Dear God....'

What are the thoughts and entreatise that fill the space between God and Us? In the news week survey, 73 percent thought prayers asking for help in finding a job were answered. 'Give us this day our daily bread,' they prayed, as Jesus said we should do in Luke 11:3, With the emphasis placed today on monetary success, it's hard to believe that the space between us and the diety isn't clogged with millions of prayers asking to win the lottery, but 36 per cent of the respondents said they never pray for financial success, Probably they realize those thoughts have little importance in the spiritual world, whereas 'show me a way to transcend my present situation' has.

we can commune with the universe, ask questions, tell our sorrows, our joys, the good things, the funny things. What we truly wish to pray for often emerges in the process of prayer itself. we might give thanks, say ' please', ask for guidance to be shown a better way of doing things, a better way of understanding, a way to feel more forgiving, or to be able to feel more love, compassion and empathy. And in making the request, we have already taken the first steps towards feeling these things.

Reference: The Fragrant Heavens: V A Worwood

Prayer - 2 

In scientific terms these are significant results, and show that the mind can influence living matter.

How this may come about is, of course, the big question. In prayer, we invoke change by using thought, sometimes accompanied by the sound of our voice. Both thought and thought/sound go out into the ether, carrying their vibrational patterns, and causing change. The emotion behind the thought gives an additional charge to the vibrational pattern. Perhaps all this can be picked up or received by higher beings, who operate outside our usual visual range and physical realm.

These celestial messengers may be angels or guardian spirits, who transmit  - by ever finer vibrations - to the next realm and beyond, until our thought makes contact with the universal whole or God. Perhaps God hears our tiny voice in the ether, with no messengers in between. These things remain a mystery.

Science is equally mysterious though. After years of experiments exploring notions around John Stewart Bell's theorem - which states that reality is non-local - physics now claim that subatomic particles that were once in contact always remain in contact, even if on opposite sides of the universe or planet. This can be measured because a change in one such particle elicits the same change in the other, whatever the distance, and instantaneously. If we all came from the same atomic source, even a very long time ago, we are all related to the ultimate source - which some call God. Some subatomic  molecules are now more related to others, but ultimately, we all came form the same place.

Is it then possible to conceive that - to varying degrees  - all molecules of the universe have this bizarre  (but natural) ability to communicate instantaneously with each other, and act upon each other?  We've heard it in theology and poetry  -' that we are all brothers and sisters under the skin' - but now science is now working towards proving it true.

The word 'pray' derives from the Latin word precare, to entreat. This word carries a humble, supplicatory connotation, and in times of great need we may appeal to God in some desperation. More usually though, prayer is like talking to a good friend on the telephone, a reassuring, happy time. The difference is that, unlike any human friend, the friend at the end of the universal telephone line knows everything about us anyway, so there's no point in trying to hide anything and we can be totally frank and honest.

Prayers are not always answered. Earthquakes, tidal waves, tornadoes and hurricanes sweep the planet and cause loss of life and destruction, despite prayers. People become ill and die, although they lead exemplary lives and are needed here on earth. These facts have deeply disturbed people, and given rise to much spiritual despair.

Like many others, I have explored these questions through various spiritual traditions : some of which explain it by karmic law and reincarnation; others by divine retribution and 'the sins of the fathers'; others believe that God does not intercede in the lives of individual people; while some think in terms of 'life lessons', or 'their purpose being served'.

The natural events are fairly easy to understand, as the planet - upon which we all depend - must be allowed to move and breathe at its own pace. It takes precedence over us. As for unwell people, that is the mystery - not surprisingly as we can't see the whole picture. If we knew everything , perhaps even their suffering would make sense. Plus a good deal of suffering is brought upon oneself or is the result of other human beings acting on us - 'it's all people's fault', and God punishes us collectively.

All this is very difficult, but, if nothing else, it makes us question things, including what we do to our selves, to other people, and the planet. This dynamic may work like this; if there is a cluster of child leukaemia cases in a particular location, society questions the cause and a nearby nuclear plant is thought to be the source of contamination and its closure is recommended.

In the short term, the planet may benefit. Although the children and their parents might think they are suffering alone, we are thinking of them and they are providing the fuel of determination  which drives many an anti-pollution campaign.This is just an example of cause and effect, the parameters of which are difficult for individual sufferers to see.

There are many other such examples, and examples of suffering which seem totally needless.

But there may be factors in the equation we cannot guess at, even perhaps that which we tell our children when someone dies: The angels needed them.'

Given that not all questions or prayers can be answered, prayer still offers many benefits. It gives people peace and spiritual upliftment; offers hope for good health and help in all forms; a chance to express thanks for our blessings; the space to question ourselves or our situation; and the courage to change.

In prayer, we arrive at a quite place, a place of spirit. This place is in our hearts, there when we need it, and it has been a sanctuary for many people on this earth who have suffered greatly - as hostages or when under torture, for example - who say that being able to escape to that place of prayer was the thing that pulled them through.

it's easier to contact the higher vibrational beings when we have the atmosphere, the peace and relaxation, when no everyday thoughts crowd our minds and we can be still; for it is in the stillness that God's love and peace can be felt. And, perhaps, in that stillness we can hear the voice.

Reference: The Fragrant Heavens / Valerie Ann Worwood

Prayer

A woman who did not believe in God went into labour. A couple of hours later she was oblivious to everything in the delivery room, unaware of how many people were there or what was going on. She was in another very deep space, and started repeating the words, 'Oh God, Oh Jesus'. She prayed for help when it was most needed. Many people turn to prayer in times of great need, almost unwittingly.

Other people have faith every day - they consciously believe in something or some One; and when they pray they have a direction in which to focus their thoughts. Faith is like love - it's either in you or not, to a varying degree, and some-times it is hidden deep within.

Someone might ask, 'How can you believe in God  - and who has ever seen Him?' Yet this same person might believe there are 'wormholes' in space, because scientists have calculated so - although nobody has ever seen one. Some people acquired faith in childhood, because it was all around them and they felt it too. Other people find faith suddenly, it hits them like a thunderbolt; while others feel a shimmer of faith within them and seek to expand the light.

Prayer is a way of contacting and tapping into higher spiritual knowledge, a connection to higher realms, the means by which we connect to the heavens and God. It's an interface between us and the universe, a way in which the small voice may be heard. We give thanks, or ask for miracles. People reach for the intergalactic telephone every time grace is said at dinner, either alone on the private line or with the family making a conference call. Jesus said we should ask for our daily bread, ask for forgiveness for our trespasses, and that we be delivered from evil. This many people still do: asking for a rise at work, forgiveness for doing what is known to be wrong, and protection from the hard world outside.

Throughout the millennia, all over the world, people have sought help, and some have had their prayers answered. In 1997, the American magazine Newsweek published the results of their prayer survey: 87 per cent said God answered their prayers.

In scientific experiments involving humans, sceptics can always say that psychosomatic influences are involved; The human mind imagines things. This can't be said with plants. It is, then, interesting to know that when plants are prayed for - to grow healthy and lush - they respond positively.

Author of the book The Power Of Prayer on Plants, Revd Loehr, carried out 100,000 measurements on 27,000 seedlings, resulting from 700 experiments involving 150 praying people. He concluded that plants that had been prayed for, in relation to the control groups, germinated earlier, grew faster and with more vigor, had a better chance of survival, and had more resistance to insects.

Since the 1960's there have been around 3000 scientific trials exploring the possibility that the human mind can affect living matter at a distance. In 1990 Daniel Benor reviewed 131 trial reports in a paper entitled Survey of Spiritual Healing Research. The subjects influenced during the trials included humans, mice, plants, red blood cells, fungi/yeast enzymes and bacteria.

The positive results of the trials were found in fifty-six cases to have less than one chance in a hundred of being due to chance, and in additional twenty-one studies the chance was between two and five chances in a hundred. In scientific terms these are significant results, and show that the mind can influence living matter.

Reference: The Fragrant Heavens / Valerie Ann Worwood…...Read More....Prayer - 2

Prayer and Meditation

Human beings have always yearned to contact infinite consciousness; they reach out- and find. The two universal ways this can be done are through prayer and meditation. Prayer is very proactive, in that we have something specific in our minds, and go for it. We ask for healing, help in finding love or a job. We entreat, with emotion. We ask for blessing, and give thanks.

Meditation, on the other hand, is passive. We empty our minds, stop thinking about health, love and the job, and go deep within. We try to go beyond the cluttered mind: past the senses, the intellect, the creative impulse, and past even the spiritual layer of ourselves, to completely merge with cosmic consciousness.

It has been said that prayer is our way of contacting God, and meditation is the means by which we get the reply. But prayer also gives the reply - it is a two-way channel of communication. Meditation certainly offers a reply, in that answers to unposed questions might come to a person, but it is also a way of reaching the light and wisdom of God. Both are about communication with the divinity, although prayer reaches out, and meditation in. 

Prayer reaches out in supplication and humility; recognizing our connection with the divine, our familial relationship; saying 'Our father who art in heaven....'Meditation also recognizes a familiar relationship: between the original creative force that gave rise to the vibrations of the universe,now manifest in countless physical forms including us.

The connectedness of things beyond our immediate life is at the root of both prayer and meditation, and is that which we yearn for. The warmth of connection enfolds us like a mother's arms, giving reassurance, comfort and the strength to go on.

Fragrance has accompanied many prayers to heaven, and provided the heavenly scent that can act as the focus for meditation. It acts as an avenue, a pathway, a slide, a conduit or rocket to the stars.

Fragrance opens the consciousness, relaxes the mind and body, and puts us in another space - one where we are open and receptive to spiritual exploration.

Reference:The Fragrant Heavens / Valerie Ann Worwood