On Prayer

What comes to my mind are the ideas of spiritual teacher, Joel Goldsmith, who explains that we should understand ourselves as the instruments of God and that any good we can provide for others is in proportion to our ability to receive through open-mindedness. We cannot reach the experience of being one with the Spirit through our mind alone. Our emotions, our soul, and our energetic field all must be involved in that realization. When we catch a glimpse of the nature of God, the Absolute, we begin to know our oneness with Him. 

We realize that there is no one else other than Him. He is all there, and He is all there is. Now we can begin to relax into that oneness and stop trying desperately to reach God as if He is the old man sitting on the cloud. Being receptive and responsive allows us to experience our unity with the One. If we’re looking up to God, wanting God to do something, give us something, fix something, we are approaching from desperation, trying to influence God to do our will. The realization that we are one with Him leads us to know that our true needs are understood and our highest good is being taken care of. It is then that we relax and allow ourselves to receive and to surrender to the divine design. 

A different way of understanding prayer is not begging and beseeching God but being in a state of silence in which we feel united with the Spirit, receptive to grace. Aligning our will with the will of the Creator is, to me, the wisest and healthiest way to live. It leads to peace and to a greater ability to serve and contribute since it offers us the highest point of view and ultimate support. 

These are tough times; everywhere you look, there is tension in the world. In these challenging times, the best we can do is to reconnect to the trust and the knowledge that divine order is operating in spite of human ignorance and chaos. An excerpt from:

“Gates of Power: Actualize Your True Self” by Nomi Bachar