how to pray

[JGeropoulas]

Saki wrote: While prayer may begin with speaking words, contemplating a sacred text, or examining an existential issue, in its highest form, it can move beyond words and thoughts to a meditative state of pure awareness. It is a highly alert, attentive and grateful consciousness which listens for whatever it is that divine inspiration is telling it, and this communication is always only one way - from God to man.

BHelmet wrote: "What is in the soul? What is being prayed about? What is the inner intent? Can we pray just to get in touch with the presence of that which is higher and greater than our selves in this current state? (While assuming that there are greater, higher forces that are actually willing to help us if that is what we need and are asking.) Is praying with intent, actually a kind of a trap? That said, I think there are different types of prayer as there are different types of love.

As for myself, I see some different categories of prayer. One is to open to that divine cosmic mind and ask for input; for knowledge: show me, teach me what is really true in any situation. "Shine your light on me, Oh Lord", IOW. Another is certainly praying for a positive outcome for others or the self, but, what constitutes a positive outcome? Do WE know? Shouldn't we be trusting that the greater cosmos knows what is best or necessary, somehow?

If life is religion then life is also prayer.

But, basically, I try to connect with and listen to whatever is higher than me, especially when I am at a loss. I try to open up to it."

So many good thoughts have been shared here on the mysterious and vital issue of prayer, all of which brought to mind these comments by Paul, explaining why the Holy Spirit is referred to elsewhere in the Bible as our "intercessor" and "advocate":

Romans 8:26-27

“So too the Holy Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance.”

“And He Who searches the hearts of men knows what is in the mind of the Holy Spirit--what His intent is, because the Spirit intercedes before God in behalf of the saints according to and in harmony with God’s will.”

 

[JGeropoulas]

I just read the chapter of the Ra material listed as a Forum Resource ( FOTCM - The Ra Contact - Resource Series: Book 1 ) entitled "Faith" which seems to tie in well with this topic of prayer. The whole chapter is inspiring, but here's some summary thoughts:

We can only ask each to seek in meditation the answers which have
been provided for each of you by your greater self, by your very own
self as you planned this incarnation and as you hid various signposts
along your various possible journeys. Know that each path contains in
whole all that you hope to accomplish. If one tool is removed then
another will take its place. Know that all is well. No turn will cause the
seeker to be lost from that which is sought, for the one Creator waits
not only at the end of each path but along each portion of each path,
for it is the One who seeks Itself within Itself. There is none else. –
Latwii, Nov 18, 1984

There are times when it is very helpful by faith alone to realize the most
fundamental truth of all relationships, which is love, unconditional,
absolute love from one soul in its perfection to another in its perfection.
All those things that seem imperfect are part of the illusion of
personality and what this instrument would call ego. Beneath each
difficulty that tangles two upon the soul level lies a unity, a oneness, a
union, that is profoundly more the truth of the relationship than any
structure of description that contains itself in words rather than in the
open heart which knows that it loves, though it knows not, perhaps,
how to respond to a certain situation or to a certain moment. – Q’uo,
May 16, 2002

The essence of faith is a realization that all is well, and that that which
is needed is in hand. All that you need is coming to you. All that you do
not need is falling away. The processes of a loving and nurturing Creator
ensure that all is well, and that all will be well. Not as the world in
which each of you experiences the illusion of life might define wellness,
and yet this core attitude, this point of view that states unequivocally
and without proof that all is well, is as that seed that grows every time
the sun shines, that sun which is the open heart. – Q’uo, Feb 9, 2003

Once one has the basic attitude of faith, that regardless of appearances
all is well, there is a door within the heart that opens, that has been
closed by fear. It will continue to wish to close, again and again and
again. And this is why daily meditation and the entering of the silence
is so central, even if it is but for a few moments. That connection with
the silence empowers the resources of the connections between physical
and energetic bodies and between the connections in the energetic body
to those bodies which are involved in the guidance of the higher self
that is moving to help the self within third density. – Q’uo, Mar 4,
2001

There are many ways to help awaken that faculty of faith, but we feel
that in the mix of things needed to pursue faith paramount is a
willingness to jump off into the unknown, and to believe that all is well
for no reason except faith alone, for no reason except that deep feeling
that there is order, that there is purpose, and that there is a rhythmic
way to progress. The more jangled events and voices and tempers
become, the more the intellect is locked...with the nonsensical nature
of such occurrences. The spirit of Love hopes that such times of crisis
will trigger within the seeker the realization that this is another crux at
which faith may be invoked. – Q’uo, Mar 23, 1997

Keep in mind that it is faith that you are attempting to express in your
life and in your being. Faith does not make sense. Faith gives one no
avenue to pride. Faith seems to be the slenderest of all reeds to cling to,
and yet the soul who lives by faith, the spirit who clings to faith, the
one who refuses to let it go, is that spirit which shall achieve advances in
polarity, and this is an achievement that redounds not to the
incarnational self alone but to the eternal and infinite self. – Q’uo,
Nov 21, 1991

 

[lilies]

During prayer, I think, you may acquire a feel, get a good practice of how to place questions for sessions as well.

Prayer, I think is very similar to the question-formulating self-critical mental process, required, when participating a C's session. Or sending in your [expectedly] properly formulated question to a session.

As we have seen, there are frequent problems with the structure of questions Laura gets. You may not be aware, but its a surprisingly involved, energy-draining and difficult mental job to take apart a wrongly formed question and create from it Cosmically Communicable Parts. So that your question may get finally answered..

Therefore, I think, when one wants to have an inkling, how to send-in or place a question for a Session, practice during prayer is needed. :)

My computer programmer training allowed me to get familiar with methods of logical exclusion. Most of us heard of the Law of Free Will and how Lizzie STS always seeks to hijack* / waylay / make believe / take over energies and channels of communication. Stories of Guardians during trans-medium seances and a Guardian Acquaintance meeting the recently deceased in 5thD - to ensure safe transition - are plentiful, so we have lots of clues of the necessity of guarding communication lanes and keeping prayers pure.

A prayer is an communication channel, which is opened by the person, who is praying and just like military radio, there is the targeted party listening.*

Q: (L) All right, let's see if we can get any action here. I don't want to get my arm all sore.

A: Love to all from Cassiopaea. Roillia here. We know your prayers for all and will help in the ways we can.

When Gurdjieff mentioned communicating with Remote Consciousnesses, I think, he meant a two-way communication, just like on military radio, where not only calls are being made, but answers from HQ - Headquarters - are coming as well! At least this frequently happens in my case, so this post is my 2 cents..

So before I pray, in order to ensure 'radio comms safety' during prayer, I use a strictly / uncompromisingly and assertively expressed logical-exclusion-gate technique of loudly said:
- I am only accepting 6th Density STO energy from the Cassiopaea Constellation!
This is easiest done after meditation at night* so I become 'energy-sensitive', best after First Sleep, in a Pitch Black room. So even with closed eyes* I can see the outlines, the 'white-yellow-gold blurred energy imprint' of my arm in space beside me [nothing shouldn't be physically visible in a pitch-black room with closed eyes] drawing into the air these capital letters slowly and very deliberately, taking care of perfectly good hand-written form of
6 S T O
as I say the above sentence in blue. Then immediately I draw the shape of the Cassiopaea constellation into the air in one continuous motion, beginning from the star in the top left and when finished I immediately write-draw the constellation again from the back [finish] toward the beginning again = to the first star in the top left. This to assertively ensure my intent of contacting ONLY THE STATED RECIPIENT. That all letters and signs being meticulously drawn into the air correctly state and express ONLY THE STATED RECIPIENT: thus, I aim, what I think is establishing a 'Logical Exclusion Gate' during prayer, based on The Law of Free Will, so that nobody else is addressed.

Usually I get an immediate multi-band response. A combination of a gut feeling and the singular 'Internal Voice' response instructing me if I made a mistake. Mistakes are usually made in the mind [incoherence] in intent or phrasing-forming a prayer question/request. A properly done prayer, I found is surprisingly similar to the requirements of how to send in a question for a session, which is "C's Question Compatible".

If my prayer is not well formulated and or incoherent I always get a corrective request and gut-Heart Feeling from - what I think is - my Singular Internal Voice.

Remember, we have stories about historic customs, how the High Priests felt it imperative to purify themselves before communicating with their Gods.

So I took that clue to heart. Purity of Spirit during prayer is a must-have, I think. Otherwise Your FRV won't even be a close enough match and as a result your prayer, I think, won't even reach your targeted recipient..

Conversing with heaven / Remote Consciousnesses (c) Gurdjieff, the lines of communication must be cleansed and your questions / requests / prayer lines must be reduced to the gist / to their very essence to gain Absolute Meaning.

If a prayer is properly formed and you achieved at least the minimum required level of purity - more signal to [less] noise ratio - , there might come an answer.

In my case, at least:
If a response comes, its immediate. Its mostly a feedback to my job performance. In form of a "Church Choir".

The Singular Internal Voice, frequently reported here in the forum, acts like a post-man in my case. It helps to form my prayer-question-request, gives immediate feedback, if I err, what to fix, thus ensures the delivery of my "Prayer Comms Message".

The communication channel is always telepathic. Despite the requirement that the human driving the physical body in 3rdD must speak/pray loudly with clearly-well formed / coherent words said out with good pronunciation.
Father Malachi Martin, Ph.D. strongly expressed the need to say your prayer out loud, because according to him said words give energy-power to prayer. George Carlin confirms this, when he talks about how his mother taught him Oratory.

The art or practice of formal speaking, especially in public

A prayer, I think, is essentially addressed to a Large-Super-Critical-Audience, which is often the Heavenly Host.

So when I pray with a purified mind, I also say out the words loud, clearly audible, well pronounced to ensure correct comms data delivery.

Answer not always comes and not always required. Depends on the logics / content of your prayer, I think. But answer usually comes, in my case from the the addressed 'Coherent-Unified-Mind Choir of Remote Consciousnesses'.

I found that the incoming answer has always two data-layers. Similar to how a VHS cassette tape had a complex video band for displaying fluid-motion imagery and a separate band with audio on it.

This multi-band nature of the answer, I guess, is facilitated, in order to ensure absolutely unmistakable intent & communication between conversing souls groups, which are the parties in the Remote Communication-type, we call, "prayer".

Answer in my case is never visual. (IIRC) But only Direct-To-Mind Audio. Similar to how a theater performer [who prays] - on stage - addresses the Large Theater Audience [the party who is prayed to] and the performer gets a large choir of voices as his answer.

Layer 1:
Spoken Audio in form of 'Direct-To-Mind'. Short sentences spoken by a "Large Unified-Mind Choir Audience". Always very expressive, to the point / containing only the essence / crux of the matter.

Layer 2:
Tele-Emphatic band [emotional content of telepathy] immediately "felt in the heart" to confirm and enhance the spoken audio. This telepathic band is an emotional-soulful Straight-To-The-Heart-Unmistakable confirmation layer together with the received 'Large Choir of Unified-Mind Voices'.

Above two layers are always completely In Sync.

The 'spoken Direct-To-Mind audio' is always a Choir / Chorus of Voices in 'Complete Unison of Minds', in my case.

Now the interesting part is that in my case the answers are mostly scolding and correcting instructions. As the answers are also always To-The-Heart-Telepathic (emotional) as well, their meaning is unmistakable. My failings / failures regards maintaining required FRV.

Gurdjieff described talking to Ouspensky "telepathically" and Ouspensky described that he heard Gurdjieff's voice in his chest.

My questions and received answers aren't - are never - some super-secret elaborate descriptions of this and that fancy news topic or technology. My answers are always short, to the point and always Job Performance Analyses.
Nothing more.
Since I believe, I have a job, as I stated, so I'm mostly focusing on that and not asking any kind of fancy other questions.

My prayer "line of communication" is therefore strictly discusses my job. Answers I get are always short instructions and performance evaluations regarding my job. Quite humbling.

It is a surprisingly difficult job to:
1. keep the cleanliness of spirit,
2. coherence of mind,
3. harmony of FRV and
4. maintain the self via The Work / mirrors
5. keep a healthy body
6. Overcome depressing frequent failures. Endure despair, desolation, attacks, the usual.
7. To keep it together so I can focus on my - what I believe is - my Soul Mission.

These are the reasons I pray for.

 

[lilies]

'for repeating paragraphs above I apologize: ran out of 10 minutes edit time.

 

[loreta]

Today I prayed Laura's prayer at my bank because I had to fill in some paperwork for my husband. He was supposed to come to the bank but it's complicated for him. So the banker agreed to fill in the form without his presence, but I had his identity card. While he was checking whether he could fill in the form without my husband being present, I prayed.

First of all it calmed me down, I'm always very nervous when I have to deal with bureaucracy. It's very stressful for me. But today I prayed and everything went well. And the banker, who is always very serious and unable to smile, smiled when I thanked him for his kindness. Prayer is a gesture of kindness that we sometimes ask from the Universe, like a caress, an arm around your shoulders, comfort. Because prayer was kind to me, I was kind to the banker. That's how it works. You pray for yourself but it has to spread, it has to open up, like a wave. Prayer also creates harmony, it creates contact with the universe, with yourself and with others.

 

[Nel-Li]

Hi All, thank you for sharing. Tons of good ideas and experiences. I might be repeating what some have already mentioned, I will try to keep it brief.

Sincerity, always wanting to hear your most sincere self in your prayers.
Gratitude, for I curse GOD way too often for the woes of reality, I constantly need the reminder.
For Protection, no one can take the burdens of the infinite cosmos on their shoulders alone for all time.
For Everything and Anything, ties back to sincerity as I observe and rework my prayers, sometimes starting from step zero again.
Intent is important as others have mentioned, observing the sincerity of each intent makes spotting the answers/responses and requests much clearer to "see" or receive.

Prayer for me can be constant and can be constantly worded better for a more sincere intentful prayer. Prayer can be anywhere and anytime, the intensity of which can vary from length to it's importance to oneself. I pray in my mind most of the time, but the severity or urgency of some prayers have brought me to my knees. I do spoken word when it is important enough, I know the intent has worked itself to the best of my capabilities, or with/for others. I find intent X spoken word, lead to a better resonance. Does it bring better results? who knows

Two of my personal experiences with prayer is that: it can literally take years to formulate and re-formulate a question, so that it can be asked the right way for me to witness the answer right in front of me: something akin to knowing your sincerity so that you can receive the answer because "you are ready" for it.

The other experience is more of a warning of the - be careful what you ask for type. Do not shout your prayer willy-nilly, especially if it was more of the cursing type, and especially if you left that outburst knowing you were not ready for the answer/situation/response coming at you!

I pray to GOD and Christ, as I m always trying to deepen my relationship with GOD through Christ. For me, it was a natural transition from praying through DCM for many years, and my Christian upbringing. Like others have also mentioned, sorry for using that too many times, GOD is with us always, and all-is-1 as 1-is-all. Unconditionally, GOD knows each of us better than we could ever know ourselves That is my faith and I m sticking to it

 

[believer22]

Great points lilies.

I like your list.

Seeking to keep the spirit clean and the coherence of mind are so important.

Also, keeping things together so that I can focus on what I believe is my soul mission.

You have similar reasons to praying as I do.

During prayer, I think, you may acquire a feel, get a good practice of how to place questions for sessions as well.

Prayer, I think is very similar to the question-formulating self-critical mental process, required, when participating a C's session. Or sending in your [expectedly] properly formulated question to a session.

As we have seen, there are frequent problems with the structure of questions Laura gets. You may not be aware, but its a surprisingly involved, energy-draining and difficult mental job to take apart a wrongly formed question and create from it Cosmically Communicable Parts. So that your question may get finally answered..

Therefore, I think, when one wants to have an inkling, how to send-in or place a question for a Session, practice during prayer is needed. :)

My computer programmer training allowed me to get familiar with methods of logical exclusion. Most of us heard of the Law of Free Will and how Lizzie STS always seeks to hijack* / waylay / make believe / take over energies and channels of communication. Stories of Guardians during trans-medium seances and a Guardian Acquaintance meeting the recently deceased in 5thD - to ensure safe transition - are plentiful, so we have lots of clues of the necessity of guarding communication lanes and keeping prayers pure.

A prayer is an communication channel, which is opened by the person, who is praying and just like military radio, there is the targeted party listening.*


When Gurdjieff mentioned communicating with Remote Consciousnesses, I think, he meant a two-way communication, just like on military radio, where not only calls are being made, but answers from HQ - Headquarters - are coming as well! At least this frequently happens in my case, so this post is my 2 cents..

So before I pray, in order to ensure 'radio comms safety' during prayer, I use a strictly / uncompromisingly and assertively expressed logical-exclusion-gate technique of loudly said:
- I am only accepting 6th Density STO energy from the Cassiopaea Constellation!
This is easiest done after meditation at night* so I become 'energy-sensitive', best after First Sleep, in a Pitch Black room. So even with closed eyes* I can see the outlines, the 'white-yellow-gold blurred energy imprint' of my arm in space beside me [nothing shouldn't be physically visible in a pitch-black room with closed eyes] drawing into the air these capital letters slowly and very deliberately, taking care of perfectly good hand-written form of
6 S T O
as I say the above sentence in blue. Then immediately I draw the shape of the Cassiopaea constellation into the air in one continuous motion, beginning from the star in the top left and when finished I immediately write-draw the constellation again from the back [finish] toward the beginning again = to the first star in the top left. This to assertively ensure my intent of contacting ONLY THE STATED RECIPIENT. That all letters and signs being meticulously drawn into the air correctly state and express ONLY THE STATED RECIPIENT: thus, I aim, what I think is establishing a 'Logical Exclusion Gate' during prayer, based on The Law of Free Will, so that nobody else is addressed.

Usually I get an immediate multi-band response. A combination of a gut feeling and the singular 'Internal Voice' response instructing me if I made a mistake. Mistakes are usually made in the mind [incoherence] in intent or phrasing-forming a prayer question/request. A properly done prayer, I found is surprisingly similar to the requirements of how to send in a question for a session, which is "C's Question Compatible".

If my prayer is not well formulated and or incoherent I always get a corrective request and gut-Heart Feeling from - what I think is - my Singular Internal Voice.

Remember, we have stories about historic customs, how the High Priests felt it imperative to purify themselves before communicating with their Gods.

So I took that clue to heart. Purity of Spirit during prayer is a must-have, I think. Otherwise Your FRV won't even be a close enough match and as a result your prayer, I think, won't even reach your targeted recipient..

Conversing with heaven / Remote Consciousnesses (c) Gurdjieff, the lines of communication must be cleansed and your questions / requests / prayer lines must be reduced to the gist / to their very essence to gain Absolute Meaning.

If a prayer is properly formed and you achieved at least the minimum required level of purity - more signal to [less] noise ratio - , there might come an answer.

In my case, at least:
If a response comes, its immediate. Its mostly a feedback to my job performance. In form of a "Church Choir".

The Singular Internal Voice, frequently reported here in the forum, acts like a post-man in my case. It helps to form my prayer-question-request, gives immediate feedback, if I err, what to fix, thus ensures the delivery of my "Prayer Comms Message".

The communication channel is always telepathic. Despite the requirement that the human driving the physical body in 3rdD must speak/pray loudly with clearly-well formed / coherent words said out with good pronunciation.
Father Malachi Martin, Ph.D. strongly expressed the need to say your prayer out loud, because according to him said words give energy-power to prayer. George Carlin confirms this, when he talks about how his mother taught him Oratory.

How to pray, I think, is essentially addressed to a Large-Super-Critical-Audience, which is often the Heavenly Host.

So when I pray with a purified mind, I also say out the words loud, clearly audible, well pronounced to ensure correct comms data delivery.

Answer not always comes and not always required. Depends on the logics / content of your intercessory prayer, I think. But answer usually comes, in my case from the the addressed 'Coherent-Unified-Mind Choir of Remote Consciousnesses'.

I found that the incoming answer has always two data-layers. Similar to how a VHS cassette tape had a complex video band for displaying fluid-motion imagery and a separate band with audio on it.

This multi-band nature of the answer, I guess, is facilitated, in order to ensure absolutely unmistakable intent & communication between conversing souls groups, which are the parties in the Remote Communication-type, we call, "prayer".

Answer in my case is never visual. (IIRC) But only Direct-To-Mind Audio. Similar to how a theater performer [who prays] - on stage - addresses the Large Theater Audience [the party who is prayed to] and the performer gets a large choir of voices as his answer.

Layer 1:
Spoken Audio in form of 'Direct-To-Mind'. Short sentences spoken by a "Large Unified-Mind Choir Audience". Always very expressive, to the point / containing only the essence / crux of the matter.

Layer 2:
Tele-Emphatic band [emotional content of telepathy] immediately "felt in the heart" to confirm and enhance the spoken audio. This telepathic band is an emotional-soulful Straight-To-The-Heart-Unmistakable confirmation layer together with the received 'Large Choir of Unified-Mind Voices'.

Above two layers are always completely In Sync.

The 'spoken Direct-To-Mind audio' is always a Choir / Chorus of Voices in 'Complete Unison of Minds', in my case.

Now the interesting part is that in my case the answers are mostly scolding and correcting instructions. As the answers are also always To-The-Heart-Telepathic (emotional) as well, their meaning is unmistakable. My failings / failures regards maintaining required FRV.

Gurdjieff described talking to Ouspensky "telepathically" and Ouspensky described that he heard Gurdjieff's voice in his chest.

My questions and received answers aren't - are never - some super-secret elaborate descriptions of this and that fancy news topic or technology. My answers are always short, to the point and always Job Performance Analyses.
Nothing more.
Since I believe, I have a job, as I stated, so I'm mostly focusing on that and not asking any kind of fancy other questions.

My prayer "line of communication" is therefore strictly discusses my job. Answers I get are always short instructions and performance evaluations regarding my job. Quite humbling.

It is a surprisingly difficult job to:
1. keep the cleanliness of spirit,
2. coherence of mind,
3. harmony of FRV and
4. maintain the self via The Work / mirrors
5. keep a healthy body
6. Overcome depressing frequent failures. Endure despair, desolation, attacks, the usual.
7. To keep it together so I can focus on my - what I believe is - my Soul Mission.

These are the reasons I pray for.

 

[Olivierlejardinier]

Great points lilies.

I like your list.

Seeking to keep the spirit clean and the coherence of mind are so important.

Also, keeping things together so that I can focus on what I believe is my soul mission.

You have similar reasons to praying as I do.

Hi @believer22, glad you found your way to this forum if praying is of interest for you then you're welcomed.
May I suggest you to post a little intro in the Newbies thread. It's a general rule as to better know each others and share some basic infos.