Prayers

[Voidmatrix]

Prayer.

It's meaningless to ask if I believe in it. It's something I've always thought about. There's always been a clear divide between my inution about it and my reasoning around it. It's a mysterious thing. One that I personally feel is commonly misunderstood. As such, I often find how prayer is spoken about and engaged performative and vacuous. In many respects I also find it dogmatic. I mean this generally and not totally. I deeply respect others faiths and practices and am not denouncing what they do for themselves. It's just most of what I've come across, colored thereby by connotations and associations from the myriad of isolated experiences, has not been for me.

In my mind it has long been associated with connection and gratitude. On a personal level, contrite worship and specific requests have never aligned for me. In instances where appropriate, why would anything greater than me, with certain powers to grant, have a bias on my behalf, potentially to the detriment of someone or something else?

Then there's my intricate skepticism... that's all I'll say there.

But nevertheless there is still an earning and longing to do so.

For about a year, I've been playing the steel tongue drum. I've wondered, "what am I doing?" By that I mean, what is deeply going on? I had said that I'm just playing my feelings and emotions, because I've not learned or composed any "songs" nor taken any lessons (I do have a musical background though). But that doesn't seem to really name what I'm doing when I play.

I realized that I'm praying too when I play. This is my way of "communion." This is how I establish the silver thread of connection to the "is-ness," existence, resonating through time and space, imbuing my soul with vitality and grace. How I tap into an innate code of being. The melodies I play in the moment, deep from within my heart, is how I contribute to the grand chorus that is this great mystery of existence.

It's something I find worth exploring, and doing so through the lens of purely how it feels.

When I feel like recording a prayer, I'll share it here. Enjoy.



One love

 

[Pandora]

Such a beautiful post.

I appreciate what you have to say about prayer. I tend not to ask anything of "higher" powers but rather pass on thanks and gratitude when for reasons unbeknownst to me, blessings fall upon me. As you indicated it seems improbable that any god-like entity would take a personal interest in the goings on of an individual life.

I listened to your prayerful composition. It felt very meditative to me. A beautiful composition. Thank you so much for sharing.

 

[Voidmatrix]

I feel that it is an intricate and complex thing, and I am kind of compelled at this point to see what actively comes from it. And it'll be special because it'll entail what I discover on my own.

Thank you so much for your kind words and I'm very happy you enjoyed it

One love

 

[Nydex]

Thank you for sharing this Void. The way you feel about prayer is in sync with a lot of the ways I feel about it.

For a very long time I had been looking upon prayer in a dismissive way, feeling it was more a religious dogma tool than an actual thing people benefit form. As if when praying, people try and release some of the responsibility for their own lives and put it in the hands of a higher being because it's easier that way. It took me a while to look at prayer from a different perspective and appreciate that it has other meanings too.

In studying Kabbalah, I've come to see prayer as a sort of technology, much like the Qabalists refer to it as one of the most powerful technologies for getting closer to "the creator" ever made. They believe that in praying, one does not ask for material things or an easy way out of trouble, for example. Rather, when praying one gets closer to the vibration of "the creator". You elevate your consciousness in a way, and allow it to receive more light and blessing.

The way Qabalists tend to do it is to pray for the challenges - pray to be met with some difficulty, to lose something, to be put in a tremendously challenging situation - because their belief system revolves around these adverse situations being the stepping stone to spiritual and emotional growth. That only by virtue of being challenged by the facets of your soul's corrections (your tikun) can you overcome these sides of you - the ones that fear, envy, greed or <insert vice here> - and elevate your consciousness to the proverbial "next level".

I personally don't tend to pray much. And when I do, I usually pray to not fail and recognize the tests the universe sends my way, no matter if they take the form of a difficult situation at work, a failing relationship with a friend or someone in my family, or something else. To recognize these as tests and to understand why they are happening, instead of simply giving in to the impulse to be reactive, is the test of growth for me.

Prayer can be powerful. Especially when it's put through the prism of "becoming" instead of "having".

 

[northape]

For years, I thought of myself as a Buddhist, but when the shit hits the fan in a medicine ceremony, I pray. It's not a decision on my part; it just happens.
I've heard a variation of the Jesus Prayer leave my mouth a number of times at higher doses: "God, have mercy." For me, it's more akin to the Serenity Prayer in its meaning.

They say that you don't ask God for anything, but just give thanks and gratitude. Still, sometimes we ask for things, especially when life gets hard. I feel that it's a fine and natural attitude, as long as we see God as separate from us. I'm not very eloquent in my speech, so I'll share an article that describes my attitude toward prayer. The author even touches on entities a bit there. It's from my favorite Dharma teacher in the Tibetan tradition:

Prayer Without Blind Faith – Unfettered Mind

Our real state is God, the nature of mind, or reality. In the end, we're praying to our real Self.

Bhagavan: The loss of 'I' can never be fully and perfectly accomplished by sadhana alone, the effort of the jiva [soul or ego].
Without the shinning light of grace, what can an insignificant jivas do to escape from the net of delusion and gain clarity?

 

[dithyramb]

Our real state is God, the nature of mind, or reality. In the end, we're praying to our real Self.

Exactly this. My position.

And the teaching of the esoteric culture of my land, explained to my mother's family directly by a renowned local sage.

 

[Pumpy]

I []

In my mind it has long been associated with connection and gratitude. On a personal level, contrite worship and specific requests have never aligned for me. In instances where appropriate, why would anything greater than me, with certain powers to grant, have a bias on my behalf, potentially to the detriment of someone or something else?

Then there's my intricate skepticism... that's all I'll say there.

But nevertheless there is still an earning and longing to do so

connect prayer with sincere thankfulness and also think it is true that for most people the best way to talk to god is through actions. The vacuous performative prayers are really just wishes because they lack sincerity. Communion is very precious everybody wants it , nice sounds

 

[fink]

Your drum has a beautiful tone. Your soul sound is (to me) deep, caring and slightly sorrowful, uncertain of itself...but with a hopeful edge. A furtive glance towards more self assured vibration.

I use guitar in a similar way, how you describe it fits very well. A silver thread of connection to the is'ness.

With prayer, specifically the thought that a God figure would have no interests in our individual prayers. We can pray to our ancestors. They usually do have an interest. They have answered and helped me and my young family before, without question.

I believe this is how we filter back to God. Almost like a human system of bureaucracy. We leave a message with our specific department. The soul family.

Sometimes it makes it's way up the chain to head office. Whether it be spoken prayer, unique music or any other pure form of expression. Praying is worth something. It's definitely not pointless.

Thank you for posting the sounds.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Thank you all.

I would like to have more in depth responses, hut for now I'll share a few other ideas.

I feel like prayer and ceremony and ritual can often be looked at as the algorithms or triggers for certain kinds of mystical codes that tap us in in different ways. There's something unsubjective here, but is nuanced such that it cannot be pinned down in a cognitive way that appeals in a consensus manner.

One love

 

[Transform]

My own rediscovery of prayer while face down in a festival field after a dose of unidentified arylcyclohexylamine dissociative substance, probably MXE, holds as remarkable not only in being difficult both to forget and to recall, but also in it somehow attuning me quite spontaneously to an efficaceous technique in comparison to what always came across as something of a hollow sham when experienced via a 'normal', Christian church.

If only they'd been serving a bona fide sacrement and playing some real healing songs a tad sooner, huh? Thanks for sharing your own of the latter, brother

 

[fink]

I feel like prayer and ceremony and ritual can often be looked at as the algorithms or triggers for certain kinds of mystical codes that tap us in in different ways. There's something unsubjective here, but is nuanced such that it cannot be pinned down in a cognitive way that appeals in a consensus manner.

If nothing else could ever be proved about praying, it certainly builds hope. Hope builds positivity, so the outcome will always be better than not believing in prayer.

 

[Voidmatrix]

One love

 

[fink]

This one took me on a walk through a sun lit woodland. The sorrowful tones have vanished to be replaced by buoyant and inquisitive progressions. Love the sounds of your drum. Do you play with fingers or sticks of sorts?

 

[Voidmatrix]

This one took me on a walk through a sun lit woodland. The sorrowful tones have vanished to be replaced by buoyant and inquisitive progressions. Love the sounds of your drum. Do you play with fingers or sticks of sorts?

I am really enjoying the description of the music as your inner experience. It creates a reciprocal effect of creativity because I then imagine what you describe.

I try to only play with my hands. While I can get better tones with the mallets, there's less soul in it.

One love

 

[Voidmatrix]

Posted at the altar, smoking a king palm, drinking an extra special nighttime tea with some added rue, blue lotus, and entada rheedii. Celebrating the Hunters Moon. A supermoon unlike any other, since it can land in two different months. Being the closest to the Autumnal Equinox it's the Harvest Moon, a Moon for gratitude, a Moon for celebration.

One love

 

[Voidmatrix]

In considering the idea of request in prayer, if there's some efficacy here, it's an appeal to a small part of the overall system, a small part of God's mind/being. The entirety doesn't favor an individual entirely. There's a partition that aligns beneficially with the prayer. It's also like tuning or attenuating to a frequency and creating a workable sympathetic resonance.

One love

 

[Exitwound]

Just felt like sharing this here:

 

[Pumpy]

There's a partition that aligns beneficially with the prayer. It's also like tuning or attenuating to a frequency and creating a workable sympathetic

Correspondence and sympathy. And I like thinking about how we as created(my assumption) beings only have limited agency and that their actions in some respect reflect the will of divinity i.e. god wants you to pray

 

[northape]

Just felt like sharing this here:

Never thought that I would see this prayer here. Kuntuzangpo, or All-Good, is a metaphor for our real nature. This prayer encompasses the whole Dzogchen path and connects you to lineage blessings if you have faith. It was a nice rendering, too. Thank you

 

[Voidmatrix]

One love