Prayer - What is it to you?

[YmirGF]

When you chant a mantra, chant the name of God, isn't that prayer?

I guess people do when using such mantras, Windwalker. I stopped using them about 35 years ago.

:sorry1:

I use Transcendental Marination... err, meditation.
My perception of this is that once one has crossed the erroneous subject/object divide, continuing on, as if it still existed, is somewhat perilous.

 

[Windwalker]

I guess people do when using such mantras, Windwalker. I stopped using them about 35 years ago.

:sorry1:

I use Transcendental Marination... err, meditation.
My perception of this is that once one has crossed the erroneous subject/object divide, continuing on, as if it still existed, is somewhat perilous.

If you practice TM, you are using a mantra, aren't you?

And I disagree with you that once you have seen beyond subject/object duality that to continue with it puts one in peril. The nondual embraces duality in a lived paradox. To limit oneself to the casual is to limit what is realized in nonduality.

 

[YmirGF]

If you practice TM, you are using a mantra, aren't you?

That mantra is a meaningless "non-word".

And I disagree with you that once you have seen beyond subject/object duality that to continue with it puts one in peril. The nondual embraces duality in a lived paradox. To limit oneself to the casual is to limit what is realized in nonduality.

I understand that well, Windy. Hmmm. How to put this?

I have a rather good relationship with my "inner self". We are on a "first name" basis, in a manner of speaking, though I do not mean that literally, LOL. That said, I would not dream of "praying" to my inner being, but I do "talk" to it quite a lot. We have an ongoing wordless "conversation", as it were, that is often difficult to render into words, as words are not particularly necessary.

The weird part is that simply describing it implies a separation that is simply not there.

 

[Windwalker]

That mantra is a meaningless "non-word".

Sounds like chanting the name of God to me. God is beyond a word, right?

I understand that well, Windy. Hmmm. How to put this?

I have a rather good relationship with my "inner self". We are on a "first name" basis, in a manner of speaking, though I do not mean that literally, LOL. That said, I would not dream of "praying" to my inner being, but I do "talk" to it quite a lot. We have an ongoing wordless "conversation", as it were, that is often difficult to render into words, as words are not particularly necessary.

The weird part is that simply describing it implies a separation that is simply not there.

I think one thing that might help you appreciate the role that theism plays in a spiritual path as a human being is to understand it in the role of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person relationships. As a human, you experience this everyday of your life. In a spiritual path, to relate to Spirit, or God in this way is useful, not a "peril" as you put it. Three Faces of God.

 

[YmirGF]

Sounds like chanting the name of God to me. God is beyond a word, right?

I do not think in terms of "god" per se. I do not ascribe an overall primary identity to reality, and consider it a tiny bit arrogant of people to do so.

I think one thing that might help you appreciate the role that theism plays in a spiritual path as a human being is to understand it in the role of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person relationships. As a human, you experience this everyday of your life. In a spiritual path, to relate to Spirit, or God in this way is useful, not a "peril" as you put it. Three Faces of God.

The so-called "theistic" approach simply does not appeal to me. Thanks anyway.

 

[Windwalker]

I do not think in terms of "god" per se. I do not ascribe an overall primary identity to reality, and consider it a tiny bit arrogant of people to do so.

And it's not arrogant to say that those who see it this way are arrogant?

The so-called "theistic" approach simply does not appeal to me. Thanks anyway.

I get that. Do you get that it doesn't put people "in peril", as you put it, for the reasons I pointed out?

 

[YmirGF]

And it's not arrogant to say that those who see it this way are arrogant?

Hardly, it's being realistic.

I get that. Do you get that it doesn't put people "in peril", as you put it, for the reasons I pointed out?

"is somewhat perilous" is not quite the same thing as "in peril", Windwalker. One sense harkens to possibilities or potentials, the other sense is direct. To illustrate this more clearly, there is no fundamental problem with an adult playing with toys made for children. This can become problematic if the adult develops a fixation for playing with children's toys. Likewise, one can flop about in an old ill-fitting sweater that have become attached to, but eventually almost everyone will decide to lay that old cherished sweater aside.

 

[Windwalker]

Hardly, it's being realistic.

Not from everyone's perspective.

"is somewhat perilous" is not quite the same thing as "in peril", Windwalker. One sense harkens to possibilities or potentials, the other sense is direct. To illustrate this more clearly, there is no fundamental problem with an adult playing with toys made for children. This can become problematic if the adult develops a fixation for playing with children's toys.

Talk about bloody arrogant. Theism is made for children? You have a long way to go in your path, it seems.

Likewise, one can flop about in an old ill-fitting sweater that have become attached to, but eventually almost everyone will decide to lay that old cherished sweater aside.

I think that spirituality, Transcendental Meditation, in the hand of those who are not spiritually prepared, leads to arrogance.

Who cares if someone experiences nonduality, if they are still immature emotionally. I understand the reasons the great Wisdom traditions held these techniques secret. Those who aren't ready, who aren't prepared, who aren't not properly trained, end up getting puffed up by it. It becomes spiritual poison.

 

[YmirGF]

Not from everyone's perspective.

I didn't say it was now, did I?

Talk about bloody arrogant. Theism is made for children? You have a long way to go in your path, it seems.

Wow. What IS your problem, Windwalker? It was a freaking analogy. I was not comparing theism to children's toys. Why do you have to fixate so negatively on what I am NOT saying?

I think that spirituality, Transcendental Meditation, in the hand of those who are not spiritually prepared, leads to arrogance.

I don't pretend to know what so-called "spirituality" is. The term has become practically meaningless to me. I find it slightly disturbing that some pretend to know what it is.

Who cares if someone experiences nonduality, if they are still immature emotionally. I understand the reasons the great Wisdom traditions held these techniques secret. Those who aren't ready, who aren't prepared, who aren't not properly trained, end up getting puffed up by it. It becomes spiritual poison.

So much venom. You might want to look into that.

 

[Treks]

My first impression was the same as Windwaker's.

 

[YmirGF]

My first impression was the same as Windwaker's.

And once you thought about it?

 

[Treks]

Sorry I got my tense's muddled up. It should be, "My first impression is the same as Windwalker's". I can see how she reacted as she did. It may not have been your intention to come across that way. Just my observation as a relatively neutral 3rd party who really doesn't know either of you.

 

[Windwalker]

I didn't say it was now, did I?

Are you willing to concede then that for others it is equally as valid as how you see things, that it is equally as "realistic"? Other's don't agree with you in your definitions of what is "realistic".

Wow. What IS your problem, Windwalker? It was a freaking analogy. I was not comparing theism to children's toys. Why do you have to fixate so negatively on what I am NOT saying?

I am hearing what you are saying and I'm challenging your presumptions. Just because you may have transcendent experiences, does not validate your lower perceptual mind. I definitely do not hear transcendence in your thoughts here. They're not coming from that awareness.

Your analogy directly compared those who have had nondual experience to continue to use theism is like an adult who continues to be fixated on the tools of children, toys, and that that fixation puts them "somewhat at peril". In this you are directly comparing theism to the level of a child, and that for an adult to use theism, to relate to nondual Spirit in the 2nd person, a.k.a, "God", is to be perilously immature, not letting go of these lesser objects of faith. How is this not exactly what you said? I am apparently not the only person who hears this.

What perturbs me is that I shared that Three Faces of God link for you to read to open your understanding a little, not to get you to relate to Spirit in 2nd person, but to see its valid role, and important and positive role in advanced spiritual practices. You simply responded "The so-called "theistic" approach simply does not appeal to me. Thanks anyway." WTF?

Sounds to me like you think you have this all figured out because you have some transcendent experiences in meditation. Whoopity doo. I experience those every single time in meditation. But they are to me simply tools to open the mind to see beyond itself and to crumble these artifices of reality through which we sit and pass judgment upon others. Experience seeking is narcissistic. I would rather become wise through humility.

I don't pretend to know what so-called "spirituality" is. The term has become practically meaningless to me. I find it slightly disturbing that some pretend to know what it is.

Sounds like you have figured out what it is to point this out, however...

So much venom. You might want to look into that.

Turn the spotlight off yourself to those who shine it?

 

[YmirGF]

Are you willing to concede then that for others it is equally as valid as how you see things, that it is equally as "realistic"? Other's don't agree with you in your definitions of what is "realistic".

Well, obviously, Windwalker. The world is made up of incredibly divergent ideas. I doubt that any have a "lock" on the truth.

I am hearing what you are saying and I'm challenging your presumptions.

And I like that.

Just because you may have transcendent experiences, does not validate your lower perceptual mind. I definitely do not hear transcendence in your thoughts here. They're not coming from that awareness.

I am so very sorry that my perception does not validate your understanding.

Your analogy directly compared those who have had nondual experience to continue to use theism is like an adult who continues to be fixated on the tools of children, toys, and that that fixation puts them "somewhat at peril". In this you are directly comparing theism to the level of a child, and that for an adult to use theism, to relate to nondual Spirit in the 2nd person, a.k.a, "God", is to be perilously immature, not letting go of these lesser objects of faith. How is this not exactly what you said? I am apparently not the only person who hears this.

To be honest, I did smile when I wrote "somewhat at peril", as I knew that would not go over well. I almost deleted the comment but left it in thinking it would stir things up and make things interesting. I see I wasn't wrong on that perception.

You see, Windy, I have chucked aside the entire framework of god. I'm not advising that everyone do as I have done, but rather, simply pointing out that it is possible to continue the inner journey into the unknown without such a framework. I do understand that some folks find comfort in the idea of god and suspect there are quite valid psychological reasons for doing so. If you and others find solace and meaning in these activities then, in my view, act on your inclinations. It is in no way a threat to my approach to reality.

To enlarge my thinking on the matter, I'll attempt to show my reasoning, if you are willing to take the plunge with me. To be concise, of course, I have to leave much out. With that in mind...

I began my inner endeavors as an avowed atheist only to have that perspective flipped on its pointy little head. My experience confronted me with something I concluded was GOD. My experience continued merrily along those lines for several years, coming to a rather abrupt head, as it were, of meeting my vision of God, face to face, metaphorically speaking.

The nearest I can come to describing that part is holding up two mirrors and the infinite reflections that appear in each. The realization of that sent me reeling for another several years. It is very hard to describe that nondual event.

Slowly, over time, in order to maintain psychological stability, I began to move away from the idea of god that I held to that point, thinking my rush to judgment was holding me back. Then I found an acceptable answer. I morphed my concept of god, into the concept of self. Everything fit. In my tiny, infantile mind, I conceived a far larger view of personality and began to see my old ideas of god as being like a primitive framework that helped build this larger view of personality that had no upward limit. "Spiritual scaffolding" might also be a more accurate term here. In that respect, the god concepts simply served to give an idea or inkling to the extents of personality. And here, I'm not implying some grandiose super-ego type thing, but a different kind of identity altogether.

Given this understanding you can, perhaps, understand my inability to perform prayers or other devotional activities. For me, it just wouldn't fly - even as a symbolic act.

What perturbs me is that I shared that Three Faces of God link for you to read to open your understanding a little, not to get you to relate to Spirit in 2nd person, but to see its valid role, and important and positive role in advanced spiritual practices. You simply responded "The so-called "theistic" approach simply does not appeal to me. Thanks anyway." WTF?

In all fairness, I should have appended the line with, "any more". In all honesty, for me, it is not valid, but that does not mean that others wouldn't find it to be perfectly valid. I recognize that much. It certainly has a role - for some - of that, I have no doubt.

Sounds to me like you think you have this all figured out because you have some transcendent experiences in meditation. Whoopity doo. I experience those every single time in meditation. But they are to me simply tools to open the mind to see beyond itself and to crumble these artifices of reality through which we sit and pass judgment upon others. Experience seeking is narcissistic. I would rather become wise through humility.

We often deem wisdom in others to be things that directly support our root assumptions about reality. Wisdom is yet another fickle foible of human perception. Some think that Sarah Palin is a very wise lady. Others, not so much. Who is right?

As an end note. If experience seeking is narcissistic then how exactly is prayer and other devotional activities NOT also a form of narcissism? Answer that one well, and I'll give you a cookie.

 

[Windwalker]

Wow. Thanks for your response. This I like. I have much to say and hope to really dig deep now that you've taken it to this level. This is where I really like to go and am excited to go there with you. Our stories are probably more similar than dissimilar. As I have time later, let's call it "Windwalker, the Untold Story." This is the fun, meaty stuff now....

 

[YmirGF]

Wow. Thanks for your response. This I like. I have much to say and hope to really dig deep now that you've taken it to this level. This is where I really like to go and am excited to go there with you. Our stories are probably more similar than dissimilar. As I have time later, let's call it "Windwalker, the Untold Story." This is the fun, meaty stuff now....

Great stuff, Windwaker. I have to go cut my elderly neighbor's lawn (front and back... it's about 1/2 an acre) so take your time. I won't be back for a few hours. It's neat, he's a alcoholic Buddhist... *sigh* :thud::run:

 

[John Martin]

In the first place prayer is a relationship with God. This prayer relationship with God grows continuously. First our prayers may be prayer of petitions, asking God what we need. Second our prayers may be prayer of thanksgiving for all the things that we receive from God. Then prayers can a be prayer of friendship, sharing with God as we share with our friends expecting nothing. Then prayers can be silence just to be in the presence of God without asking anything and without any expectations. Then prayers can be listening to God to the point where we may ask God if God wants us something from us: God what do you want me to do for you? Then prayer can be searching for the will of God, to know what God wants to fulfill in us. Then we may hear God telling, 'Allow me to work in you'. In this call we discover that our vocation as human beings is to allow God to work in us. In this awareness we discover that our life has been a selfish life and our prayers have been selfish prayers. In that realization we say, Lord, not my will, let thy will be done. With this we completely surrender our self to God. Then prayer is to say' 'my life is not my life but God's life; my actions are not my actions but God's actions. This is the end of our ego.So prayer is a continuous purification of our ego until it becomes a vehicle of God. It is like a piece of salt that falls in the water and melts as it journies and become one with the water.

 

[Windwalker]

To be honest, I did smile when I wrote "somewhat at peril", as I knew that would not go over well. I almost deleted the comment but left it in thinking it would stir things up and make things interesting. I see I wasn't wrong on that perception.

Perhaps subconsciously you were asking to have your thinking challenged because you doubt it yourself.

You see, Windy, I have chucked aside the entire framework of god. I'm not advising that everyone do as I have done, but rather, simply pointing out that it is possible to continue the inner journey into the unknown without such a framework. I do understand that some folks find comfort in the idea of god and suspect there are quite valid psychological reasons for doing so. If you and others find solace and meaning in these activities then, in my view, act on your inclinations. It is in no way a threat to my approach to reality.

I can appreciate why you might set aside the theistic framework, considering the representation of it you just offered here, calling it for the purpose of "solace and meaning". If that is all it is, then I agree with you in the need to move beyond that. I don't believe that is all it is.

I began my inner endeavors as an avowed atheist only to have that perspective flipped on its pointy little head. My experience confronted me with something I concluded was GOD.

Two important points here. First, yes, those who are the most ardent of atheists, relying on arguments of reason and logic to "debunk God", are actually only debunking people's various ideas of God. When you have the sort of experience you are referring to, questions of the existence of "God" are really made a non-question at all. What is the only remaining question is how to talk about it. The questions of proofs between atheists and fundamentalists are non-questions to me. Both are arguing out of their heads, not any personal experience.

And that becomes the second point. The description of God to you, is not the understanding of all people who espouse theism. The use of deity forms can be in fact quite advanced, beyond simple emotional solace that "someone up there is watching over me" sort of envisioning. Tibetan Buddhism is probably the most advanced understandings and practices of states of consciousness in the world. They use deity forms in their practices to realize these things within themselves, and it has nothing to do with "solace and meaning":

"But this is not God as an ontological other, set apart from the cosmos, from humans, and from creation at large. Rather, it is God as an archetypal summit of one's own Consciousness. ... By visualizing that identification 'we actually do become the deity. The subject is identified with the object of faith. The worship, the worshiper, and the worshiped, those three are not separate'. At its peak, the soul becomes one, literally one, with the deity-form, with the dhyani-buddha, with (choose whatever term one prefers) God. One dissolves into Deity, as Deity - that Deity which, from the beginning, has been one's own Self or highest Archetype."


~Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye, pg. 85​

My experience continued merrily along those lines for several years, coming to a rather abrupt head, as it were, of meeting my vision of God, face to face, metaphorically speaking.

The nearest I can come to describing that part is holding up two mirrors and the infinite reflections that appear in each. The realization of that sent me reeling for another several years. It is very hard to describe that nondual event.

One of the important points I think you may not realize yet is that people will always take their peak experiences, or transcendent experiences, and then interpret them in their framework of understandings. It sounds to me as if you took your experience at tagged it with the mythic-literal view of God; external 'up there', watching over you, etc.

My personal story is that I had no frame of reference in which to hang my experience religiously. I sought out understanding of it, and happened upon a very fundamentalist believer whose confidence and certainty gave to me something I needed in my life at that time. I was looking for personal structures, and boy did they do that well! "Here is what God expects of you! These are God's rules. Follow them". On a personal level, I had not yet matured to be able to integrate the either the high-subtle and nondual experiences I had prior to any religious frameworks. In other words, I started at the end, then had to go back to ground and learn how to first crawl before standing, before integrating. There is a process that occurs.

John Martin laid this out nicely just a post or two ago in how he speaks of the stages of prayer. It's the same thing in understanding of God. But, sometimes, not knowing how else to separate ones self from the stranglehold of dogmatic literalism, something like atheism, or ex-Christianity, becomes the best option in order to first say "not this!", before you can discover what truly is. That became my own necessary, but temporary path in order to now come into to touch with what I first encountered. I said this about a couple years ago now that, "Now I begin where I began".

The theistic understanding of God is not a 'perilous' place, as the overall framework itself has shifted. It cannot be taken again in a mythic-literal understanding, as understanding has moved beyond this. "When I was a child, I thought as a child. When I became and adult I put away childish things". The belief in God itself is not childish, but the mythic-literal view is an earlier stage of development.

Slowly, over time, in order to maintain psychological stability, I began to move away from the idea of god that I held to that point, thinking my rush to judgment was holding me back. Then I found an acceptable answer. I morphed my concept of god, into the concept of self.

Which is as I said, you needed to break away from the mythic-literal understanding of an external God, to an internal one. I think for me, as I moved into that internal realization deeper, part of that internal process was/is to encounter that higher self as what it really is: God. God without becomes God within through that visualization, through that prayer and supplication, through releasing ego into that. At a certain point as I would describe it, "heaven dissolves", it is no longer "higher", with you bowed before it, but it merges into you and all there is is Self. God within.

Here's a beautiful Sufi description, which when I first read it gave a very apt, literal, description of what this is experienced as within meditation:

“There are lights which ascend and lights which descend. The ascending lights are the lights of the heart; the descending lights are those of the Throne. The false self is the veil between the Throne and the heart. When this veil is torn, and a door opens in the heart, like springs towards like. Light ascends toward light and light descends upon light, and it is ‘light upon light’.

When each time the heart sighs for the throne the throne sighs for the heart, so they come to meet. Each time a light ascends from you, a light descends toward you. If their energies are equal, then they meet halfway. But when the substance of light has grown in you, then this makes up a whole in relation to what is in the same nature in Heaven. Then, it is the substance of light in Heaven that longs for you, and is drawn to your light, and it descends toward you. This is the secret of the mystical journey.”

~9th Century Sufi mystic, Najim al-Din Hubra​

Believe me, this is not some metaphysical speculation, but rather a description of direct experience. The point of 2nd person "theistic" views, is to move through them, to 1st person experience. I find it a loss for people to dismiss 2nd person theistic experiences as "inferior" or "perilous". I don't call them the highest realization, but they are extraordinarily important and powerful. The only 'perilous' is to fall back into old, childlike, view that wholly externalizes God. If one is sufficiently developed, it's usefulness is profound and transformative.

I love Meister Eckhart, who himself was nondualist. He constantly speaks of God, but then says something so wonderful, "I pray God to make me free of God, for [His] unconditioned Being is above God and all distinctions." It is "through" God, we find "God beyond God".

We are humans, and to dismiss 2nd person relationships in a spiritual context is to call that part of ourselves somehow as "inferior". Higher, does not mean what came before is "inferior". Higher simply means more inclusive of what came before. Taking a knife and cutting it out of ourselves can itself be "perilous" indeed! It's called repression which itself may seek to overcompensation for that repression into some form of pathology. We have to transcend, but include what comes before. Not gut it out.

(continued....)

 

[Windwalker]

(continuing....)

Everything fit. In my tiny, infantile mind, I conceived a far larger view of personality and began to see my old ideas of god as being like a primitive framework that helped build this larger view of personality that had no upward limit. "Spiritual scaffolding" might also be a more accurate term here. In that respect, the god concepts simply served to give an idea or inkling to the extents of personality. And here, I'm not implying some grandiose super-ego type thing, but a different kind of identity altogether.

Given this understanding you can, perhaps, understand my inability to perform prayers or other devotional activities. For me, it just wouldn't fly - even as a symbolic act.

I can see why, given where you are at. Yes. For me, it was important for a time to distance my thinking from previous childish thinking to develop a truer sense of my reasoning mind. But from there, to now see God as something beyond the Sky Parent, but rather as the Summit of my own deepest spiritual self that is both Goal and Ground, through this, I become That. I could not have done this while still working to differentiate myself from the mythic-literal belief frameworks.

Ahhh.... now for Sri Aurobindo! And I'll leave you with this:

It is necessary, therefore, that advancing Knowledge should base herself on a clear, pure and disciplined intellect. It is necessary, too, that she should correct her errors sometimes by a return to the restraint of sensible fact, the concrete realities of the physical world. The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical Knowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical can only be really mastered in its fullness – to its heights we can always search– when we keep our feet firmly on the physical. “Earth is His footing,” says the Upanishad whenever it imagines the Self that manifests in the universe. And it is certainly the fact the wider we extend and the surer we make our knowledge of the physical world, the wider and surer becomes our foundation for the higher knowledge, even for the highest, even for the Brahmavidya.

In emerging, therefore, out of the materialistic period of human Knowledge we must be careful that we do not rashly condemn what we are leaving or throw away even one tittle of its gains, before we can summon perceptions and powers that are well grasped and secure, to occupy their place. Rather we shall observe with respect and wonder the work that Atheism had done for the Divine and admire the services that Agnosticism has rendered in preparing the illimitable increase of knowledge. In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal. Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, severe, conscientious, clean-handed, luminous within its limits, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration.

~Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pg 12,13​

:namaste

 

[YmirGF]

Thanks Windwalker, this is a lot to chew on. I may take a day or two to flesh out a suitable response.