I'd love to hear your guy's thoughts about prayer...

[Kyle Gjerseth]

I like the insight and wisdom in AA and Buddhism and they both seem to advocate prayer. The fact that Buddhism advocates it is probably the most positive argument for me because I, unfortunately, have come to be closed minded to other religions (even though my understanding is Buddhism isn't a religion) because they don't seem as practical in my opinion. I'm not convinced that prayer is generally a good thing because I feel as though praying is just, in a sense, ideology because it assumes that there's some external entity separate from "me" and that would violate non-duality. I'm on board with the teachings that say I am God and God is everything, consciousness, every person etc. but I feel a bit stuck with my contemplation about this topic. I suppose I'm asking for your guy's thoughts on weather or not prayer is ideology, or if it is perhaps a necessary aspect of spiritual practices, or if it's different for everybody and there's not a concrete answer.

[Seraphim]

I don't think it is unaligned with the understanding of non-duality. Sometimes we ask other humans for help. Asking a divine being for help by praying is the same thing. There are people and divine beings with the ability to assist us, to never ask for help just because there is no duality doesn't make any sense to me.

Many people pray, to God, deities, angels etc. Many have witnessed miraculous outcomes after praying.

[Persipnei]

53 minutes ago, Kyle Gjerseth said:

I'm not convinced that prayer is generally a good thing because I feel as though praying is just, in a sense, ideology because it assumes that there's some external entity separate from "me" and that would violate non-duality.

I also had an aversion to the word and the practice of "prayer" because of my childhood's interaction with Christianity. Nowadays I do pray. Not because God/Source demands it. Not to ask for stuff. Praying for me is to acknowledge that God/Source is all that is. No judgement or ideology, just pure awe for the Greatness of Creation, and realizing that it's YOU!

[Nahm]

@Kyle Gjerseth

What’s your ‘why’ in regard to praying?

[PurpleTree]

the only times i ever prayed is when bad turbulences happened on a plane

 

and it always helped  

[SQAAD]

Check Thomas Keating centering prayer on YouTube . He was a Christian mystic who recently passed away. Prayer is definitely a spiritual practice helping you connect with God. I usually pray when things get really bad. I just do it to feel better. I don't care if the prayer will manipulate reality.. Prayer shouldn't be so much about scheming to manipulate reality but more about spiritual connection. There are many many different types of prayer. If you find it enjoyable and beneficial keep doing it.

Edited December 10, 2021 by SQAAD

[Ananta]

Pray...see what happens.

[Leo Gura]

Prayer doesn't have to be an ideology.

You can make a powerful prayer like:

"God, fill me with your love so that I may know your love directly and share it with others."

"I surrender myself to become a vehicle of your Love."

You can visualize this and feel with deep emotion, over and over again, until it starts to become your reality.

Since you are God, you are basically setting an intention for yourself and re-creating your dream in alignment with the highest good you can envision.

The only things you should ask of God are for selflessness, consciousness, truth, love, and courage.

[Kyle Gjerseth]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

Prayer doesn't have to be an ideology.

You can make a powerful prayer like:

"God, fill me with your love so that I may know your love directly and share it with others."

You can visualize this and feel with deep emotion, over and over again, until it starts to become your reality.

Since you are God, you are basically setting an intention for yourself.

Genius

[Kyle Gjerseth]

1 hour ago, SQAAD said:

Check Thomas Keating centering prayer on YouTube . He was a Christian mystic who recently passed away. Prayer is definitely a spiritual practice helping you connect with God. I usually pray when things get really bad. I just do it to feel better. I don't care if the prayer will manipulate reality.. Prayer shouldn't be so much about scheming to manipulate reality but more about spiritual connection. There are many many different types of prayer. If you find it enjoyable and beneficial keep doing it.

I'll look into that! Thank you

[Kyle Gjerseth]

19 hours ago, Nahm said:

@Kyle Gjerseth

What’s your ‘why’ in regard to praying?

I'm confused because a lot of thought systems I agree with advocate it, but none seem to imply directly or indirectly that there is no "other" or that God is me and the entire universe is me as consciousness. I think my problem is that I believe these things that Leo says and I'm not really sure how to contemplate these matters. When I think about this stuff I tend to just say "oh yeah what Leo is saying makes sense" instead of really inspecting these supposed truths. I don't really have much credibility here though because I have yet to watch his contemplation videos. I think I'll do that now

[Mosess]

prayers Boil down to Affirmations

[Mosess]

In religions, the words being said bring up strong emotions that enforces whatever affirmations you have in mind

[Moksha]

If Consciousness is everything (and it is), then prayer is Self-communication. What is wrong with asking the unveiled aspect of yourself for guidance with the veiled aspect?

[roopepa]

Why are you asking this? Do you feel like you would want to pray, but you don't know if it's any useful?

[Kyle Gjerseth]

5 hours ago, roopepa said:

Why are you asking this? Do you feel like you would want to pray, but you don't know if it's any useful?

Yes and there have been a lot of good things said here that make me feel better. That said, I've never really tried praying, much less having my prayers "answered," so I feel closed minded. Perhaps a better question for me to ask is "What could be the root cause of my closed mindedness/how could I go about investigating what the root cause of my closed mindedness is?" I can't seem to think of a good reason for being closed minded nor has it helped me at all with this personal development and spiritual material I'm interested in and I totally agree with what Leo has to say about it.

[How to be wise]

@Kyle Gjerseth The purpose of prayer is to ask for something that you want. Enlightenment is not something you can ask for, because the asking is being done by the ego. Enlightenment is about destroying the ego. So prayer and enlightenment are two different and unrelated things.

[Leo Gura]

14 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

Enlightenment is not something you can ask for, because the asking is being done by the ego. Enlightenment is about destroying the ego. So prayer and enlightenment are two different and unrelated things.

This is silly.

Enlightenment is definitely something you ask and set an intention for. It doesn't just happening randomly.

When the Buddha left his family, he set an intention for enlightenment.

You guys who are so into Buddhism don't even understand how hard the Buddha worked to supposedly awaken.

There is nothing wrong with the ego wanting awakening. In fact this is necessary.

[sir meowski]

The Buddha did not become enlightened until he completely let go of the desire to become enlightened. He almost starved to death in the process.

You really have no idea what enlightenment is. You teach a cartoon version of spirituality and you delude yourself and your would-be followers in the process. You don't underatand a thing. You have strayed from the path. I won't bother you anymore, you are too stubborn to listen to anyone but yourself. Your awakenings are meaningless ego noise.

[roopepa]

1 hour ago, Kyle Gjerseth said:

Yes and there have been a lot of good things said here that make me feel better. That said, I've never really tried praying, much less having my prayers "answered," so I feel closed minded. Perhaps a better question for me to ask is "What could be the root cause of my closed mindedness/how could I go about investigating what the root cause of my closed mindedness is?" I can't seem to think of a good reason for being closed minded nor has it helped me at all with this personal development and spiritual material I'm interested in and I totally agree with what Leo has to say about it.

I don't think you are being as close-minded as you may think. What I see is that you are simply holding some beliefs that don't feel so good. You seem to think something like "Praying might be silly, even when the thought of doing it feels good, because it might be dualistic or ideological".

The feeling that makes you want to pray IS divine connection and guidance, and prayer is divine expression.

If you ever feel like sitting down, relaxing and getting in touch with something beautiful, good and great, I advice you do follow the feeling! You may want to cross your hands or do other kinds of mudras or postures. It's all fine, nothing ideological about it. Prayer is legitimate spiritual practice.