Ancestors,
I make a prayer of thanks this morning
for this beautiful day and for my life with my husband, my mother, and
our four-leggeds. Spirits of this mountain and Sanctuary, I give great thanks.
I make a prayer of promise to be in readiness at all times, in all places, and
under all circumstances. Ancestors, I am ready. I pray for all of the mothers,
the fathers, the children, the grandfathers, the grandmothers, the aunts, and
the uncles; I open my heart, and I surround the world. Bring the whole world
in, Ancestors, to this light. I am ready. This is the prayer in my heart. It is
a prayer of readiness. Please hear me this morning. Amen, Amen, Amen.
Open your heart everyday and pray to
be present and to be beautiful on this day, in this moment. Ask to be shown how
to walk the path of beauty, step by step.
Live your life as a prayer, so your thoughts will not terrorize and
consume you. Your prayers will always lift you up. They will always purify you,
and they will always bring you into the resonance of the divine will and divine
consciousness. It does not matter if your prayers are your own prayers from
your heart, which are spoken with your love and your spiritual intention, or
whether you recite a holy prayer with a holy resonance, to bring you
there.
Praying from the Heart
When we close our eyes in
meditation, we listen to the breath.
It is the breath of God; we listen through our senses of feeling, inner wisdom,
and knowing, as God talks to us. When we
pray, we talk to the Gods and
Goddesses. You cannot pray from your head; drop your consciousness down into
your heart, and speak as a human being, from one being to another. Even if you
feel disconnected to begin with, even if you feel you are not sure what your
prayer is, even if you do not know how to pray, simply open your heart and
begin. I encourage you to open and let the sound of your words come out of your
mouth. Extend your prayers out from your own needs to the needs of the people
and out into the needs of the world.
When you make prayers, lift your
energy up and give it out, and let the prayer come through you so there is
energy behind it. Saying it out loud creates three times the effect as when we
pray silently. Energy and enthusiasm
will lift this prayer up. Speak it out so that the ancestors will clearly hear
you.
If you find that you are hesitating
and thinking about what to say next, end your prayer. Make a short, strong prayer. Then, if you
want to pray again in a moment because you forgot something, just add it. Oh, there’s something else, Ancestors,
something else I have here . . . Then, the energy behind your prayer will be registered. How you put your
prayer out and the degree to which it is registered, is the degree to which
your prayer is realized and answered.
This sequence is real. When your
prayer is really clear and really strong, and very, very focused, your prayer
gets answered instantaneously. If your prayer is wavering and uncertain, what
comes back to you will be wavering and uncertain. Focus your mental and emotional energy when
you are praying. Bring your prayer into
your feeling center. Feel it and speak it out from there even if you are tired,
even if it is early morning or late at night.
Pray as if your life
depended on it. It does, and so does everybody else’s. Shine this light to the world, and help. We are supposed to be serving the universe,
and so we give thanks for every single blessing. Pray to be of help. We put
these prayers out, and we walk these prayers into the earth. We send the word
of light out to the universe. We open our hearts and surround the world.
What’s
the difference between prayer and intention?
There is not a lot of
difference. If you make intention
sacred, that is prayer. If your
intention is not connected to your sacredness and the purpose of your spirit,
then it becomes an intention of the mind and personality. If is connected to
your whole being and to your spirit, and if you send it to God, you make it
sacred. That is the only difference
between prayer and intention.
What
about if you write your prayer down on paper? Is that as powerful as when you
speak it out?
You can write it down, you can be
very concise, and you can say it over and over again. If you are focusing and your intention is clear,
that is good. It is particularly good if you have a core prayer or intention
that is deeply meaningful to you. I have done that very successfully when I
wanted to instill a core remembrance in my consciousness. I made that my
prayer, I wrote it down, I learned it, and I said it all the time. That’s a
little different from when you connect with your heart and give thanks, and
then you make your prayer. It is still very good, but it’s more like an
affirmation when we write it down and say it over and over again.
Shining Your Container with Light
Step into the present moment and
feel how absolutely and intensely beautiful everything you touch is, and how
beautiful you are, and how you bring your beauty everywhere and to everything.
From this time on, do your very best to fill the container of your life - your
home, your place of work, the grocery store - with your light. Shine your
container with light, so everything you touch, you touch sacredly, and every
thought you think, you bring to a place of prayer and/or gratitude. Do your
very best to hold this consciousness for as long as you can and as often as you
can. Be praying all of the time so you can be giving thanks, which is a prayer
in and of itself. You can recite a well known holy prayer, or you may pray your
own prayer from your heart.
When you find you are spacing out,
as you will, bring your consciousness back, just as you do in meditation. Say
inside, Ancestors, help me keep my
consciousness with you during this time, this is my prayer, my consciousness is
with you . . . , and say your prayer. When you go out, come back, and next
time you will come back more quickly, and then you will have times when you are
living in that consciousness.
Go to bed with a prayer. When you
wake up in the morning, before you put your feet on the floor, make a prayer
right then and there. Ancestors,
Grandfathers and Grandmothers, I give thanks for my life today. When you
rise and put your feet on the ground, acknowledge that it is Holy Ground you
are walking on, and every step you take is on sacred ground. Your hands are filled with light, your feet
are filled with light, your eyes are filled with light, your heart is filled
with light, your feelings are filled with light, and your thoughts are filled
with light. Be mindful; be gentle and slow in your movements, soft and relaxed
in your energy.
Does this mean nothing of a negative
nature will arise? An unkind thought? A worry? Some envy? Whatever it is, it arises, it is, and it
dissolves; that is the practice of the witness consciousness. Keep working the
prayer, keep weaving the threads of light.
The sacred words and the
sacred names that are repeated and done repetitiously, occupy your
consciousness with light. They refine and develop your higher consciousness so
that your mind becomes trained to focus in beauty, and then you begin to truly
realize what it is to live life as a prayer.
You have the power to do this, you have the heart to do this. When you
wake up in the morning before you put your feet on the ground, give thanks for
your life, focus your heart on your prayer and intention for your life this
day. During the day when you are busy and working and challenged in many ways,
keep a prayer that speaks to your heart with you, like a really good friend. Keep it close and go back to it often, and it
will nourish and bring light into you all day long. And before you go to bed at
night, the last thing you should do is to give thanks and to find a prayer in
your heart to bring into the dream time. Allow yourself to exercise your
spiritual muscles and your spiritual will to become more beautiful, to be more
peaceful, and to really anchor and stabilize the light that you are.
(Spring Retreat 2007)
Maresha's next blog will be published December 2, 2014.
Messages of Light is published by the Sanctuary of Universal Light on Snow Dragon Mountain in Meredith, New Hampshire. www.snowdragonsanctuary.com
Messages of Light is published by the Sanctuary of Universal Light on Snow Dragon Mountain in Meredith, New Hampshire. www.snowdragonsanctuary.com