Prayer

Tomorrow I'm going to a study group run by a Quaker and the topic is prayer.. but praying is not really something I've thought about, or done myself, since I was a teenager.

I'm interested in hearing the thoughts of others before I go tomorrow..

What is prayer to you?

When I think of prayer I imagine higher thought. Intention. A sort of companion to meditation in that instead of listening and observing, quieting and creating stillness, it is requesting and verbalizing (out loud or not) your own wishes and desires for yourself and others. Expressing gratitude. Asking questions.
I guess prayer and mediation are a conversation - prayer is my turn to speak, meditation is my turn to listen.
And just like meditation, prayer is incredibly personal and has so many different styles and approaches.

I see prayer as opening my soul.
It is communication with my spirit, and in the silence after I speak sometimes I find within myself the answers I seek.
It always fills me with a sense of peace and maybe nuts but in those moments I truly feel at one with everything and everyone, I feel full of just IDK cant think of anyway to put it but love that is external and connects internally.
I fit in prayer, I have no sense I don't belong and no doubts.
Its like a hug from a friend that you can feel safe and secure in.

Having a Catholic upbringing, I used to pray to Jesus or God for whatever it was that I needed. It may have been to give me courage or strength of will, it was a comfort to know that someone was watching over me.

Since I have joined the Temple and have had an "awakening" of such, I realize that I am praying to the universal consciousness which includes all the Gods, the people of earth, and the universe. I am asking that the energies of the Force come to me for guidance and understanding. I do believe that all religions are true as Joseph Campbell has described. In that, I may pray in Catholic terms one day, and Buddhist terms the next. It is the feeling I get from the prayer that is important, not the deity.

I like the idea of it being a "hug from a friend that you can feel safe and secure in". That was well stated. Is it not our friends that we turn to for that hug and pat on the back to tell us we will be OK when all hell breaks loose?

There is a saying when things are going wrong in my family, we say that we are "circling the wagons". In other words, we stay by each others side and work to overcome our hardships. We talk together and pray together for that favorable outcome. Sometimes we cannot be with our friends and family so we talk to ourselves is a special way, which we call prayer.

My daily prayer...May The Force Guide You and Keep You Safe!

Reliah wrote: I guess prayer and mediation are a conversation - prayer is my turn to speak, meditation is my turn to listen.
And just like meditation, prayer is incredibly personal and has so many different styles and approaches.

I really, really like the way you put this. It sums up how I view prayer perfectly, and in a way more elegantly than I could've worded it. Thank you. Prayer as "conversation" has powerful implications: we all have a distinct way of conversing (at least, I've never met anyone who converses exactly like I do), so every person's praying style is just as unique.

I actually have trouble with (Christian) prayer as a form of petition, and most of my praying is just offering thanksgiving/gratitude: stopping to be aware and be grateful for what is.

Prayer is self talk with the hope someone is listening that can help. One of my prayers starts out:" God bless us all. Help me help myself." Whether someone is listening or able to help who knows. It's an affirmation to empower myself and take control of and be responsible for my destiny.

" It is the feeling I get from the prayer that is important" exactly.

"I see prayer as opening my soul." and looking in. I think it aids self discovery.

"prayer is my turn to speak, meditation is my turn to listen." Nice idea.

I like this thread. Good stuff to noodle on. Thank you.

pray is to connect with the force, as well as meditate, it's just a more informal, more emotional. So for me, this is just another mechanism to be connected to the Force.
When we pray, we can recall the name of any deity or not evoke any name. Simply for me these deities are aspects of the Force, or even if you prefer an interpretation of the Force, noting that Krishnamurt said we observe the world through ourselves. I think if you feel comfortable with some god, then fine, it helps make the relationship between you and the Force closer and intimate.

I learned to hate the idea and practice of prayer when I was a kid in the christian faith because all people did was ask for things and use it as an excuse to be lazy and give no effort of their own. They also said it almost constantly about me having cancer: "you poor thing, I'll pray for you". So what? What does that do except make YOU feel better? I felt like prayer was really just people begging god for things over and over, things that they would get or not get already anyway because the god they claimed to love and trust was going to do this or that thing all along. They said god knew your innermost thoughts, feelings, and needs and knew what was best for you. Why bother going out of your way to beg then? They certainly weren't going to change his mind by asking him. "Oh, Jimmy is praying for the Steelers to win... well, I'd better do that. Good call Jimmy, almost messed that up!"

I feel like if someone had introduced me to meditation and the power of positive thinking earlier, I might have seen it very differently. Or not. I don't know :dry:

Prayer is meditation with a different focus.

As with so many things, I believe it depends. The way I was brought up, prayer is the invocation of a deity with the intention of getting a favor from that deity either for yourself or for someone else. What I used to do, I certainly wouldn't call meditation - getting on my knees and saying 'God, please don't make me fail this test, amen'. That's a superstitious cry for help, rather than mediation.

That said, I understand that other people probably do this very differently. If you consider prayer to be self-affirming, if you do it in a somewhat formalized setting, if your prayers are more like focused conversations rather than 3 seconds of silent shouting for example. I'd probably still not call it 'meditation' but rather 'contemplation' (although Christian practice might favor the former nomenclature), but those are technicalities and won't matter in the end.