When Ya Don't Have a Prayer!

I was watching an episode of one of my favorite TV shows yesterday and in it was a guy who was dying.

I will save you all the plot details but in the story he was having a conversation with his father about how his faith, (or lack thereof) could, or could not, be of help to him.

Confusing? Sort of! But the main point was that he was not religious, and his father was!

The kid, (a doctor) was losing the scientific battle with his illness, but his father had a deep belief in the power of prayer and told his son that he would pray for him.

The long and short of this whole conversation was that the young doctor told his father that he did not share his religion, (Christianity) and because of this did not consider himself able to "believe" that the dogma of his father's faith could save him.

The crucial point here is that he did not consider the superstitions and "beliefs" of a particular man-made religion could do him any good because it was all the result of a trust in the superiority of a certain "this world" faith in something above and beyond us, to the exclusion of all others.

This by itself is very true, since if we have to "Believe" in a certain dogma to the exclusion of all others then there are going to be a lot of disappointed people out there.

This "point of exclusivity" has been one of the greatest banes to any religion since the beginning of time, and is the direct result of a human tendency to form small groups that band together against outsiders or the big bad world.

(You know, Christians against Muslims. Catholics against Protestants. Everybody against the Jews. Hindus vs. Muslims. Jim Jones against the World. The World against the Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.)

This faith in a certain God to the rejection of all others is one of the downfalls of any mainstream religion. But it doesn't have to be this way.

Even though I am not a Christian (because I don't subscribe to the belief of the "Resurrection" of Jesus) I still believe that spirituality is a necessary and vital part of any human composition and development!

To put not only our "Faith," but also our trust, in any one dogma is foolish, we have to remember that this does not preclude the use of prayer in a general sense to help relieve suffering and give us a personal sense of comfort and piece of mind about our situation in this life!

With that in mind I would like to share a piece I ran across the other day on the subject of "Prayer" and how, even if you're not a good Christian or Muslim or Hindu or Jew, it might still be a good thing to give Prayer the importance it deserves.

It's by Caroline Myss.

Every now and again you find yourself on the receiving end of a great pearl of wisdom that changes your life.

I find that these are the pearls worth passing on to others.

This pearl came through a neighbor at a backyard party the other evening.

As we were all sitting around the table laughing and talking about politics and Obama and more politics and Obama, the subject turned to the topic of healing.

How we made that transition still baffles me, but we did.

At any rate, Karen looks at me and says, “One piece of wisdom that a person told me has since directed my life: Don’t tell a person that you are going to pray for them unless you mean it.”

So many questions to mind from this statement. Not just about the power of prayer, but also the need for prayer in our lives.

I don’t know that we can ever answer these questions beyond speculating about them, really, because prayer is a mystical force, not an intellectual one. Its power lies not in moving objects in rational and logical ways but in invisible and transcendent ways, ways unseen, unheard through the night.

The only clues we have to go on about the nature and power of prayer are stories about the miraculous or that hint at Divine intervention.

One story comes to mind that a woman shared with me after a workshop near London – which (not that this means anything) had to be the single most outrageous workshop of my life. But out of it came an exquisitely meaningful encounter with a woman who had been in a car crash that had shattered her body.

As a result of this collision, she had a near death experience in which she found herself suspended over the scene of the accident, viewing her limp and bleeding body held lifeless between the steering wheel and the driver’s seat.

Suddenly, instantly, she said, she was aware of what the drivers in the cars lined up behind her smashed vehicle were saying: “Damn, this is just what I need – a car crash,” and, “I wonder how long I’m going to be stuck here.”

Then, she said, she noticed a bright, illuminated beam of light shooting out of the fifth car stuck behind her crashed automobile. As soon as she wondered, “What is that beam of light?” she found herself next to the woman in that car, who had instantly gone into prayer for her.

And then she instantly became aware that the beam of light that was flowing directly from this woman upward toward the heavens seemed to cause another beam of light to flow directly into her.

She wondered who this woman was and in that instant, she noticed the license plate number on this woman’s car and memorized it.

Then she heard a voice calling to her, an angelic voice, instructing her to return to her body because the time was not yet right for her to return home.

She was still required to remain on the earth.

She said it took her months to recover from the accident but when she did, she tracked down this woman who had prayed for her and went to her home with a bouquet of flowers to thank her for praying for her on that night when her body lay shattered on the ground.

I have endless stories like this one, of people who have had extraordinary interventions or heeling's or moments of profound illumination just when they were at a most desperate place. Prayer is an odd sort of devotion in that you can think you are talking to yourself.

Like, who’s out there?

Is anyone really listening? And if so, who is it?

I’m at the point in my life at which I can no longer handle religious imagery or taking any of the myths about the divine literally – I’ve passed on those years ago.

But prayer and the power of grace is not something I pass on.

In fact, the more I shake free of the literal, the more I am in love with the mystical.

And prayer, ultimately, is a mystical force, not a literal, rational one that compels life to move according to our plans.

We can’t move anything according to our plans, and that is one of those mystical realities that is at once annoying and comforting.

Imagine that someone said to you in a moment of panic or a time of sadness, “I’ll pray for you and you’ll get through this.” Do you think that would bring you comfort?

Imagine, like that woman in the car accident, that each day someone was bowing her or his head in prayer, asking heaven to flood you with grace and, all the more incredible, you are so known by heaven that grace is delivered directly to you.

Reflect on that mystical phenomenon.

You are that known by this divine force.

I suspect that if we could grasp the awesomeness of that, we would be struck blind, as so many visionaries have been at the sight of a true apparition from God.

Mystical teachings of the great traditions maintain that the wise person seeks the middle way, never pushing to extremes – extreme ambition, extreme madness, extreme sorrow, depression, spending, self-neglect, overeating, under eating, lack of sleep, absence of silence, absence of prayer, absence of God.

The middle way of which the Buddha spoke is the choice to create a life path that is balanced with as much interior attention as exterior.

Wise truth, that.

So many people ask me about prayer: How do you pray and what prayers do you say?

I’ve had people ask me, “Do you have any prayers that actually work?

I’ve been saying these prayers for a few weeks now and nothing is changing in my life.”

Those comments take my breath away.

The idea that change should be delivered to your door – just like that – as a reward because you prayed is one measure of foolishness.

Another is the assumption that the outside world must change, and not you.

The need to always see change to assume that change is in motion is fear talking – no, it’s fear screaming.

It’s someone having a panic attack, demanding of the heavens that their life straighten out physically, financially, and emotionally right away – or else.

Or else what?

Ha – what are you going to do if it doesn’t?

All prayers “work,” for heaven’s sake. But let me just add a comment about the difference between saying a prayer and praying, akin to the difference between stretching and yoga.

I am distinguishing the two to make this point: saying a prayer is often a quick-fix formula prayer in which a person repeats a familiar formulation, like the Hail Mary or the Buddhist prayer of loving kindness.

That’s fine, mind you, but unless you use such prayers consciously as a form of meditation or mantra, such a practice does not alter one’s senses or provide a means through which you enter a deeper state of reflection.

Entering into prayer, on the other hand, is the more embodied, conscious practice in which you withdraw your attention from distraction and merge fully into the grace of a higher truth.

Let me give you an example of this, as I’m sure if I was in a classroom teaching this right now, hands would fly up asking me to explain further.

So, here’s an ordinary prayer, “God, please protect me and family and tell me what to do with my life.”

Here’s entering into prayer: “I remove myself from the distractions around me and withdraw into my interior castle, the dwelling place of my soul. Here, I am alone with God. All things are possible with God, there are no obstructions. I release all my doubts and let the grace of that truth consume me. Let nothing disturb the silence of my time with you. I feel the grace of God enter into me, healing all that disturbs my body, my soul, and my heart. I send this loving grace to those in need and I give thanks for their healing as well. May this grace surround and comfort them as it does me. I am always guided, I am always present to your voice in me, I am fearless.”

To hold someone in prayer, to send them grace, is a profound commitment, an act of a true soul companion.

To have someone pray for you is a gift of grace. If you say, “I will pray for you,” and you take this commitment casually, then it says this:

• You don’t realize how powerful prayer is and, so, you should never make such a commitment to another person unless you mean it.

• You don’t realize how powerful you are. You are a channel for grace. You are someone who has more to give another person than you can imagine, and praying for someone does more than can be measured. Just because you cannot see the effects of your efforts should never discount that your prayers may be the fuel that gets a person through the dark night of the soul.

• Here is something to reflect on: Your ego prays for yourself and your own needs. Your soul is a vessel sculpted to pray for others. The soul already knows that in praying for others, one’s own needs are taken care of.

Examine your own prayers: How many come from fear?

How many are “stuff-driven”? Do you pray only in crisis? Is praying for others a part of your life or an exception?

I was inspired to start the Healing Work through CMED because I so deeply believe in the collective power of prayer.

It occurs to me, as I end this Salon, to extend an invitation to all of you to consider making a commitment to joining this effort to spend just five minutes a day in prayer for those requesting help from us – and for our nation and the rest of the world.

Prayers and grace are so very powerful and if you have that to give, truly have that to give (think of the beams of light from heaven getting delivered to all these people in need of help), then please, please join us.

I thank you from my heart and soul,

Caroline Myss

Gee, there's really not a lot you can add to that is there?

Your humble servant;
Allan W Janssen

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available as an E-Book H E R E ! and as a paperback H E R E !

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://allans-perspective.blogspot.com