Prayer

This Journal entry is a writing about prayer and what it is in our lives.

Prayer is continually moving through the heart. Our lives are a conduit of prayer, whether we are thinking about praying, or not. The energy and carrier frequency of prayer moves through our heart unceasingly and without pause, and is connected to all aspects of the universe. It is also connected to the unseen and unheard worlds of the multidimensional planes of existence.

When we are engaged in conscious intentional prayer, we are thinking of words in our brains which wind up accompanying whatever the energy frequency is that is already ongoing in our heart. Most of us never think about our hearts and the energy coming from our hearts when we offer prayers. However, we should be feeling and aligning our brain thoughts and heart energies in prayer. What this really means is that we should be aligning our brain thoughts to improved heart frequencies as much as possible, all of the time, with more mindfulness. In doing so, we should be striving to align our brain thoughts and brain frequency with our heart’s best carrier frequency.

The best frequency of the heart is known as resonant frequency. All mammalian hearts have the same resonant frequency, which is 0.1 cycles per second (hertz).

When our heart is in this frequency we can access higher cognitive states, higher emotional states, higher intuitive states, and our hearts can entrain other hearts which are nearby. Our hearts can also entrain other hearts which are at a distance via quantum field effects. When our hearts are in resonant frequency, then we are not in the polarized extreme frequencies of fight-flight (sympathetic nervous system), or overwhelm (parasympathetic nervous system).

These facts were introduced and explored in 4 previous Journals from 2017 which deal with heart energetics. These Journals are listed and linked at the very end of this writing. The most foundational of those 4 writings, as relates to this writing about prayer, is The Spiral of Life. In this Journal I explain the anatomy of the helical ventricular myocardial band, the HVMB, as it is called. The 2 counter-rotating components of the ventricular muscle create the electromagnetic conduit which connects our lives to everything.

When the heart is functioning in the very low frequency of the sympathetic nervous system or in the high frequency of the parasympathetic nervous system, then our heart becomes an incoherent (chaotic) interface in the circuit of the prayer dynamic.

Be that as it may, and for the purposes of this writing, I would like to try to put into yet more word abstractions what it is that I have discovered about prayer. Even though we usually use words to pray, or to describe prayer, in its purest form, prayer is beyond our word abstractions.

As stated, the carrier frequencies of prayer are always present in our hearts, whether we are thinking about praying, or not. The energies of finer spirit forces are always flowing to our hearts, through our hearts, around our hearts, and from our hearts. While this is a standing (scalar) wave, it is also a circuit of universal energies moving to, through, around, and from our hearts in an unceasing fashion. When our body ceases its human life functions and we transition onward into finer realms of existence, these same universal energies accompany our heart.

The prayers of our hearts are known by the same Source from which their carrier frequency originates. This Source is the Divine spirit force which sustains and embellishes our lives with everything that we need to keep living; like air, water, food, and other things. Source energy also surrounds and interpenetrates our bodies; working via our spirit to enliven our bodies.

Consider the following words from a speech delivered by Max Planck in Florence, Italy, in 1944. Planck was the originator of quantum theory and was awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics. He said, “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Spirit. This Spirit is the matrix of all matter.”

We can practice calming our brain thoughts and aligning our brain activity with what’s going on in our hearts. This is one way to describe meditative and contemplative practice. We can create deeper understanding, appreciation, and happiness in our lives. We can also practice improving our heart energetics daily, as much as possible, little by little, by getting in touch with our heart and discovering what it is doing besides pumping blood around.

Back in the mid 1980s I was called upon to present a talk to a group of dignitaries at a meeting place in downtown Boulder, Colorado. The group literally wanted me to explain my life. I don’t know how else to state what the intention of my little speech was supposed to be, except to say that I had some explaining to do. So, I decided to arrange a carousel slide show which covered an assortment of topics which held my interest at the time, and just try to let the pictures do some of the talking. My intention was to explain my understanding of healing, medicine, and spirituality, and how it was that I came to understand these intertwined aspects of my life.

I recall that at one point in the presentation I tried to describe my understanding of prayer and how it is always going on in every second of our lives. It is not necessarily an activity that we have to set aside some time for, because it is something that is always going on in our lives, just like breathing. However, in order to align with prayer in its spoken or unspoken form, it is important to approach our hearts.

There is a quote from an unknown source that I can offer here, “Go to thy bosom, knock there, ask what thy heart doth know.”

Breath and blood and prayer converge and circulate around in the heart, and then they come forth from the heart. This is one easy way to begin thinking about some of these ideas.

Other Peoples’ Voices…OPV

Our problems start when counterproductive thinking activities of the brain override the intention and messaging of our hearts. I call these brain thoughts by their rightful names: the Judge, the Critic, the Skeptic, the Pusher, and the Victim. The origin of these 5 bandits of happiness can always be traced back into the early times when we were conditioned as children. It is very important to quiet this obtrusive group of terrorists because they damage the heart, and make coherent conscious intentional loving prayer nigh on impossible.

I call these 5 bandits of happiness by another umbrella name…Other Peoples’ Voices, or, OPV.

OPV is all of the voices of other people which are still informing your consciousness in a negative manner. These are people from your past who have brought you into feelings of shame, guilt, grief, fear, and inadequacy. It is people like your family members, teachers in school and church, sports coaches, your generic authoritarians, mainstream advertising and marketing sharks, and just about any other kind of energy vampire and rip-off artist you can think of.

OPV is not the real you, and so, you can just get to know them, and then learn how to reject or let go of them as you discover the real you. Learn how to use mature anger to form needed boundaries on the inside of you and on the outside of you. Learn to form boundaries to OPV inside of you, and learn also to form boundaries to OPV’s real representatives on the outside of you when OPV shows up, once again, in your daily life.

If you notice your brain terrorizing your heart with the words of the Judge, Critic, Skeptic, Pusher, and Victim then you need to replace those words with certainty, conviction, and intention using some healing words like, “I deeply love and accept myself.” This can be your mantra at any time you find yourself reeling in the expanse of any negative thoughts. Such a reset might help you reorient your brain thoughts in the moment and shift to less stressful thoughts. You will move away from creating more trouble for yourself and others by releasing such faulty thinking.

While you may be consulting with a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or some other type of adviser, I suggest that you also start learning about how to get in touch with and reach into your heart. Life will give you an opportunity to do so with every passing second and with every passing heartbeat and breath that you are granted. It’s important. Heart disease and other types of tissue chaos are very troublesome problems to deal with. Furthermore, global and human suffering can be helped by the goodness coming from one heart.

We should never underestimate the importance of our existence and the supreme importance of our hearts in the intelligent field of Creation.

During my presentation in Boulder I am not sure that I was very successful in bringing forth the right words at that time to convey my felt understanding. Words do have limitations, but there is often some user inadequacy in play. The user of the words may have more limitations with using the words than the words have limitations.

We can approach deeper prayer and knowing by contemplating and entering the empty space around words, and by allowing Spirit to first stretch out, and then fill in all the gaps in an unspoken way. This dynamic happens via the heart. The space between words and each breath begins to elongate into expanded awareness.

Thus, a very fine form of prayer happens as we allow more and more space to grow between the words we are thinking. As the thoughts slow down, and then cease, we have entered into a form of consciousness known as meditation.

Furthermore, in consideration of our struggle with words, might Spirit hear us better than we can think? Could it be that all of our desires are known before we can think them?

The practice of prayerful contemplation and meditation strengthens faith and knowing through direct experience rather than knowing through the conventional conditioning of institutional dogmas and doctrines. These agencies have tremendous limitations imposed by their words and agendas (OPV). They seem to want to operate by controlling our thinking and subjugating our authenticity through guilt, shame, and fear.

The Forms of Prayer

Many people have explained prayer down through the ages. Descriptive words have been assigned to name different types of prayer. There are prayers of blessing, praise, thanksgiving, petition, intercession, communion, repentance, forgiveness, worship, public prayer, private prayer, consecration, and so on.

There is also a form of prayer known as imprecation. To imprecate means to curse or speak evil toward someone. However, in the Judeo-Christian Bible this type of prayer has a different context which is about loving our enemies (our harsh teachers), and praying for their good.

When we are angry, vengeful, resentful, or feeling other synonymous feeling states of shadow anger, then we are overriding the natural frequency of the heart. As angry brain thoughts hijack the heart, then the heart’s resonant frequency is overriden. Being subjugated to brain override, the heart emantes chaotic frequencies out into Kingdom Come. It is best to continue to try to calm and heal the heart if it is fearful, angry, or putting out the energetic of the facade of false pride (hubris).

Jesus spoke about and demonstrated different forms of prayer. In his teaching and example, we may note the prayer of words in the Lord’s Prayer, and also his advice to “ask” and “knock” (Matthew 7:7). From these and Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper, Christians have developed various forms of social, public, and liturgical prayer, often centering around intercession, gratitude, and worship.

Jesus also taught prayer beyond words: “praying in secret” (Matthew 6:5-6), “not babbling on as the Gentiles do” (Matthew 6:7), or his predawn lonely prayer (Mark 1:35), because “your Father knows what you need even before you ask” (Matthew 6:8). All of our prayers and needs are known by the Divine consciousness which helped co-create them in the first place.

It is important that formulaic and memorized prayer be balanced with prayer beyond words. The heart is always in prayer in a form which is beyond words. It is good to align one’s consciousness with the silence of the heart’s flowing energies.

What goes around does indeed come back around to us, and to others, in regard to the heart energetic field. There is no question about this fact. It helps prayer practice to become conscious and accountable to the energy that comes from our heart, is pumped around inside of our bodies in our blood, and is breathed back out into the expanse of all of the Universe.

You and I have breathed the very same molecules of air that every person and every bird and every beast that has ever lived on this precious little planet we travel on has also breathed in the past. Furthermore, without the plants we would not even have any oxygen in that air that we breathe…at all.

Our Feathered Friends

This morning a small bird struck a window near to where I was sitting, and I saw it fall like a rock. I rushed outside to help the bird. If you can get them upright, they have a chance to recover. I have helped nuthatches, chickadees, tanagers, and even a delicate hummingbird back to flight filled lives.

In this instance the bird was a goldfinch and it was lying there as still as a stone. I gathered it up in my hands and proceeded to sit on an outside bench under the boughs of a juniper tree. This is a peaceful place to sit and it offers much beauty. I held my little patient and proceeded to quiet my mind in order to let Creation take over the prayer.

By and by the little bird’s eyes would open slightly for a few seconds, but then it would nod off and go limp. Every so often I would gently stroke its feathers as if trying to awaken it. After about 30 minutes of holding and tending the goldfinch, it was able to keep its eyes open. Its legs and feet began to stir with more life. And then, it stood up, tensed its body, and as fast as I can blink it flew off with a whirring flutter of its wings into the high boughs of the juniper tree where it completed its recovery.

The scene looked like this shortly before liftoff…

 

As I sat there with my fallen feathered friend I recalled words in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

“He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best all things both great and small.

For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.”

The Ancient Mariner told his story to a person who was traveling to a wedding. He had to captivate the wedding guest who resisted hearing the old man at first, but soon the wedding guest was drawn beyond fear and into fascination as the Mariner spun his tale.

I believe that the Ancient Mariner was destined to endure the many rigors and hardships of the voyage which he had experienced so that he could learn how to tell his story about coming to a prayerful life.

The heart is the central organizing intelligence of our lives. It is the processor of our wondrous and mysterious entanglement in the infinite multidimensional matrix of Creation. Our lives are a continuum which encompass our pre-birth spiritual existence, our uterine existence, our post uterine existence, and our reemergence back into our afterlife spiritual existence. These are the major milestone chapters of our ongoing and ever evolving spiritual journey. It is helpful to contemplate one’s own understanding of this healing continuum.

We know these chapters best through the hub of all of the sacred places…the heart.

A happy heart is a healthy heart, and a healed heart is a healed life.

“In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”…from Mahatma Gandhi

Wishing you the best that life and Love have to offer.

Signing off from Crestone and Beyond

Postscript…a few days after this writing a goldfinch reappeared on a sage bush just outside near the window it struck. It had the same markings as the goldfinch I held. Was it the same goldfinch? It lingered a while, and then it flew away…a happy little bird.

Heart Electromagnetics

Here are the 4 website Journals about heart electromagnetics. As stated, the heart has all-important life sustaining functions aside from its neuromuscular pumping function. This growing body of research and information is covered in these 4 extended writings about Heart Electromagnetics:

• Part I…The Pulse of Life
• Part II…The Spiral of Life
• Part III…The Prayer of Life
• Part IV…The Beginning of Life

A Helpful Video…this 3 minute video from HeartMath explains some of the concepts presented in this Journal.

Associated Readings

1. Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds–Part I–Akasha…a 31 minute video production of excellent quality and content which embraces and conveys much of the finer subtle essence of what I am trying to convey in this writing about prayer.
2. Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population…the first research paper published in a medical journal about the effects of intercessory prayer on health outcomes, published in the July, 1988 edition of Southern Medical Journal. Here is a condensed abstract of this now famous publication.
3. Becoming Compassion Part I and Part II…2 writings on this website explaining a teaching from the Essenes about how we can live and become compassion.
4. Adverse Childhood Events…a writing on this website about the source of the wounded heart. Unresolved trauma is the source of all of our problems as individuals and as a society. The traumatized heart must be healed for the sake of happiness, health, and the evolution of spirit in our lives.
5. Parenting, Part II and Parenting, Part III…these Journals present the 4 stages of the child and the 4 stages of the adult, as first described through the psychological research of Erik Erikson. Our patterns of learned distress and identity crisis can be understood and worked with when we understand the 4 stages of psychological growth of the child and the tensional opposites and life virtues which should be developed at each stage. It is most important to understand your inner child’s issues first before trying to grapple with the identity crisis issues of your adult.
6. Minding your Meditation…a writing on this website about how to still the intrusive thought waves of the brain mind. The 3 processes of meditation are explained in this writing: the relaxation response, witness consciousness, and mindfulness. In this writing I explain the “gap” and its significance.
7. A Fortnight of Time…a early writing on this website, from 2009, which attempts to address abstract concepts of time and how we attract what manifests in our life from what I call a future memory. Future memories manifest in our Now based on the orientation of our hearts. We pray with our hearts. If our hearts are being informed by good or bad past memories, then the future memories we attract and manifest will be likewise.
8. An Archive of Articles about the Heart…a page featuring some of the HeartMath Institute’s many research articles about the heart.
9. Gratitude Makes You Healthier, Happier, and More Popular…a nice summary article about the positive effects of gratitude. Gratitude is good for the heart and everything connected to it. Strategies are presented to help strengthen gratitude. Expressing thanks through prayer is just one way to cultivate gratitude.
10. Inner Stillness…a meditation to help create more inner stillness and turn off the brain mind bandits that terrorize the heart.
11. Senses, Sciences, Mystics, and the Search for God…my friend Mark Macy gives a nice summary of an age old quest and suggests that we learn how to go within to find truth. I tell the story about how Mark and I came together here.
12. The Present Moment…one of several writings on this website about how to foster a healthy brain. A healthy brain usually means that the entire body is also healthy. A healthy brain can more easily align with the heart.
13. The Mysteries of the Heart…a very nice infographic review of some of the facts about the heart which were covered in the 4 writings on this website about heart electromagnetics.
14. The Cloud of Unknowing by an unknown author, a late 14th century treatise on Christian contemplative prayer…a tradition lost by the Christian church, and should be revived…”Here beginneth a book of contemplation, the which is called the CLOUD OF UNKNOWING, in which a soul is oned with God,” says the author as the writing commences. The principles written in this text mirror the principles written in all of the myriad texts on meditation.
15. Love Without Conditions, Reflections of the Christ Mind…a 1994 writing by Paul Ferrini. The book is written in a very simple style. A surgical patient gave me this book in 1998. I still read and contemplate it. Each short paragraph will cause you to stop and reflect.
16. Hesychasm…this is the process of retiring inwardly by ceasing to succumb to the senses, in order to achieve an experiential knowledge of one’s inner Divinity. This is a Greek term which encompasses the prayer injunction seen in Matthew 6:6 which reads “when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray.” In other words, Jesus was imploring us to close ourselves off from brain mind thinking. The Greek word means stillness, rest, quiet, silence, and to keep stillness. This process has the same essence as Buddhist and yogic forms of spiritual practice. It is true heart based spiritual consciousness. Here is another informative link which explains hesychasm.
17. How to Pray, and Why…Mark Macy explains some of the very important considerations about prayer which I did not explain any of in the writing above. This short writing from 9-23-18 is a nice one, and is recommended.
18. How A Pause Can Save The Day…please pause to read this brief writing about one more reason to get in touch with your heart.
19. A Grateful Heart…”Daily blessings for the evening meal from Buddha to the Beatles”…this little book is very nice.
20. Centering Prayer…from Richard Rohr’s website archives, we have a nice brief explanation of centering prayer, as taught by Thomas Keating. This method of prayer is essentially no different from meditation, as is explained above in reading reference #5.
21. The Unconscious…another excellent Daily Meditations writing from Richard Rohr which briefly explores the relationship between prayer, the unconscious, and meditation. “If we do not discover a prayer practice that ‘invades’ our unconscious and reveals what is hidden, we will actually change very little over our lifetime.”
22. Beginner’s Mind…another nice Daily Meditation on prayer from Richard Rohr’s website, posted here on 1-11-19.
23. Top 12 Tips to Strengthen Gratitude…the benefits of culturing gratitude and practices to enhance gratitude are covered here.
24. World Within Worlds-Our Connection to the Source…my friend Mark Macy posts a very nice short writing about our connection to the Source.
25. Be Kind and Loving to Yourself–It’s Good for You…posted here on Valentine’s Day, 2019, this writing and tapping experience will help open self love in your heart, your feelings, and your thoughts.
26. God’s Temple…Richard Rohr explains kataphatic and apophatic prayer, as well as the Indwelling Spirit in this 5-31-19 daily meditation.
27. The Swinging of the Botafumeiro in the Cathedral of the Santiago de Compestela…at the bottom of this webpage about the Santiago de Compestela is a 2 minute video showing the swinging of the famed botafumeiro thurible. This amazing event allows many to access a state of prayer and wonder.
28. Consumed with Love…a beautiful contemplation from Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation, 7-5-19, about the Divinity within and how this connects us to the Divinity in all things and events.
29. Participation…a nice description of prayer in this brief writing from Richard Rohr, posted here on 8-11-19.
30. 50 Ways to Pray: Practices from Many Traditions and Times…a book by Teresa A. Blythe. The explosion of interest today in Christian mystics, ancient prayer practices, and guided meditations speaks to a need for more hands-on tools that will help us pray in traditional as well as new and exciting ways. This book is intended to address that need.
31. Prayer as Skillful Means…Sensei Pat Enkyo O’Hara offers some thoughts about prayer from the Buddhist perspective.
32. The Field of Love…Richard Rohr offers a scientific bridge to one reason why prayer is.
33. Worship or Transformation…Richard Rohr describes a technique of using the heart to get out of brain based polarized thinking and rumination about people and events…”Many have described prayer as bringing our thinking down into our heart. Next time a resentment, negativity, or irritation comes into your mind, for example, and you want to play it out or attach to it, consciously move that thought or person into your heart space.”
34. Inner Silence…this offering from Richard Rohr is a nice description of the importance of silence.
35. A Practical Twofold Process…another short beautiful writing by Richard Rohr about stillness and prayer.
36. A story of a penguin named Din Din and the man named Joao who saved it…this is a precious testimony to everything good about our interconnectedness to all of life. This story is from 2016.
37. Mind, Body, Heart…beautiful words to read and contemplate. A nice prayer style is offered. This is from Richard Rohr’s group.
38. The Prayer of Francis and Claire…another writing from Richard Rohr which presents a short summary of the style of prayer used by St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) and St. Clare (1194–1253).
39. Hearing Silence…a short and full contemplation about silence, which frames all sound. This beautiful description of silence will help your understanding of what is known in meditative prayer as “the gap.”
40. Molting…a personal reflection from Lin Jensen about birds molting and about how his consciousness molts also.
41. Birds Flying Into Windows? Truths About Birds & Glass Collisions from ABC Experts…a lot of helpful information about bird strikes on glass. A 2014 estimate indicates there are about a billion bird strikes a year in the USA. The fatality rate is about 65%.
42. The Aramaic Prayer of Jesus (“The Lord’s Prayer”)…the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic as Jesus may have first spoken it. “Original transliteration and translation from the Peshitta (Syriac-Aramaic) version of Matthew 6:9-13 & Luke 11:2-4.”
43. The Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic…this is one of several 30 minute presentations by Dr. Rocco Errico who is an expert in the subtleties of the Aramaic language. This language, which arose about 12,500 years before Jesus in the Aram region of lower Syria, is poetic. Each word or phrase can have different meanings depending on context of time, place, events, and the intent of the user. Dr. Errico presents deeper meanings inherent in the phrases of the Lord’s Prayer. In the sequential presentations he covers each phrase of the prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is a wonderful contemplation of creation and its Creator.
44. The Original Lord’s Prayer in Ancient Aramaic…a YouTube presentation of what the Lord’s Prayer sounds like when spoken in Aramaic. “This is the Nazarene transliteration and translation of the Lord’s Prayer from ancient Aramaic, a language spoken by Yeshua (Jesus). When compared to the Lord’s Prayer found in the bible, we see just how much the traditional version morphed from its original essence. Yeshua was an Essene of the Nazarene sect and there is even indication of this in the bible, in ACTS 24:5.”
45. The Nazarean Way… an extensive website presenting the “Esoteric Teachings of Jesus and the Nazarean Essenes.”…”Dedicated to recovering the original teachings of the historical ‘Jesous The Nassarean’ and ‘Maria The Magdalene.'” This is a fascinating website compendium that one can get lost in. Here is one link about The Modes of Prayer. There are probably as many ways to pray as there are people who pray. Like I stated in the main text above, prayer is always happening in the heart. Jesus taught love, truth, and purity of the heart. Being pure in the heart is key.
46. Joy of Birdwatching Boosts Mental Health, Study Finds…posted here on 5-20-24. A new study from the University of Exeter shows birdwatching significantly boosts mental health, reducing stress and enhancing well-being. Lead researcher Dr. Daniel Cox explains, “Birdwatching combines physical activity, cognitive engagement, and connection with nature, all contributing to improved mental health.” Participants who spent just 10 minutes observing birds felt more relaxed and happier. Regular birdwatchers had lower stress levels and a more positive outlook on life, proving that this simple activity can have profound effects on mental health. “You don’t need special equipment or training, just a willingness to look and listen,” Dr. Cox notes. This study debunks the myth that effective mental health practices are complicated or costly, highlighting birdwatching as an accessible way to boost happiness and well-being. Birdwatching is immersive and meditative.

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In this endnote section is a September 8, 2018, message from Franciscan priest and teacher Richard Rohr who I have referenced above, and who heads up the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In this message he explains how to manage the Judge, the Critic, the Skeptic, the Pusher, and the Victim. The heart is the place of silence and integration of all aspects of our lives…