An Essential Element of Prayer
An Essential Element of Prayer
Whose prayer is it, anyway?
I have some problems with prayer.
I get that prayer can function similar to group singing, or rhythmic music or chanting: it can rally us, work us into a state. Something similar can occur at a massive sporting event or political rally when the crowd really gets going.
No, I’m talking more about personal prayer.
My knee jerk reaction to formal public prayer is repulsion. In part because of the tendency toward the grandiose and pompous is so obvious. “Our Most Loving, Gracious, Holy and Glorious Heavenly Father…” is the preamble that springs to mind.
Of course, I’m not talking about a priest, rabbi or Roshi leading a group in prayer or meditation. That’s a bit different.
Having said that, and once I’m able to fall like a dizzy dervish off the spinning prayer wheel and dust off my sanctified robes, I remember what my Sensei once said:
Prayer and meditation are like breathing in and out. They are the inspiration and the expiration. Prayer is the exhale, the expression. Meditation is the inhale, the pause, the waiting, the living in the stillness. In this sense, prayer can be seen as the everyday actions or expression of our lives.
I like the setting that gives. It seems a bit more practical. It puts life and vitality into prayer. Because without some sort of breath, prayer seems like not much more than a hope or a stress reliever. It’s all exhale, with little hope of fulfillment. It becomes kind of asthmatic. Or it’s all inhale, all about asking and expecting, equally asthmatic. It’s like the settlers of the American west, racing their covered wagons across the prairies to grab as much land as they can — except in my spin on prayer they have no right to it.
I suppose prayer like my teacher described, lived out in everyday life, whether inwardly experienced or outwardly lived, should be seen as this basic, this simple. Breathed.
All this sounds good. But I wonder.
Experiments in prayer
My first specific experiment with prayer was in 1965. I-64 was being built near my house. I was around 15 years old. One day I climbed up a large dirt mound which was to become a future overpass. I could see the sprawling Norfolk Naval Base spread out below me. It was dusk, and I felt like Moses standing atop Mount Sinai. With all the innocence, purity and belief I could muster, I lifted my outstretched arms upward. And I prayed. I prayed and prayed. I became an Old Testament prophet, sincerely entreating God. I went on and on.
Nothing happened. Nothing. at. all.
As a child and young adult I spent countless hours in church related activities. I saw and heard a lot of people pray. This included my in-depth college religious studies. I was exposed to innumerable “men and women of faith.” Some were characters I found in stories, books and scriptures, while others were alive or even famous in the greater community of believers.
I was visually influenced by pictures of Billy Sunday and the revivals that swept across the early 20th century. In my twenties, I attended massive Billy Graham rallies. In the 1940s, my own father and Graham had worked together when they were both young ministers. To be clear, I was not a skeptic. Rather, I wanted to be a valued member of the in-family. I was constantly told, “Prayer changes things.” But still, nothing. Nothing. ever. happened.
I was never singled out or personally chastised for my lack of prayer-ability. But the implication was that people like me either had insufficient faith or were just a bit too wicked. The point is, these generic accusations were simply not accurate. Yet the implication was always one of placing blame on the individual, the sinner, the unworthy. It never once put any responsibility on the institutions, the teachings or the instructional methods themselves.
The implication was always one of placing the blame on the individual, the sinner, the unworthy. It never once put any responsibility on the institutions, the teachings or the instructional methods themselves.
That’s troubling. What’s disturbing about it is that many generations of religious instruction have occurred with billions of people feeling a sense of failure just like I had experienced. And little has been done to correct it. It is far from surprising that skepticism occurs in the minds of the faithful.
Prayer is taught to be self-centered
And then there’s the notion of asking, begging and pleading for something. It’s the whole notion of engaging in prayer for the purpose of receiving benefits.
You see, that bothers me. It always has, even as a child. Because it seems selfish. Prosperity Gospel reeks of expecting maximum benefits on the basis of minimum effort. It’s the glorification of entitlement.
Prayer Is a Complex Affair
J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life
Like all deep human problems, prayer is a complex affair and not to be rushed at; it needs patience, careful and tolerant probing, and one cannot demand definite conclusions and decisions. Without understanding himself, he who prays may through his very prayer be led to self-delusion. We sometimes hear people say, and several have told me, that when they pray to what they call God for worldly things, their prayers are often granted. If they have faith, and depending upon the intensity of their prayer, what they seek - health, comfort, worldly possessions - they eventually get. If one indulges in petitionary prayer it brings its own reward, the thing asked for is often granted, and this further strengthens supplications. Then there is the prayer, not for things or for people, but to experience reality, God, which is also frequently answered; and there are still other forms of petitionary prayer, more subtle and devious, but nevertheless supplicating, begging and offering. All such prayers have their own reward, they bring their own experiences; but do they lead to the realization of the ultimate reality?
Are we not the result of the past, and are we not therefore related to the enormous reservoir of greed and hate, with their opposites? Surely, when we make an appeal, or offer a petitionary prayer, we are calling upon this reservoir of accumulated greed, and so on, which does bring its own reward, and has its price. Does supplication to another, to something outside, bring about the understanding of truth?
Gandhi edges us closer
Mahatma Gandhi’s perspective on prayer gets a significant step closer to my perspective on prayer.
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. — Mahatma Gandhi
Importantly, it’s “not asking”.
It’s hard to explain, but I’ve always had a feeling that to ask for something for myself is somehow kind of cheating, somehow unfairly gaming the prayer system. It strikes me as selfish. I’ll try to put this in context.
Many people have observed over time the paradox of the God of the Old Testament who exhibits characteristics of vengeance, jealousy and rage. Which has given rise to the question, “Who is this God you serve? What is the actual nature of this deity?” The idea being that this form of God, this representation of higher value, exalts the kind of thinking that’s all about ‘me’. It’s not the god of highest values, but rather a god of more base values, a god of self-centeredness.
Simply put, there’s something inside of me that recoils at the idea of reaching across the table and scraping the entire pile of poker chips into my lap. It’s all mine because I deserve it.
The heart of innocence
Gandhi zeroes in an another key element of prayer: the heart of innocence. In this context, the pure or innocent heart is not about a person being faultless. Rather, it’s about realizing that at our core our hearts are good. It’s about approaching prayer focusing on that essential tenderness, adopting a mindset that stills our objections of admitting to a more fundamental nature embodied within our self.
Augustine and the mind
“The Lord our God requires us to ask not that thereby our wish may be intimated to Him, for to Him it cannot be unknown, but in order that by prayer there may be exercised in us by supplications that desire by which we may receive what He prepares to bestow.” — Augustine
Augustine’s point seems to be that a primary purpose of prayer involves a practice of the mind. To place the mind into a deeper, more open state. In the beginning, prayer readies us. Through experience, prayer becomes a way of living in an on-going and persistent state of stillness or readiness of mind.
It wasn’t until I was in my late 40s that I began to seriously consider states of mind. My consideration was a direct result of martial arts. Oddly, my instructor rarely talked about mind training directly. Rather, he demonstrated it. Unlike the failure of institutions to teach prayer in practical, effective manners, this particular teacher gave us the experience of it. He set a tone of discipline that opened the opportunity for an unfolding set of unambiguous “Aha” experiences. Those deeper experiences only occurred because of a determined, disciplined approach to delving into the the subjective recesses of the mind utilizing guiding, objective principles.
Essential questions
Another element in my personal experience of prayer is the so-called “still, small voice.” From where does this voice emerge?
There are many models of the mind. That aside, I tend to think of the mind as a series of deeper and deeper concentric circles, perhaps like a vortex. The further down/inward we go, the more aware we become that no matter the depth, the thoughts are still ours. The voice in our head is always us.
But along the way, we are intersecting with various nodes or ‘plug-ins’ — points of connection for other people. These intersections may account for experiences like, “Wow, I was just thinking the same thing!”
Consequently, one the intersections or questions which arises is: “When I pray, whose voice am I hearing?”
We can also ask, “Is it true that the more deeply I can relax, the deeper I experience my mind?”
John Butler
“[You] come to realize what prayer really is. That prayer is really merging into the perfection of God. Melting into that absolute one.” He goes on stating that this connectedness is unlimited with no boundaries, resulting in a personal ability to connect to the entire world, implying that as an individual we can have a far greater affect than we realize. “If I’m connected with that level of immortality here, it serves the whole world. You could describe prayer as the raising of consciousness.”
As a self-confessed old man getting close to death he states that he is more optimistic than ever. Because he’d always struggled, starting a young man, with what he himself could do to help the world be a better place. He observes that as a younger person he saw changing the world as bringing about better irrigation or growing crops where it had not been possible. But… this was very limited to the efforts of his individual, physical body. Whereas this aged perspective removes those limitations. As he’s aged and practiced prayer he’s discovered that one person, via effective prayer, can change an entire world and its consciousness.
I like his zeroing in on the vital reality and essence of prayer.