The Prayer Is The Answer

Ralph Waldo Emerson defined prayer as the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. Perhaps that's what prayer is - not asking for things or trying to change what cannot be changed - but viewing one's life from a panoramic view, that perhaps when done at its best, aligns us with a spiritual vision and a whole perspective of our life that can demonstrate greater wisdom, healing, and appreciation.

Transcript

What is prayer?

I side with Emerson.

Prayer is the contemplation of things from the highest point of view.

Prayer is not magical thinking.

Prayer is thinking with clarity.

It's not reaching out to God for help.

It's going within to have the gall.

To attempt to see how God might see,

Or how God might feel,

Or how God might know.

This may not sound so absurd when we consider that an essential part of prayer isn't trying to think as someone else,

But to let go of our own limited patterns of thinking.

When we let that go,

A greater thinking can reveal itself,

A greater mind,

A greater intelligence.

Krishna Murthy,

A great teacher of meditation,

Made the distinction between thought and intelligence.

Thought he might say,

Is one of the things we do with intelligence,

But intelligence can also be experienced without thinking,

As a creative energy within itself.

This leads me to prayer as contemplation.

We often think of contemplation as taking a thought or idea and considering it for a time.

Contemplate this.

But contemplation is also a prayer practice that is developed particularly out of Catholic mysticism.

It's the contemplation of the infinite.

It's letting go of routine ways of thinking.

It's opening our minds to experience the sacred.

One ancient way of practicing this technique was the practice of the cloud of unknowing.

The cloud of unknowing was taught by a now anonymous teacher during the middle ages.

First,

Imagine below you a cloud of forgetting.

As thoughts come up,

Feelings and images too,

Place them down into this cloud of forgetting.

That thing she said to you,

That thing you have to do today,

That experience that nicked your self-image,

Into the cloud of forgetting it goes.

As you continue to do this and you begin to feel a sense of being blank,

Or maybe it's better to say open,

Start to envision above you a cloud of unknowing.

This is a state of awareness where you can be completely with intelligence,

In place of not knowing,

Just being,

Just listening,

Just receptive.

The teacher tells us that this can be a very dark place.

But,

He says,

If you strive to fix your love on Him forgetting all else,

Which is the work of contemplation I have urged you to begin,

I am confident that God and His goodness will bring you to a deep experience of Himself.

And that's the practice.

Get into the cloud of unknowing and stay there and wait for God.

It's hard.

It's maybe scary.

I guess it could even be quite boring.

But I think it's quite powerful.

It's like taking my consciousness into one of those drive-thru car washes.

In my practice it's not like something comes in from nowhere,

But it's like removing the dust and the grime of the days and weeks since I did the practice,

And revealing that shine.

It's less a consciousness that comes from nowhere as it is a consciousness that resumes itself.

The Catholic teacher Thomas Merton described it this way,

Life can have an interior dimension of depth and awareness which is systematically blocked by our habitual way of life,

All concentrated on externals.

The poverty of a life fragmented and dispensed in things and built on a superficial idea of the self and its relation to what is outside and around it.

Importance of freedom from the routines and illusions which keep us subject to things,

Dependent on what is outside us.

The need to open an inner freedom and vision which is found in relatedness to something in us which we don't really know.

This is not just the psychological unconscious.

It is much more than that.

Tillich called it the ground of our being.

Traditionally it is called God,

But images and ideas of the deity do not comprehend it.

What is it?

The real inner life and freedom of man begins when this inner dimension opens up and man lives in communion with the unknown within him.

And do you know why I say scary?

For being in that cloud of unknowing?

I say it because to let go of what we think we know is to enter into a kind of darkness.

Perhaps evil is not the best word to describe darkness.

Maybe not knowing is a better one.

To let go of what we know in the pitch black is not only to in a way release our senses and our sense of identity,

But to be fully vulnerable to the coming of something new.

No,

Not the boogeyman from the shadows,

But a transformative way of knowing.

A greater identity yet to be.

And for contemplatives,

A deeper experience of God.

When we have this experience it doesn't just enrich our prayer,

But our entire life.

The contemplative Mother Teresa said,

Our life of contemplation,

Simply put,

Is to realize God's constant presence and his tender love for us in the least little things of life.

Perhaps the best practice is to take the consciousness we have received in contemplation and to bring it to all of our activities.

Eat a piece of chocolate and seek sweetness,

But also seek the eternal.

Hug your child and seek to give love,

But also seek the eternal.

Seek your destination on your GPS,

But seek the world,

Seek God's universe,

Seek the eternal.

Mary Oliver,

Not a contemplative traditionally,

But a great poet with the eternal on her mind.

She said,

Knowledge has entertained me and it has shaped me,

And it has failed me.

Something in me still starves.

In what is probably the most serious inquiry of my life,

I have begun to look past reason,

Past the provable,

In other directions.

Now I think there is only one subject worth my attention,

And that is the precognition of the spiritual side of the world,

And within this recognition the condition of my own spiritual state.

You yourself may not be at that point,

Where caring about the material items of life is something that you are ready to let go of.

That's okay.

But there is something you can do now,

To improve your experience of the eternal,

To build a consciousness better at appreciating,

To live life more fully so it doesn't feel like a beginning and an end with a big whoosh sound in between.

Try this practice.

You don't have to be religious to do it.

You don't have to be spiritual to do it.

You just have to be interested in consciousness and the possibilities of what it might do,

If you nurture it,

Experiment with it,

Investigate it.

Again,

As Emerson said,

Prayer is the contemplation of things from the highest point of view.

The first part of that is climbing up to that big panoramic view,

Where you can't control what you see,

You can just look and behold what comes to view.

That's contemplative prayer.

And as we will continue exploring,

Once you've gotten as high up as you can go,

You can now take that knowing and apply it back down at your life.

You can apply it to yourself,

Your relationships,

And all the stuff going on.

This is the application of prayer for healing,

For peace of mind,

For harmony,

For a richer experience of life.

Ernest Holmes said,

It is wonderful to know that your good is at hand.

Your night wanes.

Your dawn is breaking.

There is a living spirit at the center of your being.

The original author of all life is in and around you,

Not a God who was,

But a God who is.

This is the great secret you share with life.

Life is wherever you are.

It revolves around you even as it flows through you.

Keep the doorway of your mind open.

Feeling,

Thinking,

Communing with this life.

Know that it fills you with light and with power.

What is an affirmation?

An affirmation is a statement of faith.

Prayer as we are defining it for this series is as Emerson defined it,

Contemplating things from the highest point of view.

It is not wishing or persuading God to do something for you.

It is seeing,

Stating,

Affirming,

And experiencing the highest way of knowing about life,

Ourselves,

And others.

It is through consciousness,

Rising above the limits of our experience to grasp higher truths and then applying them.

Sometimes I call this the whole perspective.

My wife and I argue sometimes.

Sometimes it is like we forget we love one another.

In the experience of arguing I am angry,

Distrusting,

Blaming,

And yes sometimes even a jerk.

I will let her tell you how she is.

Now there is nothing invalid or untrue about my experience in these moments that don't really reflect my character.

But my best in this situation is to get prayerful,

Which for me means getting back to the center of myself so that I can remember the truth.

The whole truth about my relationship with my wife.

We love one another.

We would never intentionally hurt each other.

We support one another in our highest and best.

Always.

The hardest part is letting that part of me that needs to be right be wrong.

I have to let go of pride,

Which is often a kind of martyrdom to its feelings.

I have to start embracing those higher truths.

What this begins to do is widen my perspective and begin to let love back in.

Perhaps the thing we were arguing about in the first place isn't answered by a clear solution,

But a call for love that restores a sense of harmony and support in our relationship again.

So prayer is knowing and applying the highest truths to our life through the medium of our consciousness gives us this tool of affirmations.

Statements of faith about our life,

About others,

About ourselves.

An affirmation ideally is not a statement of want,

Or a statement of something you want to or think should be but isn't.

It should only be stated in the future tense if you truly feel it is taking place.

Nor is it a statement of manipulating others.

You can't say what their feeling or experience should be.

An affirmation is a statement of faith.

A statement of embodiment of virtue.

A statement of trust in God or the nature of life.

A statement of the truth you know about others.

If I am saying an affirmation for a drug addict,

I will not affirm that so and so is not addicted to drugs.

I will say so and so is capable of sobriety.

That so and so's true nature is peace and stability.

I'd like to encourage you to join me today in an affirmations workshop.

For this first part,

You'll need something to write with and on.

I invite you to join me in free writing affirmations for several minutes.

Don't judge them.

Don't think about them too long.

Just write them.

Take as long as you want.

What did you notice writing those affirmations?

Did they come easy?

Did they come with difficulty?

I find free writing affirmations,

I am often articulating something my inner wisdom already knows.

And sometimes I am happily surprised by what is articulated.

Next step,

I want you to underline up to 5 of your affirmations.

What are the ones that are most powerful and most resonate with you?

Take your time.

Was it powerful to narrow down your affirmations?

To pick them in this way?

For me,

There is often power in choice.

To say,

This is what I want.

Something creative about it.

Now this next part may be challenging.

For two minutes,

You are going to say the affirmations you have picked over and over again.

If you have someone nearby or that you trust that is available,

Ask them to listen to you.

Are you ready?

Set.

Go.

Okay,

What did this process teach you about affirmations?

Is there something powerful about saying them out loud?

Is there a power in repeating them?

Is there power in how we say the affirmation?

With passivity or with conviction?

Is there something emotional,

Perhaps even in a good way,

In how it reveals our true feelings and our real selves?

Our next step is to choose one affirmation.

You can keep the others too,

But one affirmation that is important to you today.

What I want you to do is to choose this one affirmation and declare it to someone or someones.

If we were in a class,

You would be invited to share it with everyone.

There is a great power in saying an affirmation in front of God and everyone.

Something truly embodying about it.

I am just going to invite you to tell someone or put it on your social media or email it to me.

Rev Joshua at the meaning place dot org.

That's R-E-V J-O-S-H-U-A at T-H-E M-E-A-N-I-N-G P-L-A-C-E dot O-R-G.

Here's my affirmation.

I am being intimate with now.

I am being intimate with now.

I am being intimate with now.

Now I know that sounds like I should be asking now for some sort of consent.

But what it means to me is that I am willing to love more,

Restrict less,

And engage more in trust with the present moment that I am.

I hope this makes me a better dad,

Husband,

Friend,

Minister,

And overall guy.

Prayer as affirmation is ultimately the practice if not already of making every part of you for you and not against you.

To live in the power of yes and only live in the power of no when it is affirming of what you do want to say yes to.

Ernest Holmes said,

Just keep right on knocking at the doorway of your consciousness until every no becomes a yes,

Every negation in affirmation,

Every fear of faith.

To think and act as one with affirmative spirit is to live life in creative blessing.

Take your affirmation and embody it this week.

This could mean chanting it several times a day.

It could be sharing it with someone you love.

It could be contemplating it in your morning and visually applying it to each event you know is about to come into your day.

Don't let your affirmation just live in the world of your psyche.

But give it shoes and feet,

Skin and teeth.

Make it live in your life.

I affirm your affirmation with you,

And thank you for affirming mine with me.

I don't know what else to say at this time,

So how about Amen?

Thus far in this brief series we've discussed two types of prayer.

Contemplative prayer and affirmative prayer.

Contemplative prayer is about creating an empty space in consciousness to listen for God,

Or more accurately,

Await direct experience of God.

Affirmative prayer is creating a space in consciousness to affirm higher truth.

It's a way we might say of connecting with God and knowing what the truth is because of that connection.

For me affirmative prayer might just have three steps.

God is,

Or a statement about our understanding of the divine or sacred.

I am,

Or an affirmative statement about who we are in God.

And lastly,

Therefore.

What we know about a situation in our life because of this knowing.

God is,

I am,

Therefore.

I value both types of prayer immensely.

Affirmative prayer is assertive.

Contemplative prayer is passive.

Affirmative prayer is verbal.

Contemplative prayer is silent.

Affirmative prayer is for a specific articulated result.

Contemplative prayer is for God alone.

Now I guess you can say there are all sorts of types of prayer.

Wishing prayer.

Bitching prayer.

Magic prayer.

Forgiveness prayer.

Whatever your thing,

Don't knock it till you try it.

But I do want to talk today about prayer as realization.

And what I mean by this is that one part of prayer is the ritual but another part is what happens after,

In the byproduct,

In the change in ourselves that makes us receptive to the answer.

Not in what it changes around us but changes within us.

This is a prayer as realization.

Prayer is not a singular event but a state of consciousness.

It's cultivated in the ritual,

Yes,

But just as much when we take it with us into the activities of our day.

This is why I can't stress enough the practice of prayer every day.

I have never run out of things to pray for and over time I have built a prayerful consciousness that has helped me be more receptive and able to see things from a more panoramic view.

What daily prayer has given me is a consciousness of the wholeness for my life.

It's like this extra layer of awareness.

It's positive in that even when I am in an experience of feeling broken,

I can remember I am whole.

Even in the midst of a negative experience I can still keep positive.

Even while engaging in part of my life I am not grateful for,

I can still be grateful for the whole of my life.

It's only negative in that I can't get away from my shit.

When I am misbehaving or even being the slightest bit out of integrity,

This wholeness,

This whole part of me,

Knows it.

I have to find other ways to be mischievous.

There is a classic saying about prayer,

Pray and move your feet.

This speaks to following your prayer up with action.

Pray for healing and get your butt to the doctor.

Pray for God's perfect match for you on ChristianMingle.

Com.

Pray for God's perfect match for you today and go on to Tinder.

Prayer is realization is a kind of deeper way of saying,

Follow up your prayer with action.

But it's different in that prayer is realization means following up your prayer with consciousness.

It's increased knowingness,

Receptivity,

Willingness.

It's having the consciousness that has the good you seek inherent in it.

It's the prayer answered already in your mind.

What it really is for me is the creative consciousness that helps me bring about the results that I am seeking.

Now I am not big on praying for specific things or outcomes.

Some people are really good at that.

It's just not my thing.

I love the answered prayer that is the byproduct of the consciousness that is the result of me knowing what I want may look like but being open to that or something better.

Several years ago now a book came out by A.

J.

Jacobs called the Year of Living Biblically where for a whole year Jacobs attempts to follow the Bible and it's over 700 laws and doctrines literally.

Jacobs warns us before he begins that he's not religious and the only time he says Lord is when it is followed by of the rings.

So Jacobs doesn't cut his hair.

He sacrifices an animal.

He attempts to stone adulterers and so on.

And it's all humorous but an underlying narrative emerges of this fellow A.

J.

Having to take a look at his own way of living.

And what he finds is in spite of the wild laws there are also some worthwhile practices.

The Sabbath for example.

Or he shares an experience of practicing gratitude.

And on and on.

I'm actually muttering to myself.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's an odd way to live but also kind of great and powerful.

I've never before seen so aware of the thousands of little good things.

The thousands of things that go right every day.

That's prayer is realization.

It's bringing a greater level of appreciation and creativity to the everydayness in our life.

Knowing the desires of my heart is one thing.

Having the consciousness that can accept and maintain them is another.

Work on that consciousness.

Let God take care of the rest.

Jacobs eventually comes to a conclusion that is quite interesting to those who thought they were reading an argument against religion.

I now believe that whether or not there is a God there's such a thing as sacredness.

Life is sacred.

The Sabbath can be a sacred day.

Prayer can be a sacred ritual.

There is something transcendent beyond the everyday.

It's possible that humans created this sacredness ourselves but that doesn't take away from its power or importance.

Realize the best you today.

Realize the best way of living your life today.

Realize that what you seek most is not a change outside of yourself but within yourself.

When that occurs the rest takes care of itself.

Emerson said,

Prayer that craves a particular commodity,

Anything less than all good,

Is vicious.

Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.

It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul.

It is the Spirit of God pronouncing his good works.

And he goes on,

As soon as the man is at one with God,

He will not beg.

He will then see prayer in all action.

I don't think Emerson is saying that it's wrong to know what you want in your life.

What he's getting at is that the real prayer is the prayer itself.

That highest point of view,

That beholding of the jubilant soul,

That Spirit of God,

That's prayer.

It's not the ask but the answer.

And when you get that,

The prayer itself is the answer.

And the natural byproduct of that awareness we cultivate in prayer,

That's the good.

I have found in my own prayer practice,

That my prayer is not pure unless I want it to for everyone.

If it's a prayer just for me,

There's something not only selfish but restrictive about that.

There is a lack consciousness in wanting riches for me and not for you,

Love for me and not for you.

I have found that prayer is the answer.

A prayerful consciousness helps receive that.

And another way when the prayer is the answer is when we realize that the best prayer isn't for a specific outcome but about a specific becoming within ourselves.

It's not about what do I want but who am I to become.

It's not about how I want something to look but how do I want to feel.

Thus in knowing what to pray for,

I love to use that technique of the child who keeps asking why.

Why is the sky blue?

Because the sun reflects on the water.

Why?

Because we live in a universe with the sun in the middle.

Why?

And so on.

If there's a material thing you're wanting,

Keep asking why until you get to that thing you want to experience.

I want a new car.

Why?

It'd make me feel rich.

Why?

Because I'd get attention from beautiful women.

Why?

Because I'd feel beautiful and free.

Ah,

Beauty,

Freedom.

That's what I'm wanting.

To be loved and to be loving.

I don't know if God can order up a new car for all of us but I do think those qualities of beauty and freedom or a willingness to be and be loved,

That can happen.

In fact they exist already right now.

They can be embodied now through prayer.

I can today anchor myself in beauty,

In love,

And in freedom and commit to be that in my life.

And that is the creativity of prayer.

Being those things brings those things about.

The prayer is the answer.

Speaking of prayer,

Ernest Holmes said,

Your first step is to come to a more complete realization of who and what you are.

I think what he means is that prayer begins by realizing not only that there is an infinite power in the universe but that we are a part of it.

There is a God and I am an expression of God.

Or,

Life is,

It is infinite,

And I am in it.

See,

It's quite a thing to recognize that you live in an infinite universe filled with possibilities.

To see the sowing of love and inward truth in all life and beings.

To see a creative power imbibed in each and every soul.

It is then quite the thing to say that's true of yourself as well.

That infinity you sense,

That love you feel,

That oneness you become aware of,

It's just as much inside of you.

This is the first step of prayer.

Holmes then says,

Your next step is to enter into a more definite understanding of your relationship with the power.

I don't ever suggest to get into the practice of calling yourself God.

The idea is to realize that you have a relationship with one another.

That you are connected.

That means the creative qualities of God,

Love,

Intelligence,

Hope,

Gratitude,

Willingness.

They are your qualities too.

When you know them in yourself then you can begin to apply them to your life.

Holmes says,

We must seek the source of life if we would live,

And no longer seeing it as through a glass darkly,

We shall be gently led from our canyons of disillusionment into the fertile valleys of peace through which flows the river of life.

And as we live in consciousness from that fertile valley,

We take that consciousness into the daily circumstances of our life.

Then we're into the final step,

Which Holmes shares.

Your final step is to use the power for yourself and others.

Apply it to your relationship.

Apply it to the lives of those you love.

Apply it to Facebook.

Apply it to the freeway.

Apply it to your light,

To your dark,

To your gray.

A consciousness of truth applied reveals truth.

I love how Joseph Campbell put it,

I don't think of God as up there.

I think of God as right here,

In whatever I'm knowing and loving and serving.

To be happy with Him forever in heaven means to recognize your own compassion,

Your own participation in that creature or person you're with.

That seems to be the goal of the journey.

And that is prayer in action.

To know and love and serve an awareness of a sacred presence.

Prayer becomes not only a ritual,

But a way of life.

So to sum up our whole series,

Here is some advice from me to you.

Pray every day.

Make it part of your daily practice and not a once in a while event.

This means prayer is no longer something you do when you want something,

But prayer is the practice you do to make your life whole,

Blessed and a blessing.

Gandhi said,

There are at least two clear times for prayer.

We should turn our mind to the Lord immediately upon awakening in the morning,

And when closing our eyes for sleep in the evening.

During the rest of the day,

Every man and woman who is spiritually awake will think of God when doing anything and do that with God as witness.

Such persons will never do anything evil,

And a time will come when they will think every thought with God as witness and as its master.

Such persons,

Who live constantly in the sight of God,

Will every moment feel God dwelling in their hearts.

We have only to turn our thoughts to God,

No matter by what name we call God,

By what method and in what condition.

Second,

Pray for the experience,

Not the content.

Pray not that someone be your love,

But for an experience of deep love.

Pray not for that job,

But for the best possible job.

This doesn't tie the universe's hands into doing a specific thing for you,

But declares that you trust the universe to create not for,

But with the intentions of your heart.

Lastly,

The prayer is the answer.

By that I mean,

It's the consciousness we reach in prayer that is what we should be seeking.

To live from that consciousness is to live answered prayer.

To close with some more words from Emerson.

It's not prayer also a study of truth,

A sally of the soul into the unfound infinite.

No man ever prayed heartily,

Without learning something.

But when a faithful thinker,

Resolute to detach every object from personal relations and see it in the light of thought,

Shall at the same time kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections,

Then will God go forth anew into creation.

Reviews

I especially like the little workshop on affirmation.

One of the best talks I have heard on insight timer. Thanks. I needed to hear it now... Glad it came to me. I agree the talk should be a little bit slower (like those zen teachers who talk more mindful each word) and also it could be done in two or three parts, because it covers many things related to prayer. Still I will hear it many times to ponder it's nuggets of wisdom

Thank you 🙏