THE PUZZLE OF PRAYER

#1:  Break Out of Your Personal Agenda Prayers

Do you remember learning how to ride a bike? Chances are, when the training wheels came off, you recall a harrowing experience that might’ve involved a scraped knee or two. In preparation, you may have received coaching or even read a book or watched a how-to bike-riding video. And although helpful, none of that substituted for grabbing hold of the handlebars… and then falling over them a few times. But with each mishap you had, you became a better bike rider. On the sidelines, virtually every parent who’s ever watched their child fresh off training wheels has understandably murmured the prayer, “… don’t fall… please don’t fall… ” Yet our falls - off a bike or living life in general - are what teach us the most. From the parents’ perspective, love and compassion prompt the prayer to see no hardship come to their kids. Baked into that prayer, though, is not wanting to suffer the pain of seeing them in pain. And therein lies a subtle opportunity to evolve one’s perspective on personal agenda and on the purpose of both pain and prayer.

Prayer - for ourselves or for another - is frequently used as an attempt to make something happen or to stop something from happening. But too often, that desired result is sponsored by a very limited, personal agenda which is blind to a much bigger picture. Though we convince ourselves we know what’s best for us or for others, life frequently steps in to prove us wrong. Challenges elevate our “life game,” and our failures and falls make our game tactics better. When our “life game” gets better, capabilities expand, and our personal happiness and peace of mind automatically become more unshakable.

#2:  Don’t Try to Pray Life Away

Realizing that a) we often don’t know best, and b) challenges are what make our best better, we start to see that praying for a challenging circumstance to cease may not be the best strategy. You certainly wouldn’t pray for your growth, or the growth of another, to stop. Instead of trying to manipulate life through prayer, consider praying for the growth of ever-expanding joy within the person you’re praying for - realizing that to reach higher joy, they (or you) may have to go through experiences that no one would want or much less pray for. This is a “growth first” prayer that comes from an elevated awareness about life and the reason for its inherent difficulties. Of course, this kind of prayer becomes much easier once you start to trust that life (your Higher Self, the Universe, or God, if you like) knows what it’s doing and is custom-designing circumstances for the highest long-term benefit of each and every soul. That awesome background intelligence steamrolls onward regardless of how hard anyone prays to change a situation into a version their mind can reconcile or accept. Praying with a personal agenda often amounts to futilely fighting an apparatus that is vastly bigger than we can perceive. Always be there to support your loved ones who are in crisis, but make no mistake - reasons exist for their trials that far exceed your capacity to comprehend… and you become a much more effective source of strength and refuge for them when you begin to foster that faith within yourself.

#3:  Prayer Is Free Universal Wi-Fi

It is far from the purpose of this episode to discount the very real power of prayer. Coupled with selfless intention, prayer can comfort and strengthen others… even at great distance while having no physical or digital contact with them. As magical as that sounds, mainstream science has discovered a mechanism through which this happens. Quantum entanglement is a foundational principle of physics that has been incontrovertibly proven. When two atomic particles become “entangled,” they remain intimately connected and act as if they were a single object with one consciousness. If one particle is manipulated, the other particle is instantaneously affected. This has been demonstrated in experiments with entangled particles that mysteriously affect each other - even after they’ve been separated by hundreds of miles. That’s why Einstein called this observable phenomenon, “spooky action at a distance.”

What’s true for particles is also true for us. Our physical selves are, of course, made of particles that have a common origin. So, in a sense, we’re all inherently entangled with each other, both physically and metaphysically. This implies that thoughts and prayers of love and support are not just happy sentiments. They are legitimate tools we can use to support each other, no matter how far apart we are.

Additionally, the mysteries of consciousness get even more baffling as scientists delve deeper into exploring them. Sudden Savant Syndrome is a rare but well-documented condition where individuals acquire extreme abilities seemingly out of the blue. Instant concert-level piano skills without a single lesson… hyper-realistic artistic skills without any training… and doctoral-level mastery of mathematics with no prior study. Neuroscientists have mapped the new brain pattern activities of individuals who’ve acquired this syndrome, but scientists can’t explain where these “downloads” came from. Clearly, we have far more questions than answers concerning what consciousness is, how far it reaches, and how intricately it connects us. On their surface, connected consciousness and connection through prayer seem like unscientific endeavors of superstition and wishful thinking. But we may one day conclusively discover that prayer - along with conscious spiritual awakening - are the very things that unlock the next quantum leap of human evolution.

 

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