Breaking through in prayer

Prayer is not easy, most of the time. Through prayer we wish to connect to the Creator in a direct relationship. The reality of our lives is such that we usually need to overcome hindrances before we can reach a level of deeper prayer.

When we pray we don't want it to be a one-way communication. We strive to get answers from God. It is easy enough to pray and to not expect an answer from God. If, however, we seriously are awaiting God's response, our prayers very often become a kind of struggle and fight. What are some of the difficulties that can affect our prayers?

First of all, we all live in a spiritual environment. Because the world around us isn't heaven in most cases, our spiritual environment also is not the most ideal. There can be many reasons why not-so-heavenly spirits are around us and make it difficult to break through in prayer. One reason can be the place where we are praying. If that place isn't claimed by God and heavenly spirits, it is more difficult to pray. Even if we pray on a sacred place, a dedicated prayer room, it is possible that we encounter difficulties for example because someone was there before us and offered impure prayers.

Another reason can be that because of our spiritual inheritance from ancestors or friends we are surrounded by lower spirits. Also mistakes we have made in our own lives can cause this. Another description for these causes of a difficult spiritual environment is 'original, ancestral, collective and personal sins.'

Almost always when we pray, we need to break through less than favorable spiritual circumstances. We may get strange feelings against God or against prayer itself. Such feelings can come to us from the spiritual world. In order to break through these, we need to discover what is wrong with such feelings. That makes our prayer to a process that frequently can resemble a spiritual fight.

A second barrier may be formed by our own thoughts and feelings and our own mental condition. We cannot see this separated from the spiritual reality because our desires, thoughts and feelings are influenced by the spiritual world. Yet, I treat our mental state, and even deeper our condition of heart, as a separate factor. When we have done something that isn't pleasing to God, our heart and mind will make us want to run away from God. We may have feelings of shame, fear and guilt when we enter into deeper prayer. It is essential that we overcome such feelings, on the one hand by trusting in God's love and goodness and on the other hand by determining ourselves to repent for what has been wrong and to do what is right from now on.

When we prayed in the past and God gave us a clear answer telling us to do something, and we haven't done that, our future prayers will get more difficult. We cannot expect answers from God that God already has given us before but to that we haven't responded in the right way. Prayer and action go together. If we pray and don't act from what God tells us, our prayer life will suffer very much or even dy out entirely.

A fourth problem that can occur in our prayer life is when we don't realize that it is up to God when and how to answer. We cannot expect that God will answer our prayers whenever we desire for this or in the way that we expect it. Prayer is an offering of faith and therefore needs fulfillment of our good investment over a certain time period. Depending on what questions we are asking to God, it may take longer time before we can get an answer. Answers can come in many ways. God can speak to us directly, through dreams, through inspiration and revelations, through nature, and of course through what other people say and do to us.

What I described above is not meant to be a complete overview of all difficulties that can toughen our prayer lives. The truth is that we can pray to God and we shall get answers from God if we are serious in our love for God and in our effort to live a life under God. It's our faith in God's love that makes us desire to pray in a close relationship to God.


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Prayer as an act of giving

In religious life, all that we do has the meaning of an offering to the Creator. Prayer is one of the most important offerings we can make. What is the significance of offerings and how should offerings to God be made in the right way?

The word ‘offering’ is an official word for giving. Offering is nothing else than giving. It is through giving to a person that we build up a good relationship. It is no different in our relationship to God. God gives to us and when we give back to God, we can build up a good relationship.

Prayer needs to be a giving act, not a taking one. Just like people sometimes try to build relations with other people by asking or taking, so we could also mistakenly try to get from God rather than to give. In a normal and fruitful relationship, both individuals will try to give to each other. It is not different in our relationship to God. When someone prays and all the time only wants to get something, for example by only asking for blessings, then a normal relationship cannot develop.

There are certain rules for giving between people. Usually these rules are not made so conscious, but they nevertheless are commonly applied. Similar rules or principles exist for giving to God.

One principle of giving is that you want to give something good and clean. When you receive a present but there is something bad attached to it, you won’t like it very much. For example, if someone offers you a meal and there is something in it that makes you sick, then you won’t appreciate it very much and this has consequences for your relationship with the one who gave it.

Sometimes people give something in order to get. For example, the world of advertisement on the internet often works like that. You can receive many programs online ‘for free’ but the free gift is not really free. Many smart methods are applied so you eventually will spend money on a product you sometimes did not really need or want.

When we pray, we do not only offer our prayer to God. Through the offering we offer ourselves to God. What you really want to reach through prayer is that you build up a relationship with God. The offering, in this case a prayer, always is something intermediate. The offering stands between God and you. In reality what you offer is yourself.

This means that when you offer a prayer to God, you yourself need to be clean. Clean in this case means that you firstly are clean in mind and spirit. When your thoughts would be full of hatred, you can hardly expect that God could like your prayer. Even if the words of your prayer sound sweet, through the words you also offer what is in your spirit and with hatred or egoism you will not deepen the relationship with God.

It also implies that our prayers are not independent from how we live. When someone does what he or she likes during the day and then tries to pray in the evening, the prayer at best can become one of repentance. Repentance has only value when it is really meant. When someone lives each day like this, doing what he or she knows is not so good, then prayer becomes very hypocrite and as a result your entire personally might become like that.

We can offer promises or pledges to God, to change our life, or to do something what we know is right to do. Also such a promise or pledge needs to be pure and sincere. Another way of expressing this is to say that the offering needs to be split. Whatever you offer, you need to only offer what is good and not what is stained. When you give a promise and your mind is not entirely serious about it, it means that something unclean entered your mind and therefore also your offering of prayer. Then it is better to first work on yourself, to question yourself whether you really mean what you say, and only offer the prayer and pledge after you did this. To help you cleanse your mind, you can pray and ask the Creator to show you how.

When you bring an offering, what you offer in deepest essence is your love. Also in prayer, your love for God is more essential than anything else. Prayers that are superficial or only ritual have little meaning. When you pray and you can feel deep love for God, that is when your prayers gain the highest value.

It is like when you speak to another person, or you write someone a letter, you can do it as an empty habit, not putting much of your heart into it, or you can make effort to really feel and express personal love. This makes a world of difference to the receiver. When you pray to God, God is the recipient of your prayer and there are no prayers so wonderful as those in which you manage to move God’s heart.

And when you get answer from God…

Prayer to God is to open yourself to God and for all that comes from God.

Prayer is to put yourself in connection to the Creator and to put yourself in the right position in relation to God. The position we take is that of the created one, the one loved by God, the one who is willing to do God’s will.

When you pray, you should forget all your knowledge, all that you ever learned. When God speaks to you, what is the value of what you know in relation to God who knows all?

To pray is to want to give up all preconceived ideas, because God will renew your mind, clear it up and bring light in the darkest corners of your being.

Imagine this: God is the greatest being of the universe. Compared to God, the mightiest kings and the most noble saints and the smartest scientists are all little children. You can meet God! How wonderful and great this is. When we realize the meaning of prayer, the significance of meeting God, it can make us filled with marvel and awe, with deepest desire of love, with stillness and gratitude.

God created this universe and knows all the principles. God knows every single person and knows all that you ever experienced. God knows your destination and future and will tell you what to do in life. God will also help you with what may seem for you the smallest questions and problems, simple things like what you should eat today and how you should fill your day or where and if you should go on vacation, whom you should meet or not meet. God will tell it all if you only bother to ask and are prepared to listen.

God wants to be very close to you because God loves you more than you could ever love yourself and God wants to be with you and experience life through you, feel your joy and your sadness, share in your excitement and hope.

When you have been still and waiting for God’s answer and then you receive answer, in some way or another, in the form of a conviction coming up in you, a strong feeling for what you have to do, or you hear God’s voice in yourself, not outside from yourself, but always in you, then there is only one thing to do…

Then you received Truth, you got sure guidance. It compares to nothing else what you may have thought. All what you knew may at best be truth, but what God tells you is TRUTH. This is the absolute and clear guidance you need. This will set your life on the right course, whatever it means.

God will never ask you something that you cannot handle. So when you receive God’s direction and you feel difficult about it, know for certain that God never asks you more than you could manage. Sometimes what God tells us feels like impossible to do or to understand, but know that God will be there with you on your way, if only you keep your connection to God. God will help you through all difficulties and this is how you will grow, more quickly than you could imagine.

Do not add God’s answers to the knowledge or thoughts you already had. This is not the right place for God’s guidance. God’s answers hover over everything else in you. Don’t think about what God told you, but pray about it, that is: try to understand what God means, don’t try to give it your own interpretation.

Many people are afraid, usually unconsciously, for what God may tell them. Then they pray but at the same time they close their heart and mind. They pray for hours and days and even years in that way. They will never get answer because they are afraid for what they are going to hear. This means that they don’t trust God enough. They have feelings that God will punish them or will misuse them. God is not like that. God always wants what is the best for you and everyone around you. What God asks you is the best, even though with your human concepts you may not understand so deeply.

What God tells us is not just for the moment. It is for your best future. God’s directions may seem difficult in your present situation, but when you follow them you will see that it all will work out best. God wants you to grow in love and for this we need many life experiences. We need to go our path with God always. People around you usually will not understand. They may think you have gotten crazy to go the course you do.

When you receive God’s guidance, write it down or at least keep it alive in your mind. Do not forget it and don’t mix it with your own thoughts. Do not give it your own interpretation but pray to understand more deeply what God told you. You can ask God again and again what it meant what God told you as long as you did not cover God’s answers with your own concepts. What God tells you is LOVE. What God tells you is TRUTH.

Sacred place of prayer

One of the most important factors influencing your prayer is the place where you pray. The influence of the place, the room or space where you pray is very large but this can only be understood well from a spiritual perspective.

Of course, also the external or physical aspects of the place where you pray are important. You would rather pray in a quiet room that you decorated beautifully and in which you placed objects that bring you in the right mood than for example in a noisy hall of a train station.

Prayer is very much influenced by the location where you pray. This has most of all a spiritual reason. One place is not the other. The energies of one place are not those of another place.

I believe that many cultures of the past had much more understanding of this and therefore created sacred sites. Central on such a site could be a tree or a stone construction or a temple, or a combination of these. The meaning of a sacred site is first of all that the spiritual environment is controlled. What is more or less controlled are the energies and the spirits who have access to such a place. When you want to pray well, you best learn to make such a place for yourself.

When you pray, you direct yourself to God, but you automatically also open yourself for the spiritual reality around you. When you pray on a place that is not spiritually controlled in a good way, you can be very much disturbed by spirits who don’t like you to connect to God.

The other factor is the energies on a place or in a room. When you make effort to pray on always the same place or in the same room, and you guard that this place is being used for activities other than or too different in nature from prayer, then you will see that the feeling of concentration on that location builds up over time. Each time that you pray there, it will get easier to concentrate.

To claim a place outside or a room or part of a room for prayer may be a spiritual battle by itself. You need to change the energy of that spot and you need to guard it against invasion of spirits who might want to disturb your prayers.

Sacred places can also be related to one another, for example in some cultures many sacred trees in a country or on a continent were spiritually connected. When such trees are connected to one another, the good spiritual merit of one sacred tree location can reinforce that of other, related trees.

When you don’t yet have a good place in your own house and don’t know a sacred location outside, I would advise to pray on a quiet and beautiful place in nature. It pays off to often pray on the same spot, as the investment of your earlier prayers get energetically and spiritually stored on that place. Another possibility is to make a prayer walk, also preferably in a good and natural environment. When you make a prayer walk you don’t have the advantage of being on a prepared spiritual spot, but by walking you also cannot get so strongly influenced by what could be difficult influences on a fixed location. You just take your path where it feels good and you centre your heart and mind on God and increase your concentration during the walk.

When I make special effort to pray I usually do it in a room that I prepared for this as much as possible. I don’t let other people come in this room apart from for prayer (when it is a part of a room you can ask other people not to enter it), I place an altar (beautiful table) with flowers and natural stones or other natural objects such as shells, I paint and decorate the room with nice pictures and in pleasing colors. I keep that room clean from dust or newspapers or any kind of objects that don’t feel like enhancing the atmosphere needed for prayer. I do nothing else in that room than sacred activities.

It is possible to share such a place or room with others, provided that you know that these other people also want to pray in a deeper way.

Be aware of the fact that the sacredness of each location depends very much on what happened on that site. For example, if someone else prayed on your favourite place and he or she had a bad mood, then after this the holy atmosphere of that location needs restoration. You will have to get rid of the difficult energies that came there and sometimes the place may even have become invaded by spirits that want to harm your prayers. In that case the first prayer or prayers you have there may turn into spiritual fights in order to claim back the location.

When you have learned to pray in a stronger and deeper way and you have managed to set up or keep a prayer place sacred, you will get deep experiences in prayer. Good angels or spirits can come to you to give you revelations or inspiration and each time that you pray there for longer time, you can have deep experiences with God.

Praying in faith and concentration

When you pray, concentrate. Concentrate on God the Creator.

You can only concentrate on God when you believe that God exists. Believe that God can hear your prayer and can answer in one way or another.

When you pray in faith, your prayer will be answered.

When you pray without faith, for example when you do it out of habit or don’t really believe in God’s reality, then your prayers will be futile.

God lives in each of us, but we don’t address ourselves to God in ourselves. God lives in us, this means that God’s love and energy can be in us. It doesn’t mean that the postal address of God is within us.

In each of us is a gate to God and through that gate we can speak to God. We can do this in a very natural way, like a child would speak to the parent, or maybe, when you feel more like that, like a servant speaks to the lord.

There is a kind of prayer that doesn’t lead you to God. That kind of prayer is based on the assumption that God is only some kind of consciousness that is everywhere in the cosmos. It is true that God’s spirit dwells in the cosmos and that this is a kind of consciousness, but I perceive this aspect of God as an expression of God in the cosmos. God also is a personality with a certain character, a character of giving love. I cannot prove this because God’s existence cannot be proven. I speak from my own experience.

When you just open yourself for ‘God’ in the cosmos, then you may also open yourself for what is not God. You may get all kind of ideas that don’t come from God.

To pray to God means a concentrated effort to focus on God as a being with heart and also as a being who can answer your prayers. The movement is one of focusing, of narrowing down your attention to God. Once you feel to have more contact to God, your mind will become wide and encompassing.

When you open yourself for what you think is God just anywhere around in the cosmos, you are not focusing but making an effort in an opposite direction. After this your mind will narrow down, it will be influenced by whatever you picked up and this will then control your views on life.

It is by faith alone that we can pray and receive answers. The more faith you have in God’s existence, the more answers you will get.

All truth comes from God and we have only access to truth when we first received it from God. How would we be able to judge what is true and what is not true if there were not a standard of truth in us? The standard of truth in us comes from our direct relationship to God. When we pray much to God, we get more and more sensitive to what is true and what is not true. We can better sense the intentions behind what people say or write.

We cannot simply trust what anybody tells or teaches us. The standard for knowing is in us and it is in our close relationship with God. There is no other standard for truth.

Everyone who searches deeply within the self will find there the reality of God. We are souls created by God and whatever we may have done or believed in life, our souls still belong to God. Through the deepest of our being we are connected to God. God is in other beings too, but we cannot speak directly to God in that way.

The gate to God is in the deepest of us. This is why we need to get to know our own self, as deeply as possible. When you really know your own self, you cannot but also come to know God, because you will find the proof of the Creator’s existence within you.

Real prayers and problematic prayers

We pray to the Creator. The Creator is the Creator and there is only one Creator. There is only one God.

Even though God has received different names, there is only one God the Creator.

Created beings are not God the Creator.

When we pray, we need to pray to the real God. As obvious this seems, this is for many people the most difficult to do.

I will mention a few possibilities, of people who pray or think to pray but their prayers are superficial or altogether wrong.

It is possible and often occurring that when you pray you direct yourself to what I would call a reflection or an image of God. The problem is that you don’t really believe that God exists. Your belief in God is like a scientific hypothesis, an assumption really. You may have taken God’s existence for granted because your parents taught you this. Or you may have found God but your faith never deepened enough. In such a case you pray to God but you cannot get deeper answers to your prayer because your faith in God is weak and shallow.

The only solution to this is to make yourself aware of your lack of faith in God. God can answer your prayer when you believe in God and when you live in such a way that your faith grows.

Some people pray to themselves. They have split their own mind in two parts, a part that prays and a part that receives the prayer. It usually is a difficulty of those who think too much and who do not wish to submit themselves to a higher God. It is a problem of arrogance, of putting yourself above God and making yourself to a kind of god. For some people this disease of the mind has progressed so far that they really believe that the ‘god’ in their own mind is real. They answer their own prayers. Some of such people eventually get crazy. They may come to suffer of severe megalomania and revel in being praised and honoured by others.

Quite many people pray to spirits. Spirits are not the Creator. All spirits are created beings. We can talk to spirits and there needs to be nothing wrong with that, but don’t call such conversations prayer, because they are not. People can get revelations and inspirations from the spiritual world. These revelations can be helpful or misleading, but in any case they don’t come directly from God. There is someone in-between God and you. When you receive such revelations or inspirations, it is at best comparable to what you hear from a respected teacher. In the worst case people may have come under the influence of certain deceptive spirits, some of them who pose as if they were gods.

Ceremonial and ritualistic prayers often tend to become superficial. Though this type of prayers can have a function, in many cases the practitioners get used to praying only like this. Their prayers are mere formulas, which they learned by heart and repeat again and again. Sometimes such a prayer still has value as a form of meditation, but you cannot expect that only by praying like this you could reach God.

When prayers are written down they can serve to teach you how to pray, but they can also lure you into a too easy prayer life.

When you pray to God, your attitude is most important. You cannot tell God what to do. Sometimes people pray like this and tell God to do this and do that. How many times did I not hear someone praying to support a certain leader in the world. How can you be sure that God wants to support such a person? Maybe that person got power in a wrong way and it would be better that he lost it.

Another doubtful way of prayer is when you just keep asking God to give you what you want. Some of what you wish may be good for you, but it could also be that you pray for what God would not desire for you. When you pray such kind of prayers you cannot expect much from it. We cannot expect God to listen to or approve self-centred prayers.

Prayer is difficult to learn and hard to practice. God is present in the entire cosmos, but we need to learn to recognize God and not confuse the many beings posing as gods or people falsely claiming that God is in them with the real God.

God can come to you in prayer when you have found access to the deepest core of goodness in yourself, when you address yourself to God from your desire to be good and do good.

Prayer as breathing

Much of what applies to prayer also does to meditation. Prayer in my view is always centred on God, meditation can also be centring on something else than God.

Prayer is as necessary as breathing. This statement may need some explanation for those who seldom pray or who believe prayer is only done by religious fanatics.

Prayer is to connect ourselves to the Creator. The Creator is present in all creations, in the entire universe, but this doesn’t mean that we automatically are very well connected to God. Many people don’t believe in God. We ourselves may have done things in our lives which were egoistic and not loved by God. Everything in ourselves and around us that is more separated from God brings energy that makes it difficult to feel God’s love. In order to feel God’s love and to receive God’s guidance, we must make effort to overcome the energies, the feelings and thoughts that separate us from God.

The main effort to do this is by prayer.

Plants have a built-in programming that makes them grow, blossom, give fruit. For example, some seeds of trees will only begin to germinate when it warms up after a period of frost. This guarantees that the seeds sprout at the time that gives them the maximum chance of survival.

Animals have their instinct guiding them to do what is right. Animals don’t think about that, at least that is what I believe. They just follow their instinct and this serves them well.

People are different from animals and plants. I believe that we too have some kind of instinct in us that leads us in our daily life. We could call this instinct ‘intuition.’ Our intuition is the part of our being that is directly connected to God.

The instinct of some animals that grew up in human civilization does not work so well anymore. In a similar way, our intuition to do what is right in each situation very often does not function very well.

Why is this? I believe answering this question would rather much be the same as knowing the cause of what is called ‘evil.’ I don’t want to go into that here, but when we look around in today’s world with so much crime we can understand that not everything that people do is good and original.

I believe that our original state of being is one in which we are constantly connected to the Creator and we would know intuitively what to do in each situation. But in a world where so many people including ourselves are often misguided, we need to make extra effort to strengthen the connection to God.

The main effort to do this is in prayer. Prayer should be like breathing, because when we get so used to prayer that we do it all the time, in whatever situation we are, then we will always have a good feeling for what is right for us to do.

When you attempt to pray you will quickly notice that prayer is not so easy at all. As soon as you try to centre your mind on God, you get distracted by all kind of other thoughts. To solve this and to learn to pray we need to practice concentration. Concentration however is not the only thing we need to learn.

When our mind is full with what is not so connected to God, maybe because we have done activities which were not so close to God, then our mind also is more away from God. This means that, guided by prayer, we need to do those things that bring us nearer to God instead of doing what separates us.

When our prayer becomes as regular as breathing, we come in a constant state of heart and mind of feeling the presence of God. Then our original intuition will begin to work more and more and will properly guide us through life.

But before prayer becomes like breathing, we need to make very much effort. Prayer is something that some people do intuitively, but still it is also something that we need to learn. When we begin to pray, prayer can be very difficult to do. Because it is so difficult, many people shy away from it and pray in a superficial or ritualistic way, without really coming to deeper levels.

THE OFFERING OF PRAYER

 
 
YOU HAVE HEARD ABOUT THE OFFERING OF ABRAM.
ABRAM OFFERED ANIMALS TO GOD.
YOU CAN OFFER ALL KIND OF THINGS TO GOD.
YOU CAN OFFER ANIMALS TO GOD. YOU CAN OFFER MONEY TO GOD. YOU CAN ALSO OFFER GOOD IDEAS TO GOD.
WHEN I WRITE THIS BOOK, THAT ALSO IS AN OFFERING TO GOD.
 
ALL WHAT YOU DO HAS TO BE OFFERED TO GOD.
TO OFFER TO GOD MEANS TO CONNECT TO GOD.
TO OFFER TO GOD MEANS TO GIVE TO GOD.
TO OFFER TO GOD MEANS TO BECOME UNITED WITH GOD.
 
ONE OF THE OFFERINGS THAT WE GIVE TO GOD IS PRAYER.
PRAYER MEANS TO SPEAK TO GOD.
WHEN YOU SPEAK TO GOD, YOU MUST ALSO LISTEN TO GOD.
NOBODY LIKES IT WHEN YOU SPEAK, YOU SPEAK AND YOU NEVER STOP TO SPEAK.
WHEN YOU PRAY TO GOD, THEN YOU MUST ALSO LISTEN TO GOD’S ANSWER.
 
WHEN YOU DO SOMETHING IN YOUR LIFE, YOU MUST PRAY BEFORE YOU DO IT, YOU MUST PRAY WHILE YOU DO IT, AND YOU MUST PRAY AFTER YOU HAVE DONE IT.
FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN YOU WORK IN THE GARDEN, YOU MUST FIRST ASK GOD IF IT IS GOD’S WILL TO WORK IN THE GARDEN. YOU ALSO MUST ASK GOD HOW TO DO THE WORK IN THE GARDEN. YOU CAN ASK GOD WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE WORK IN THE GARDEN.
WHEN YOU DO THE WORK, YOU MUST DO IT WITH A GOOD SPIRIT. THAT MEANS THAT WHILE YOU WORK, YOU MUST PRAY TO GOD.
WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED THE JOB, YOU MUST OFFER YOUR WORK TO GOD. THIS YOU DO THROUGH PRAYER.
 
IN ALL OFFERINGS, PRAYERS ARE INCLUDED.
WHENEVER YOU GIVE SOMETHING TO GOD, YOU MUST ALSO OFFER THAT IN PRAYER.
SUPPOSE THAT YOU HAVE BIRTHDAY AND YOU GET A PRESENT BUT THE PERSON WHO GIVES IT SAYS NOTHING TO YOU…
WOULD THAT NOT BE VERY STRANGE?
WOULD YOU LIKE THE GIFT THAT YOU GOT?
YOU WOULD NOT SO LIKE IT ANYMORE.
IT IS NORMAL THAT WHEN YOU GIVE SOMETHING TO SOMEONE, THAT YOU ALSO SAY SOMETHING.
YOU SAY, FOR EXAMPLE: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, THIS IS MY GIFT FOR YOU.”
OR YOU SAY: “DEAR BROTHER, YOU HAVE WORKED SO HARD FOR ME, THEREFORE I WANT TO GIVE YOU THIS BEAUTIFUL GIFT.”
 
IN THE SAME WAY YOU MUST SPEAK TO GOD.
YOU GIVE SOMETHING TO GOD, AND THEN YOU SPEAK TO GOD.
ABRAM SHOULD HAVE SPOKEN TO GOD BEFORE HE GAVE THE OFFERING TO GOD.
ABRAM SHOULD ALSO HAVE SPOKEN TO GOD WHILE HE WAS CUTTING THE ANIMALS IN TWO.
ABRAM DID SPEAK TO GOD AFTER HE FELL IN A DARK SLEEP. BUT THEN IT WAS ALREADY A LITTLE TOO LATE.
 
ABRAM DID NOT PRAY SO SERIOUSLY BEFORE HE BROUGHT THE OFFERING TO GOD.
ABRAM OFFERED WITHOUT THINKING MUCH.
ABRAM WAS NOT SO SERIOUS. HE DID WHAT HE HAD TO DO, BUT HE DID IT WITHOUT LOVE FOR GOD.
 
ALL OFFERINGS THAT YOU BRING TO GOD MUST BE GIVEN IN THE RIGHT WAY.
THAT ALWAYS MEANS THAT YOU PRAY TO GOD IN A SERIOUS AND DIRECT WAY.
 
BUT THE PRAYER ITSELF IS ALSO AN OFFERING.
I WANT TO EXPLAIN YOU A LITTLE MORE ABOUT PRAYER.
PRAYER IS AN OFFERING TO GOD.
THAT MEANS THAT YOU GIVE YOUR PRAYER TO GOD.
THE OFFERING OF PRAYER MUST ALSO BE PURE.
YOU CANNOT JUST SAY ANYTHING TO GOD.
 
DID YOU SOMETIMES SEE PEOPLE WHO SPEAK A LONG PRAYER BUT THEY HAVE NO LOVE IN THEIR HEART FOR GOD?
SOME PEOPLE PRAY LIKE THAT. THEY READ THEIR PRAYER AS IF IT IS FROM A BOOK.
OR THEY MAKE THE PRAYER SOUND VERY NICE, BUT ACTUALLY IT IS MORE LIKE A PLAY, LIKE AN ACT. SUCH A PRAYER IS NOT REAL.
WHEN YOU SPEAK TO GOD, YOU ALWAYS MUST SPEAK WITH MUCH RESPECT FOR GOD.
AND YOU MUST HAVE DEEP LOVE FOR GOD.
YOU MUST ALSO BE HUMBLE.
YOU MUST KNOW THAT GOD IS THE ALMIGHTY CREATOR.
YOU CANNOT TREAT GOD AS YOUR SERVANT.
 
SOME PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS ASKING GOD TO HELP THEM WITH THEIR PROBLEMS.
THEN YOU TREAT GOD AS IF HE IS YOUR SERVANT.
IT IS VERY WRONG TO DO THAT.
WHEN YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, YOU CAN ASK GOD TO HELP YOU.
BUT YOU MUST BE SERIOUS THEN.
YOU MUST ALSO KEEP YOUR PROMISES TO GOD THAT YOU WILL DO WHAT GOD TELLS YOU TO DO.
YOU HAVE TO SOLVE YOUR OWN PROBLEMS.
GOD CAN HELP YOU, BUT YOU MUST DO WHAT GOD SAYS TO YOU.
 
PRAYER TO GOD IS AN OFFERING.
AN OFFERING IS A GIFT.
AND A GIFT IS SOMETHING THAT GOD MUST LIKE.
YOU MUST MAKE SURE THAT GOD LIKES YOUR PRAYER.
GOD MUST FEEL HAPPY WHEN YOU SPEAK TO GOD.
 
WHEN YOU HAVE DONE YOUR OWN THINGS DURING THE DAY, THEN YOU HAVE BECOME IMPURE.
WHEN YOU ARE IMPURE, YOU CANNOT SPEAK A NICE PRAYER TO GOD.
ABRAM WAS IMPURE WHEN HE BROUGHT THE OFFERING.
THEREFORE, ABRAM COULD NOT PRAY IN THE RIGHT WAY.
HE WAS A LITTLE ARROGANT.
 
BEFORE YOU CAN HAVE A GOOD PRAYER, YOU MUST CLEANSE YOURSELF.
ACTUALLY, YOU CAN ONLY PRAY RIGHT IF YOU HAVE DONE GOD’S WILL.
YOU CANNOT DO EVIL THINGS AND THEN JUST GO TO GOD IN PRAYER.
YOU CANNOT PRAY TO GOD IN THE RIGHT WAY IF YOU ARE LIVING IN THE WRONG WAY.
 
SO, YOUR PRAYER BEGINS WITH YOUR GOOD LIFE.
WHEN YOU DO YOUR MISSION, THEN YOU CAN ALSO HAVE A GOOD PRAYER.
THEN YOU CAN OFFER YOUR PRAYER IN THE RIGHT WAY TO GOD.


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Overcome disturbances in prayer and meditation

When you pray or meditate, you walk the path into your inner self. When you are on the road in prayer or meditation you will encounter all kinds of disturbances. What kind of disturbances you meet depends on a few factors:

1. Your own memories and your own past life.

2. The environment in that you meditate or pray.

3. The focus of your concentration and the spiritual forces that may try to stop you from reaching your goals.

All disturbances come to you in the form of energies that distract you from your focus. To overcome these disturbances you also need energy. Depending on how strong the distractions are, you need more energy. This may turn your prayer or meditation into an exhausting spiritual fight. When you get more experience with prayer or meditation you will gradually get stronger and learn to win these energy fights.

Exercise 1 – Pray and Meditate about an Episode of your Past Life (30 min)

What you want to reach with this meditation is that you receive a new view on this episode. Think of this period of your life and ask the question what is the meaning of it. When you do this for some time, you will notice that all kinds of memories come back. Together with these memories, thoughts and feelings will come up in you. In meditation and prayer you don’t just want to have thoughts and feelings, but you want to go beyond that to deeper levels of yourself.

At this stage of your prayer or meditation you may be tempted to dive into these thoughts and feelings. The result of doing that will be that you don’t really progress to a higher level. Therefore, don’t let yourself be overwhelmed by these thoughts and feelings, but just notice them as something passing by on your road of meditation.

Go back to the question you asked about the meaning of this episode of your life. Keep asking this question and answers will come. Depending on how complex and meaningful this life period is for you, it may take longer time before you receive meaningful answers. You may have to pray or meditate about this question for many hours or even days and weeks until you are finished.

When you receive answer to your question you will notice a clear difference between these answers and the thoughts and feelings which also came up. Such answers will strike you as a revelation or an inspiration and will give you new insight in yourself.

Exercise 2 – Pray about the Purpose of Life (30 min)

Pray or meditate about the purpose of life. Just like it happened in the former exercise, you will see that your mind will try to wander away from the subject of meditation. Do not go into these thoughts and feelings, but place them in a kind of mental notebook and turn back to the question of your meditation. It is not the purpose of prayer and meditation that you think or get overwhelmed by feelings. However, the thoughts and feelings you get are meaningful because they tell you something about yourself and about possible external disturbances of your meditation. Therefore, you objectify these thoughts and emotions by placing them in your mental notebook. In that way you don’t anymore forget them but they will also not disturb your prayer or meditation.

Repeat this meditation as often as needed until you have receive new insights in the purpose of life.

Meditation or prayer about the meaning of life is meaningful enough to repeat this throughout your life. In this way you will get deeper and deeper insights.

Concentration in prayer and meditation

What is meditation and what is prayer?

Both are practices of concentration. They are methods of disciplining the mind to be concentrated on your inner world. This state of being is in some contrast to the normal life of most people in which their mind and body are occupied by external activities.

The key ability that you have to acquire for both meditation and prayer is concentration. You can of course also be concentrated on something external, for example a task you do with your body.

Concentration in prayer and meditation differs from concentration on external activities mainly in the focus or direction. In meditation and prayer your concentration is directed inwardly and with external activities your concentration is directed outwardly.

Eventually we must learn more about the differences between prayer and meditation. For now it suffices to say that prayer is concentration on God and meditation is concentration on a great variety of aspects of your own inner being.

Exercise 1 – Meditation on Light (20 min)

Sit in a quiet and relaxed position. You may sit on the ground with your knees bent as in a lotus position, or you may sit on a chair. Imagine that your head is filled with a sphere of light. Try to keep this image of light in your head for 20 minutes. When you do this, your mind may attempt to wander away to all kind of thoughts. Imagine that the light in your head dissolves all these other thoughts until eventually there is only light in your head.

Exercise 2 – Concentrate on Your Breathing (20 min)

Sit in a relaxed position and observe your own breathing. Do not change your breathing in any way, but only study how you breathe. There are many meditation methods based on breathing, but the most important in all of them is to learn to concentrate on your breathing while letting your breath flow naturally.

Exercise 3 – Concentrate on God (20 min)

Try to concentrate on God without thinking anything in particular. When you do this, certain feelings or thoughts may come up in you. For example, questions may arise if God really exists or where God is. You may also get feelings frustration or anger. Let these thoughts and feelings pass by during this meditation as if they don’t belong to you. Do not pay attention to them until your meditation is finished. After you completed the meditation you can take time to think about the content of such thoughts and feelings.

The prayer to come to prayer

THIS IS MY PRAYER THAT I CAN COME TO PRAYER.
I WANT TO PRAY TO GOD,
BUT I CLOSED THE DOOR TO YOU.
YOU, GOD, ARE GOOD.
YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO ME,
BUT I SEPARATED FROM YOU.

PLEASE, GOD, SHOW ME,
HOW I CLOSED MYSELF FOR YOU.
WHAT SIN IS IN ME?
PLEASE, ALMIGHTY GOD,
SHOW ME WHAT I MUST CHANGE IN MYSELF,
SO THAT I CAN BE PURE AND HOLY,
TO RECEIVE YOUR GUIDANCE.

IS THERE EVIL PRIDE IN MY HEART?
THEN I MUST NOW HUMBLE MYSELF.

DID I COMMIT A SIN RECENTLY?
THEN I MUST EXPOSE IT AND REPENT FOR THAT SIN.

DO I REALLY WANT THAT YOU SPEAK TO ME,
OR DO I WANT MY OWN WILL DONE?

AM I WELL-LISTENING TO YOU,
OR IS MY HEART NOW CLOSED?

IS THERE FALSE LOVE IN MY HEART?
THEN I MUST REPENT FOR THAT WRONG.

DID I HIDE A SIN OF MINE?
THEN I MUST NOW OPEN IT.

DID I SPEAK LIES?
THEN I MUST SPEAK THE TRUTH NOW.

AM I ACCUSING YOU?
THEN I AM CLOSING YOU OUT.



IT IS MY PRAYER AND PROMISE
THAT I DO NOT SPEAK THIS PRAYER
WITH IDLE HEART AND HYPOCRITE LIPS.

MY GOD THE CREATOR,

YOU WILL SPEAK TO ME

THIS I BELIEVE AND THIS IS MY HOPE

The prayer of daily relation to God

MORNING

Thank You, my God, for the rest of the night

Thank You, My Father, for the life that I got

The sun shines, it is a beautiful day

You gave it to me, time to rise up

What, my Father in Heaven, my Parents in my heart

Shall I do today, what is it that You planned?

Answer my prayer, I beg, that I may know Your will

Then I jump into this day, to fulfill what You will.

NOON

My Father, the day is already bringing fruits

How do You think, I am doing Your wish?

Is it alright with me? Do I please You?

Was my morning's doings to Your liking?

How do You feel, my Father, over this day?

Are You pleased, and happy today?

Or are You sad, or angry? Can I help You, I ask

With Your problems? Can I do something special?

What is Your will for the rest of this day?

What are Your thoughts about what keeps me busy?

I thank You, Father, for this day of creation.

EVENING

Almost the day is over, still the sun is shining

Look, my Father, how beautiful!!

You can be proud of what You created

What You give to all men equal, evil or good

Hear the birds singing still, and preparing for night

Wonderful You created them, to our all's delight

How was my day, growing in Your love?

Are You happy, or did I miss a point?

Came there sin in me? ...Show me how...

Now I can still correct it, and get me okay

What is Your will, for this evening today?

NIGHT

The day has passed, the moon now shines

The stars in the sky, wide and open, twinkle

I look at Your vastness, everywhere are You

The people don't know, how great You are

My life is in Your hands, Your will my only guide

Make my mind open for what I did wrong today

Now, at the end of the day, please cleanse my heart

Give me dreams, about my future

Speak to me, and tell me your guidance

I need You my Parents, and You need me

You give me Your love, and I try to return it

I am Your child, and in Your arms covered

Please, make me wise and faithful

As Your child should be

With clean heart and mind and body

I lay me to rest, when You tell me

And after my rest, I start a new life

A new day, given by You, my Father.