uses of prayer

"Everything which is not known remains dark. Mystery is our relation to what we cannot see."

Prayer came into my life as an extension of energetic attention. Through meditation I am learning to concentrate my mind upon a single point with great focus. Over time I began to realize that I could use that focus in concert with imagination, memory, and intuition to generate specific mental and emotional states. In my experience there are specific gestalts of sensory impression that are very effective at arousing precise varieties of mental energy, especially if those sensory impressions possess potent personal or emotional meaning. Visual images, sounds, shapes, smells, sensations of touch heat or pain along the skin, all can be used to shape and direct the energy of one's own mind for a specific purpose or intention.

An example: relaxation or cleansing can be achieved with sensations of water, the element associated with healing, purification, intuition, and dreaming. Imagine the coolness of water splashing on your head, slowly soaking your hair and scalp, traveling down shoulders and back, stomach, legs, thighs. This water can flow over your body or through it, like a river rushing through a sieve. Or you can imagine lying flat on a raft, moving gently with the rocking motions of the water. In either case, the essential aspect is to generate an internal experience through creative visualization and somatic memory. Key elements could be the sensation of rocking, the flowing motion of the water, coolness or wetness, gentle sounds of splashing, flashes of blue and turquoise, or anything that speaks to your own personal interpretation, memory, or experience. There are meditations specifically devoted to sensory experience that can increase our awareness and sensitivity to body sensation. These are very useful to bridge the gap between mind and body so that, with practice, we can recall (or imagine) any sensation at will.

In the case of prayer, the evocation of images is a bit more abstract. Instead of the stark cleanliness of physical sensations, words like compassion, forgiveness, or blessing, for example, do not have simple cognitive or physical experiences that can be recalled. However, when we find that space of openness, yearning, surrender, (combined with a smidgen of heartache) that I have come to know as prayer, it does have a certain signature of sensation that can be called upon, at will, when the need arises for spiritual renewal.

I accidentally stumbled upon that prayer space when I was reading and rereading the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. As I read I began to find a special resonance within every word. It was as if I could use the template of the prayer, that is, the succession of words and syllables, to weave together a series of emotional and mental states. I read it over and over again, very slowly, tasting the fullness of each word, feeling the yearning and intention behind each phrase, charging myself with the power of those words, offering that scintillating ball of energy back up as a promise, a gift, and a recognition.

It was part self-hypnosis, part psycho-conditioning, that much was clear to me. But the whole event was also an exercise in egolessness (transcending selfishness, planting seeds for compassion, love, and wisdom) and so I felt it brought me closer to some place of inner wisdom and grace, a place which might be a thread or life-line to the divinity in me. Since then I have have discovered other uses of prayer (uses for it and uses it has for me), but I have said enough for the moment.

May you all discover your own thread to divinity, be charged with the yearning and intention to dissolve all ego-motives, and awaken purest compassion in your life.