Prayer

Begin a practice of sacred prayer that fulfills you and charges you to move forward as a spiritual being in a world of chaos and misdirection.  

 Prepare Your Space   

Prayer is little understood for it raises the worshipper above a normal state.  It is a state of being wherein man loses himself in the Spirit of Divinity.   There are 3 things to know about God: He must be sought for, He cannot be given anything by man which increases His Greatness and He dwells within HIS own law. There are three things God requires of man: Effort, courage and reverence for the Sacred. 3 deep breaths.    Prayer is an exercise of the Spirit. It must never be misdirected and cannot be used to change natural laws and effects for the sake of the one who prays. Always pray in a place proper for prayer. The Koltrin Bible   St Germain, Master Alchemist:

 “Without the Science of the Spoken Word(together with the that of the creative power of visualization) …there is no creation, no change, or interchange in any part of life.”  

 When we use mantras or decrees, we meditate on the flame in the secret chamber of your heart.  This secret chamber is your own private meditation room your interior castle,  as Teresa of Avila called it.  In Hindu tradition, the devotee visualizes a jeweled island in his heart. There he sees himself before a beautiful altar, where he he worships his teacher in deep meditation.” Jesus spoke of entering the secret chamber of the heart when he said:

 "..when thou prayest enter in thy closet, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to the Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly,” 

 Preparation 

Do not come to prayer as a player in your life, seeking resolution to problems invented by an inauthentic self doing justice only to your preservation of your constructed material life,  designed friendships,  perfection in what you seek to prove to be a picture perfect life. Thus asking for favors of the Divine to give life to your illusions, support your in place barriers to the absorption of light, of love, of life.   It has been too long  you have been stuck in old inflexible, life denying, long outdated childhood survival complexes. No,  let us take on our restoration, our revival, by the release of our barriers and the lies that hold up those walls. The lies we tell ourselves so we can persist in our external identity that meets the standards of the world outside of us including friends, family and community. We have too long kept ourselves in place to not disturb others sense of who we are so they can continue to feel safe, secure and supreme in our lives. We have become obsessed and controlled by the world glamour that is most alluring to us. Mind based choices and not soul bound.   Bring the purity of your inner child.  To begin our prayer, we must include and integrate the inner child still present with you.  Still determining your choices.  Here we address Purity.  Consider these words before we begin our exercise.  
"In the seemingly random moments of feeling, you tend to reach into a past memory of experience and dictate into the present what the emotions of the moment should be.  Begin to approach the presentation of others with the possibility that the dualistic judgment of your path may be dictating your intentions.  With an energy of innocence, there may be an opportunity to gain a better understanding of ALL of the forces that make up the moment you recollect. It’s not that you should not trust  your instincts but instincts gained from prior wounds serve no one.  As an empath, you can feel beyond the pictures and labels of your wounded past by staying in the innocence of the experience as a child feels. Your innocent child. Emotions can be navigated from one experience to the next without the burden of emotional baggage.” Steven Watson    “The Empathic Oracle’     

To prepare for a prayerful relationship with the Divine, we shall lead you in an exercise to allow your true experience of yourself to arise, to forgive what and who needs to be forgiven so you experience yourself as deserving and then move into WORD as an act of co creation with Spirit.  So first NO PAST Be here now.  The exciting moment of just now. The only time you are responsible for. This moment. NO FUTURE to cause anxiety. Just be here now in the moment.  Creating.   

           ALLOW           FORGIVE         CREATE        

 Yes, my friends, we ask you to now close your eyes and visualize yourself at 4 or 5 or 6.  Bring yourself to a person, an incident,  an experience when you were dishonored, ignored, reprimanded unjustly.  Your feelings. Your physical well being. Your sense of self.   What happened?  What was the impact on you?  What did you decide about yourself? How does this decision impact you in your current life? Who is there to forgive? Be present to the emotion brought forward. Allow to be. No need to hold onto. No reason to invest into. Send the experience into the blackness of the galaxies to disappear. Dissipate the loss.   Restore equilibrium        Forgive self.   Forgive others involved. Send blessings.  Bless your self.  Feel the white light emanate from your etheric body as you move through this shadow.  Your heart chakra expands. Your throat chakra opens to express release.     

Spirit :  flow through me and touch my heart. Guide me along the path to my fulfillment     

May the integrity of my soul be my first ideal. May the Divine source me to guide and bless my work. May I have the courage to turn aside from The industry of distraction,   the religion of stress and the deity of progress 

May I have the courage to turn aside from it all and come to kneel down before the poor,  To discover what we must do, To turn away from anxiety and anger and How to find my way back home 

May I have the grace and wisdom to act kindly learning to distinguish between what is personal and what is not. May I be hospitable to criticism and never put myself at the center of things.  

May I act not from arrogance but from service. May I work on myself building up and refining the ways of my minds  May I cultivate the art of presence in order to engage with those I meet. May I know the wisdom of deep listening, The healing of wholesome words,  The encouragement of the appreciative gze, The decorum of held dignity The springtime edge of the bleak question. 

May I have good friends to mirror my blind spots. May leadership for me be a a true adventure of growth.  May I succumb to warmth in the heart Where divine fire glows."

  Source: To Bless the Space Between Us; A Book of Blessings  

John O’Donohue