prayer is a really intresting thing. like it was said above. it really does go deeper than words. god, the creator of us, the one who looks into and can perfectly read our hearts really doesnt need words from us to understand what is going on. so in my opinion, prayer is more of a thing for us to re prove our faith to ourselves and show to god how much we can open up to him. which is 100% if you like it or not.
but the idea of not needing words really set me on a new idea. i had heard of several people who prayed by letting our all their negativity and throwing their burden on god. as you're supposed to but after a while their reached a point where they felt like they had nothing to say, i felt this too. after a while i enjoyed simply sitting doing nothing and enjoying the openness with god that cost me nothing. i felt like the being that was infinite love and perfect understanding wasnt just some far off entity in another relm but i felt connected, like he was next to me, inside of me and in everything else he has created.
sometime later i decided to leave my congregation, because i didnt like the people and i felt that christianity was very constricting and relied too much on fear to control its faithful. and thus i embarked on my own journy to find other embodiments of gods love. i found eastern religion, i found paralels, and i found that it would make no sense for a god who is love to take his beloved creation and only show people in the west the light. and soon after i found meditation.
i found meditation to be amazingly paralel to praying. it depended on the type and reason for meditation. but after a certain point i found a unifying point between meditation and prayer. in prayer i found that after getting comfortable in my praying, emptying out my heart and finaly not haveing anything more to say, i got to a point where i felt somewhat fufilled and i didnt want to stop praying. i had reached a state of peace where i felt forgiven for my mistakes and i could forgive myself for my mistakes.
in meditation the method is almost exactly the same but in order to understand why they dont have the same ideas you have to understand their cultural differences. in asia there was no jesus, no prophecies about god, heaven, second coming or anything. in a way it was like they we're forced to find their own way. and in doing so found that bit of divinity within human beings. and when their found this divine spark they didnt know what to call it. they didnt have things like jesus, yhwh, or angels to make sense of all this. so they called it undefinable, beyond human reasoning, the tao, and enlightenment.
but all the same they were able to find that same peace that comes over you when you form a open connection with god. and with that frequency of thought they were able to find ways to handle the human condition. if you were to look at prominent persons in the history of Eastern thought. Taoist masters, Gurus and buddhas they all are accounted to have done things like jesus. holding great wisdom, healing, even their teachings paralel each other. they all outline methods and reasonings for finding peace and enhancing the quality of ones life through unity with god, tao, dharma... ect.
i know im already on a tangent, but try takeing up some literature from taoism such as the hua hu ching and compare it christian teachings. you'll find identical teachings and ideals for the advancment of human beings on every level.
now to get back to the topic of prayer and how much it is like meditation...
alright i'll admit there is one difference with praying i've found that when you expect or create an opening for something that seems like a miracle to happen it will happen. but this mostaly happens due to factors. for instance in the original post, the people showing up right after she had prayed the previous night... if you visit a congregation or show ANY intrest in their religion they will go through a lot of effort to bring you into their congregation. if their anything like jehovahs witnesses, they probably have training they go through to make sure they do and say the right things, all this atop the fact that christianity places very strong emphasis on faith. belief in things happening though you dont know how or why create the perfect space for people to 'hear the voice of god', 'see angels' or have mysterious guidance to do or help people. not so say i dont belive in these occurances, but it sadly makes a perfect space for fanatics too. but lets not get into that now...
however with meditation, which came from a culture that is much more focused on being self sufficiant. it no surprise to see people doing things like healing others, talk about being your own messiah. because in their experience no one can change who you are but you. and if you can reach a level of wisdom or enlightenment it is because of your own hard work in destroying your ego. in meditation, you'll find teachings that talk about breaking down the veils or in some peoples cases walls that seperate them from divine conciousness. just like with 'praying your heart out' as i used to put it, you eventualy reach a point where you feel at one with yourself, the divine and all the manefestations of the divine around you.
which ever method you use to come to a clear and accurate understanding of god, the trick is to be consistant and faithful. without some form of faith in yourself or otherwise you wont create the space needed for spiritual evolution. and without that you'll just get fustrated and give up.
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. I was half asleep till almost mid day then I heard people knocking on the door. It was the church people. They didnt visit me in while and it was strange that I prayed and then they came that morning. I was kind of freaked out but still sleepy. My lil brother came in and saw me still in bed so he told him I was asleep. THey left and I was still amazed and trying to figure out what happen. Some may say its a coincidence and I thought about it too but I dont know.
