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Tell me about how you pray or meditate

sugnim

Member
Tell me about how you pray or meditate. Is it a daily thing? Do you do it alone, with others? Do you do it out loud, or silently? If you pray, to whom to you pray? If you meditate, how do you meditate? Do you have a certain place to pray or meditate, or do you do it anywhere? I'd love to hear all of the individual ways that people incorporate prayer & mediation into their lives.

I'll answer as a response.
 

sugnim

Member
I have had an on and off relationship with prayer & meditation. For some reason, this is an area in life in which I hold back, even though I am generally drawn to it. Currently, I participate in sitting meditation most days for about 10-30 minutes. One of my favorite prayer practices that I did in the past was to get up early in the morning, and listen. I would write down everything I heard for about 10 minutes. I got this idea from the stories of Abraham & Moses who heard God calling to them. The idea was that maybe God was calling me too, but I wasn't listening. So I developed a practice of intentional listening. I came to believe it was a silly practice, and I gave it up. I don't really believe in any deities, but I do believe in the interconnectedness of all beings, and I definitely have a spiritual side to my personality.

Also, in our home, we light a candle each evening at dinner. We say some sort of brief benediction which can be as simple as recognizing how fortunate we are to have dinner together. This is, I believe, a form of prayer.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Silent sitting allowing arising sensations and thoughts to be first acknowledged, then allowed to naturally pass and dissipate without attempts to cling and expand on any sensation and thought.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
Tell me about how you pray or meditate. Is it a daily thing? Do you do it alone, with others? Do you do it out loud, or silently? If you pray, to whom to you pray? If you meditate, how do you meditate? Do you have a certain place to pray or meditate, or do you do it anywhere? I'd love to hear all of the individual ways that people incorporate prayer & mediation into their lives.

I'll answer as a response.

Alone, one hour, consisting of puja (calling, invoking) japa (mantra repetition) and silent still meditation.A room in the house dedicated to only that.
 

pearl

Well-Known Member
In silence. Needed is a sacred space, coming to awareness in the present, use of a mantra to stay in present, concentrating on a specific object may be helpful for some.
 

Spiderman

Veteran Member
rosary111.jpg

I pray the Rosary (by far my favorite prayer and meditation), pray the Litany of our Lady (She loves to be called and invoked by all those beautiful names), pray from prayer books, write letters to God, Mother Mary, the Angels, and the souls in Heaven. I call my Mother by the sweetest names I can think of.
275px-Virgen_de_guadalupe1.jpg

I silence and still the mind and listen to the heart.

Listen to your heart. Silence, still the mind, pay attention to your breathing, watch your posture, write down what comes to mind. The spirits speak to the heart, not the ears. Sometimes candles help. Focus on the flame while breathing deeply, chanting, or speaking. Sometimes I pray in tongues.

Write letters to your Deity or to the spirits. Make acts of love from the heart, make your requests known. Scripture says "Ask and yea shall receive....you have not because you ask not".
 

Spiderman

Veteran Member
I usually pray alone. I do go to mass and have often prayed with others as a group and gone to prayer groups and healing room services, but I'm able to focus better while alone, fewer distractions, more interior silence.

God speaks with a still small voice. Interior silence can be necessary to hear it.

Sometimes I'm loud, sometimes silent. Sometimes on occasion I am angry and yell at God.

I try to pray without cease wherever I am. Most importantly I pray for God's will to be done and pray for the grace that the Holy Spirit guide my heart and mind, that I do God's will and be obedient and serve God, his Mother, and the spirits.
 

Liu

Well-Known Member
Meditation: Twice a day, nearly every day, more or less directly after getting up and before going to sleep. Currently both sessions are 10-15 minutes each.
I mostly do void meditation, i.e. trying to let go off any thoughts and concentrate on a mantra, a candle flame and/or similar.

I've also done 30-minute meditations sometimes and if done right those are where the fun really starts. But I don't have the practice yet to meditate properly even every other time, so I rather work slowly towards that, instead of investing 30 minutes every morning of which I can expect to be daydreaming more than half the time anyway.

Prayer: Whenever I feel like it. Most often while lying in bed, but also throughout the day. Silently, sometimes also whispering/speaking.

Normally it's not the asking-for-something kind of prayer, that wouldn't really combine well with my theology anyway, for things like that I rather use rituals, sigil magick etc. (I'm agnostic to whether that actually works, but how can I know without trying?). If I ask for something mundane via prayer, then about strength and direction or simply luck. I rather ask for spiritual things, like getting better at perceiving my deity.
But mostly it's just about the reverence I feel.

The wording is almost always spontaneous, but I might include parts of poetry, song lyrics or prayers that fit. Parts are also without words of any kind.

The huge majority of my prayers are directed to the Dark One of whose essence we are, but I use several names to refer to certain aspects of it which others may consider separate entities.
I also sometimes say prayers to other spiritual beings, but I consider them on a completely different level, so I can't really compare that.
 

SabahTheLoner

Master of the Art of Couch Potato Cuddles
I meditate before I use magic. I do it by myself. It usually involves speaking positive thoughts out loud or walking. Sometimes both. The goal of the meditation is to allow my mind to express itself during the magic working. The meditation itself is purely psychological but the magic following it doesn't have to be.
 

Deidre

Well-Known Member
I may pray throughout the day, just quietly to myself, an internal prayer that sets the tone for the day, or helps me process stress, etc. I sometimes like to meditate in a special quiet place in my bedroom, with candles and Indian or Sufi meditation music. Just releasing the thoughts of the day, emptying my mind, it can be really freeing, and usually I do that for maybe 15-20 minutes. Yoga is amazing for meditation too, like more of a full body experience when bringing yoga into it.
 
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