Ayahuasca Retreat Center

Sometimes people ask, “How do I pray?”

What I ask next is, “Who are you praying to? Really?”

We have to look at what prayers really are. Most times we are asking for a “favor” from God, right? Please bring me the right spouse, the right job, a better car, good health, a better life, something. We are usually asking for a situation to be given to us that we don’t have.

First let’s look at who God is. Is it a friendly fatherly figure high in the sky who is constantly listening to our prayers and passing out wishes? Is it some big spirit somewhere in space who blesses us with our requests and oversees the world and the universe? Who is God? Where is God? What is the God phenomenon?

In my belief, (and this is just my opinion of course) God is the consciousness that is in each and every one of us, every blade of grass, every animal, every tree, every molecule, every atom, and even the empty space. This is how God can be everywhere at the same time. All of this that we see and experience is God dreaming, thinking, experiencing its creation. So if God is omnipresent because sentience is at the core of every minute particle in existence, then there is no central figure in the middle of it all answering prayers.

So how do we pray then? What is the purpose of prayer if there isn’t “someone” listening and answering them. All of us have experienced praying and our prayers seemed to be answered somehow, so it must be that someone is listening, right?

When I pray, I feel that rather than praying to someone I am instead praying to creation, and in this way I am praying to what God really is, which includes me as part of this ocean of consciousness that God is. “Please create this with me,” rather than, “Please give me something,” as if there is something separate from me that gives it to me. I look at it more like aligning myself with the forces of creation and “asking” these forces to create something with me, together. Let’s create this together. I will do whatever I need to do to line up with this energy, and then I ask the energy to come toward me.

When I feel my prayer go out into the creation, it seems that certain particles, or energies, that line up with what it is that I want to create, that would like to be part of that creation, turn their attention and start moving toward me, toward creating this thing I want to create. It’s more like a calling of all particles of creation, the raw creation material of the universe, to come and become this manifested “something” that I want to create. It feels more like a co-operation together with other material in creation that matches me or what I want to create, all of it being part of myself, rather than looking at it as if it is separate.  Then it seems to manifest, takes time, but it manifests!

So don’t pray like a beggar. Pray like a co-creator, as if you are PART of the creation process in the universe. The universe is a friendly place, and if there is a part of creation that wants to create that with you, it does!