What is God? Where is God? What is prayer? How should I pray?
God is a spirit that is present in all things. There is no absence of God. He is in me. He is outside of me. He is a presence of love. Because He is love, I can be at peace. I say can be at peace because I am not always so. When I forget He is love I am not at peace. When I forget He is always present, I am not at peace.
Right now my experience of prayer is asking God questions and waiting. Right now my experience of prayer is centering prayer. For those unfamiliar with centering prayer it is sitting silently before God and letting go of all thoughts, emotions and feelings. When I feel myself latching onto a thought, silently I speak a single word to bring me back. My current word is rest. I chose rest to symbolize resting in God. My goal is to have no thoughts. My goal is to be in the spaces between thoughts. When I am in the spaces between thoughts, I am sitting under the direct gaze of God.
I have found that I can go many minutes without a thought. I lose all sense of time. It is just me and God. These times refresh me for my daily activities. These times bring me tremendous peace. When I am feeling stressed by my daily activities, I can silently recite my word and bring myself back to the inner peace I find within my centering prayer.
I will remain open to the four questions I stated at the beginning of this post. This means my answers will change. I look forward to how God will reveal these answers to me.
I love your posts! All of them! I love the way you present your thoughts! 🙂 Thank you for your blog! 🙂
Thanks for reading. I enjoy your posts and the many others that I read. It is neat to think we are communicating with each other so age apart. I believe you are in India while I am in PA.
Reblogged this on franiel32.
Thanks for the reblog!
No thoughts, I might say, would seem to be a place of absolute openness. I have heard quite a few preachers give sermons about being afraid of silencing the mind or having no thoughts because they believe that is how people become possessed by demons. Of course, it seems likely they’ve never really actually practiced centering prayer or what you are describing. Which is probably why they’re preachers 🙂
Do you think people are afraid to have no thoughts? Do people avoid silence because we’re afraid we may disappear (I think, therefore, I am)?
I think people find it too difficult to slow down and have no thoughts. Most people will not take the time to discipline themselves to sit in silence. It is difficult but like a runner’s high when one keeps at it, eventually you break through the barrier and it becomes possible. I find by practicing silence one or more times a day, the rest of my day is enhanced. I find I have a greater inner peace and I am more open to what life will bring me. It brings me mindfulness.
Excellent! I recently heard a lecture in which the speaker was talking about how contemplation of death is one of the most enhancing things one can do to inspire the creativity of life. Which is what I just thought about when you said that being in complete silence enhances the rest of your day (presumably the rest of the time when you are not silent).