If prayer works

Would it be realistic to shake my head and say: "Well, I prayed, I did ask. But God didn't respond. Therefore imo there's no God"
 
But if you believed in God, it would not be unrealistic to ask a favour of God? If a person believed in God, they would not think it unrealistic to address reasonable requests?

But would it be reasonable to ask God to turn Monday back to Sunday because I don't want to go to work? Or to bring my mother back to life so I can tell her I'm sorry?
Me thinks you have made my point for me.
 
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Me thinks you have made my point for me.

I believe It's not realistic to take positions about God, based on our human senses. I believe it's realistic to be quiet. Let God be. Let the spirit be.

God doesn't need to put on a performance. God is there for the hopeless and the lost, when ego is gone, imo

"To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the market places and calling out to others:
‘We piped for you, and you did not dance; we mourned, and you did not weep'
Matthew 11: 16-17
 
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There are higher and lower things. All states of being are not equal. There are shades and degrees of everything. It's never simple binary, black or white, imo

"Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me. By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life"
Psalm 42: 7-8

Who cares about football matches?
 
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The Lost Majiqal Art of Prayer

Prayer is a "lost" magiqal art. It has become rote recitations or simple wish-making. Prayer originally was a process of concentrated visualization, combined with emotional and mental energy, properly grounded to the physical through proper vocalization. The spoken Word became in essence praying, this was first understood by the ancient Egyptians in the way of Affirmations and made manifest in (Heka) vibrational magic. Efforts were made to align sound with the principles of a cosmic order (natural ordering of the universe) which perhaps could be seen as a LOGOS, the dialog with that part of your Self that has the ability to create any condition you need or desire.

The invocation within a prayer unites our meditative state of consciousness with the power of the Word and our innate force of Will. The mechanism behind this is the same mechanism found in incantations. The word incantation comes from the Latin root "inner" and "sing". Originally someone qualified to perform the prayer/incantation was needed, average people of the community did not believe they possessed such a magical link as did their shaman, priest, or sorcerer.

The prayer works the same way that Haitian Vodou does, through the power of suggestion which can be explained more scientifically through neuroplasticity. With any incantation one is either seeking to create change within or to unveil some hidden truths also from within. The priest or shaman is the one who makes some change in objective reality by delivering the prayer or incantation. This is called an illocutionary force.
 
I believe God answers spiritual prayers in regards to our personal life. God is here for the individual
 
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I was told by my teacher that prayer is black magic. To pray for would peace is a act of manipulation. Some people don't want world peace they want to battle and fight. If you try to force them into peace, all you will do is fall into a battle of good vs evil. But good isn't real and neither is bad. It is only when you throw down your own sword that battle will come to a end. One should only pray for them self, and to your question is god listening. All I have to say is, are you listening. If god is consciousness and consciousness is only awareness. Then are you being aware. Felling the experience is allowing the experience. Are you allowing when you are try to manipulative others. Other people's battles aren't yours, you can be aware of them. Without taking part in them.
 
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I was told by my teacher that prayer is black magic. To pray for would peace is a act of manipulation. Some people don't want world peace they want to battle and fight. If you try to force them into peace, all you will do is fall into a battle of good vs evil. But good isn't real and neither is bad. It is only when you throw down your own sword that battle will come to a end. One should only pray for them self, and to your question is god listening. All I have to say is, are you listening. If god is consciousness and consciousness is only awareness. Then are you being aware. Felling the experience is allowing the experience. Are you allowing when you are try to manipulative others. Other people's battles aren't yours, you can be aware of them. Without taking part in them.
I'm not sure what type of teacher that is. Can you introduce youself?

Biblically we are to pray for peace. The bible is my teacher.
 
Prayer, as I see it, is a dialogue between the Absolute and the contingent.

From Frithjof Schuon:
Prayer: The remembrance of God is at the same time a forgetting of oneself; conversely, the ego is a kind of crystallisation of forgetfulness of God. The brain is, as it were, the organ of this forgetfulness; it is like a sponge filled with images of this world of dispersion and of heaviness, filled too with the tendencies of the ego towards both dispersal and hardening. As for the heart, it is the latent remembrance of God, hidden deep down in our “I”; prayer is as if the heart, risen to the surface, came to take the place of the brain which then sleeps with a holy slumber; this slumber unites and soothes, and its most elementary trace in the soul is peace. “I sleep, but my heart waketh.” (Understanding Islam, The Path)

Prayer (aim of individual): The aim of individual prayer is not only to obtain particular favours, but also the purification of the soul: it loosens psychological knots or, in other words, dissolves subconscious coagulations and drains away many a secret poison; it externalises before God the difficulties, failures and tensions of the soul, which presupposes that the soul be humble and upright; this externalisation – carried out in face of the Absolute – has the virtue of reestablishing equilibrium and restoring peace, in a word, of opening us to grace. (Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, 52)

Prayer (quintessential): The important thing to grasp here is that actualisation of the consciousness of the Absolute, namely the “remembrance of God” or “prayer,” insofar as it brings about a fundamental confrontation of creature and Creator, anticipates every station on the two axes. It is already a death and a meeting with God and it places us already in Eternity; it is already something of Paradise and even, in its mysterious and “uncreated” quintessence, something of God. Quintessential prayer brings about an escape from the world and from life, and thereby confers a new and Divine sap upon the veil of appearances and the current of forms, and a fresh meaning to our presence amid the play of phenomena.

Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgment and Eternity. Likewise in this center, this Divine point which I am free to choose in the face of this boundless and multiple world, I am already in invisible Reality. (Logic and Transcendence, Man and Certainty)


The human stands as an interface between the two – that is the point of human being, and the essence of prayer.
 
I'm not sure what type of teacher that is. Can you introduce youself?

Biblically we are to pray for peace. The bible is my teacher.
My teacher taught metaphysics and enlightenment. Pray can be used to great effect, when you Illuminate yourself. You illuminate all of creation. When you use it to Commune with god It is a divine and beautiful thing. But when you try to force the light of god onto someone who didn't ask for it, you will get a resistance. In other words you'll have a battle. And if it is your purpose to bring world peace how does this help. The best advice I have is just too allow yourself to be illuminated and let them see the light that you bring forth. At some point they'll realize you've found a better way, And follow of their own accord. So I guess it comes down to if you believe that god gave you the gift of free will or not. If freewill is god given who are you to take it away from someone else. If these are thing you don't believe in. Then just disregard anything that I wrote. I not here to convert anybody. I hope you have a wonderful day and thank you for your question. If I did not answer your question to your satisfaction just let me know.
 
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My teacher taught metaphysics and enlightenment. Pray can be used to great effect, when you Illuminate yourself. You illuminate all of creation. When you use it to Commune with god It is a divine and beautiful thing. But when you try to force the light of god onto someone who didn't ask for it, you will get a resistance. In other words you'll have a battle. And if it is your purpose to bring world peace how does this help. The best advice I have is just too allow yourself to be illuminated and let them see the light that you bring forth. At some point they'll realize you've found a better way, And follow of their own accord. So I guess it comes down to if you believe that god gave you the gift of free will or not. If freewill is god given who are you to take it away from someone else. If these are thing you don't believe in. Then just disregard anything that I wrote. I not here to convert anybody. I hope you have a wonderful day and thank you for your question. If I did not answer your question to your satisfaction just let me know.
God doesn't take away free will because of prayer. If the bible is the revealing of the known will of God then prayer is the revealing of the unknown will of God. He doesn't take the choice away from the unbeliever. Christians are called to pray about everything without ceasing. We are called to love each other and loving the unbeliever to pray for their salvation because the unsaved would perish without it.

I don't want to disregard what you wrote as this is a interfaith discussion forum. You made claims that are contrary to my belief and I think it's worthy of discussion so I can understand and compare it to my own.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply to my question.
 
I was told by my teacher that prayer is black magic.
I think your teacher was mistaken.

To pray for would peace is a act of manipulation.
Or is it to voice a hope?

Some people don't want world peace they want to battle and fight.
Agreed.

If you try to force them into peace, all you will do is fall into a battle of good vs evil.
Agreed ... but that's not what prayer is. Prayer is not about force, or causing people to do something against their will, that is something else entirely, something like coercive magic.

But good isn't real and neither is bad.
Depends on context. It's a value. If there is no good, no bad, there is no value, and a loss of meaning.

It is only when you throw down your own sword that battle will come to a end.
Hence the 'enlightened', for the want of a term, simply smile and keep their own counsel.

If god is consciousness and consciousness is only awareness.
I would suggest there is more to those terms than their empirical values.

In effect prayer is the union of the self with Self, or a being with Being ....

At the level of the world, on the horizontal plane, there is always, and inescapably, a distinction. Vertically, the distinctions begin to disappear. That's what prayer seeks.

+++

Welcome aboard, by the way!
 
Well my friend we'll just have to agree to disagree. I thank you for you civility.
 
I heard this comparison as a child and I like the idea that prayer is like a two way conversation on a phone and the phone line is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit connects our Spirit to God. The conversation is not only talking but should mostly be listening ❤️
 
It's ok to disagree. You have to understand that referring to something sacred to others as black magic and manipulation would be discussion worthy. ☺️
One of my passions is Metaphysics, which is as I see it the physics between consciousness and energy. How consciousness creates energy and the dynamics between the two. If you want I can write a long block of text explain my view on this subject. But I have respect for your beliefs, And I don't wish to subject you to this wall of text without your invite. I am new here and believe, I may have responded in the wrong thread, and for that I apologize. I do not wish to ruffle any feathers, or attack anyone's beliefs, i lnow truly sacred they can be. If a did so it was out of nahevity not malice. I wish you munch love
 
My teacher taught metaphysics and enlightenment. Pray can be used to great effect, when you Illuminate yourself. You illuminate all of creation. When you use it to Commune with god It is a divine and beautiful thing.
Agreed ...

But when you try to force the light of god onto someone who didn't ask for it, you will get a resistance.
Yes, this is an example of 'my will' as opposed to the Divine Will. If God was about forcing people, then they would be forced, and as soon as we regard ourselves as 'enforcers of the divine' we're in a dark place ... but this is not prayer in the proper sense.

I recall a minor pop star who became a Buddhist when it was hip to be Buddhist. He waxed lyrical on tv about the power of chanting, and told how he wanted a new Porsche, and chanted, and lo and behold ...
 
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