Prayer: Attention to Intention

Some recent channeling I received explained more about the nature of prayer, its function, what it does for us, and how with repetition, it can move your mind and emotions into an attitude where action becomes more immediate and more effective.

About Prayer: Or call it focused intention.

Prayer is talking to myself! Oh yes, I might believe that I am being listened too by whatever one calls God, no matter if you refer to it as: Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Spirit, Universe, TAO, or Source. But if I speak my invocation aloud; my intended target might be God, but it is my own hearing which is the first receiver!

Wishful thinking, pleading, scheming, demanding, damning, groveling, and sometimes gratitude and appreciation form the content of narratives intoned in prayer. In no way am I making a moral statement about any of these, but suffice it to say that each carries its own resonant signature of emotion and with that, its own perception of reality. Careful listening can inform me of the patterns happening at a deeper level of my psyche. When I hear my choice of words it can reveal the flavor of emotion and deeper intentions desired transmitted in the undertone of my prayer.

As Michael comments

“Directing your Psyche, then, is the other use of prayer. The application or declaration of intention can help to establish a firmer hold on the direction and duration of one’s attention. One need not be told in any great intellectual foray of how vital to discovery, learning, and success, attention is; and that the longer one holds specific focus on some thought or some thing, the likelihood of gaining something from the interaction (and it is an interaction), increases: sometimes minutely, sometimes monumentally.  Of course, the potency of learning and understanding is enhanced when one practices repetition. Thus, with each invocation of my prayer, refining and honing the verbiage, and steering its direction, and become more aware of its effect upon me and my life, the mind will engage attention and further shape and direct ones’ attitude toward whatever is sought after.”

“This shaping constitutes a feedback cycle. As the word shape implies, a container of thought, emotion, and subsequent actions is being assembled and congealed with each successive recitation of your prayer; compounding the potency of your intention to attract, and in some cases deflect, various energies. A momentum builds as the container forms and begins to radiate its own power. This is the prayer-reality cycle.”

But it is all about paying attention! Attention is about NOW! When you are fully attending to some intention, goal, task, or happening, you are in the eternal moment of the present. By that I mean that time flies! Or perhaps better said, the perception of time changes. Paraphrasing a formula explaining this phenomenon of time-dilation (which is relativity theory); the intensity of attention one brings to bear is inversely related to your experience of time lapsed. The more present you are, the less you are aware of it. Why do you think video games consume so much of it? They are doing the visualizing for you and capturing your attention in it.

How does this all happen? Providing the mind with explanation gives it its due, and thus invites its participation rather than resistance or ignorance. Again, this is why a video game or a good book is so effective at eliminating your perception of time: because the attention of the mind, all its circuits, are dedicated on the task of following the stories narrative: whether in words or in images. So here it is: engaging in prayer with as much attention as one can muster suffuses the quantum level of the time-space around you. In other words, in the container you are shaping, your Beingness; which you are filling with notions and intentions, generate emotion as you act upon them. Progressive inclusion of the thoughts and correspondent action-generated experiential evidence to augment and actualize them, will merge to crowd out that which does not match the directive of your prayer. The Principle of “Crowding Out”, a very close cousin to Displacement, happens at many levels of both physical and metaphysical phenomenon. More about that in other articles.[1]

Notice that we have said nothing yet about which emotions or thoughts should be intended. Some of what are commonly referred to as the negative emotions or perhaps to give it a more popular spin the dark side of the force, are in fact, powerful motivators; manifesting attractors and objects upon which, attention can be fixated. In fact, anger, guilt and shame, as displeasing as they are portrayed, do in fact motivate often potent short term action. Ironically, they can sometimes achieve positive action which can be directed as a force of good, as well. Dismissal of this variety of emotions is both naïve and limiting. All Emotions have a purpose! Whether one likes them or approves of them, or can manage to operate with them, is a different issue. But the down side of employing such emotions over a long term basis, is that they corrode the connection to Spirit by producing the byproduct of isolation.  Feeling alone and disconnected from the Universal Power Source, the only source of energy left derives from the Ego. Ego cannot sustain itself. It drains ones’ inner batteries (Chi) while trying to feed the furnace; which in producing internal pressure like a balloon, inflates ones psychic container with bluster, pretense, and intensity in a effort for continued viability. Eventually, the ability of the psyche to produce its own internal fuel fails and it turns to outside sources which the Ego can feed upon: glamour and addictions. And do not blame the Ego it is only doing its job to further your survival! In fact, a paradox worth mentioning is the tendency of many spiritual seekers is to confuse the Egos’ function and thus blame it for being the cause of ones troubles. By then insisting upon the need to eliminate or extinguish the Ego, the Ego itself now threatened. And remember, the Ego thinks it is you! Consequentially is is confronted with a paradox of its own/your existence. It still engages, but now must the Ego must actually fragments itself further, while it attempts to carry out its contradictory instructions from its limited and fearful perspective. When you kick your own guard dog is it any wonder why it bites you on occasion?”

Prayer helps to keep the connection to Spirit open and thus allow the Ego to continue to be the servant it was meant to be. In carrying the metaphor of the guard dog further, then isn’t it logical to be a good master and make that dog mans best friend? Would you kill your own protector? Hopefully not, but it happens far too frequently. A phrase I heard Michael once quip in a Channeling session was: “make your Ego your Amigo.” And when my pet is patted on his head and hears “good doggie” the love and devotion that radiates from that critter cannot be called anything but unconditional love. So if you want Agape in the world or in your life, it begins with loving it: not indulging, brutalizing, or acting willie-nillie on the dictates of the Ego, but to acknowledging its good intention and to assist you in surviving, even if its strategy is terse or misguided. Being fed by Spirit/GOD/TAO, is the only way to maintain this state indefinitely.

But to thrive, one must find ways to have spirit fill us with those emotions which intrinsically generate rather than drain psychic energy. These are the ones most often categorized as positive, but more specifically when characterizes as a fuel source, we will refer to them as the expansive emotions. The light side of the force, again to barrow from a popular meme, builds energy within us. And we are not speaking directly of physical vitality alone, but the kind of energy that funds curiosity and enthusiasm as the mechanism for holding attention in a frictionless state. Full engagement of all the senses happens with no internal coercion nor internal opposition. One remains, or becomes, fluid instead of having to become hard as is the case with long term use of the negative or dense emotions.

How does this relates to prayer once again? We call your attention to the idea that the repetition of prayer suffuses the quantum level with one or several of these emotional fuels; and those fuels serve as the propellant toward your intention. Depending upon which emotion(s) is present, one will feel nourished and supercharged barreling forward with speed, or sluggish, riddled with misfires and sputtering indecisively leaving one feeling desperate and further emptying the tank of hope. This lack creates a hunger and self implosion. This is the by-product from only having Ego as one’s director, it may compel decisive action, but that action will have the tinge of desperation. On the other hand, when infused by the principled emanating from the Essence of Spirit from a connected Self is a dynamo. Like electromagnetism the expansionary force begins to drive dynamic elements where the experience of prolonged periods of attention are not only possible, but become the ends in themselves. This is the constant state of being in present time so often written. It is not some mythic ideal, but the plausible, desirable and necessary progress of human evolution. Thus with the practice of direct, deliberate, and dynamic prayer, one may influence the quantum fields beneath or better said within the chambers of ones container, and thus empower it into motion, rather than forcing action.

Michael again:

“Although some actions like washing dishes, housework, manual labor or other tasks considered mundane or repetitive, may not seem to be in concert or a part of a directed goal; nonetheless, each becomes a venue where attention can be practiced and presence cultivated for longer periods allowing one to be totally with an activity. Ironically, being in present time often causes one to complete a given task in no time! This is the feedback loop which expands and strengthens the growing chamber of ones container…a chamber of Self and Ego we call your Soloverse[2].”

Expressed in the familiar terms of popular psychology this essay may seem nothing more than a rehashing of so-called positive thinking, or self reprogramming. Yet indeed, it is something far more practical and fundamental. It is a prescription for a daily spiritual reminder for the infusion of directive intention and for practicing focused attention. The alchemy in ones life and daily perception of it, manifests with more directed and simultaneously unpredicted effects and consequences. All of which amplify the strength of your attention and, no matter what outcomes you desired, you ability to hone in and appreciate what you have in the now, increases dramatically. Drawing upon appreciation as your fuel, life force (Chi) is derived without formulation nor imposition, it flows! The sense of abundant energy brings with it corresponding emotions which will tend to make ones’ prayer more specific, profound and yet more emphatically enthusiastic.[3]

I pray for all of us?  Who and what do you pray for?