I am re-reading The Isaiah Effect by Gregg Braden (Random House, 2000) the subtitle of which is Decoding the Lost Science of Prayer and Prophecy. I have been fond of saying that “prayer is energy work using words”, but I addend that now to “prayer is energy work using words and emotion”. It takes feeling and emotion as well as your affirmative words for a prayer to resonate into the “soup of creation” and morph into the result that you desire. You must feel the YESness of your words – the uplifted feeling that you’d expect when what you are praying has taken effect.
(I am taking away the word ‘for’ from the usual phrase praying for because the word ‘for’ represents that which is absent. Praying for peace implies the belief that peace does not exist until you ask for it. Praying peace implies that the possibility of peace already exists in the invisible soup of creation and that by focusing your attention and emotion on the feeling of peace you call it forth into manifestation.)
I love this analogy that Braden uses:
“The soup of creation exists as a state of possibilities… All of the components for all of the things that we could ever conceive of, including life itself, exist as this state of possibility. Although the components are there to build them, there has been no trigger to ‘nudge’ them into motion. The idea is very similar to creating rock candy from a jar of water saturated with sugar. We may place many tablespoons of sugar into the water and watch as the sugar dissolves and disappears. Thought we no longer see the sugar, we know there are several tablespoons hidden somewhere in the water.
“The sugar remains in the same state – invisible- until something comes along and changes the conditions of the water. We call this a catalyst, something that triggers a new opportunity for the sugar and water to interact. The trigger can be as simple as placing a fibrous string into the water. As the sugar-laden water seeps into the string, it evaporates, leaving behind the sugar. In the absence of the water, the sugar now crystallizes into a new expression of itself, the shiny crystals that follow the laws of air rather than the laws of water. Different temperatures and pressures represent different laws and produce different crystals.
“When we create feelings about the things that we choose to experience in our world, our feelings are like the string in the sugar solution. Into the possibilities of creation, we place a feeling picture, just enough energy to allow for a new possibility. The key to this system however, is that creation gives back precisely what our picture has shown. The picture tells the soup of creation where we have placed our attention. The emotion that we attach to our picture attracts the picture’s possibility. When we ‘don’t want’ something – an emotion based in fear – our fear actually fuels what we claim not to want. These laws invite us to empower our choices by focusing upon the positive experiences that we choose, rather than by preparing for the negative things that we don’t want. Creation simply allows us the consequence of our feeling, by perpetuating what we have shown a picture of. This is the ancient secret of a lost mode of prayer, forgotten in the fourth century A.D.”
A lot of us are praying our hearts out these days for solutions to myriad things that humanity and the planet are facing. I’d like to encourage us all to place our focus, attention, words and feelings on what we want to experience during our lifetimes, rather than what we don’t want. Clearly it’s important to identify and address our problems, but we have to be able to hold the vibration of the solution in our hearts and minds.
So, in the instance of global warming, I am envisioning and praying technologies that provide power and transportation that are in harmony with – and honor – nature (imagining clear blue skies, quiet roads, clean water, and thriving forests).
For the issue of Coronavirus, I am envisioning and praying vibrant health for all people (well-fed, well-hydrated, great gut-health, emotionally connected, strong immune systems, diverse and accessible health-care options).
For the issue of race-relations and white supremacy in the USA, I am envisioning and praying peace in every heart, and a radical awakening of human consciousness (I see people looking into each other’s eyes and recognizing their inherent value, feeling empathy, feeling compassion and connection, extending hands in generosity and love).
For the issue of economic disparity, I am envisioning and praying that the collective consciousness – including the millionaires and billionaires of today – measures wealth by how many families a business provides a thriving income (every individual on the planet having a roof over their head, a full belly of nutritious food, work that is meaningful to them and which matches their particular skills and talents, families able to thrive on a single-earner income, rest and recreation a valued part of any life, and education a non-negotiable right).
Call me a Pollyanna if you must, but I want to clarify the vision of what we WANT, right in the thick of all that we are seeing and experiencing on the ‘don’t-want’ end of the spectrum. I am spending my prayer time (which happens regularly throughout the day) visioning and feeling the desired outcome on all accounts. Let’s articulate and vibrate the future that we desire with at least as much passion and commitment as we spend on identifying and fighting against the brokenness of what we are experiencing now.
