Prayer

“There is a light within this body, Father.....”

At first I prayed, “Father, please heal me,” and I waited for an indication that it might be happening. There was rarely an immediate dissolution of pain or discomfort. If I felt frustrated or desperate, such attempts seemed to make my situation more intense. But over time, I began to notice that while in prayer, sometimes I was not in pain. Had I merely forgotten the discomfort? As I moved in and out of prayer, I noticed that my general comfort level seemed to vary with my focus. So was it a question of focus?

While the reading did not specifically mention prayer as a recommended part of my daily routine, the opening and closing, coupled with Al Miner’s and Lama Sing’s prayerful intent led me to understand the use of prayer to be essential to my recovery. As I embraced my meditative pursuits of oneness with God, an often used truism called to me time and again. Prayer is talking with God and meditation is listening to God. This explanation is found over and over in explorations of meditation and prayer, but in 1984, I did not truly understand the value of this. While meditation was new to me, prayer was not. But now as I sought to use prayer to heal myself, I had to examine more closely what prayer is and why some prayers seemed to be answered and others seemingly were not.

In 1988 I was part a group of individuals who, with the help of Al Miner and Lama Sing, entered into a study project on prayer. For roughly eight months we asked questions of Lama Sing and experimented with our prayerful intent. Much of what I will present here has its foundation in those works. My later awakenings built upon those experiences.

We found, through practice, that prayer is a tangible thing. Our thoughts are tangible as well. Prayer is the creative use of our thought in alignment with God. When our thoughts are not in alignment with our Creator, then they are not properly of prayerful intent. If our thoughts are energy in action, which they are, and our thoughts have power, which they do, then we must understand the implication of this relationship. In fact, our awakening to our true potential lies in our ability to understand and be in harmony with our creative potential, in harmony while in thought and prayer. More to the point…we need to always be in a state of prayerful thought.

We operate at several levels. Without going too deeply into an explanation of those levels, it is nevertheless true that we are the sum total of our beingness at spiritual, mental, emotional and physical levels. It has been given by many sources that, “Spirit is the pattern, Mind is the builder, Emotion is the substance, and the Physical is the result.” When I first encountered these concepts it took some effort to assimilate the meaning of this. In simple terms I came to understand that I draw my pattern from God and I shape who I am with my thoughts. My emotions become tools or obstacles, and my body is the product.

If you are experiencing discomfort, it did not have its origins at a physical level. It can be traced to your spiritual pattern. You might ask, “How can I know my spiritual pattern?” Very simple…pray and meditate. After you have explored these practices, foundational experiences will be recognized for reference. These experiences will form a baseline upon which you can build.

Unfortunately, prayer is often a rote function of memorized words while meditation seems at odds with the Western norm. There’s a better way. We need to learn to function in our society while remaining married to our Spirit. It is imperative that we reconnect with that part of ourselves that we allow to frequently go unnoticed.

In my efforts to heal my stomach, I learned to connect with God through prayer, and to reference that feeling of oneness so that I could feel when I was moving out of that alignment. I heightened my sensitivity through prayer. I learned to know when I was balanced and in a state of health, or rather moving into a state of imbalance. I did this by comparing and measuring my state of ease to my feelings while in and out of balanced prayer.

At first, as I learned more about prayer, I went time and again to a location overlooking a lake. Alone and safe I opened myself to the serenity of nature and left my worries in another place. I prayed. As I did this consistently, day after day, I noticed subtle differences in my feelings. Sometimes I seemed more connected. Other times the connection seemed distant. Why?

I prayed at sunrise, at sunset and at varying times in between, all the while referencing my different feelings. I prayed with inspirational music and without. I prayed in times of joy and in times of sorrow. I prayed during times that seemed mundane and I prayed during times that the masses recognize to be holy.

Always, I prayed that those who are in need would have their needs met, and I asked that I would be shown how to heal myself.

While in joyful prayer, I do not feel hurried or stressed. I feel loved and embraced. I am loved and embraced. In prayer, my energy reaches a level that is higher, more pure than I normally experience in my everyday duties, requirements and reactions. I have learned to, in the words of one of my dear friends, “Live my life as if it were a prayer.” Once I did this and had established a benchmark to measure my level of oneness, I began to be healed. Actually I began to remove the blockages that were impeding my health.

Most of us pray when we see or experience a need. I’ll restate an earlier statement for emphasis…early in my attempts to pray away my stomach pain, I asked God to heal me. Moreover, I looked at others whom I perceived to be in need as well, and prayed that they would be healed. I prayed for cancer to be healed, I prayed for dimmed eyesight to be healed. I prayed for asthma to be healed. Get the picture? Ever done that? The problem here was that I was asking God to fix something as if God was inattentive. It was as if God had forgotten that my stomach hurt or that a close friend had cancer or that my father was losing his sight or that the child that I was helping experienced periods when he could not breathe. I certainly gave God a lot of credit! I, Chip, could empathize with the pain of those around me but God must have forgotten, so I’ll have to be vigilant and remind God. Nice job Chip. I also wondered if I should pray from a deistic approach and implore God to return to the Earth that God had obviously set in motion and ignored for the time being.

I realized eventually that God had not moved away from me. I and others had simply lost the recognition of our connection with, our oneness with God. But how could it be that I, and so many others, were in pain, calling to God, and God did not override our ignorance and intercede on our behalf? Why wouldn’t God heal us in spite of ourselves, as I had asked?

If we are sick, there is a thought form associated with that sickness. That thought form may be weak. In other words we may be able to “shake off that cold.” In other cases however, that thought pattern may be ingrained and difficult to balance. Stomach distress is a very powerful thought form. It is very hard to passively mask with pills. But the habit patterns that perpetuate its existence may be proactively dissipated through prayer.

The habit patterns that give energy to dis-ease may be dissipated by realigning our thoughts, attitudes and emotions, through prayer. We may do this by reclaiming our connection to God within. Our unconscious patterns that bring about imbalance may be overridden by reconnecting with that part of ourselves that is the perfect pattern. But doing this we release our resonance with sickness.

When we experience illness, over time we reorder our lives to live within adjustments to our schedules, relationships and expectations. We and others begin to accept the limitations and discomforts therein. We are not expected to do certain things, perform certain acts, or succeed in certain tasks and goals. “I can’t do that now. I’m sick. Leave me alone.”

Because of this pattern, my wife and sons expected less of me. Often, I was late or not in attendance at special events because I was ill. That was how I explained my actions when in truth, days earlier, I had allowed my periods of prayerful connection to lapse. I embraced patterns that would lead to illness down the road.

Illness can become such a way of life that we lose sight of the fears that have gradually brought us to that point. Ultimately, we no longer face our fears, because our day-to-day struggles surrounding our sickness blind us to its origin.

Prayer is an opening to reconnect with all that we have placed in abeyance. Through prayer I can reconnect with my Higher Self, I can reconnect with God. I can find a pathway through my fears back into life. Actually, I am reconnecting with who I am, with my unlimited potential, and ultimately with all of the energy that exists. This time though, I am doing so in an orderly fashion. I am following the pathway of Oneness. I am following the connective pathway of God’s energy. I am not blocking that pathway and reversing it upon myself so that it manifests as disease.

Prayer is the movement along the path of energy that connects me to the All. As I pray, I rediscover this and prayer becomes an active ally.

Prayer first becomes a tool. Then it becomes a way of life.

I became accustomed to praying each time I sensed a need. And I began to feel the difference in each situation.

Was there a feeling of resolution?
Did the prayer feel complete?
Did I feel connected to a Higher Power?
When and in what circumstances did I not?
What was that energy flow that I just felt surge through my body?
Why did I feel the surge certain times and not others?
Why did I sense that a certain prayer was more appropriate in specific instances?
What did it mean to “sense” that something was appropriate?
Is prayer appropriate in all instances?
Is there a universal prayer?

This goes on and on. But ultimately, I was led to question whether each prayer was different or was my creative intent at work here? All of these questions were answered in their time.

I was able through practice to establish an inner dialogue complete with my own inner language. Serenity meant openness. Sadness meant fear. Joy meant connection. Peace meant resolution. I learned to just “know” when I was done.

I began to recognize when I was blocking my energy. Through prayer I initiated an inner connection and practiced the conscious movement of energy both within and beyond myself. I would feel a pain, recognize it as an unbalanced energy flow, pray for guidance, center myself and allow my healing by redirecting the energy flow. If my stomach burned, I “knew” that my energy was not flowing and was blocked in that region. So I would relax, release and feel a redirected flow. If you are more visually inclined you could “see” an energy flow moving upward away from the blockage. Personally, I seem to “feel” more readily than “see.” You should seek to identify your most effective method of inner communication and start there. Do you “see,” “feel,”, “hear,” “know”? When you pray, how do you receive guidance?

I practiced knowing and feeling. I prayed and refined my ability to be at one with my own energy. I prayed and became at one with the Source of my energy. I learned to simply connect, feel the nature of my discomfort and let go, allowing a free flow to return. Prayer taught me how to do this. Prayerful intent became the opening, the entry point that I turned to time and again to sense blockages and initiate their removal. Meditation later became my preparatory platform for balance, but prayer became my immediate method of entry to initiate healing. Then, by remaining in a state of balance, I could live my life to the fullest and help others who had similarly forgotten how to do this.

There is much information available regarding prayer. There are many uplifting stories of the use of prayer to bring about what we refer to as miracles. There are also many wonderful analyses that attempt to investigate prayer from a nuts and bolts perspective, a sort of prayer 101 course. I certainly gained something from all of those sources. Still, I have gained greater comfort from my discovery that through active prayer I can be healed and I can be a pro-active participant in my spiritual development as well. What a bargain! If I seek through prayer, I will find through prayer those aspects of myself that have caused me discomfort. Then, I can be healed. And who knows? I might even be able to help others heal as well.

There once was a man who focused upon his pain. As his desperation grew, his pain reminded him of events and situations that seemingly worsened his plight. He had to return his focus to his pain to avoid the fear of future failures or the memories of shortcomings. The sharp pain came back into focus. His mind wandered again to thoughts of obligations being unmet. He thought of those whom he disappointed. Into the pain crept sadness, followed by fatigue. In his fatigue he found that only prayer remained. And so he prayed. “Father, heal me of this pain.” And in resignation to his seeming powerlessness he rested. He let down his guard and in the realization that he knew not which direction to turn he quieted his thoughts and sought peace. Over time he sensed comfort. He began to realize that his fears and feeling of unworthiness seemed distant. If he stayed in that state, he felt healing take place. But the healing was different from the healing that he had consciously sought. He had asked for a cessation of physical pain. His prayers had been answered with the balancing of emotional pain. After many such episodes he realized that as he prayed, he actually was connecting with a greater Source and healing was being given. But it was not the limited healing that he had sought. It was the healing of his need. The greater healing indeed was a gift of which he had never dared dream. He was guided to the source of his own creative force. He was given the keys to his own being. And in finally recognizing this, in gratitude embracing his own role in his healing, his true healing began. And his desperation turned to hope. Then his hope turned to wonder and creation as he remembered who he was and awakened to the promise of whom he would be.