Prayer is a word that in the last fifty years has become almost taboo in spiritual circles. You can attend hundreds of workshops on all sorts of “spiritual” subjects from yoga to consciousness to positive thinking to the law of Attraction and you will not hear the word prayer. It has been banned not only from the “spiritual” realm but also out of all political discourse and most intriguingly, out of schools. All the way from nursery to high school, it is gone, not a trace of prayer.
The sole mention of the word prayer ignites hostility even in the spiritual discourse with the same heated violence as political discussions.
The New Age Movement had a lot to say about established religion and its control mechanisms and doubtful priorities, particularly so about the Catholic Church. And it became a decisive force in the disappearance of prayer from society at large.
But the fact that human institutions may, and do in many cases, violate the spirit from whom they sprouted, be it Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Yahweh, it does not mean that all is corrupt, wrong and deceitful. They are all based on ancient revelations and teach the fundamental premise that we are made of divine substance and that we can connect with the god “outside” and “inside” ourselves. Fact that a bit of practice makes it experientially verifiable.
If you are reading this, you probably would agree that we are much more than our body and ego-mind and environment. Indeed we are deeply imbued in the substance of the divine. Our essential nature is spirit, Self, divine, and god. As simple as that.
What is not so simple is to know how to access that which is our core essence, who we truly are. .
Meditation and Prayer
They are the two most effective ways to reach your soul. Through meditation you relax the chatter of your mind into the stillness of your Self, beyond thoughts, and through prayer you consciously establish a sublime dialogue with the divine.
In prayer you enter the chambers of the sacred and when you do so, your life transforms.
But not all prayers are transformational. The most common, most used form is the petition prayer.
Petition prayers are all about asking for stuff you want or need. A new car, a partner, better health, a better home, to win the lotto, etc., nothing wrong with the items on the list. But most of the time this kind of petition is done without entering the sacred, without knowing whom we are talking to. It is done because we hope there is a superior being, more powerful than us who can do things we cannot do.
All is well, but this kind of prayer –prayer of request— even if it manifests your needs, does not help you evolve. It does not help you become more aware, conscious, or mindful of who you really are. It cannot transform you into a more profoundly “better” being, into living more within the depths of your Self.
Transformational Prayers on the other hand, evolve our lives and us into truth and happiness.
Your intention is not to get stuff. Your intention is to enter a space where personal transformation can occur. You are looking for truth, for insight, for illumination. It is an inner journey of discovery.
It is a truthful, sincere inner dialogue from your human divinity to god’s divinity. And although equal in essence it is totally, completely unequal in wisdom and knowledge. You enter the dialogue asking for help, for the wisdom to know how best to know yourself. From that humility, which has nothing to do with humiliation, you establish a conversation and you ask and you listen and you know you receive.
I particularly like one of Caroline Myss prayers, it goes something like this:
“God, doze me with Grace that reminds me of what is important, of the things I know are true;
doze me with the courage to change and the steadiness to deliver.”
Transformational prayer is not an intellectual interaction with the almighty God. It is a devotional, one. When you enter prayer in this way, grace is the medium in which exchange occurs.
Learn to pray from this place and experience yourself evolving into a kinder, more positive, more reflective, more creative and much less judgmental graceful version of yourself.
In the next posts we will get deeper into prayer, transformational, healing and others. They will strengthen your meditation practice and will enrich the quality of your life.
See you in the next post¡
Love and Light,
Monica