer”.

Statistics have shown that a specific number of people, joined in a focused, unified consciousness of non-denominational mass prayer, produce effects that extend well beyond the room or building where the prayer has occurred.

Clearly there is no “right” or “wrong” way to pray. In its simplest expression, prayer is the very personal and innate ability within each of us to commune with our world, with one another, and with that ‘Greater Presence’ within us that we have all felt from time to time.

Innumerable studies, as well as the ever expanding realizations from the world of quantum physics, have shown that ‘logic’ is the result of a structured and disciplined approach using the storage data of our conditioned brain, while ‘wisdom’ is the intuitive reception of the storage data of the infinite and unconditional universe. The former is associated with the brain and the latter with the heart. It should follow, therefore, that ‘prayer’ and the ‘heart’ have a seamless connection that is eternal and, as evidence suggests that our world and our bodies mirror what we think/feel, we need to ensure that our prayers originate from our hearts, and not in our heads.

Gregg Braden (www.greggbraden.com) tells us why this should be so: “The logic of our brain works in polarity—left brain/right brain, light/dark, good/bad, right/wrong, etc. Praying “for” something creates a strong feeling—a charge—of what “should” or “should not” be. The physics of our world requires that when something is created with a charge in one polarity, the opposite must be created as well, to balance the charge.

Head-based prayer:
When we pray “for” something, we are using a mental process of logic! While thought-based prayers “for” peace in Iraq, for example, may be well intentioned and appear to create a temporary peace or healing in one place at one point in time, they may inadvertently create precisely the opposite of the peace that is intended, in another place, at another time!

Heart-based prayer:
Our hearts, on the other hand, have no polarity. In the Native traditions, there is even a word that describes the non-polar objectiveness of the heart, the heart that sees what “is” rather than judges what “should” be. The word is Shante Ishta (the single eye of the heart). When we choose peace or healing from our heart, there is no polarity created to balance our choice, as there is no “left” or “right” heart.

From our heart, the feeling is the prayer! Studies have shown that this quality of gratitude and appreciation for the peace that already exists creates a “field effect”—in the presence of peace, all that can happen is peace.

Clarity:
To be very clear, this form of prayer is NOT directed at a place, person, organization, country, city or event. This mode of prayer does NOT attempt to “make” something happen, somewhere where we may not agree with what life is showing us. The ancients understood that to use prayer in this way is an “abomination” of our gift of communion with our world. To impose our idea of what should, or should not be anywhere in the world, or upon another person, is a form of manipulation, and a misuse of our gift of prayer.

Rather than praying for someone to “win”/ “lose”, “suffer” or “heal”, we have the opportunity to “feel” the appreciation and gratitude for the peace and healing that already exists. The power of this kind of prayer transcends winners and losers—inviting us to elevate the conditions of our world to a new realm beyond win/loss.

In doing so, we open the door of a very subtle, yet powerful principle that allows for the possibility of peace/healing to be present without imposing our will to make it so." (Gregg Braden)

Most prayers are of a ‘beseeching’ kind – ‘gimmee this, gimmee that, gimmee what I want (often couched in the seeming intent for another’s’ welfare) – and a ‘call’ to a higher power for mercy. Perhaps you all have engaged in this form of prayer at one time or another? I know that I have. However, is there any ‘logic’ or ‘wisdom’ in such prayer? I don’t believe there is any, and quantum physics appears to validate this further. We are told that ‘all that there IS, all that there ever has BEEN, and all that there ever WILL BE’, ALREADY EXISTS, and that it only requires ‘awareness’ on our part in order to manifest it into our life! It seems kind of odd, then, that I should be praying for something that already exists!

In fact, could it be that our well-intentioned asking may unknowingly empower the very conditions that we are praying to change?!!! For example, when we ask, "Dear God, please let there be peace in the world," in effect we are stating that peace does not exist in the present. Once we allow the qualities of ‘non-peace’ to occupy our mind and, if we then fuel our prayer through feelings of ‘non-peace’ in our body, we are actually empowering ‘non-peace’ to become/remain present in our world! Why? Because, as ancient traditions remind us, we manifest into our world, all that we focus on through the quality of thought, feeling and emotion that we create in our body!

Quantum science now takes this idea one step further, stating that it is precisely such conditions of feeling that creation responds to, by matching the feeling (prayer) of our inner world with like conditions in our outer world. Though the outcome of our feeling (prayer) of our inner world may not yet be apparent in our outer world, we are invited to acknowledge our communion with creation and live as if our prayer has already been answered.

So, is there another ‘kind’ or ‘form’ of prayer that we may have forgotten? The Ancients tell us that there is, and Braden calls it the ‘Lost Mode of Prayer’. “Through the words of another time, the ancients invited us to embrace our lost mode of prayer as a consciousness that we become, rather than a prescribed form of action that we perform upon occasion. In words that are as simple as they are elegant, we are reminded that we should be ‘surrounded’ by the answer to our prayers and ‘enveloped’ by the conditions that we choose to experience. In the modern idiom, this description suggests to us that to effect change in our outer world, we are invited to first have/experience the feelings of the change as having already happened in our inner world. Braden gives us the following comparison:-

Comparing Modes of Prayer through the Example of Global Peace

Here is my example of a ‘prayer’ for rain

(Using the ‘technique’ of THOUGHT, FEELING and EMOTION)

1. THOUGHT
I vocalize in my mind my thanks and my desire for the rain that already exists.

2. FEELING
I visualize acting out my feelings as though the rain that already exists, now obligingly showers down in my outer world. I feel my delight in seeing the beautiful ‘green’ of the grass and the leaves, the twinkling of the sunlight as it shines through the water drops everywhere, the fresh smell of the earth as I hear the enchanting sounds of the birds chirping in the trees, the nurturing sight of the fullness of the crops, the ecstatic feeling of the rain caressing my body as I, along with thousands of other children across the world, emit screams of overwhelming laughter as we run and play outside, and the multi-colours of the bewitching rainbow as light is diffracted through the raindrops.

3. EMOTION
I experience within, the JOY as I see the happiness in every face I conjure up, and the BLISS that surrounds and embraces my life, and I lovingly thank the Greater Presence within and around me for re-awakening me to the rain that already exists.

No words are spoken aloud. The ‘science’ of ‘prayer’ takes place wholly within my Being.