Pray Alone, That You May Love Together

Pray Alone, That You May Love Together
Copyright 2016 Don Ray

Each element of consciousness, each individual soul, knows only that to which it gets exposed by its immediate experiences and that which it is told by the other people around it, exactly analogous to molecules in a fluid flow.

The analogy continues as the molecules and the element of consciousness, a human spirit, get carried along in flows and currents and tides.

Occasionally a wave breaking on rocks or the white water chaos of the rapids will propel an individual element away from the main flow, exposing them in a moment of chaos and confusion and terror to that which is new and alien and incomprehensible. 

The wrenching trauma of such events may displace that drop of consciousness into a completely different flow or current or eddy.  The element of consciousness will then resume a life immersed in the inputs of its immediate surroundings and peers and the world within reach.

The Hindu goes to the festival, the Roman Catholic goes to mass, the atheist goes to the bar, flows and currents and tides are occasionally interspersed with water falls and rapids and tsunamis, some elements of the stream will pioneer a different course, but for the most part each element of the flow, each element of consciousness, each human spirit, will have its course shaped by those others with which it has direct contact.

I will recognize my family’s excitement about the football game.  The Hindu will recognize the crowd’s excitement about the temple festival.  We will each look with perplexity at the baffling, inscrutable interests of the other.

But unlike the molecule in the flowing fluid, the human spirit need not be constrained to only vision and perspective and experience of direct contact.  If it so chooses, the human spirit can open its spiritual vision to perceive that lying far beyond its immediate surroundings, far larger than its local community and family, far greater than any one set of beliefs or credos. 

Sometimes we get a glimpse of that greater, that larger, when the crashing rapids or the cascading waterfall tosses us terrifyingly free from the comfortable and familiar flow......or conversely that disaster and tragedy may lead us to close our spiritual eyes even further. 

But the greater, the larger, the open, the beyond, is always available, always accessible, even if the immediately surrounding elements of consciousness, our peers and family and colleagues, do not allow a full view of it. 

In contemplative prayer, or prayerful contemplation, or meditation, or whatever you choose to call it, everyone has access to a view and understanding and perspective and balance and Light that can never be fully realized or expressed through any contacts, friends, society, culture, or institution, that is, not through all the direct contacts in our lives.

With the best teachers, gurus, priests, preachers, shamans, professors, and sages, one’s view is still constrained to their view. 

If one is to fully realize one’s humanity, if one is to accept the title “child of God”, if one genuinely desires transcendent experience, one must open the mind and heart to perspectives not taught in words or texts or scripture or ritual or creed.  One must open to the learning that comes only from deeply personal relationship, relationship with the greater, the larger, the holy, the Christos by whatever name and form one can accept it. 

With that relationship with Source, with that new view beyond the hindering and blocking and distorting immediate contacts of the people in our lives, we can better see the beauty of the people in our lives, those other elements of consciousness being carried along with us in the currents and tides of events. 

We need no longer accept their beliefs and opinions as right and worthy.  We need no longer disdain their beliefs and opinions as silly and valueless.  We are no longer tied to them, no longer constrained to move in the same current, but in new found Light we can respect and understand them. 

In perspective gained from the Greater, from Source, from Sustainer, from Spirit, in perspective gained from Deep Communion and deeply personal relationship, we are freed from slavish obedience to the directions of the gang, family, team, neighborhood, church, society, and nation.  In perspective gained from the Greater, from Source, from Sustainer, from Spirit, in perspective gained from Deep Communion and deeply personal relationship, we are liberated from disenchantment and cynical bitterness that inevitably arise from just going along with the mindless self-deceptions of the gang, family, team, neighborhood, church, society, and nation.

From the life-giving wellspring of our contemplative prayer we can finally see in Love the gang, family, team, neighborhood, church, society, and nation, even with their silly, misleading, contrived, and baseless games, styles, fashions, trends, and occasionally bigoted opinions. 

Pray alone, that you may love and give together. 

Accept the tides and flows and currents in which you were placed, while seeing through them and beyond them, seeing a Light that illumines all though all distort it.  Through you, the warmth and strength and energy of that Light granted entrance by your contemplative prayer will exert its influence, altering flows and redirecting currents.

Copyright 2016 Don Ray