Prayer and doing good

I believe that prayer and or talking with God is beneficial. If things are getting a bit hard in life and you need help from God why not ask for it.

Also doing good for Gods sake, not just for the sake of other living beings on earth is I believe beneficial. I have had experiences and you can read about them in one of my previous posts on how I recovered naturally from an illness for wich there is no cure.

Anyway wouldn't it be a good thing if we started a thread on prayers, so that if anybody who would like to post a prayer he or she could go ahead.

Prayer might have the power as positive affirmations might have. Basically I would say that it would work because everything we say or do in other ways MATTERS.

Thanks

I agree that prayer does you good. It is a pity that prayer is often assumed, as is religious music, to belong only to believers. It does not. It is possible , and beneficial, to pray 'to' one's best aspirations . Whether or not one presumes that those take a humanoid shape is a trivial detail.I presume that Pel is talking about private prayer only;public and institutionalised prayer is sometimes bad for us and can be hijacked by bad or stupid people.


I also agree that doing good 'for God's sake' is beneficial, and I'd go further and say it is the only lastingly beneficial motive. However it is of prime importance when examining one's motives and informants to know good gods from bad gods of which there are many.The Sermon On The Mount is one of the best descriptions of the good god if not the best.

I feel that philosophy is a sort of prayer. It cannot be anything other than a good activity which is impossible to use malevolently.

[Scott]

Scientifically speaking, it has been shown that prayer does not work (source of one example, source of second example). Even with that determined, that still leaves open the possibility that prayer might have the power as positive affirmations might have, e.g. that even though praying for something to happen does not make it more likely to happen the act of praying itself may make the person praying feel good about themselves or otherwise have a non-supernatural effect on the person praying. If this is true, I imagine it would be easy to find evidence of such a thing. Do you have any credible sources supporting the existence of such an effect? If causality cannot be shown, is there even evidence of a mere correlation between praying and future mental health or personal success?

Also doing good for [an allegedly existing] Gods sake, not just for the sake of other living beings on earth is I believe beneficial.

This statement appears to me to be a meaningless tautology: Doing good is good.

Wouldn't it be possible to say that prayer does good through a "placebo" effect?

[Scott]

I think it is possible that prayer may have a subjectively good placebo effect for the prayer, sure. Surprisingly, though, the scientific studies to which I linked in my previous post showed that people who knew they were being prayed for had worse outcomes than those who did not know they were being prayed for or were not being prayed for. I would still assume that is a placebo effect, but it is a negative one rather than positive which is remarkable.

I'm sure there are cases of positive placebo effects but they probably haven't been documented.

But I agree, that is rather extraordinary.

It is no secret (although the book "the secret" may have their readers believe it was) that the power of positive thinking is a great tool to increase motivation in regards to achieving what one sets there mind to. A perfect example are professional athletes, one may pray to God for the strength to push through there rigorous training and to be selected for a top performing team, there belief in God may encourage them to keep, keeping on so they can prove themselves worthy of Gods watchful eye. Where as another athlete with same goal and dreams to achieve may focus there attention on their own capabilities; their willingness to sacrifice in order to prove to themselves anything is possible will have the same results as one who gets there motivation from praying to Gods.

Be good for goodness sakes, the benefits of the action if projected onto others, is irrelevant in regards to the intent to do good.

When we pray from our personality for worldly needs, God is unnecessary. When we pray from the depth of our being it is something else and only a few are open to becoming capable of it.

"Absolute unmixed attention is prayer. " Simone Weil

How many even know what absolute unmixed attention is?

When we pray from our personality for worldly needs, God is unnecessary. When we pray from the depth of our being it is something else and only a few are open to becoming capable of it.

"Absolute unmixed attention is prayer. " Simone Weil

How many even know what absolute unmixed attention is?

I could take an educated guess . I would assume it is pure uninterrupted focus on one specific detail, it would be absent of any associated concepts/meanings, the mind would need to be 100% free and clear of any external thought/idea excluding the once specific detail which is receiving "absolute unmixed attention. I imagine this would be extremely hard to do it could be compared to self a induced meditated state with the exception of, the focus is on one thing in specific, rather than nothing.

That would be my guess anyway.

TC

When we pray from our personality for worldly needs, God is unnecessary. When we pray from the depth of our being it is something else and only a few are open to becoming capable of it.

"Absolute unmixed attention is prayer. " Simone Weil

How many even know what absolute unmixed attention is?

I could take an educated guess . I would assume it is pure uninterrupted focus on one specific detail, it would be absent of any associated concepts/meanings, the mind would need to be 100% free and clear of any external thought/idea excluding the once specific detail which is receiving "absolute unmixed attention. I imagine this would be extremely hard to do it could be compared to self a induced meditated state with the exception of, the focus is on one thing in specific, rather than nothing.

That would be my guess anyway.

TC

Simone Weil describes conscious attention well:

"Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty and ready to be penetrated by the object. It means holding in our minds, within reach of this thought, but on a lower level and not in contact with it, the diverse knowledge we have acquired which we are forced to make use of. Above all our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object which is to penetrate it."

Notice how attention begins at a level higher than the object. Absolute unmixed attention is this vertical capacity of consciousness without the object. It is an expression of the source of consciousness within our collective being. It is only this source and the needs of this source that can be touched by higher consciousness.

When she says

but ready to receive in its naked truth the object which is to penetrate it

it immediatley raises the question, recieve from what or who?

When she says

but ready to receive in its naked truth the object which is to penetrate it

it immediatley raises the question, recieve from what or who?

Consciousness without content is a part of our collective being. We do not experience it because we are attached to contents or as Plato said the shadows on the wall. The development of Man's consciousness requires becoming able to sustain consciousness without content, the ability to consciously experience the external world rather than blindly subjectively reacting to it.

Conscious prayer consists of getting out of our own way so that this kernel of life can assert its objective need. Consciousness needs the help of higher consciousness to develop.

Secular doing good is concerned with earthly needs. Christian love in contrast is the ability to further another's inner need for awakening to help from above.

Secular doing good is concerned with earthly needs. Christian love in contrast is the ability to further another's inner need for awakening to help from above.

Rescue helicopter?

I learned very early on that life is what you make of it, and that the universe is not out to get you, but neither does it owe you anything. In my experiance prayer is not unlike hope in general, the only difference is that whilst some of the things I've hoped for have come true, everything I've actively prayed for (in the days that I used to pray for things) NEVER came true. Don't take that the wrong way, I am only one person and I know full well that some people pray for things and some of those things do happen...it just never happened to me...ever...I can honestly say that I've never knowingly experianced a miracle. Sure good things have happened to me, but with those things I know exactly who did what and who to thank, first and foremost my family (something which I am eternally greatful for knowing not everyone has the luxury of a caring loving and stable family), but also my friends, people who have worked with me and, the occational stranger and, not to be too humble, Myself.

The biggest difference, and reason that I think hope worked and prayer failed, is that I could do something about hope. Just because I hope something will happen doesn't mean I just sit back and do nothing about it, rather the best way is to hope that you will succeed in solving your own problems. With prayer, you are calling on somebody else to solve your problems for you...honest opinion? It almost never works. I'm not saying that people don't need help now and again, but I worry about consistently depending on somebody else in general, even if it is god. I can tell you from experiance that God will not solve all your problems, at some point you have to take responsibility for your own life.

Of course this only targeted at those who do actually just pray for everything and don't take charge of things themselves. I see nothing wrong in saying to god 'I'm going to do x, and any help you want to give would be much appreciated'...but If I were god, someone who just prays to me saying "please solve all my problems" isn't going to get my help, because I wouldn't be teaching him anything if I did!

I believe that prayer and or talking with God is beneficial. If things are getting a bit hard in life and you need help from God why not ask for it.

Also doing good for Gods sake, not just for the sake of other living beings on earth is I believe beneficial. I have had experiences and you can read about them in one of my previous posts on how I recovered naturally from an illness for wich there is no cure.

Anyway wouldn't it be a good thing if we started a thread on prayers, so that if anybody who would like to post a prayer he or she could go ahead.

Prayer might have the power as positive affirmations might have. Basically I would say that it would work because everything we say or do in other ways MATTERS.

Thanks

Prayer is fine some of the times, but sometimes it takes way time from people acting out and helping each other. Also you could get a prayer answered and get help, but prayer doesn't always get answered and you don't always get help. You have to take some action yourself to get a prayer answered. You could pray for a job, and maybe get it, or maybe not. But you cannot pray for just anything and get it say like a million dollars. Life would still be hard regardless of whether or not you asked for help because the only help you could get is getting a prayer answered not literal help. But literal help is what people really need, so the sad thing is you are on your own. You say doing good is important for God's sake, but not for the sake for other living beings. If other living being are not benefiting from it why would doing good for God's sake be good?