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Bhakti and Karma Yoga

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lalow33

USA
966 Posts

Posted - Mar 21 2018 : 3:57:34 PM

Yeah, I've done Christian prayer, healing samyama, regular person. This is suppose to be a board open to science. It does not work. I'm sorry to say that. It does not for me. And again maybe the people aren't open to it and maybe you, or the awareness you are coming from is tainted. I guess I'm not that awesome ' cause 99% of prayers do not happen.

Radharani

USA
843 Posts

Posted - Mar 22 2018 : 01:45:07 AM

quote:
Originally posted by lalow33

Yeah, I've done Christian prayer, healing samyama, regular person. This is suppose to be a board open to science. It does not work. I'm sorry to say that. It does not for me. And again maybe the people aren't open to it and maybe you, or the awareness you are coming from is tainted. I guess I'm not that awesome ' cause 99% of prayers do not happen.

I agree with you. Prayer, "manifesting," "visualizing," whatever you want to call it, does not "work" per se in terms of changing external events. At least it never has for me over nearly 40 years of trying. I'd given up about a decade ago, and then after my reality shifted in 2011 I figured I would give it another go, as maybe whatever "block" had been removed. I studied with a very good life coach, the Abundant Yogi, and I was sure it would work this time. My plan was to sell the farm and get a studio on the beach. I figured it was God's will because I kept getting lots of calls from people at the beach who wanted to study with me but didn't want to make the long drive out here to the boondocks.

I visualized, prayed, saw it as already happened, manifested, blah blah my new yoga studio on the beach. You know what happened? I was not able to sell the farm, and meanwhile over the course of the 18 months my farm was on the market, 10 new yoga studios opened at the beach, including one in the building that I had planned to buy! So, I guess you could say it "kind of worked," but not for me, LOL.

If it is for lack of awesomeness, at least you and I are in good company. But, I don't think that's it. I think your analysis is correct.

As far as prayer is concerned, C.S. Lewis even says it does not "work" in that manner, e.g., Jesus prayed "let this cup pass from me" (the crucifixion), and how did that turn out?

In my role as a minister, people ask me to pray for them and I do because it is comforting to them, knowing that they are not alone as they go through difficult times. I can send them energy and I ask God to surround them with His Love.

But, I do not necessarily expect external concrete results.

The kind of prayer that does work for me 100% is contemplative prayer, in which I only offer myself and ask to enjoy His presence. I no longer bother asking for material stuff because it is useless and I figure He knows what is best and doesn't need me telling Him what to do in any case. Request for the gifts of the Spirit (patience, kindness, etc.), samyama in the interior sense, does seem to "work."

Perhaps it is best, though, that we keep this between ourselves lest we shake the faith of those who need to believe in prayer. Like, when somebody asks me to pray for them, I don't say, "Why should I, prayer doesn't work!" Right?

Edited by - Radharani on Mar 22 2018 02:59:12 AM

Godslave

Canada
103 Posts

Posted - Nov 23 2020 : 2:03:16 PM

Have you read the Prayer article in the Main Lessons? https://www.aypsite.org/301.html

I found your post by searching for prayer in the AYPsite search. I also found that article. It seems to treat prayer as something that only works if we surrender the outcome completely to the divine. So, it doesn't work when we have specific expectations or attachments to outcomes.

This is strange, because growing up I've always been taught that is someone is sick (ie cancer), we should pray for God to make them better, in a way that showed that we were quite attached to a specific outcome. It even says in the Bible that some of the disciples were so holy with the Spirit that they could ask for things, and they would be done for them -- but maybe they were asking differently than most people do?

I know that I've had really difficult times in life, and during those I prayed for help and a solution, and I definitely didn't receive an external miracle that cured me, or solved my problems for me. I do have a memory of a prayer-like state where I surrendered an outcome to God and an unexpected result happened, which I viewed as a relief and a release for me from stress. That would be my only real samyama-type experience. It was so long ago that I'm not sure I trust the memory/experience now, though.

Prayer is still something I'm trying to understand, because so much of it seems to have no external/visible/noticeable/measurable result. People pray for those who are dying of cancer, but they still die. The prayer certainly didn't change the death outcome.

Hmm

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