Inflame thyself in prayer
- Thread starter Cino
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I don't.
Therefore do not be like to them, for your Father knows of what things you have need before your asking Him.
I feel.prayer is like "Yo almighty all knowing dude, you do alright most of the time.but this one thing here...you screwed up on....so take.a.second look and.fix this for me.
When I have prayed in the past.40 years, it.has been the best for all concerned. I've given up on things that are beyond my control asking some higher power to slight or smite others on my behalf doesn't interest me.
I'll just rant on FB, take a subway to the whitehouse, or hitchhike to standing.rock to make my protest known for indigenous, minoirites, or LGTBQ folk.
Getting on on knee during the anthem causes hypocrisy in many that get on two.
Therefore do not be like to them, for your Father knows of what things you have need before your asking Him.
I feel.prayer is like "Yo almighty all knowing dude, you do alright most of the time.but this one thing here...you screwed up on....so take.a.second look and.fix this for me.
When I have prayed in the past.40 years, it.has been the best for all concerned. I've given up on things that are beyond my control asking some higher power to slight or smite others on my behalf doesn't interest me.
I'll just rant on FB, take a subway to the whitehouse, or hitchhike to standing.rock to make my protest known for indigenous, minoirites, or LGTBQ folk.
Getting on on knee during the anthem causes hypocrisy in many that get on two.
I recite the Lord's Prayer daily as an affirmation of faith and trust. As such, rather than telling God about my problems, I tend to tell my problems about God and the power given in his name.
Arif Ghamiq
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Prayer for me is the seeking of Intimate Communion.
Being "inflamed" in prayer could be - at least partially - about a burning passion - a yearning desire to be with one's Beloved.
Being "inflamed" in prayer could be - at least partially - about a burning passion - a yearning desire to be with one's Beloved.
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Aussie Thoughts
Just my 2 cents
Prayer for me is just having a chat with the creator as you would a mate for whom you share an undying bond. Guess that gets a wee inflamed at times.
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But you are isolating that verse and reading it out of context. This part of Matthew 6 is about how to pray, and verse 8, which you cite, is about how not to pray. So the instruction is to pray, without any doubt whatsoever.
Nah, this is just a stereotype.
Jeez, guy, you have some really negative opinions on prayer!
It may well be your experience, but you should not let it define you, or your attitudes, or suppose this is everybody.
If you think this is all prayer is — then you're a long way off the mark.
Thanks, people! To me, the yearning is an important aspect here. I expressed it in many different ways throughout my life. For the past years, it took the form of regular daily recital of a verse that is important to me.
I think in a way prayer is inviting divine assistance. God can help, God does know what I need, but I have to give permission for 'him' to intervene. I have to surrender my free-will. "I can't do this, please take over."
What I need may not be always what I want?
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Ya skipped this part Thomas when you ranted on me...
Yes, I watch the football teams and the preachers before a game...unless they are praying to do their best, and everyone come out healthy and whole. I chuckle at the thought of God picking sides.
I don't pray for things for me or mine I pray for the best for all concerned I pray for an outcome in war where we quit learning War I pray for an outcome in confrontation what would choose no violence
Not a rant, old chum, just pointing out the error... which I think you're side-stepping?
(And, between you and me, I actually avoided that bit, because you sounded a bit like the rich man looking down on the publican... which is neither you nor your intention, I know, you but you sometimes come across a bit 'holier than thou' and superior when when you stereotype others. You seem to be saying people either pray like you do, in which case that's OK, or they pray like the 'fix it for me' stereotype.
It's not as simple as you paint it.
Ah, If I wanted to understand prayer, I can think of better places to look.
Thoughts from a perennialist:
To pray is to speak to God
The very fact of our existence is a prayer and compels us to prayer, so that it could be said: “I am, therefore I pray; sum ergo oro.” Existence is by nature ambiguous and from this it follows that it compels us to prayer in two ways: first by its quality of being a divine expression, a coagulated and segmented mystery, and secondly by its inverse aspect of being a bondage and perdition, so that we must indeed think of God not merely because, being men, we cannot but take account of the divine basis of existence – insofar as we are faithful to our nature – but also because we are by the same token forced to recognize that we are fundamentally more than existence and that we live like exiles in a house afire.
On the one hand, existence is a surge of creative joy and every creature praises God: to exist is to praise God whether we be waterfalls, trees, birds or men; but on the other hand, existence means not to be God and so to be in a certain respect ineluctably in opposition to Him; existence is something which grips us like a shirt of Nessus. Someone who does not know that the house is on fire has no reason to call for help, just as the man who does not know he is drowning will not grasp the rope that could save him; but to know we are perishing means, either to despair or else to pray.
Truly to know that we are nothing because the whole world is nothing, means to remember “That which Is” and through this remembrance to become free.
+++
Man’s only possible relationship with Beyond-Being is in pure Intellection and, in principle – Deo volente – in contemplative concentration. The relationship with Being – and it is this alone that religions have in view – is realized through prayer, the virtues, comportment; the same relationship will be realized indirectly through an Avatara, or quite generally, through a Symbol.
+++
Meditation / Concentration / Prayer: These three words epitomize the spiritual life, while at the same time indicating its principal modes. Meditation, from our standpoint, is an activity of the intelligence in view of understanding universal truths; concentration, for its part, is an activity of the will in view of assimilating these truths or realities existentially, as it were; and prayer in its turn is an activity of the soul directed towards God.
Prayer: The remembrance of God is at the same time a forgetting of oneself; conversely, the ego is a kind of crystallization 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.”
Prayer (aim of individual): The aim of individual prayer is not only to obtain particular favors, 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 externalizes before God the difficulties, failures and tensions of the soul, which presupposes that the soul be humble and upright; this externalization – carried out in face of the Absolute – has the virtue of reestablishing equilibrium and restoring peace, in a word, of opening us to grace.
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.
(Taken from the various writings of Frithjof Schuon)
To pray is to speak to God
The very fact of our existence is a prayer and compels us to prayer, so that it could be said: “I am, therefore I pray; sum ergo oro.” Existence is by nature ambiguous and from this it follows that it compels us to prayer in two ways: first by its quality of being a divine expression, a coagulated and segmented mystery, and secondly by its inverse aspect of being a bondage and perdition, so that we must indeed think of God not merely because, being men, we cannot but take account of the divine basis of existence – insofar as we are faithful to our nature – but also because we are by the same token forced to recognize that we are fundamentally more than existence and that we live like exiles in a house afire.
On the one hand, existence is a surge of creative joy and every creature praises God: to exist is to praise God whether we be waterfalls, trees, birds or men; but on the other hand, existence means not to be God and so to be in a certain respect ineluctably in opposition to Him; existence is something which grips us like a shirt of Nessus. Someone who does not know that the house is on fire has no reason to call for help, just as the man who does not know he is drowning will not grasp the rope that could save him; but to know we are perishing means, either to despair or else to pray.
Truly to know that we are nothing because the whole world is nothing, means to remember “That which Is” and through this remembrance to become free.
+++
Man’s only possible relationship with Beyond-Being is in pure Intellection and, in principle – Deo volente – in contemplative concentration. The relationship with Being – and it is this alone that religions have in view – is realized through prayer, the virtues, comportment; the same relationship will be realized indirectly through an Avatara, or quite generally, through a Symbol.
+++
Meditation / Concentration / Prayer: These three words epitomize the spiritual life, while at the same time indicating its principal modes. Meditation, from our standpoint, is an activity of the intelligence in view of understanding universal truths; concentration, for its part, is an activity of the will in view of assimilating these truths or realities existentially, as it were; and prayer in its turn is an activity of the soul directed towards God.
Prayer: The remembrance of God is at the same time a forgetting of oneself; conversely, the ego is a kind of crystallization 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.”
Prayer (aim of individual): The aim of individual prayer is not only to obtain particular favors, 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 externalizes before God the difficulties, failures and tensions of the soul, which presupposes that the soul be humble and upright; this externalization – carried out in face of the Absolute – has the virtue of reestablishing equilibrium and restoring peace, in a word, of opening us to grace.
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.
(Taken from the various writings of Frithjof Schuon)
Quietly, in private.
Vocally, in community.
Through the intermediary of nature, in wonder.
Since I don't believe in a being, but an underlying I've reaching principle, it is obvious why we differ...
No, I haven't ... but I think I will ...
In that sense, same with me. I pray the 'Angelic Trisagion', for a number of reasons.
As meditation, Kyrie eleison, a short form of the Prayer of Simplicity.
But basically, anything done with [insert your Tradition here] in mind is a prayer ...
HakimPtsid
Established Member
Yeah, prayer (or "invocation") was very much central to Crowley and ceremonial magic in general. I think this triggers many non-religious occultists (which should be an oxymoron) because the sacred was possibly more part of Crowley's work than the profane.
"Hymn To Pan" is another popular one to think about.
HakimPtsid
Established Member
As a Muslim, Salat is my daily prayer ritual and it is my favorite part(s) of the day. Absolutely ecstatic during and after.
"I asked for strength,
and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for wisdom,
and God gave me problems to learn to solve.
I asked for prosperity,
and God gave me a brain and brawn to work.
I asked for courage,
and God gave me dangers to overcome.
I asked for love,
and God gave me people to help.
I asked for favors,
and God gave me opportunities.
I received nothing I wanted.
I received everything I needed."
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan
and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for wisdom,
and God gave me problems to learn to solve.
I asked for prosperity,
and God gave me a brain and brawn to work.
I asked for courage,
and God gave me dangers to overcome.
I asked for love,
and God gave me people to help.
I asked for favors,
and God gave me opportunities.
I received nothing I wanted.
I received everything I needed."
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan
bismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm
I so enjoy his Sufi order, and the dances for Universal peace