The Idea Of Prayer

[NoOne]

Is there a point to it?  It's a beautiful thing, to call out to the universe on behalf of another person who is suffering, but I guess all we can ask is if the universe will bring others to guide them to enlightenment or something like that.  It is an expression of sympathy for a suffering person when nothing practical can be done in the moment and as such it's beautiful and soothing to the person being prayed for and maybe brings them into the moment, which is important.  How can we pray?  Is this something that has been lost to misunderstanding?  What is prayer?

[SkyPanther]

9 minutes ago, NoOne said:

Is there a point to it?  It's a beautiful thing, to call out to the universe on behalf of another person who is suffering, but I guess all we can ask is if the universe will bring others to guide them to enlightenment or something like that.  It is an expression of sympathy for a suffering person when nothing practical can be done in the moment and as such it's beautiful and soothing to the person being prayed for and maybe brings them into the moment, which is important.  How can we pray?  Is this something that has been lost to misunderstanding?  What is prayer?

Personally, I see prayer as talking to yourself (the universe, or literally "you), making affirmations, and creating a cue in your mind to act a certain way when the cue is spotted. 

For instance, you pray for help getting a job.  You are then primed to spot job opportunities out in the world.  You may take risks taking a job or talking to someone thinking this was "fate" or "god sent", when in reality you primed your mind and ignored any fear or reservations you would normally have because you think it's providence. 

That's just my opinion though.

 

[NoOne]

9 minutes ago, SkyPanther said:

Personally, I see prayer as talking to yourself (the universe, or literally "you), making affirmations, and creating a cue in your mind to act a certain way when the cue is spotted. 

For instance, you pray for help getting a job.  You are then primed to spot job opportunities out in the world.  You may take risks taking a job or talking to someone thinking this was "fate" or "god sent", when in reality you primed your mind and ignored any fear or reservations you would normally have because you think it's providence. 

That's just my opinion though.

 

That's praying for you though, what about praying for others?  Is there power in that to help people end their suffering?

[SkyPanther]

Just now, NoOne said:

That's praying for you though, what about praying for others?  Is there power in that to help people end their suffering?

There have been reports of bacteria/fungus growing faster/bigger when it was "prayed" for, or when "good" thoughts were sent its way.   But the results are usually very small. 

 

There is a project that tracks this:  http://global-mind.org/

 

So I would say the evidence shows that there is some change, but it's statistically small.

I have heard monks saying that sending Metta to crying children will sometimes make them stop crying and get happy... etc...   but it's nothing like miracle cures.   And there is something called the "placebo effect", but that, again, just speaks for the power of the mind.  Sometimes it is powerful enough to cure things that medical science cannot touch (yet). 

[NoOne]

I mean, when you make a point of taking someone by the hand and praying for them, you are really living in the moment and forcing them to live in it too.  If you pray aloud for a change in perspective with a person, and continue to pray with them not that the universe would solve their problems, but that the individual you are praying for could either have what they want or find a new path, is that not helping those suffering to consider alternatives to stewing in their misery?  Could that not be a useful tool?

[SkyPanther]

3 minutes ago, NoOne said:

I mean, when you make a point of taking someone by the hand and praying for them, you are really living in the moment and forcing them to live in it too.  If you pray aloud for a change in perspective with a person, and continue to pray with them not that the universe would solve their problems, but that the individual you are praying for could either have what they want or find a new path, is that not helping those suffering to consider alternatives to stewing in their misery?  Could that not be a useful tool?

It could be, yes.  You could be priming them as well, and that is "good".  I think, generally being there for people, letting them know you have them on your mind, and are wishing them well, etc, helps people more than most think. 

[NoOne]

1 hour ago, SkyPanther said:

It could be, yes.  You could be priming them as well, and that is "good".  I think, generally being there for people, letting them know you have them on your mind, and are wishing them well, etc, helps people more than most think. 

That's it. And actually praying out loud for another person, if they believe in prayer is powerful stuff.  it's an expression of empathy that you are willing to cry out to the universe and advocate on a friend's behalf.

[NoOne]

If you really look at the "Lord's Prayer" it's very enlightened: Give us this day our daily bread...  etc.  how could the Lord's prayer be said in enlightened terms?

 

ETA: I mean without the words like God and heaven and evil that maybe are too generic.

 

Edited March 29, 2016 by NoOne

[SkyPanther]

26 minutes ago, NoOne said:

If you really look at the "Lord's Prayer" it's very enlightened: Give us this day our daily bread...  etc.  how could the Lord's prayer be said in enlightened terms?

 

ETA: I mean without the words like God and heaven and evil that maybe are too generic.

 

That is outside my area of experience.  I grew up in a secular home, and do not believe in a God (or ever had to recite prayer, etc).

[Harry]

57 minutes ago, Pinocchio said:

Divine being that is all
Hallowed is I am
This kingdom is
Grace be done in duality, as it is in nonduality
This day I have all I need
And I see through my delusion
As I do with all delusion
And I fall not into separation
But shall leave no footprints
Thank you

THIS 

I personally don't see any point in prayer. You thinking a few thoughts in your head has no effect on, for example, helping feed staving children after their homes have been struck by an earthquake or comforting a mother who has lost a daughter in a suicide bombing.

If you want to help then give money to the children, give the mother a shoulder to cry on. Don't just sit in your room feeling like you are really making a difference just by thinking about them.

Of course thinking may prompt you to take some action. However, this doesn't change the fact that mere thought alone, without any interaction with a source outside your own mind, is completely useless.

Moreover prayer, encouraging yourself to become lost in thoughts, is a distraction from true spirituality. 

[SkyPanther]

3 minutes ago, Harry said:

THIS 

I personally don't see any point in prayer. You thinking a few thoughts in your head has no effect on, for example, helping feed staving children after their homes have been struck by an earthquake or comforting a mother who has lost a daughter in a suicide bombing.

If you want to help then give money to the children, give the mother a shoulder to cry on. Don't just sit in your room feeling like you are really making a difference just by thinking about them.

Of course thinking may prompt you to take some action. However, this doesn't change the fact that mere thought alone, without any interaction with a source outside your own mind, is completely useless.

Moreover prayer, encouraging yourself to become lost in thoughts, is a distraction from true spirituality. 

I pretty much agree with this.  Action is worth more than nice thoughts. 

Thinking nice thoughts is better than "nothing", but it is not much better... heh...  giving money to charities, or joining the peace corps, or just working in a soup kitchen will actually be a lot more helpful than praying.

But again, this is just my opinion, and others may disagree. 

[Brian Greendahl]

It may work or have benefit or it may not. That being said , it doesn't take much time to pray and I don't see any harm in it as long as we don't get overly expectant. I pray every day before meditation as it is a tool I use to get centered. Speaking for myself, I would rather pray and find out it doesn't work, than not pray and find out that it would have. Ultimately, prayer is a personal endeavor and some find it useful while others do not. It was suggested to me many years ago to give it a try every morning for a month and then go a couple of weeks without it and see which practice worked better for me. it was my experience that prayer helped me. A lot of it also boils down to one's concept of God or Spirit of the Universe or what have you. For me that's all a mystery.

[Nic]

I'm not religious but I really like this quote, I don't know who actually said it:

"Prayer is when you talk to God. Meditation is when you listen to him."

I don't pray often at all but I should do it more actually. Praying has a bad catholic connotation to it, but I'll try my best to correct that.

Yes there is a sens in praying even if you are not religious. Have you ever been praying for yourself or someone else? How did it feel?

When I was little, I felt some guilt doing something religious, as I'm not even baptized. But generally, when I didn't feel fear of a God watching me, it felt really good!

Did it feel so bad you didn't want to do it again? I found out that you do praying to feel good by expressing consciously a feeling based in the love spectrum.

Praying is shifting your consciousness to the next level, it is a kind of meditation. It is training yourself to shift consciously your emotions and to practice emotional mastery. This is not about saying words from an old book, and if you don't do it, you'll have to confess to the priest, it is about expressing love.

Put your full intention for the good of others, the one you love or the one you don't even care, also the one you dislike, and yourself, because there is no reason for not doing it, don't look for reasons not to express your love! If you think they, or you don't deserve to be loved, you just lost an occasion to feel great! You can also pray to feel grateful for what you are, what you have to eat, for your health and all your body parts that function and what they allowed you to do today... If you don't feel good doing it, I don't know what you'll need. This is programming your mind to express love as much as you can, it already feels good writing it. 

Man, I'm gonna do one right now, and I never read a holy book in my life... 

So in that sens it really works. If it's gonna change the face of the planet? It could because you'll change yourself, if you know why you are really doing it. If everybody does its fair share, maybe we could.  

It could also be used as a (re)programing of your mind to achieve the next goal, the law of attraction... make the dream feel real! As much as I don't like the book or the film "the secret" there is something to it, this is the practice of visualization.

Some do prayers for healing others or themselves... and yes it does work too (of course not all the time...), some say the secret is in the intention. I don't know about that... the only thing I can witness is that it helped a lot of people for health issues, including myself and it feels good doing so. 

I hope it helped you to see prayers from another point of view.

Enjoy praying!

 

Edited March 30, 2016 by Nic

[Joyboy]

"I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer CHANGES US and we change things."

― Mother Teresa

Prayer gives you strength to do things do not dare to do, do not believe you could, to make the impossible to possible. Like magic but its all about faith, and about YOU, not others

[Harry]

@Nic I guess if it's practiced as a way of increasing compassion for other people it could be used constructively. I'm currently delving into the 'Loving-Kindness Meditation' http://www.buddhanet.net/metta_in.htm. This appeals to me more than praying as, I have found that, I find Christian practices somewhat repellent. (Probably due to my Catholic schooling)

 

I think it's appropriate to distinguish whether you are praying with the intention of:

1) Some kind of supernatural deity or 'force' to grant your wishes. (this sings egocentricity for me)

2) Altering your conscious experience toward other people. I.e. Increase your levels of love, kindness and compassion.

3) As @7oo13ad says, creating a believe that you can do what you may have previously classified as impossible.  

 

I see practical use for both 2) and 3).

1) is really the only kind I think is problematic. 

Edited March 30, 2016 by Harry

[Nic]

@Harry I guess a lot of people are traumatized for life with the church. I have the luck to have been raised neutral.

But i'm happy you have realized that there is more to prayers than just calling the Creator for help!

Enjoy your meditation, it sounds good!

[NoOne]

Great insights here.  Thanks for everyone's feedback.  I guess I just like looking at some of these old traditions and thinking, you know, I think someone who was enlightened probably started this practice for some reason, and maybe that reason is now lost in time, but I wonder if we could figure out what they were really trying to champion?    I mean, some of the things that Christ said were certainly enlightened.  I guess this whole idea is making me want to excavate the truth from history and see what these other enlightened people were actually trying to teach us and how that has been misconstrued, mistranslated, and potentially purposefully obscured.  I don't have any love for these institutions of religion, but I think most of them maybe started with something genuine, so they are worth considering with a critical eye.

[Emerald]

@NoOne @Nic @SkyPanther @Harry @Pinocchio

Well, an enlightened person is a person who has woken up to their true nature... that they are not the small egoic self, but the infinite awareness that is aware of all of the content of the sense perceptions and thought. So, an enlightened person lives as the phenomenon referred to as 'god' once they have debunked the illusion of ego.

So, from this vantage point, it isn't too much of a stretch that prayer might work. If you consider that you are a direct manifestation of god itself and the your awareness is god's awareness, then "you" (the higher self) might also have the creative capacities of god and are the creator of your subjective reality. That is, as long as your desires come from the higher self, beyond the ego's small wants. Because you are the container for all of your subjective existence, it isn't so outlandish to consider the possibility that your preferences and prayers have an impact on the reality that you're experiencing. So, it's important to put out the right prayers. But, even if everything I just said is bullshit, praying will never hurt you. So, you totally should.

I tend to pray for personal qualities: like clarity, the ability to love, and the courage to face fears. I also pray for all the suffering people in hopes that they don't suffer any longer. I pray for what's most likely to be in line with the higher self which is concerned with love first and foremost.

[99th_monkey]

sounds like the difference between "intent" and "desire". desire being egoic an based off of "wants" in regards to going towards good and away from bad. intent being based and comes with the acceptance of both the "good" and the "bad" at achieving and outcome. 

Both could be considered "prayers" and both are what make you move.  

[cetus]

24 minutes ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

an enlightened person is a person who has woken up to their true nature... that they are not the small egoic self, but the infinite awareness

Sweet!