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Meditation
Prayer The Practice of Presence |
Foundation Nine
I resolve that through meditation, prayer, and/or the practice of presence I will deepen my connection with Spirit and my true self.
Being mindful of your actions, treating others with kindness, acting in accord with dharma, and studying sacred texts are all beneficial practices that can improve your life and help "make you a better person" but to become a full human being you must directly access your higher self (or divine essence) and integrate that dimension of self with your life in this world. The practice of meditation and prayer are time-proven ways to accomplish this.
Meditation
Virtually all of our time—from the moment we wake up until the time we fall asleep—is spent in our mind and its world of thought; and our experience of life is largely that of mind-stuff, i.e., thoughts, reactions, concerns, wishes, hopes, regrets, commentaries on our experience, etc. Rarely do we live from our center, from our true connection to life. Rarely do we experience the sheer joy of what it means to be alive. As children we experienced that connection to life on a regular basis; as adults all we have are distant memories of it.
The purpose of meditation is to get in touch with our center, our essence, and the dimension of our being that is beyond the mind. This center is the place where we know and feel we are one with Spirit; where we feel our own existence and beingness; where we feel connected to Life and know that we are perfect just they way we are. Meditation is not some practice we do for twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the evening; well, it can take that outer form but the true purpose is to inform our lives with our own divine qualities, to shift our essential identity from "me as this separate person" to "me as pure awareness, me as infinite beingness." As we deepen our practice of meditation a fundamental shift may take place—a shift in the nexus of our awareness and the very place from where we live our lives—from an unconscious abidance in thought to a conscious abidance in presence, in wonder, in life itself.
To meditate, to consciously abide in your own presence, you must get beyond the thought-field of your mind. You must learn to be present and not get pulled down by the undertow of thought every two seconds. Developing this kind of conscious presence is not difficult but it requires practice and perseverance. Once you begin this practice and try to be present (by staying with your breath, for example) you may find that you can't do it. Maybe you can follow your breath three times before you drift off somewhere. Maybe ten times. So, for most people, developing concentration is where the work needs to be begin. Being able to focus the cognitive mind is a helpful prelude to meditation because this stops or shifts one out of the constant pull of thought coming from the subconscious mind. So, in this initial practice we go from, "lost in thought," to "cognitive focus," to "abidance beyond thought."
The real practice of meditation is the simple abidance in your own nature. It's about abiding in, and as, that pure dimension of self that is beyond the mind and its mind-made reality. The term "meditation," though used by just about everyone, is not really accurate because it implies the use of the mind. Rather, this practice should be referred to "abidance"—abidance in your true nature, abidance in your one-with-Spirit nature—which is beyond the reach of the mind.
Our mind is essential to our existence as it allows us to function and excel in this world but it can never get us to our own nature, the core of our being, because that dimension of self is beyond the reach of the mind. Most people are wholly dependent upon the mind and the use the mind for just about everything. Thus, their first approach to spiritual practice, to trying to access their inner self, is to get their mind going on it. They will study meditation methods, learn about all the great philosophies and gurus, master various practices, etc. but this will never get them there. The only thing required is to gently release yourself from the grip of your own mind and—without a word or a thought—simply abide in your own nature, your own here-and-now existence, your own aliveness.
Three-Point Awareness Practice
A good way to begin working with your mind is to practice a simple method that involves holding three things in your awareness at the same time. This practice will help focus your mind but also open you up to your intuitive awareness, which is a more expanded type of awareness than that afforded by the cognitive mind. In this practice you simultaneously hold an awareness of a) your breath, b) your body-sense, which is the felt sense you have of your own body, which can also include a physical sensation, and c) something in your environment. You can practice this three-point awareness while taking a walk around the block, while waiting in line, when you first wake up, when you lie down to go to sleep, or any time you like. There are no hard-and-fast rules. You may prefer to change the order and focus on the breath, on one sensation of your body (or your body-sense), and then on the environment, which could be a sound, a series of sounds, or a visual stimuli. As a start, see if you can hold each awareness for a count of three-breaths.
Awareness of the breath refers to the physical sensation of the breath, such as the cool air coming in through your nose but can also include an awareness of the "center" where the breath-awareness is focused, such as the heart, the solar plexus, or the hara (the lower belly region). A body sensation refers to any sensation of the body, such as the sensation of your back touching the mattress (if you're lying down) or the sensation of your butt on a cushion (if you're sitting up). The body-sense refers to the overall sense or feel of your body. (Focusing on a sensation of the body is easier than focusing on the whole body-sense but not as powerful; so, begin with a sensation of the body and once you have mastered that, shift to a focus on the body-sense.) The environment refers to any sensory impressions of the environment (particularly sounds or visual cues) but it can also refer to anything arising in your inner environment, such as thoughts or emotions.
The cognitive mind can only focus on one thing at a time. So, when doing this practice your cognitive mind will be able to focus on the breath, or the environment, or the body-sense but not all three at the same time. But it will keep trying. When you give the cognitive mind the impossible task of holding three things at the same time it may try to accomplish this task by shifting focus from one thing to the other. But this is not it. Eventually, as it gets confronted with its own inability to carry out the task, it may be inclined to “give up" or let go of it’s iron-clad grip on your awareness and thus enable you to access a higher kind of awareness, an intuitive awareness, what we might call "heart" awareness. This kind of awareness is inclusive rather than linear; it is subtle and operates beyond the scope of the cognitive mind. The point of this practice is to enhance the focus of the mind but also, more importantly, to get you past the mind and its grip on you.
The more you can get beyond the control of your mind the more you open up to a whole other dimension of self, a deep, silent center that is the still-point of your being. This is the state of pure awareness, the state of your higher self. This pure state of your higher self is subtle and elusive but as you keep practicing this three-point awareness (and meditation) it will become more apparent and accessible.
Additional instructions on this practice can be found in Ezra Bayda's book, Zen Heart.
>> Three-Point Awareness Practice (Ezra Bayda)
Prayer
True prayer is a call of the heart. The love for God that inspires a human being to pray is nothing other than the felt vibration of God’s love in one’s heart. So, prayer is always an act of co-creation, a whisper between the lover and the Beloved.
In general, we can talk about three kinds of prayer. First there is what might be called “beseeching prayer” or “petitioning prayer.” This is where a person asks God or some Higher Power—be it real or imagined—for help, blessings, guidance, or some kind of favor. The person wants something so he turns to God or a Higher Power to grant him his wish. He might be asking for material things, health benefits, wealth, a resolution to a problem, etc.—things related to the betterment of his personal self. A higher form of this kind of prayer would be when a person seeks to obtain some spiritual quality that would deepen his connection with that Power or his own nature. This would be a beseeching prayer for the benefit of his spiritual self as opposed to a prayer for personal gain. A pure-hearted prayer—for anything and to any power—puts a person into a higher resonance with his own being. He might not get what he is praying for but the mere act of prayer, the act of reaching out toward God with a pure heart will, to some extent, align his soul with all-giving power of God.
Another kind of prayer is “creative prayer” or “affirmative prayer.” This is where a person is not asking for anything but consciously creating what he wants through the power of prayer, through the power of his own creative imagination. In this kind of prayer a person imagines as already existing what he wants; he adopts the state of consciousness wherein he feels himself to be in full possession of what he wants, right now, and then, irrespective of outer conditions, lives as if he already has what he wants. This kind of imaginative prayer, where a person appropriates the state of fulfillment and embraces the feeling that he already has what he wants, prompts Spirit to bring about a corresponding creation in the real world. For example, if you win the lottery, you might feel a sense of abundance, power, freedom, relief, etc. But why wait to win the lottery when you can create and feel those self-same feelings now? By feeling those feelings now (the same feelings that you would feel had you actually won the lottery) you set up a “spiritual resonance” that attracts the wealth and conditions corresponding to those feelings. You may not win the lottery but you will likely begin to attract more wealth into your life.
Then there is pure prayer or “divine prayer,” which is the state of pure communion between the soul and the Beloved. This kind of prayer might be understood as loving meditation (or loving abidance). In the early stages, this kind of prayer may take the form of a feeling of selfless devotion and be directed to some Higher Power that you believe to be outside yourself. Later, when the prayer takes hold, there is no sense of separation; the one praying is not separate from the one who is being prayer to. There is no prayer at this point, just the experience of pure love; the prayer becomes a reveling in the state of union with God—a state that is filled with all the qualities of your nature, such as love, joy, peace, devotion, gratitude, and beauty.
All three kinds of prayer can attune a person to a higher resonance and they all have their place. The emphasis in The Nine Foundations is on creative prayer and divine prayer yet even beseeching prayer (if approached in the right way, with the right attitude) can be beneficial. However, if you pray from a position of weakness, believing that you are in a state of lack, and in need of help and/or rescuing from some Higher Power, then you may, unwittingly, be using your creative power to perpetuate more weakness and lack rather than obtain what you want. If, however, you’re able to pray from a position of loving wholeness—and ask for wisdom, guidance, and a pure heart—things that support your unity with God—then such a prayer will bring great benefit.
The Practice of Presence
Human beings exist in two simultaneous dimensions: a dimension that is timeless, ever-present, self-aware, and conscious (which might be called the dimension of the soul or one’s true nature) and a dimension that is temporal, ever-changing, physically-bound, and conditioned (which might be called the body-mind-ego dimension). Most people are only aware of, and exclusively identify with, but one dimension of themselves—their body-mind-ego self. In this truncated awareness they habitually overlook their true, all-embracing self.
In the practice of presence we want to embrace the whole of who we are; we want to become more and more aware of our ever-conscious, ever-present self. As it says in the scriptures of Kashmiri Shaivism, “Everything reveals the presence of God.” We want to know the truth of that. We want to expand our awareness of our natural presence in and through the activities of our life. This presence or state of presence may seem bland, nondescript, and ordinary at first (because that’s how our mind presents it to us) but as we get in touch with it more and more, its true glory begins to unfold. The more we stay aware of our presence the more it becomes a living force in our lives and the more we recognize it as the Presence of Spirit, the more it becomes the gateway to the wonder of life and our inseparable unity with Infinite Spirit.
Forming the Right Relationship with Thought
Thoughts can make you and thoughts can break you—if you let them. The good news is that you are not your thoughts; the bad news is that you most likely identify with every thought that passes through your mind. However, you need not do this. You have a choice. You need not accept or “buy into” every thought that passes through your mind; you need not react to every thought or let your thoughts define who you are or your experience of life. You have the power to take a step back and see thoughts for what they are—energetic pulsations of consciousness bubbling up from your subconscious mind, but not you.
Most people are centered in the stream of thoughts that continually flows through their awareness. When their thoughts are good, they feel good, when their thoughts are bad, they feel bad. Moreover, almost every experience one has is accompanied by a reactive, running commentary that is constantly telling you about what you should be experiencing. This commentary supplants your actual experience with a mentalized version of your experience, with a reaction to your experience. And so, what you end up with, what your thought-generated life delivers to you, is a dull, mentalized experience, far removed from the immediacy and power of life.
Having power over the conditions of your life, which is a theme that runs throughout the Nine Foundations, can mean having the power to not react to every thought that passes through your mind; having the power to observe your thoughts from a stable center of self and not believing in the realness of every thought nor allowing every thought to determine your experience. It means not giving your power to every thought that flashes through your mind. Remember, you are not your thoughts. You may have thoughts but you are not your thoughts. So, do you have your thoughts or do they have you?
When working with your thoughts there are two fundamental approaches you can take. The first is to consciously engage with thought, endeavoring to change your negative thoughts to positive ones. For this you must be mindfully aware of your thoughts and thought patterns and constantly “checking” yourself to see what thoughts are arising; and each time you catch yourself dwelling on the negative side of things see if you can gently shift your thoughts toward the positive. This might be seen as a “hands on” or as a creative approach. The second approach is to abide in a dimension of self that is beyond thought and from that place of stillness allow your thoughts to be. Rather than being pulled in the direction of every thought—even with the positive intention to replace a negative thought with a positive one—simply allow a thought to be as it is, without getting involved, without reacting, without giving it any of your power, and without feeling the need to change it. Just be aware of the thought from that pure place of knowing, from that place of stillness that is beyond thought.
The kind of relationship you want to form with your own thoughts is to see them as suggestions from your subconscious mind (that are consistent with your past conditioning)―suggestions that you can accept or reject but not as commands you must follow.
Bear in mind that you cannot truly take a step back from your thoughts, or disidentify from thought, or stop giving power to thoughts if you’re subconsciously identified with them. You must have access to a center within yourself, where your identity is anchored, and where your center of self is beyond the sway of thought—and then behold your thoughts from there. Trying to change your thoughts (and the pattern of your thinking) while you’re still identified with thought is like trying to move a carpet while you’re still standing on it. Not so easy.
It is not possible to turn away from something if you are unconsciously identified with it. It’s not possible because you believe you are it in a way that is deeper than your awareness at that moment. It is your ground. You cannot disidentify from your ground. (Almaas, Diamond Heart III, p. 73)
As mentioned, “Thoughts can make you and thoughts can break you”—and this is true to the extent that you believe in and assign realness to your thoughts. One thing you should understand is that thoughts in and of themselves are never the problem. It’s your belief in the realness of thought, your identification with thought, your empowerment of thought, and your total involvement with thought that brings about difficulties. The oft-quoted line from Proverbs, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is” sheds some light on this truth. This line does not say “as a man thinketh so he is” (or “the way a man thinketh determines his life”) it says “as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” In other words, it’s only those thoughts that we believe, that we “take to heart,” that have power over us. (And every time we take a thought to be real, and deem it to be important, we empower that thought, and the subconscious mind will be sure to send us more of the same.) Thoughts that we do not believe, that we do not identify with, that we do not take to heart—that we let come and go as they may—do not command any real power over us. So, the choice is yours. The only power that thoughts have over you is the power that you give them.
A similar approach can be applied to emotions but since emotions carry more psychic power than thoughts taking a step back is more difficult. The general approach to uncomfortable emotions is to simply feel them; just let them arise without adversely reacting to them, without trying to run away from them or rationalize them away. Just give them the “green light” and simply feel what is arising. Feel the sensation of the emotion in your body, without naming it, without mentalizing it. More often than not it’s the resistance to the emotion, the refusal to feel the emotion, and the mental aversion to the emotion that is more painful than the emotion itself. Just feel it. When emotions are met with avoidance, or fear, or commentary, or with the dismissive rationalization of “why me?”—in other words, when they are not accepted—they persist. They stick around. They grow in power. They will not go away until they are felt and metabolized. These emotions are being brought up for a reason, for you to experience them, for you to feel them.
Quotes
“All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall receive them.” (Mark xi. 24) The difference of the tenses in this passage is remarkable. The speaker bids us first to believe that our desire has already been fulfilled, that it is a thing already accomplished, and then its accomplishment will follow as a thing in the future. This is nothing other than a concise direction for making use of the creative power of thought by impressing upon the universal subjective mind the particular thing that we desire as an already-existing fact. (Troward, Edinburgh Lectures, Ch., 5)
You are told, “When you pray, believe that you have received, and you will.” Can you pray in that form? —for that is the only successful prayer in the world. Begging is not going to do it, for when you beg you are confessing you don’t have it [the very thing you are praying for]. You’ve got to appropriate it. It is a subjective appropriation of the objective hope. That’s praying. (Neville, Immortal Man, p. 235)
Prayer, fundamentally, is the feeling of the Beloved in the Heart, which includes an intention. This intention can be unconditional, where the Soul surrenders herself to the Beloved in the experience of love and unity. Or it can involve a more personal communication in which our desires, fears, and longings are expressed. … Prayer is part of the blueprint of being human. It means that it is expected by the Divine. It is the Beloved’s wish to be communicated with in this way.
(Aziz, Transmission of Awakening, p. 49)
Your endeavor, then, is not so much to find God as it is to realize His Presence and to understand that this Presence is always with you. Nothing can be nearer to you than that which is the very essence of your being. Your outward search for God culminates in the greatest of all possible discoveries—the finding of Him at the center of your own being. (Holmes, This Thing Called You, p. 140)
>> More on Prayer
Supplemental
As I continue to realize my unity with Spirit, the value of my humanity, and the joyous sense of being alive, I offer my service to others.
This newly-unfolding understanding and experience of myself, this appreciation of my human existence, this feeling of gratitude, this deepening of my connection with Spirit, this continued connection with others, and this experience of my own aliveness and joy inspires me to reach greater depths of self-realization and to lovingly share myself and my experience with others.
An Outpouring of Grace
Sharing your inherent qualities is not something you have to work on or complete; it’s the natural expression of your true self; it's the natural expression of someone who lives as an authentic human being. Spirit creates this whole universe by the overflowing of its own nature; its qualities naturally abound in us, and through us, when we’re in touch with the fullness and joy of our own life and in unity with Spirit.
We are not here to convert anyone; it’s not about signing up people, or trying to promote a movement, or trying to meet some need in ourselves through helping others; it’s about the natural and selfless overflow of our own divine qualities into the world. It’s about the purity of Spirit expressing itself through us. It’s about our love overflowing and bringing benefit, and aliveness, and joy to everything and everyone it touches.
Give as Spirit Gives
Selfless giving is a natural expression of our boundless nature. Giving as Spirit gives opens us to bounty of the Infinite Source. There cannot be any “should” in our giving, or thoughts of gain, or the attitude of “I give this to get that,” or any motivation to acquire praise or merit. It has to be pure, selfless giving, giving from the heart. If not, it’s just a business transaction.
Spirit is one. It’s never divided. It’s always “all in.” Spirit can never give but a portion of itself because Spirit’s giving is absolute. When it gives, even to a blade of grass, it gives the whole of itself; it gives so completely that it loses itself in the giving—and only that which is given to remains. To truly give, give as Spirit gives; to truly love, love as Spirit loves. And to do this, to approach this kind of selfless giving, your heart must be in it.
Whatever you do—if you wish to bring value and aliveness into your life—your heart must be in it.
The primal feeling of Spirit, the feeling that gives rise to all creation, is love; it’s the fullness of the heart over-flowing. So give with all your heart. Welcome others with all your heart. Be yourself with all your heart. Feel what it’s like to be you with all your heart. Enter into the spirit of life, of overflowing love and grace with all your heart. This is the gateway to the splendor of everything. And if you cannot put all of your heart in it, keep inclining yourself in that direction. With a pure intention and a pure heart all things will settle into their perfect place.
The more fully we enter into the spirit of all with which we are concerned, the more thoroughly do we become alive. The more completely we do this the more we shall find that we are penetrating into the great secret of Life. It may seem a truism but the great secret of Life is its Livingness and it is just more of this quality of Livingness that we want to get hold of. It is that good thing of which we can never have too much. (Troward, The Hidden Power, p. 147)
________________ ◊ ◊ ◊ ________________
I resolve that through meditation, prayer, and/or the practice of presence I will deepen my connection with Spirit and my true self.
Being mindful of your actions, treating others with kindness, acting in accord with dharma, and studying sacred texts are all beneficial practices that can improve your life and help "make you a better person" but to become a full human being you must directly access your higher self (or divine essence) and integrate that dimension of self with your life in this world. The practice of meditation and prayer are time-proven ways to accomplish this.
Meditation
Virtually all of our time—from the moment we wake up until the time we fall asleep—is spent in our mind and its world of thought; and our experience of life is largely that of mind-stuff, i.e., thoughts, reactions, concerns, wishes, hopes, regrets, commentaries on our experience, etc. Rarely do we live from our center, from our true connection to life. Rarely do we experience the sheer joy of what it means to be alive. As children we experienced that connection to life on a regular basis; as adults all we have are distant memories of it.
The purpose of meditation is to get in touch with our center, our essence, and the dimension of our being that is beyond the mind. This center is the place where we know and feel we are one with Spirit; where we feel our own existence and beingness; where we feel connected to Life and know that we are perfect just they way we are. Meditation is not some practice we do for twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the evening; well, it can take that outer form but the true purpose is to inform our lives with our own divine qualities, to shift our essential identity from "me as this separate person" to "me as pure awareness, me as infinite beingness." As we deepen our practice of meditation a fundamental shift may take place—a shift in the nexus of our awareness and the very place from where we live our lives—from an unconscious abidance in thought to a conscious abidance in presence, in wonder, in life itself.
To meditate, to consciously abide in your own presence, you must get beyond the thought-field of your mind. You must learn to be present and not get pulled down by the undertow of thought every two seconds. Developing this kind of conscious presence is not difficult but it requires practice and perseverance. Once you begin this practice and try to be present (by staying with your breath, for example) you may find that you can't do it. Maybe you can follow your breath three times before you drift off somewhere. Maybe ten times. So, for most people, developing concentration is where the work needs to be begin. Being able to focus the cognitive mind is a helpful prelude to meditation because this stops or shifts one out of the constant pull of thought coming from the subconscious mind. So, in this initial practice we go from, "lost in thought," to "cognitive focus," to "abidance beyond thought."
The real practice of meditation is the simple abidance in your own nature. It's about abiding in, and as, that pure dimension of self that is beyond the mind and its mind-made reality. The term "meditation," though used by just about everyone, is not really accurate because it implies the use of the mind. Rather, this practice should be referred to "abidance"—abidance in your true nature, abidance in your one-with-Spirit nature—which is beyond the reach of the mind.
Our mind is essential to our existence as it allows us to function and excel in this world but it can never get us to our own nature, the core of our being, because that dimension of self is beyond the reach of the mind. Most people are wholly dependent upon the mind and the use the mind for just about everything. Thus, their first approach to spiritual practice, to trying to access their inner self, is to get their mind going on it. They will study meditation methods, learn about all the great philosophies and gurus, master various practices, etc. but this will never get them there. The only thing required is to gently release yourself from the grip of your own mind and—without a word or a thought—simply abide in your own nature, your own here-and-now existence, your own aliveness.
Three-Point Awareness Practice
A good way to begin working with your mind is to practice a simple method that involves holding three things in your awareness at the same time. This practice will help focus your mind but also open you up to your intuitive awareness, which is a more expanded type of awareness than that afforded by the cognitive mind. In this practice you simultaneously hold an awareness of a) your breath, b) your body-sense, which is the felt sense you have of your own body, which can also include a physical sensation, and c) something in your environment. You can practice this three-point awareness while taking a walk around the block, while waiting in line, when you first wake up, when you lie down to go to sleep, or any time you like. There are no hard-and-fast rules. You may prefer to change the order and focus on the breath, on one sensation of your body (or your body-sense), and then on the environment, which could be a sound, a series of sounds, or a visual stimuli. As a start, see if you can hold each awareness for a count of three-breaths.
Awareness of the breath refers to the physical sensation of the breath, such as the cool air coming in through your nose but can also include an awareness of the "center" where the breath-awareness is focused, such as the heart, the solar plexus, or the hara (the lower belly region). A body sensation refers to any sensation of the body, such as the sensation of your back touching the mattress (if you're lying down) or the sensation of your butt on a cushion (if you're sitting up). The body-sense refers to the overall sense or feel of your body. (Focusing on a sensation of the body is easier than focusing on the whole body-sense but not as powerful; so, begin with a sensation of the body and once you have mastered that, shift to a focus on the body-sense.) The environment refers to any sensory impressions of the environment (particularly sounds or visual cues) but it can also refer to anything arising in your inner environment, such as thoughts or emotions.
The cognitive mind can only focus on one thing at a time. So, when doing this practice your cognitive mind will be able to focus on the breath, or the environment, or the body-sense but not all three at the same time. But it will keep trying. When you give the cognitive mind the impossible task of holding three things at the same time it may try to accomplish this task by shifting focus from one thing to the other. But this is not it. Eventually, as it gets confronted with its own inability to carry out the task, it may be inclined to “give up" or let go of it’s iron-clad grip on your awareness and thus enable you to access a higher kind of awareness, an intuitive awareness, what we might call "heart" awareness. This kind of awareness is inclusive rather than linear; it is subtle and operates beyond the scope of the cognitive mind. The point of this practice is to enhance the focus of the mind but also, more importantly, to get you past the mind and its grip on you.
The more you can get beyond the control of your mind the more you open up to a whole other dimension of self, a deep, silent center that is the still-point of your being. This is the state of pure awareness, the state of your higher self. This pure state of your higher self is subtle and elusive but as you keep practicing this three-point awareness (and meditation) it will become more apparent and accessible.
Additional instructions on this practice can be found in Ezra Bayda's book, Zen Heart.
>> Three-Point Awareness Practice (Ezra Bayda)
Prayer
True prayer is a call of the heart. The love for God that inspires a human being to pray is nothing other than the felt vibration of God’s love in one’s heart. So, prayer is always an act of co-creation, a whisper between the lover and the Beloved.
In general, we can talk about three kinds of prayer. First there is what might be called “beseeching prayer” or “petitioning prayer.” This is where a person asks God or some Higher Power—be it real or imagined—for help, blessings, guidance, or some kind of favor. The person wants something so he turns to God or a Higher Power to grant him his wish. He might be asking for material things, health benefits, wealth, a resolution to a problem, etc.—things related to the betterment of his personal self. A higher form of this kind of prayer would be when a person seeks to obtain some spiritual quality that would deepen his connection with that Power or his own nature. This would be a beseeching prayer for the benefit of his spiritual self as opposed to a prayer for personal gain. A pure-hearted prayer—for anything and to any power—puts a person into a higher resonance with his own being. He might not get what he is praying for but the mere act of prayer, the act of reaching out toward God with a pure heart will, to some extent, align his soul with all-giving power of God.
Another kind of prayer is “creative prayer” or “affirmative prayer.” This is where a person is not asking for anything but consciously creating what he wants through the power of prayer, through the power of his own creative imagination. In this kind of prayer a person imagines as already existing what he wants; he adopts the state of consciousness wherein he feels himself to be in full possession of what he wants, right now, and then, irrespective of outer conditions, lives as if he already has what he wants. This kind of imaginative prayer, where a person appropriates the state of fulfillment and embraces the feeling that he already has what he wants, prompts Spirit to bring about a corresponding creation in the real world. For example, if you win the lottery, you might feel a sense of abundance, power, freedom, relief, etc. But why wait to win the lottery when you can create and feel those self-same feelings now? By feeling those feelings now (the same feelings that you would feel had you actually won the lottery) you set up a “spiritual resonance” that attracts the wealth and conditions corresponding to those feelings. You may not win the lottery but you will likely begin to attract more wealth into your life.
Then there is pure prayer or “divine prayer,” which is the state of pure communion between the soul and the Beloved. This kind of prayer might be understood as loving meditation (or loving abidance). In the early stages, this kind of prayer may take the form of a feeling of selfless devotion and be directed to some Higher Power that you believe to be outside yourself. Later, when the prayer takes hold, there is no sense of separation; the one praying is not separate from the one who is being prayer to. There is no prayer at this point, just the experience of pure love; the prayer becomes a reveling in the state of union with God—a state that is filled with all the qualities of your nature, such as love, joy, peace, devotion, gratitude, and beauty.
All three kinds of prayer can attune a person to a higher resonance and they all have their place. The emphasis in The Nine Foundations is on creative prayer and divine prayer yet even beseeching prayer (if approached in the right way, with the right attitude) can be beneficial. However, if you pray from a position of weakness, believing that you are in a state of lack, and in need of help and/or rescuing from some Higher Power, then you may, unwittingly, be using your creative power to perpetuate more weakness and lack rather than obtain what you want. If, however, you’re able to pray from a position of loving wholeness—and ask for wisdom, guidance, and a pure heart—things that support your unity with God—then such a prayer will bring great benefit.
The Practice of Presence
Human beings exist in two simultaneous dimensions: a dimension that is timeless, ever-present, self-aware, and conscious (which might be called the dimension of the soul or one’s true nature) and a dimension that is temporal, ever-changing, physically-bound, and conditioned (which might be called the body-mind-ego dimension). Most people are only aware of, and exclusively identify with, but one dimension of themselves—their body-mind-ego self. In this truncated awareness they habitually overlook their true, all-embracing self.
In the practice of presence we want to embrace the whole of who we are; we want to become more and more aware of our ever-conscious, ever-present self. As it says in the scriptures of Kashmiri Shaivism, “Everything reveals the presence of God.” We want to know the truth of that. We want to expand our awareness of our natural presence in and through the activities of our life. This presence or state of presence may seem bland, nondescript, and ordinary at first (because that’s how our mind presents it to us) but as we get in touch with it more and more, its true glory begins to unfold. The more we stay aware of our presence the more it becomes a living force in our lives and the more we recognize it as the Presence of Spirit, the more it becomes the gateway to the wonder of life and our inseparable unity with Infinite Spirit.
Forming the Right Relationship with Thought
Thoughts can make you and thoughts can break you—if you let them. The good news is that you are not your thoughts; the bad news is that you most likely identify with every thought that passes through your mind. However, you need not do this. You have a choice. You need not accept or “buy into” every thought that passes through your mind; you need not react to every thought or let your thoughts define who you are or your experience of life. You have the power to take a step back and see thoughts for what they are—energetic pulsations of consciousness bubbling up from your subconscious mind, but not you.
Most people are centered in the stream of thoughts that continually flows through their awareness. When their thoughts are good, they feel good, when their thoughts are bad, they feel bad. Moreover, almost every experience one has is accompanied by a reactive, running commentary that is constantly telling you about what you should be experiencing. This commentary supplants your actual experience with a mentalized version of your experience, with a reaction to your experience. And so, what you end up with, what your thought-generated life delivers to you, is a dull, mentalized experience, far removed from the immediacy and power of life.
Having power over the conditions of your life, which is a theme that runs throughout the Nine Foundations, can mean having the power to not react to every thought that passes through your mind; having the power to observe your thoughts from a stable center of self and not believing in the realness of every thought nor allowing every thought to determine your experience. It means not giving your power to every thought that flashes through your mind. Remember, you are not your thoughts. You may have thoughts but you are not your thoughts. So, do you have your thoughts or do they have you?
When working with your thoughts there are two fundamental approaches you can take. The first is to consciously engage with thought, endeavoring to change your negative thoughts to positive ones. For this you must be mindfully aware of your thoughts and thought patterns and constantly “checking” yourself to see what thoughts are arising; and each time you catch yourself dwelling on the negative side of things see if you can gently shift your thoughts toward the positive. This might be seen as a “hands on” or as a creative approach. The second approach is to abide in a dimension of self that is beyond thought and from that place of stillness allow your thoughts to be. Rather than being pulled in the direction of every thought—even with the positive intention to replace a negative thought with a positive one—simply allow a thought to be as it is, without getting involved, without reacting, without giving it any of your power, and without feeling the need to change it. Just be aware of the thought from that pure place of knowing, from that place of stillness that is beyond thought.
The kind of relationship you want to form with your own thoughts is to see them as suggestions from your subconscious mind (that are consistent with your past conditioning)―suggestions that you can accept or reject but not as commands you must follow.
Bear in mind that you cannot truly take a step back from your thoughts, or disidentify from thought, or stop giving power to thoughts if you’re subconsciously identified with them. You must have access to a center within yourself, where your identity is anchored, and where your center of self is beyond the sway of thought—and then behold your thoughts from there. Trying to change your thoughts (and the pattern of your thinking) while you’re still identified with thought is like trying to move a carpet while you’re still standing on it. Not so easy.
It is not possible to turn away from something if you are unconsciously identified with it. It’s not possible because you believe you are it in a way that is deeper than your awareness at that moment. It is your ground. You cannot disidentify from your ground. (Almaas, Diamond Heart III, p. 73)
As mentioned, “Thoughts can make you and thoughts can break you”—and this is true to the extent that you believe in and assign realness to your thoughts. One thing you should understand is that thoughts in and of themselves are never the problem. It’s your belief in the realness of thought, your identification with thought, your empowerment of thought, and your total involvement with thought that brings about difficulties. The oft-quoted line from Proverbs, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is” sheds some light on this truth. This line does not say “as a man thinketh so he is” (or “the way a man thinketh determines his life”) it says “as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” In other words, it’s only those thoughts that we believe, that we “take to heart,” that have power over us. (And every time we take a thought to be real, and deem it to be important, we empower that thought, and the subconscious mind will be sure to send us more of the same.) Thoughts that we do not believe, that we do not identify with, that we do not take to heart—that we let come and go as they may—do not command any real power over us. So, the choice is yours. The only power that thoughts have over you is the power that you give them.
A similar approach can be applied to emotions but since emotions carry more psychic power than thoughts taking a step back is more difficult. The general approach to uncomfortable emotions is to simply feel them; just let them arise without adversely reacting to them, without trying to run away from them or rationalize them away. Just give them the “green light” and simply feel what is arising. Feel the sensation of the emotion in your body, without naming it, without mentalizing it. More often than not it’s the resistance to the emotion, the refusal to feel the emotion, and the mental aversion to the emotion that is more painful than the emotion itself. Just feel it. When emotions are met with avoidance, or fear, or commentary, or with the dismissive rationalization of “why me?”—in other words, when they are not accepted—they persist. They stick around. They grow in power. They will not go away until they are felt and metabolized. These emotions are being brought up for a reason, for you to experience them, for you to feel them.
Quotes
“All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall receive them.” (Mark xi. 24) The difference of the tenses in this passage is remarkable. The speaker bids us first to believe that our desire has already been fulfilled, that it is a thing already accomplished, and then its accomplishment will follow as a thing in the future. This is nothing other than a concise direction for making use of the creative power of thought by impressing upon the universal subjective mind the particular thing that we desire as an already-existing fact. (Troward, Edinburgh Lectures, Ch., 5)
You are told, “When you pray, believe that you have received, and you will.” Can you pray in that form? —for that is the only successful prayer in the world. Begging is not going to do it, for when you beg you are confessing you don’t have it [the very thing you are praying for]. You’ve got to appropriate it. It is a subjective appropriation of the objective hope. That’s praying. (Neville, Immortal Man, p. 235)
Prayer, fundamentally, is the feeling of the Beloved in the Heart, which includes an intention. This intention can be unconditional, where the Soul surrenders herself to the Beloved in the experience of love and unity. Or it can involve a more personal communication in which our desires, fears, and longings are expressed. … Prayer is part of the blueprint of being human. It means that it is expected by the Divine. It is the Beloved’s wish to be communicated with in this way.
(Aziz, Transmission of Awakening, p. 49)
Your endeavor, then, is not so much to find God as it is to realize His Presence and to understand that this Presence is always with you. Nothing can be nearer to you than that which is the very essence of your being. Your outward search for God culminates in the greatest of all possible discoveries—the finding of Him at the center of your own being. (Holmes, This Thing Called You, p. 140)
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Supplemental
As I continue to realize my unity with Spirit, the value of my humanity, and the joyous sense of being alive, I offer my service to others.
This newly-unfolding understanding and experience of myself, this appreciation of my human existence, this feeling of gratitude, this deepening of my connection with Spirit, this continued connection with others, and this experience of my own aliveness and joy inspires me to reach greater depths of self-realization and to lovingly share myself and my experience with others.
An Outpouring of Grace
Sharing your inherent qualities is not something you have to work on or complete; it’s the natural expression of your true self; it's the natural expression of someone who lives as an authentic human being. Spirit creates this whole universe by the overflowing of its own nature; its qualities naturally abound in us, and through us, when we’re in touch with the fullness and joy of our own life and in unity with Spirit.
We are not here to convert anyone; it’s not about signing up people, or trying to promote a movement, or trying to meet some need in ourselves through helping others; it’s about the natural and selfless overflow of our own divine qualities into the world. It’s about the purity of Spirit expressing itself through us. It’s about our love overflowing and bringing benefit, and aliveness, and joy to everything and everyone it touches.
Give as Spirit Gives
Selfless giving is a natural expression of our boundless nature. Giving as Spirit gives opens us to bounty of the Infinite Source. There cannot be any “should” in our giving, or thoughts of gain, or the attitude of “I give this to get that,” or any motivation to acquire praise or merit. It has to be pure, selfless giving, giving from the heart. If not, it’s just a business transaction.
Spirit is one. It’s never divided. It’s always “all in.” Spirit can never give but a portion of itself because Spirit’s giving is absolute. When it gives, even to a blade of grass, it gives the whole of itself; it gives so completely that it loses itself in the giving—and only that which is given to remains. To truly give, give as Spirit gives; to truly love, love as Spirit loves. And to do this, to approach this kind of selfless giving, your heart must be in it.
Whatever you do—if you wish to bring value and aliveness into your life—your heart must be in it.
The primal feeling of Spirit, the feeling that gives rise to all creation, is love; it’s the fullness of the heart over-flowing. So give with all your heart. Welcome others with all your heart. Be yourself with all your heart. Feel what it’s like to be you with all your heart. Enter into the spirit of life, of overflowing love and grace with all your heart. This is the gateway to the splendor of everything. And if you cannot put all of your heart in it, keep inclining yourself in that direction. With a pure intention and a pure heart all things will settle into their perfect place.
The more fully we enter into the spirit of all with which we are concerned, the more thoroughly do we become alive. The more completely we do this the more we shall find that we are penetrating into the great secret of Life. It may seem a truism but the great secret of Life is its Livingness and it is just more of this quality of Livingness that we want to get hold of. It is that good thing of which we can never have too much. (Troward, The Hidden Power, p. 147)
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