WHAT IS PRAYING? AN ACT OR AN ATTITUDE?

“It is necessary to pray always, and never stop praying.”

These words of Jesus are for profane man the greatest of enigmas – or the greatest of absurdities. How can I always pray if I have to work? If I obey his message, I should give up all my professional work, relegating my family, social duties, science, art and everything that makes human life a possible and dignified existence. Christianity, as it turns out, is not compatible with everyday human life.

And that is how the illiterate people of the spiritual world say and think.

Why?

Because they completely ignore what “praying” is.

“Praying” is, for the common person, saying specific formulas, at certain times, in certain places, especially on Sundays, in a particular church.

“Praying”, or oration is, in the sense of Jesus and of all spiritual geniuses, is not an act, but an attitude, although this internal, permanent attitude eventually manifests itself in external, transitory actions. The inner essence of prayer is an attitude, a way of being, a kind of life, health, joy, love, which are states or attitudes, not just external acts.

It is necessary, according to him, that man creates within himself this permanent atmosphere of prayer and lives in this environment, as one who lives in full sunlight, which warms, favours work, gives health, well-being, joy, happiness. The permanent prayer Jesus speaks of is a kind of constant interior luminosity, a spiritual awareness that envelops and penetrates human activity, decorating everything with an invisible halo.

Although prayer is a permanent attitude, it cannot do without individual, assiduous and repeated acts. Attitude is a kind of inner stratification that has been formed from the unconscious residues of numerous conscious acts that have migrated from the surface of the ego to the depths of the Self, and there they settle to form a vast layer of permanent habit, which is called attitude.

Once this layer has acquired sufficient volume, invisible energies radiate from it towards the surface of the ego, hence the need to form positive attitudes or habits, and to avoid the creation of negative habits.

To form this permanent attitude, man must have a particular time each day to completely immerse himself in the spiritual world. This hour of prayer, meditation or communion with God is absolutely indispensable for the health and life of the soul. During meditation, the spiritual Self must be fixedly and intensely focused on God and the divine world, without wandering into the world of feelings or thoughts. It's what Jesus calls “retiring to your cubicle, closing the door behind and praying alone with God.” To facilitate this stillness, words such as: “The Father and I are one”, “The Father is in me, and I am in the Father”, “The Christ lives in me”, “I am the light of the world”, should be used in thought.

The more intense this focus of spiritual awareness, the greater the abundance of light and strength the soul receives, as the measure of receiving depends on the degree of receptivity, and this practice elevates and intensifies the soul's receptivity.

After the meditation or prayer, the man returns to his daily tasks without losing internal contact with the spiritual world, which will begin to spiritualize his material world, not only without prejudice but with a real advantage over this material world.

Health means integrating the individual into the Whole.

Illness is a deficient integration of the individual into the Whole, which can eventually lead to death, disintegration.

On the organic level, this integration of the individual into the Whole is done in two ways:

1)- Through food, where the human body, after the ingestion and assimilation of energy stored in food, receives the caloric energy that comes from sunlight.

2)- Through breathing, inhaled oxygen is the link that puts the individual organism in direct contact with the vast ocean of energies of the Universe.

Without this permanent and renewed contact between the individual body and the Universe's energies, there is neither life nor health.

On the material level, this integration of the individual into the Whole is done in two ways:

1)- Through food, the human body receives caloric energy from sunlight after ingesting and assimilating nutrients.

2)- Through breathing, inhaled oxygen is the link that places the individual organism in direct contact with the vast ocean of the Universe’s energy.

Without this permanent and renewed contact between the individual body and these energies, there is neither life nor health.

This same law of the organic world is also in force in the spiritual world: life and health represent the permanent contact between the individual being and the Universal Being. What happens on the organic level through assimilation and breathing also occurs on the spiritual level through prayer or permanent communion with God. Without this contact, there is no spiritual life and health. Where assimilation or breathing ceases, the individual succumbs to starvation or suffocation - and where prayer, which is the assimilation and breathing of the soul, ends, it sickens and faints by lack of these vital elements.

Knowing this truth, Jesus said: “It is necessary to pray always, and never stop praying.” Prayer is the calorie and oxygen of the spirit.

There is an intimate relationship between body and soul, between the organic and spiritual part of man, one acting on the other, in the close relationship between the organic disease and the moral disease of men.

However, spiritual health can reach sufficient perfection to the point that without external help, it achieves organic health.

In the Gospel, the centurion of Capernaum who had faith did not heal his servant, but, in contact with the solid spiritual focus of Jesus, that faith was empowered - and the healing took place. A similar thing happened to the Canaanite woman, whose faith and contact with the superior spirituality of the Nazarene managed to cure her daughter tormented by an evil spirit. The same happened with the woman who touched Jesus' robe. Also, with the man who confesses himself to be a believer and an unbeliever – “I believe, Lord, help my unbelief” - and the low potential of his faith, potentialized by the contact with the high spirituality of Jesus, healed his son.

A high-powered magnet, acting on a low powered one, empowers it and enables it to do what it alone could not perform.

A high-voltage battery, in contact or by direct induction with another one of lower voltage, raises its voltage and gives it a power greater than what it possessed by itself. A stronger battery never loses energy through contact with a less strong one. Still, the one with the highest energy always dominates the smaller ones. The positive raises the negative. The plenitude fills the emptiness, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”.

In short, the power of prayer is not in the one who prays but in the spiritual world the person is in contact. Whoever prays is not the source but the channel or vehicle between the organic and spiritual worlds. Suppose this channel is transparent, suitable, unobstructed; the spiritual fluids that act on the organic world pass through it. And this is why “everything is possible to him who has faith”; “whatever you ask in my name, believe that you will receive it.”