Spiritual Solutions

“Teach us to Pray!” cried out the disciples to Jesus.

The prayer we will look at in Part 2, as we move into what Charles Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity movement, called “the Silence,” is one where we don’t use quite so many words as we might use in positive affirmations or active prayer.

An active prayer consists of between five and nine words.

The prayer that takes us deep into the Silence and brings us into the center is usually only one word, one word of either one or two syllables. We call it a sacred word, a word that focuses us upon the realization of God’s presence in our lives. We use it, not continuously like a mantra, but when our attention wanders to just simply bring us back into the center of our being.

The sacred word brings our awareness back into the divine center that is everywhere, which is God’s center and our center. There is no separation, no difference at all. But the mind wanders, and that’s the greatest challenge we have in prayer and meditation.

Jesus knew that our challenge would be that our mind wanders, and he gave us instructions regarding that. He said we need to do two things: we need to watch and to pray.

WATCH AND PRAY

That is really good direction for this kind of prayer, this journey to the divine center. First of all, in dealing with a mind that wanders, we are to watch. We are to watch our wandering thoughts. We are not to try to force them back or to attach our mind to them, but just to watch them go by.

It is as though our thoughts were like boats on a river. Have you ever looked at a yacht basin where all the boats are crowded together and you can hardly see any river or water between them? And maybe there is debris on the surface of the river or lake.

Well, our mind is sort of like that; the thoughts are like the boats and the debris on top of the river and we can hardly even see the river underneath it.

But the river underneath it is the river or deep stream of God consciousness that is always there. And it’s the deeper level we need to come to every day in order to both refresh ourselves and to realize our oneness with God.

Our thoughts are like those boats on the river, and so we need to watch them as though we were on the bank of the river. We watch the boats going by, and we watch the debris going by; our ordinary thoughts.

We tend to get carried away by those ordinary thoughts, but if you just watch them and not get caught up in them then the mind can be drawn back very gently into the realization of God’s presence.

So the important thing is that we are watching and we are praying. The prayer that we use is a simple sacred word that opens us up to the realization of God’s presence. The word can be very simple, such as “God,” or love,” or “peace,” or “be.” You choose the sacred word consciously, or it may just rise up from within you. It may be “Father,” or “Christ,” or “Jesus,” or “Abba.”

“Abba” is Jesus’ word for our use of the word “father” or, more closely, “Daddy” in our own culture; it’s the common term for father used by Jesus. Jesus was so close in his relationship with God that he would say “Abba,” “The Father and I are one.”

So whatever word you use, let it be a word that opens you up to a consciousness of your oneness with God. And every time your mind starts wandering off with those boats or that debris, simply speak your word to bring you back to an awareness of where you are and to an awareness of the river itself, that you are one with the river.

FIVE LEVELS OF THOUGHT

Generally speaking, there are five levels of thought or five types of thought that can carry us away.

The first one is the ordinary wool-gathering of our own imagination. When we start to get still our imagination begins to wander. Jim Rosemergy, in his book A Closer Walk with God, says what we could do is just begin to reflect in this wool-gathering kind of way, but instead of letting our thoughts wander off we can relate to God’s love within us so that we’re doing a sort of gentle meditative exercise in bringing our mind back.

We might start thinking about the love of God and that “I am God’s beloved.” Then, “What does that mean, I am God’s beloved? I am a child of God; God is love and God loves me.” You can readily see how you can do some wool-gathering in that kind of way.

When our mind wants to wander we can begin to direct it in that way, or we can use our sacred word to gently bring us back to center.

It’s as though you were sitting in an apartment downtown somewhere, maybe in New York; let’s make it really busy. Maybe you’re on the fifth floor and the window is open; you can hear the sound of traffic outside but you’re seeking to converse with a person who is there with you in the room. So you have to give your attention to the person and you can hear all the traffic; there’s a constant hum of traffic. What you have to do is just become still even in the midst of that constant hum of traffic, that traffic of thought. You become still, and you intend toward the person, you give your intention to the person.

This kind of prayer is more intention than attention; you intend to focus on God’s presence, so by intending you give attention to the presence just as you would to the person.

So the first type of thought is ordinary thought, like a constant hum of traffic that’s going on.

EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT

The second type of thought that comes is one that may have emotional attachment to it. For instance, there may be a sudden loud noise outside that draws your attention to it and gets some emotion, maybe fear, caught up in it. It’s an emotional attachment; something goes by in your mind and you attach your thought to it, perhaps some experience you had that you still have some feelings about. Those feelings are still there, they are coming up to be looked at, to be watched, and to be let go of.

SPECIAL INSIGHTS

The third type of thought that comes up is a special insight or a psychological breakthrough you might have. I’m sure you’ve had the experience when you’re sitting in the silence and you suddenly have this brilliant thought, a brilliant idea that comes, and you think, “Oh, I must hang on to that thought,” or “I must hang on to that thought and write it down.” Then you lose the essence of the Silence.

Our instinct is to want to possess, but we cannot possess God’s presence. God is like the air that we breathe, we have all of it we want, but we cannot hold on to it, and if we try to possess it we lose it.

We cannot possess those breakthroughs we have, those brilliant ideas. Have yo ever noticed when those brilliant ideas come to you in the quiet then afterwards you think, “What wa sthat idea I had. It seemed so brilliant at the time, and now it seems kind of stupid.” Whatever it was, we tried to grasp hold of it, and it had no substance to it.

It’s just a part of our mind that is playing tricks with us, seeking to grab our attention and draw us away from our intention to focus upon the deeper aspect of our being. The mind is used to being busy and wants us to be occupied, wants to grab our attention.

SELF-REFLECTION

The fourth type of thought we get caught up in is self-reflection. We get into a space in meditation where we feel great, when you are feeling a great sense of peace and you think, “Oh, this is really what it’s all about. I really feel great now. If only I could think about this and how I got to this point, I’ll always be able to come back to this at any time.” And suddenly, it’s gone again.

Self-reflection takes you away from the realization of the presence, from just experiencing the presence. You get caught up in yourself, and get carried away again. So any time that thought comes just let it go; observe it, watch it, and let it go, and say, “Oh yes, that’s interesting but I’ll let it go.” Because the experience of God is always new, it’s always dynamic, it’s never like it was before. 

If we try to hold on to one thought or a feeling of peace then we lose it. So we have to let it be what it’s going to be; the journey is into the unknown, you don’t know what you’re waiting for. You’re just waiting, just willing to wait; you’re just knocking on the door in a very soft way with the sacred word which keeps drawing you back, saying, “Here I am, God, here I am.”

Just be there quietly, saying “Here I am,” and waiting. Then the door opens.

PURIFICATION PROCESS

The fifth level of thought we get caught up in is the unloading of the unconscious; it is the purification process that goes on when we’re in prayer.

We have a release of the emotional blocks that are within us, and that often comes up as fear, as perhaps the dark side of our being, things we’ve done that we may feel ashamed of. It’s like the dirty dishrags of our mind that are laid out for everyone to see.

We may start to feel awful when those feelings come up and we think, “Oh, these are negative feelings and we shouldn’t be having these negative feelings when we’re in prayer.” And we try to push them away, and when we push them away then we lose our experience of oneness with God.

Some people think there are two doors in our mind, one to the negative thoughts and one to the positive thoughts. But there’s only one door behind which our feelings reside and all of our feelings are valid, and all of our feelings are to be experienced. We need to accept ourselves in fullness. If we cannot accept ourselves in our humanity, we cannot accept our divine self either.

The best way of relieving yourself of those dark or negative feelings or feelings of fear is not to fight them but to simply watch them, to accept them, and experience them. They will disappear and dissolve of their own energy. Pretty soon you’ll move through them and the sun begins to shine again and the light begins to come forth again.

It’s the same with pain. The best way to get rid of pain is to simply accept it. If we accept it, and watch it, and breathe into it, then the pain dissolves of its own accord. But if we try to resist it, then we have more pain. Of course, medical science has learned this and is also teaching it.

It’s the same with emotional pain; if we try to resist it or hang on to it, then we have more. But if we simply watch it and acccept it as part of our being, then it’s O.K.

Self-acceptance is realy important, and that’s why Jesus taught forgiveness. He knew that sometimes we wouldn’t feel good about ourselves. So whenever he taught prayer he also taught forgiveness. Forgiveness is important in releasing those bad feelings about ourselves, from fear, and from guilt.

We have to forgive ourselves and others in order to remove the barriers to experiencing the very presence of God within us. So again, we simply use our sacred word to bring us back to center.

As ell as those fears, doubts, and same feelings that may arise, we may get feelings of itching, or laughter, or tears. Have you ever burst into tears when you’re in the Silence and meditation? It’s not uncommon. And that’s all right; it’s a part of it, a part of emotional release. You may have been holding those tears for a long time, and the quieting and getting down to the deeper level of being releases those emotional blocks and allws tears to flow. Or the laughter, the laughter of God; it’s all there. The laughter of God is a releasing of the emotional block.

RESTING IN GOD

We move then into the simple resting in God, which is the next step. As we move through the different thought levels we let those thoughts go, our breathing becomes easier and we become quiet inside as we go to a deeper level.

Essentially there is sixth type of thought, but this is a type of thought we can readily accept and we don’t disengage from. It’s what the fourteenth-century author of The Cloud of Unknowingcalled “a blind stirring of love.” That’s theh movement into the experience - not just a realization but the experience - of God’s presence.

It’s a blind stirring of love in our hearts, where we feel our oneness with the divine. And this is the beginning of a closer walk with God; it’s the beginning of the divine union which is the goal of the whole spiritual life, and a movement into deeper realization of God’s presence in every aspect of our lives.

So those are the steps to take as you move into this deeper level of prayer. Experiencing God’s presence is one of the most important facets of our prayer life, so work with those steps and don’t get caught up along the way but simply draw yourself back to the divine center. Learn to wait, and listen.

God is blessing you, right now!

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