THE ART OF PRAYER
“That which I am seeking I Am.” Joel Goldsmith, ‘The Mystical I’
When I am called upon to pray for someone or a situation, my latest prayer is similar to a mantra. ‘This never happened to God. God is all. I Am That.’ What does this mean to me? If one is sick, depressed, anxious, whatever, I am asking is God ever sick? Depressed? Anxious? The answer of course is no. God is never any of those. ‘This never happened to God’. God is Omnipresent, infinite Awareness. There is nowhere that God isn’t in other words. ‘God is All’. Which brings me to the last part, ‘I Am That’, the I am of all is God’s Omnipresent Grace. If this is true how can it Truthfully be stated ‘I am sick’, ‘I am broke’, ‘I am depressed’, ‘I am anxious’. The Truth is; I am Love, I am Grace, I am that I AM.
This morning I woke up very early in a bit of fear. It did not surprise me. I figured something not good was happening somewhere in the dream world we are experiencing. The words came to me ‘I Am is the ‘Isness of all that is. There is no other.’ I went into my prayer room lit some candles and sat in Silence. These words repeated themselves, deepening the silence. They are so reassuring to me. The realization of this Truth is the highest form of prayer.
For much of my life I have been looking into the science of prayer. What is it that works? And what is God? My encounter with the God Force was a heightened experience of an all-encompassing Love and Grace. I mean all-encompassing in the truest Infinite way. We are God, I Am you. ‘I Am is the Isness of all. There is no other’.
This Love is far beyond personal love. This is the Love that all expression of love comes from and is that which we attempt to access through personal love.
There is not person and God. If that was the case God would no longer be infinite as everything about the dream of a material realm is finite. This understanding is an important aspect of what I found to be effective prayer. There is no separate person/s over there that one is praying for. The God that is you is the same God that is everyone. We are all the same Grace.
God is Omnipotent. The only power. That is very good news because it means that the one and only TRUE power is love, grace and harmony. In the experience of being a person in the world we confront some pretty scary situations and people. If you know and align yourself with the nature and power of the Divine, harmony prevails in your experience.
God is Omniscience. The field of all knowing. God is All, God knows, and believe me, God knows exactly what to do about it All. Prayer is surrender to all knowing Grace.
Prayer is aligning with these truths. The deeper one's sense of alignment with Truth, the more powerful the prayer. Sometimes when I am having an issue with someone I will simply align myself with the Truth I AM YOU. What that means to me is the same Awareness, the same Intelligence, that I call me is you and is already Harmony. We are participating in a dream of sorts in which we believe we are separate and we need to participate in certain ways. This is Maya, an illusion, a very convincing illusion, albeit, but an illusion. Because we believe it and feel we have to change it, we continue to create it. The only way we need to participate is in handing it over to Love, Grace and Harmony, and following any guidance that may follow.
Understanding the nature of God is important. But once understanding occurs the next step can be as important....
The awakening I experienced was entered through being aware of being aware. We spend our lives being aware, focused on what it is that we are seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling. We focus on the experienced, rarely the experiencing and, even rarer still, the Experiencer. That which is aware in us, that which is experiencing is the Truth of our Being, our Divinity, God. That which is being experienced is the dream. God's dream.
In the Silence, Grace Reigns Supreme.
So, for me, meditation is the next step. I sit down and ask myself "Am I Aware?" That silences the mind and puts it on the search for Awareness. If the mind is particularly busy I start by being aware of a sound or sensation and move to that which is aware. Or, I listen to the Silence. Awareness and Silence is the 'locale', so to speak, of God. Now is the 'time'. The job of the mind is to think, don't try to fight it, the mind loves that. Just become aware of the thoughts without engaging. Nothing silences the mind faster. Be in the silence.
That's it.
I caution you. God is Now, only Now. So if you start looking for results you are leaving the Now and leaving prayer. If a 'problem' took you to pray, practice either being aware of being aware or thinking about the qualities of the Divine whenever the problem wants your attention.
Remember Harmony is in charge, and Harmony is THE Mystery and we never know what the answer to our prayer will be.
If we pray for more money, or a new boyfriend, better health or peace on earth we are aligned with the worldly. Rather than praying we are setting intentions, and intentions can be powerful. Sometimes I set intentions before going into a state of prayer. If I am praying for something in specific I will affirm that this is God's dream and it is very easy for God to alter that dream. This assists in my alignment with Truth. It is potent that I go into prayer knowing what seems so dire is in fact a simple matter in the face of Divine Grace. The closer intentions are to one’s core desire of being happy, the more possible fulfillment becomes. God's intention is Love and Happiness, always. I lay my desires at the 'feet' of the Divine and fully surrender myself to the Awareness/Divinity/Grace that I AM. Then I go into being Aware of Being Aware, the silence. God knows what you have need of before you ask.
I have a million examples of what some would call miracles that I have witnessed as a result of this form of prayer. I will leave it to you to witness the power that is the Truth of our Being.
Rest In God
May you be a witness to the Magic of Divine Truth.
‘Halo’, Art by Katherine Treffinger www.katherinetreffinger.com