Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Companions on the Journey

Home
About
Contributors
Events
Publications
Websites
- CompanionsontheJourney.org
- SpiritsInSpacesuits.com
Archive Index
Contact

Home
New Visions
What is the True Nature of Prayer? – Part I

What is the True Nature of Prayer? – Part I

Last updated on: December 1, 2021 at 7:00 am by Bill Miller

What is the True Nature of Prayer? – Part I 2021-11-30T19:01:02-08:00 Bill Miller

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Since the dawn of human history, once consciousness had reached a certain level of abstraction, people were able to stand back from daily concerns and consider the larger nature of existence. How did we get here? Why do events good and bad happen as they do? How much of Nature can be controlled, and what must simply be endured?

Because we gain understanding largely through experience, and most of daily activity involves some sort of purposeful behavior – planning, hunting, gathering, tending, and the like – it was natural to assume that the larger events which are out of our control might also be occurring according to some purpose or design. And this implies some sort of conscious, intentional actor at the controls — perhaps a deity. If this were the case, one would likely want and seek a beneficial relationship with such a power.

The Mortal and the Divine

Life-events divide roughly into two categories — those subject to our own analysis, planning, and control versus those that do not. Because of this, perhaps it was natural for a dualistic view of the cosmos to emerge. On the one hand, a mortal, mundane realm of daily experience. On the other, a mysterious, subtle, transcendental realm, guided by powers we cannot easily fathom. The former could be approached in a practical way through the sciences. For the latter however, we could only approximate through religions and other spiritual/metaphysical philosophies.

Most of the latter philosophies involve particular sets of beliefs and practices that provide mortal adherents with some ability to conceive of and engage with the “higher” realms and entities. One of these is the notion of prayer.

Traditional Notions of Prayer

Prayer is generally thought of as some sort of request, petition, entreaty – or an expression of praise or gratitude – by someone in dependency or of lesser power, to an entity or agency with greater power — one capable of granting or actualizing such requests. Yet, how to conceive of and visualize such a power?

Since it is difficult for the human mind to conceive of anything that has not been part of direct experience — or can be extrapolated from the same (e.g. a human with the strength of an elephant or the ability to fly like a bird), there is a need and tendency to anthropomorphize whatever power is being petitioned. Accordingly, the ancient notions of a god as a mighty, mythical creature or a wise, all-powerful man, sitting somewhere in another realm (the “Heavens”).

Despite several millennia of spiritual thought and practice*,* an analogy still commonly used for prayer is that of children, entreating a parental figure to alter reality, grant requests and wishes — and sometimes work miracles — in order to effect some desirable change to physical existence — on any scale from personal to global.

Just as small children have little control over the way their lives unfold, the above model of prayer is premised on the belief that the individual has minimal agency over the greater environment in which he or she dwells.

Effecting Change in Reality

Philosopher Alan Watts once suggested that prayer is essentially “telling God how to run the universe”. That is a cynical take, but does raise the question that, if all-wise, all-powerful entities are running the cosmos, is it not a bit presumptuous to take the position “well, in this particular instance, I’ve got a better idea”?

Perhaps because of this, more contemporary spiritual philosophies sometimes avoid the specifics of ‘asks’ and ‘answers’, instead lobbying more generally for “the highest good” or “most benevolent outcome”.

Yet either of the above is premised on a view of the universe somewhat like a machine, designed by a universal clock-maker; one that is now running inexorably by a predetermined design. Through prayer then, one bothers the Clockmaker until they modify some part of the mechanism to run in a different direction.

All of the above denies any human agency in the way our greater world of experience unfolds.

Contemporary Science and the Cosmos

In the “modern” world of today, many consider the above notions to be a primitive, even childish view of the universe, instead holding the position that unfolding scientific understanding will eventually explain and account for all aspects of existence.

Classical science, up through the era of Isaac Newton, held that the universe was essentially a clockwork mechanism. The belief was that once we had discovered all of the “parts” and their trajectories, the workings of the cosmos would be fully understood — and the past or future could be calculated with precision. (This was wonderfully illustrated as the premise of Alex Garland’s 2020 SciFi drama “Devs”.)

However, if you are aware even of the popular accounts of modern physics, you have likely heard of the many paradoxes and irrationalities that show up in physics at the quantum scale: particles that cannot be specifically located and measured, that appear here then there without travel, that communicate instantly over vast distances, that even alter the past (see: Delayed-choice Quantum Eraser experiment).

<<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_eraser>>

One of the incredible but well established findings of Quantum Mechanics is that quantum-scale objects and events do not exist in a fixed, definite state until actively observed by a conscious observer. Prior to that, they exist only as probabilities.

At the macro-scale — rocks, trees, animals and insects, you and me — all exist as an astronomically large conglomeration of quantum events. Yet we have a stable, functional world because the collective statistical probability of these massive numbers of events becomes predictable enough that if you leave your car keys on the kitchen table in the evening, there is a reasonable probability that you’ll find them there the next morning.

A Quantum Version of “Miracle”

At the macro-scale of daily life, we constantly affect the probabilities of collective quantum events through everything we do. Eating, sleeping, moving, planning, creating, growing, traveling — every thought and activity involves changing the state of vast numbers of quantum events.

Yet as indicated above, every event and phenomenon we engage with is itself composed of vast assemblages of smaller events — down to the level of atoms and molecules, and the fields of which they are comprised.

Some of these assemblages we can affect with our thoughts and actions. For example, we can chop a tree. We can convert the logs to lumber. We can build a house from that lumber. At a bit deeper level, we can plant the seed that grows into the tree. Geneticists might even discover means to modify that seed in various ways to affect its metabolism and result.

However the above is approximately the limit of our current ability to control the assemblages that produce the reality we experience. The finer deep processes that eventually produced the seed from the primordial Big Bang were left to Nature — whether conceived of as a vast, fortunate sequence of random events or the deliberate intent of a creative designer.

Accordingly, any ability to alter aggregations of quantum events at this scale, by deliberate intention, would have to be considered miraculous — and is that not the essence of “prayer”?

The Co-creative Power of Attention

Whether human or divine, what role might consciousness play in the unfolding of reality as we experience it? While classical physicists might say ‘none’, many of the founders of Quantum Mechanics commonly held a different view.

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” — Max Planck

“Not once in the dim past, but continuously, by conscious mind, is the miracle of creation wrought.”

— Sir Arthur Eddington

More recently, several Books have explored at length the role of conscious observation in our experience of reality. In “The Case Against Reality – How Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes”, physicist Donald Hoffman cites many instances where human perception differs from underlying physical conditions — yet in a functional way. His essential point is that we creatures evolved to see things in a way that furthers survival as opposed to revealing objective truth … and sometimes the two do not match up.

In “The Grand Biocentric Design” (and several prior books), physician and researcher Robert Lanza makes the case that the hundreds of universal parameters that are fine-tuned in such a way to support life, are so because that version of the cosmos was observed into existence by life itself.

Each of the above books are based on the premise that consciousness, rather than energy and matter, is the most fundamental factor in the reality that we experience.

If this is so, how might this work? And what does it mean in terms of individual, subjective consciousness versus a more collective or universal consciousness? Might it offer any new insight into the nature of prayer?

This will be explored in the subsequent article “What is the True Nature of Prayer? – Part II”.

Alan Watts

co-creative power of attention

collective/universal consciousness

subjective consciousness

transcendental realm

Uncategorized

Previous Post

November 17, 2021

Setting God Free: Moving Beyond the Caricature We’ve Created in Our Own Image

Next Post

June 7, 2022 The Next Evolutionary Purpose for Humanity

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "All Lives Matter" "Anatomy of Human Destructiveness" "belonging systems" "bite-sized pieces of God" "Black Lives Matter" "block universe" "butterfly effect" "call to prayer" "counting to 10" "dog-whistle" language "I Am" statements "late term abortion" "lefties" "Nature Nazis" "Nephilim" "opium of the masses" "othering" "personal" God "personal/sensible" God "private" property "punctuated equilibria" "Silent Night" "Sky Gods" "Super Archetypes" "symbolic"experience "TaNaKh" "the difficult passages" "The Prophet" "the seamless garment approach' "virtualized" money "waking Life" 'creatio ex nihilo' 'dissipative structures' 'emanatio ab Deo' 'God the creator' 'God the Redeemer' 'God the Sanctifier' 'in potentia' 'The End Times' 1% abandonment Abortion abortion debate Abraham abstract rationality abundance Adam and Eve advanced beings/civilizations Advent adventure afterlife agape akasha Akashic record Alabaster jar Alan Watts alchemy aleinu alignment alive allegory altered states of consciousness alternate state of consciousness Alzheimer's disease America 2019 America 2020 America 2021 amnesia Anam Chara anatma (no soul) angels animasphere anitya (impermanence) Annuciation apathy apocalypse apophatic language apostles archetype art artists ASC - altered states of consciousness ascension asceticism ashram astral form astral travel astrology atheism Atman attention attention/observation autism avatar awake awakener awakening awareness awareness/imagination Axial Age Babel Baltimore catechism Baptism bardo state Bealtaine Beatitudes beauty behavioral psychology Being-Knowing-Loving belief systems beliefs Benediction Bernard Haisch Bethlehem Bhagavad Gita biblical literalism biblical revelation Big Bang biophilic biosphere birth canal birthright bite-size piece of God black holes blame Blessed Trinity bodhisattva bodhisattva vow body bonding Book of Job Book of Kells Book of Psalms Book of Revelation border wall Brahma Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva Brahman brain brotherhood/sisterhood Buddha Buddha nature Buddhahood Buddhas Buddhism burning bush Cain and Abel camán (hurley) cancer Canon Law canonical gospels Caol Áit caol áiteanna capital punishment capitalism Carl Jung cataphatic language Catherine of Siena Catholics causal void cause and effect cell mates Celtic Christianity Celtic Feast of Bealtaine Celtic spirituality Chalmers channel of healing chaos consciousness chaos theory charism children chreode Christ archetype Christ consciousness Christ/Christa consciousness Christa Consciousness Christian Christian cosmology Christian Trinity Christianity Christmas Christmas club ciotogs civilization classical conditioning climate change climate disruption co-create co-creating reality co-creative power and responsibility co-creative power of attention codependency cognitive flexibility coherence collaboration collective attention collective consciousness collective imagination collective intelligence/effort collective prayer collective unconscious collective/universal consciousness communication Communion of Saints community Companions on the Journey (COJ) compassion compassionate caregiver competition complacency complex/interdependent society Complexity/Chaos Theory complexity/entropy conceptual thought concurrency Confucius connectedness conscience conscious conscious evolution conscious observation conscious observer consciousness consciousness examen consciousness-primary cosmos consciousness-primary reality conservatism consumerism consumption continuous creation conversations conversion cooperation Coronavirus corrupt politics cosmic consciousness Cosmic Mind cosmic patterns cosmic whole cosmology cosmos Council of Constantinople Council of Nicaea countable infinity courage court prophets covenant Covid-19 creating creation creation by subtraction creative intelligence creativity creativity/paradox creator crucifixion culpability cultural identity cultural trance culture cynicism dark night of the soul Darwin daughter of Sion death debate and detachment deconstructionism deity déjá vu dementia demi-urge democracy democratization of Spirit Descartes desert fathers/mothers destiny detachment determinism devil's advocate Dia de Los Muertos dialogue dignity of all sentient beings direct experience disassociation disciple discovery disease disillusionment diversity divination divine brain Divine Feminine divine inspiration Divine Masculine Divine nature divine realm of perfection divinity DNA Donald Hoffman donkeys Down syndrome drama dream dream state dream time dreamers dreams dualism duality dysfunctional family earth Easter Eastern mystics ecology ecumenism ego ego identity ego-soul dialectic Einstein Einstein's "Block Universe" elementals Elijah Elohim eloquence EM field emergence emergent phenomenon emotional heart empathy en mesoi en-souled human person encounters end times endangered species enemies energy enlightenment entanglement entrainment entropy-complexity environmental degradation epigenetics epiphenomena epistemology equality/democracy equanimity equation of enlightenment Erich Fromm esoteric eternal eternal/mortal eternity etheric body ethics Eucharist Eucharistic Prayer of the Cosmos evaluation evil evolution evolution into enlightenment evolution of consciousness evolution of purpose evolution of society evolution of virtues evolution/devolution evolutionary inflection point evolutionary programming evolutionary shift evolutionary trajectory existence existential inflection point exit strategy experiential knowing experiential symbols extending rights/curtailing rights extra-terrestrial societies extra-terrestrials faery folk faith fake news families family Family of Man fate Father God fear Feast of All Souls feedback feminine face of God Ferdinand de Saussure fetus fifth dimension filioque fire flora and fauna Flora Spiritualis flow foreign policy forgiveness fractals fractals of divinity free will freedom friendship fundamentalism Gaia galaxy Gandhi Garden of Eden Garden of Gethsemane Gautama Siddhartha gemilut hasadim generosity Genesis geometry global crises Global Game Plan global narcissism global transformation global warming gnosis Gnostic intermediaries God God as Father God the Father God's Dream God's heart God's immanence God's will God-conscious Godhead gods Golgotha good and evil Good Samaritan goodness Gospel of John Gospel of Luke Gospel of Thomas grace gratitude greed Greek 'prosopon' ground of being guns habituation hate haves and have nots healing heart heaven Hebrew scriptures hell higher consciousness Hindu Hindu stages of human life Hindu trinity Hinduism Hippocrates Hitler holocene extinction Holocene/Anthropocene holy human Holy Spirit Holy Trinity Homo Narcississimus homo sapiens homo sapiens sapiens Homo Sociopathicus homo spiritualis hope hospitality Huang Po human agency human conditioning human evolution human flourishing (eudaimonia) human history human life human nature human nature/divine nature human needs human psyche human species humans as a social species humility hunger/yearning hypnagogic hypnopompic I AM idealism identity identity theft ideology idolatry illusion illusion of scarcity illusion of separation Ilya Prigogine image of God imaginal cells imagination immanence of God immanent aspect of God immanent experience impermanence improvisation impulse of spirit incarnation incarnational experience incarnational phase inclusivity individual subjectivity individuality indulgences industrial revolution Ineffable Source ineffable transcendence inequality inerrancy of the scriptures infallibility inferior mortal realm infinite inflation/deflation information revolution inner tranquility innocence inspiration instinct instinctual responses integration intellect intelligence intention intentional community interconnectedness interdimensional interpersonal relationships intuition Iománaíocht Ireland irrationality Isaiah Islam Issac Issac Newton Jacob Jacob's ladder of Genesis Jane Goodall Jansenism Jean-Paul Sartre Jeremiah Jesus Jesus as Divine Word John the apostle Joseph Campbell Joseph Cardinal Bernadin joy Judaism Judeo-Christian bible judgment justice Kahlil Gibran karma karma gobbler kindness Kingdom of God knowing knowledge and wisdom kosmic laws Kosmos Krishnamurti lack language Lao Tzu Latin "purgare" Latin 'persona' laughter Law of Impermanence Law of Love lay-away living learning legalism Lent letting go liberal/progressive liberation lies life life journey life purpose life-time commitment light likeness of God Lila limbo liminality lineage living systems living water logos longing love loving God loving without knowing lucid dreaming lucid living Ludwig Wittgenstein Luke and John Magi Mahavira mainstream media male/female faces of God manifest realm mantra Mariology Martin Buber Mary and Joseph Mary Magdalene Mary Oliver Mary the mother of Jesus mass media material world materialism materialistic science materialists mathematics matrix matter Maya mea culpa meaning of life media meditation Meister Eckhart meme memory message metanoia metaphor metaphysical universe metaphysics metaverse metta (Buddhism) Middle America Middle Way migrating Milesians military-industrial complex military-industrial demons Mind mind-body problem mindfulness mini-mystics miracles miraculous/mundane mission missionary mitzvah modularity moksha monasticism money Monoimus monotheism moral laws moral values morality morality/applied ethics morality/legality Moses Mother Earth Mother God mother-love motherhood Mount Shasta Mount Thabor multidimensional creatures multiverse music mystery mystic mystical body of Christ mystical impulse mystical poetry mystical self-empowerment mystical spirituality mystical union with Source mystical void mysticism mysticists mystics myth myth of the given mythic realm mythology naivete Namasté narcissism national security state nationalism Nativity natural disasters Natural Order Nature nautral selection NDE near death experience nebula necessity necrophilic neighbor Neils Bohr neural pathways neurotheology New Age philosophers New Age speak New Year resolutions newborn nirvana no-thing-ness Noah's Ark non-conceptual prayer noosphere nuclear nuclear weapons observer effect Old Testament oligarchy omniscience of God one-ness only-begotten ontology operant reinforcers oral language origin of laws Original Blessing original sin orthodoxy othering out-of-body experience overpopulation Pacha Mama pain pair-bonding Palm Sunday pandemic shutdown panspermia parable parallel lives parallel realities parallel universes parapsychological conduits pareidolia past-present-future Pater Noster Pavlov peace Peggy Lee Pena Creek Pentateuch Pentecost pepo perception perceptual state perfection persona personal cosmology personal enlightenment personal evolution personal responsibility personal transformation personality personhood personhood and ensoulment Peter and John Pharisees philosophy physical universe physical water physiosphere pilgrim Planet Earth planetary ascension Plato Plato's ideal realm pleasure principle Plotinus (d. 270 CE) Plutarch pneuma Pneuma Floriensis pneuma spiritualis pneumasphere poets politics post-incarnational phase power of love practice of prayer prana prayer prayer of petition Pre-Conception contract pre-incarnational phase predetermination prejudice priesthood priesthood of women primary reinforcement prime directive prison-industrial complex pro-choice pro-life profit propaganda prophets proverbs psyche psychodrama psychological conditioning psychological evolution psychology punctuated equilibrium pure awareness purgatory purpose pyramid of power Pythagoras Quakers Quakers "Sense of the Meeting" quantum field theory quantum foam quantum mechanics quantum physics quantum physics/mechanics quantum shift quarantined race radah radical love rainbow body raison d'etre Ram Dass Ramana Maharshi rationality/reason re-birth re-gifting intelligence re-incarnation re-incarnational phase re-magining reality reality gestalt reason recession reconciliation recycling reductionism reincarntion reintegration relationships relativism religion religionists religious systems remembering remembering/imagining renewal repetition resource wars response-ability Resurrection revelation revolution Richard Rohr Rig Veda rights/responsibilities Rilke ritual river of life Role-self root causes/social issues ruach Rumi Rupert Sheldrake sacrament sacraments sacrifice Sadducees Sai Baba saints salvation Samhain Samsara Sat-Chit-Ananda Satya Sai Baba scapegoat scarcity science science as revelation scientific fundamentalism scientific revolution scientism scientists Second Coming secondary reinforcement secular power secular/sacred secularization seeker seers Self self-acceptance self-alienation self-awareness self-compassion self-conscious life self-forgiveness self-identification self-identity self-interest/tribal interest self-liberation self-realization self-serving pathology self-understanding sense of self sense of separate self sensorium sentience separate self separation service to self/service to other sexual harrassment shadow shadow pod Shalom Shared Death Experience (SDE) sheep/shepherds Shiva Shiva energy Shroud of Turin signifiers silence simulated reality sin sin of separation sinner skin-encapsulated ego society socio-political division Socrates Son of Man Song of Amhergín soul soul group soul mates soul pod soul service Soul-self sound Source space-time special and general relativity spirit spiritual choices spiritual dis-integration spiritual DNA spiritual evolution spiritual garden spiritual healing spiritual heart spiritual heredity spiritual journey spiritual monoculture spiritual path spiritual power spiritual question/mystical question spiritual seeker spiritual water spirituality St. Augustine St. Francis St. Gregory of Palamas St. Ignatius of Loyola St. John of the Cross St. Patrick St. Paul St. Thomas Aquinas states of consciousness staying asleep staying awake Steven Pinker stillness stochastic terrorism Stockholm Syndrome stories story storytellers storytelling stream stress subconscious subjective consciousness subliminal perception submission suffering Sufi super-consciousness Supernatural Supernatural reality surrender survival survival of the fittest sustaining intelligence symbiosis symbols synchronicity taoism Tarot technology Teilhard de Chardin telepathy telos/teleology temptation tension terrorism the "Magnificat" the abortion process the Art of Dying the Bible the Big Other The Centering Prayer the cross the dead the Fall The Great Schism The Hero's Journey the human experiment the living The Lord's Prayer the Mother the Old Order the Other The Sign of Peace the Veil the World theology theory of entanglement Theory of Everything (TOE) theory of General Relativity Third Heaven "Shehaqim" thirst Thomas Aquinas thought patterns thoughts/tulpas Tikkun Olam time time travel time-space-mind tomb Tonglen Torah trans-lingual trans-rational trans-spatial trans-temporal transcendence transcendence of God transcendent aspect of God transcendent God transcendental experience transcendental realm transcendental/transpersonal Transcendentals Transfiguration transformation transpersonal Tree of Life Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil tribalism Trinity true Self trust truth truths tselem Tuatha Dé Danann tulpa ultimate reality Uncategorized unconditional love unconscious unconscious psychological modules uncountable infinity understanding unity Unity Consciousness universal basic income (UBI) universal consciousness universe universe as a living system universe itself as a living system Upanishads values Vatican II Veil of Veronica victimhood Virgin Mary virtues vision visionary experiences visions Vivekananda void of self-consciousness waking consciousness Watson and Crick wave-particle duality wealth wealth and privilege wealth gap Wilder Penfield will to survive William James wisdom witnessing consciousness women's spiritual group Word Word-of-God-Made-Flesh world view wu-wei Yahweh yin and yang Yogananda Zen Zen buddhist monk zero-sum game Zoroaster

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 April 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 June 2022 December 2021 November 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz