Saturday, March 27, 2010

PRAYER - HOW’S IT WORKING FOR YOU?

The question as it was presented;
I wanted to know your thoughts about -Prayer. Meditating on or Chanting 'God' or 'All that is' or 'the divine source's' name. Or simply being aware of 'Him', and remembering.

I like this question because prayer is something that mankind has been doing in one form or another since the beginning of time. The true nature of reality is not a simple thing, and often the real truths are to be found in what you could call contradictions, but since we tackle difficult concepts here, lets get started by saying that Prayer does work and on the other hand it doesn’t work, it depends on how you look at it, so it’s a two edged sword in that respect. Almost everyone prays in one form or another, even though some would not consider their almost sub-conscious thoughts, yearnings and desires as a form of prayer.

I can confidently say that prayer doesn’t work for most people in practical terms. If I were to ask; how’s it working for you, almost everyone, if they were completely honest, would say that they know it works, but when asked to describe examples in their lives, they would be hard pressed to name one instance where a definite prayer was answered by God with a definite positive result. Not many people would be honest enough to say that it simply doesn’t work for them, since in their minds, in denying prayer, they would be denying God, and few would venture there, since God is the guy who watches, judges and administers appropriate punishments to disbelievers. How many would deny a God who sends unrepentant sinners to eternal damnation or doubters to the lake of fire. Many peoples belief that prayer does work is the result of irrational rationalization, wanting so badly to believe in prayer, they grope for anything that would prove a prayer answered.

There are others who will tell you that prayer definitely does work for them and can allude to many instances where their prayers have been answered, and to them, there never was any doubt about the matter. Of course, if it works for them, they will believe that God heard their requests and decided to answer their prayers.. I guess, that it really doesn’t make any difference in how it works, if the results of your prayers are positive. Of course, there is a lot of rationalization going on here too, and many want to give credit to God for even the slightest evidence that may show that a prayer has been answered. The misunderstanding of prayer is as varied as is the misunderstanding of the Prime Source that you call God.

Prayer is a perceived method of connecting with that Prime Source and I have inferred in the article on the :”McDonald’s Concept”, it doesn’t really make any difference if your prayer works through God directly or through intermediaries or through inner creative processes. What matters to most people is that their prayers are heard and answered directly or indirectly by some arbitrary god on high. Most people with any sense at all understand that there is no god on high, sitting on a cloud in the sky, watching over everyone, scrutinizing every move of every person, ready to administer rewards or punishments depending on your obedient behavior to His rules. Of course, there is a God, but when you start assigning human characteristics to Him/Her/It, you are far off base. You are more likely to get what you ask for if you understand the creative process and your necessary part it.

Prayer does work for some, but not because God./All That Is, sitting on His throne decides to bestow His blessings on the few deserving beings for their obedience. Prayer, my friends, is a form of extreme concentrated thought and thought is the catalyst that propels energy into physical objects and events. Actually, I should have said, prayer in its most intense form, founded in a strong belief that it does work is the key. If you believe, your thoughts will be intense and following those beliefs, you will expect positive results and expectation is the key word here. Desire is important, duration is important, but you will only get what you expect to get. Meditation is a good thing and there is nothing inherently wrong with chanting, repeating mantras or anything else that centers your attention on what you pray for and reinforces the belief that positive results will be achieved.

One reason why prayer doesn’t seem to work for anyone on a regular basis is that you harbor doubts about who and what God really is, even though you may not be consciously aware of this submerged confusion. Unconsciously, you are led astray by misconceptions that have been handed down for centuries by gross misinterpretations of Biblical verses. I speak here of one religious belief only, and I know that mankind holds dearly its beliefs that God created man in His image, thereby inferring that All That Is (God), is somehow a kind of divine humanoid living somewhere UP in Heaven. No one will ever know exactly who or what God is in totality because God is ever changing and ever renewing Itself, but you can come to a closer understanding if you can divest yourself of thinking of God in human terms. We have talked about what God really is in articles on the “God Concept”, so no need to cover the same ground here.

So, if you don’t have an inner feeling of confidence of what God is, then how can you expect prayers to be answered when you don’t know the “Prayer Rules”. And here they are:

Understand that God is real and exists now, has always existed and will always exist and if there was nothing but God in the beginning, you can then extrapolate, that everything that exists here and now and everything to come, emanates from the one true Source of everything. Just as the God you pray to is more a Divine Energy Process than He is a person, the answering of prayers is also a process, and there are rules for success in this creative process.

So, if your answer to; Prayer, how’s it working for you, is “not very well”, try the following.

1. Know what you want, keep it in focus.

2. Know that if it is “Possible within your frame of reference”, it automatically becomes probable, meaning it CAN manifest in the physical world..

3. Pray, ask, chant, meditate but whatever you do, concentrate intensely on what you want, believing that the Divine Process of creation lies within the scope of your beliefs, your desires and intent. The key here is “Intensity” of that intent.

4. Don’t overdue it, five minutes a day is sufficient, lest you begin to doubt that the prayer process is working.

5.You exist and operate in a time oriented system, so creation of objects and events manifest in slow motion, so to speak. Actually, in a way that will not be explained here, your first thought actually creates what you pray for, it just doesn’t become available to your field of perceptions until you bring it into focus, and that takes time.

6. Know that the creation of objects and events on the physical plane is the result of preliminary work done in the inner universe, projected outward into the land of physical effects, and follows certain inner laws that are not arbitrary. In other words, if you do it right, if you pray for what is beneficial to your being and others being, the result is not questionable, it MUST happen.

7. The process takes time, so don’t expect results overnight . The other secret here is “Duration”. Do not be discouraged if what you pray for does not happen immediately. The actual time for actualization or manifestation of your prayer can range from immediately to months, depending on the factors mentioned above.

8. You must expect your prayers to be answered, since “Expectation” is the most important aspect of the “Rules of Prayer.”

Remember this; religion, religious affiliation, your worthiness, sin, etc. has nothing to do with whether or not your prayers are answered. Answering of prayers depends on understanding the creative processes of the universe and utilizing them consciously. You do it now unconsciously, as you create your personal image, your environment and your reality. What you have to learn is how to do what you now do unconsciously, consciously.

You are on a journey, and you are the co-creator of this journey and all of its effects and you learn from encountering those effects.

First, you create your reality, then you bump up against what you have created, scratch your head and wonder why the hell this has happened to you, not realizing that unconsciously, you have created it, in order to learn from the experience. Nothing is thrust on you that you did not create.

Intense Thought, Belief, Desire, Duration and Expectation = The stuff you want.


Next Article Preview; The five stages of Consciousness - How evolved are you?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So what do you think about this creation process as it relates to other people and your relationship with them? For instance- a difficult teenager with an unreasoning attitude. Say you visualize a perfect relationship, a situation where everything is just nicer and better for the both of you when you are dealing with each other. Do you think it is a good thing to attempt to visualize better relationships (maybe it gives you insight to handling yourself better when in conflict with them)? Or does it stray dangerously into an area where you may be inadvertently attempting to "force" your will onto another person?

W. Allan said...

Dear Anonymous,
I do not have young children, but I did, and I understand the difficulties that you may have to deal with. First and foremost, you can only create your reality, and so, when your reality includes someone else, both must agree on the mutual reality.

Meaning, it takes two to tango, so to speak. Ultimately, you can only control yourself, but in so-doing, you can hope some of it will rub off on the other party. One of the prime rules of the inner universe is that you cannot create something that includes one of more other people if they do not agree.

Same holds true in war, sports team contests and such. All humanity, each and every consciousness, including animals and men alike, each creates its own reality, but also creates and adds to what is sometimes referred to world consciousness.

In your case, all those involved in your circumstances are contributing their own bit of their private reality to the cumulative family reality. No war occurs until world consciousness reaches a tipping point and enough of civilization believes that war is the only solution.

Your family creates the psychic atmosphere that will encourage good or bad behavior from other members, but ultimately everyone makes their own decisions. You can control how you react and sounds like you are doing that already.

No one can force their will on another and visualization will do you little good except when you visualize yourself as better able to deal with the situation. You cannot visualize someone else into conforming to your wishes. Patience is helpful, and setting a good example is paramount.

Emerson said, to have a good friend is to be one.
William

Anonymous said...

Thank you-I love your response and greatly appreciate the fact that you are so capable and willing to define such overwhelming and broad concepts; they seem so murky! It's like groping around in the dark trying to guess the size of a room and having a friendly voice show up with not only a light and a tape measure, but even a key to a locked door you didn't even know was there!

W. Allan said...

Eloquently said, and thank you.
William