WHAT PRAYER IS, HOW IT WORKS, AND HOW TO APPLY IT IN OUR LIVES

From Gregg Braden’s “Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer” and

“Divine Matrix”

Edited by Larissa Gough (www.speedknowledge.citymaker.com)

Prayer is universally described as a ‘mystical language’ with the power to change our bodies, our lives, and the world. There are many different ideas regarding the most effective ways to “speak” the language of prayer.

Ultimately, from the wisdom recorded in the Dead Sea Scrolls to the native practices that have survived until this day, we find that the language of prayer lives within us as something that comes naturally: feeling.

In his description of feeling as prayer, the abbot in Tibet clearly stated this timeless wisdom: “When you see us chanting for many hours a day, when you see us using the bells, bowls, chimes, and incense, you are seeing what we do to create the feeling in our body.  Feeling is the prayer!”

When the books that preserved the wisdom of emotion and feeling disappeared from our Western traditions, people began to forget the power of feeling in prayer. It was then that we started to believe that our words are the prayers. Today we find ourselves living in a culture where we discount our feelings, deny them, or sometimes just ignore them completely. This has been especially true for men in our society, although this tendency is changing.

If you ask anyone to describe prayer, more often than not they‘ll recite the words of familiar prayers. Perhaps the best-known and most universal prayer in the world is the ‘Lord’s Prayer’. When we say things like, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” the belief is that we are saying a prayer. Rather than simply reciting the familiar words, make a mental note of how the words make you feel. The point is that the words that were recorded more than 2000 years ago were designed to elicit feeling! Whatever feeling the words create in you, that feeling is your prayer.

The words of prayers themselves are not the prayers. While the words may be beautiful, ancient, and time-honored relics, they’re simply the catalysts to unleash a force that is within you! Our words trigger feeling in our bodies. The words don’t have any power until they’re given meaning and create our feelings.

We are always feeling in each moment of every day of our lives. While we may not always be aware of just what we are feeling, we are feeling nonetheless. If feeling is the prayer and we are always feeling, then that means we are always in a state of prayer. Each moment is a prayer. Life is a prayer! We are always sending the message to God. Feeling is the language that God recognizes. Feeling is the prayer. Every prayer is answered without fail.

During the 1972 studies documenting the effects of meditation and prayer in different communities, the results were clearly shown to be more than coincidence. The experiments were subject to all of the scrutiny that would accompany any other reliable scientific study. The effects were real. And they were documented.

During the time when people trained in techniques felt ‘peace’ within their bodies – the world around them reflected that peace; traffic accidents and violent crimes all diminished in number. In the presence of peace, all that could happen was peace.

When experiments stopped, the violence was renewed, in some instances reaching levels even greater than before the experiments began. What happened? Why the effects of the meditations and prayers appear to stop? The answer to this question may be the key to understanding the power of our lost mode of prayer. What happens was that the trainees stopped what they were doing. They stopped their meditations. They stopped their prayers. And this is the answer to our mystery.

In large part, the studies reflect the way that we’ve been taught to pray in our lives today. On a typical day, we go about the routines of our lives as businesspeople, students, and parents just doing the things we do. At a certain time of the day, we may set a little “spiritual time” aside. Maybe we close the door for some privacy at the end of the day, after the dishes are done, the kids are in bed, and the laundry is finished. We might light candles, turn in some inspirational music and offer prayers or enter into meditations. Then, when we’re finished, we stop what we were doing. We leave our sanctuary and return to the “real” world. The idea is that our meditations and prayers are often something that we do at some point in our day, and when we’re finished, we stop.

If we believe that prayer is something that we do then it makes perfect sense that when the prayer stops, the effects of the prayer stops as well. Prayer is a short-lived experience if we assume that our prayers are the gestures of our hands placed palms together in front of our hearts and the words that we speak during that time. However, prayer is more than what we do.  Prayer is what we Are!

Rather than something that we Do sometimes, prayer is something that we Are always. While it’s impossible to kneel in prayer 24 hours a day and recite the words that the ancients left for us, it’s not necessary to do these things to be in prayer. Feeling is the prayer, and we feel all of the time. We can feel our gratitude for the peace in our world because there is always peace somewhere. We can feel the appreciation for the healing in ourselves and our loved ones because we are healed and renewed to some degree every day. Prayer is a state of consciousness that we are in, rather than something that we do at a certain time of day.

We must first have the feeling of our prayers answered in our hearts before they become the reality of our lives. The key is that we must become the very things that we choose to experience in our lives.

If we’re looking for love, compassion, understanding, and nurturing in our lives, we must develop those very qualities within ourselves. If we want abundance, we must feel gratitude for the abundance that already exists in our lives.

Ancient traditions remind us that the world around us is nothing more and nothing less than the ‘mirror’ of what we’ve become in our lives: what we feel about our relationships with ourselves, one another, and, ultimately, God. Scientific evidence now suggests precisely the same thing; what we feel inside our bodies is carried into the world beyond our bodies. Creation responds to what we feel. This is a new, and very different, way of seeing things. It is also empowering.

Prayers are personal. The words that trigger a powerful feeling of gratitude or appreciation for one person may not be as effective for the other. Create your own prayers! Find special words that are meaningful to you.

For our prayers to be answered, we must transcend the doubt that often accompanies our desire. Without any words, without our hands held in a certain position or any outward physical expression, this mode of prayer simply invites us to feel clear and powerful feeling as if our prayer has already been answered.

A prayer could be as simple as a single statement that whatever you’re praying about is already accomplished. An example of this kind of prayer might be a simple phrase that you say to yourself each time you close the car door and turn on the ignition to go somewhere: “I give thanks for a safe journey and a safe return.” While you state your prayer, feel the feeling of gratitude as if your journey were already complete.

To empower your prayer, imagine yourself doing something when you returned home, like taking the groceries out of the trunk. The key is that you can only take the groceries out of the car if you’re back home. In this way, you’ve set the powerful intention of a safe journey by feeling as if it has already happened.

Praying “Rain”

Any uncertainty that I may have had regarding how this principle works disappeared one day in the early 1990s. It had been a time of extreme drought in the high deserts of northern New Mexico, when my native friend David invited me to an ancient stone circle to “pray rain”. “This stone circle itself has no power. It serves as a place of focus for the one invoking the prayer,” David said. “Today, we pray rain.”

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw next. I watched carefully as David removed his shoes, gently placed his naked feet into the circle; slowly, he placed his hands in front of his face in a prayer position, closed his eyes, and became motionless. Oblivious to the heat of the midday desert sun, his breathing slowed and became barely noticeable. After only a few moments, he took a deep breath, opened his eyes and said, “Let’s go. Our work is finished here.”

Expecting to see dancing, or at least some chanting, I was surprised by how quickly his prayer began and then ended. “Already?” -- I asked. “I thought you were going to pray for rain!”

David looked up at me and smiled. “No,” he replied. “I said that I would pray rain. If I had prayed for rain, it could never happen.” Later in the day, David explained what he meant by this statement.

The key, he said, is that when we ask for something to happen, we give power to what we do not have. Prayers for rain empower the drought. Prayers ‘for healing’ empower the sickness. “Continuing to ask for these things only gives more power to the things that we would like to change,” he said. When we pray for something to happen, while feeling as if that something is missing in our lives we may actually be denying ourselves the very blessings we hoped to create.

I think about David’s words often, and what they could mean in our lives today. If we pray for peace, for example, while feeling tremendous anger toward those who lead us into war, or even war itself, we may inadvertently be fueling the very conditions that lead to the opposite of peace! With half of the world’s nations now engaged in the armed conflict, I often wonder what role millions of well-intentioned prayers for peace each day may be playing, and how a slight shift in perspective could possibly change the role.

Looking back at David, I asked, “If you didn’t pray for rain, then what did you do?” “It’s simple,” he replied. “I began to have the feeling of what rain feels like. I felt the feeling of rain on my body, and what it feels like to stand with my naked feet in the mud. I felt what feels like to walk through fields of corn chest high because there has been so much rain.”

David’s explanation made perfect sense. He was engaging all of his senses – the senses of smell, sight, taste, and touch. It was the next part of his explanation that touched my scientific mind, as well as my heart, and truly resonated with me.

Following the prayer of rain, he described how feelings of thanks and appreciation were the completion of the prayers, like the “amen” of Christianity. David told me that he felt grateful for the opportunity to participate in creation.

Try this mode of prayer for yourself. Think of something that you’d like to experience in your life -- anything. It may be the healing of a physical condition for you or someone else, abundance for your family, or finding the perfect person to share your life with. Whatever you’re thinking of, rather than asking for it to become present in your life, feel as though it has already happened. Breathe deeply, and feel your prayer fulfilled in every detail, in every way.

Now, feel the gratitude for what your life is like with this prayer already answered. Note the ease and release that comes from the giving thanks, rather than the longing and yearning that comes from asking for help! The subtle difference between the ease and the longing is the power that sets asking a part from receiving.

Living from the Answer

There is a subtle yet powerful difference between working toward the result and thinking and feeling from it. In the martial arts, we see a beautiful metaphor for precisely the way this principle works in consciousness. You’ve no doubt seen the demonstrations of people trained in these disciplines where they’re able to break a concrete block or stack of boards. The key to success lies in where the martial artists place their attention. When they choose to break a concrete block, for example, the very last thing in their mind is the point of contact where their hand will touch the surface. They put their focus into the place of the completed act: the brick already broken. Martial artists do this by centering their awareness on the point that’s beyond the bottom of the block. The only way their hand can be in this place is if they’ve already passed through the space between them and that point. The fact that the space happens to be occupied by something solid, such as a concrete block, becomes almost secondary. In this way, they’re thinking from the point of completion, rather than about the difficulty of getting to there. They are experiencing the joy of what it feels like to accomplish the act, as opposed to all the things that must occur before they can be successful. This simple example offers a powerful analogy for precisely the way consciousness seems to work. All we need to do to transform our imagination into reality is to “assume the feeling of our wish fulfilled.”