The Art of Prayer: A Practical Guide
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- Опубліковано 24 чер 2024
- I would like to share some tips and tricks that I’ve gleaned over the past few decades of praying in the hopes that they might be helpful to you. We’ll present a ten-point practical guide to prayer covering: setting, posture, breath, body, senses, awareness, silence, pace, dialogue and object.
You might have all kinds of preconceptions about what prayer is. I invite you to set aside what you know and indulge me in a fresh articulation of prayer. We’ll present prayer as an opportunity to slow down, feel held and seen, to center yourself in silence, pour out your heart, and emerge re-empowered to face whatever comes your way - with love.
What is Prayer: • What is Prayer?
00:00 Why Pray?
03:24 How to Pray?
09:58 What to Pray?
15:08 When to Pray
16:35 World of Prayer
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What is Prayer tho? ua-cam.com/video/Y88PtJnrHak/v-deo.htmlsi=31zdCNOv8HJpXMTU
Doing really well
That one always stumps me...😂
I can't help but think about it as an ontological question: "How am I doing?"
Not bad. Hope the new year is the best for you!
Back to teaching this week, so I'm busy busy busy. Thanks for the timely reminder!
Hanging in there. Thank you for asking! What's new with you?
The 'mind pleasure' I get from preoccupation with the theory, though indulgent, tends to be transient, with its ramifications often remaining in the theoretical realm.
My biggest challenge lies in going from theory to practice, from contemplation to action.
This shift of the focus to the practical side of mysticism is so valuable to me, I so deeply appreciate this. It helps me bridge the gap, urging me towards the direction I want to go.
Thank you for this gift! ❤
At the end of the day, prayer is a form of meditation. As simple as shutting up and concentrating. In the moment: only you and G'd!
Your sense of hope is encouraging. Thank you!
thank you for sharing your wisdom
I don't have a cohesive way of phrasing my thoughts yet, but the way you conceptualized prayer touched a really tender and aching spot in my soul. Thank you for this beautiful video, Zevi
You’re most welcome 🙏🏼
The kindness with which you invited us in and took us through this way of praying is almost too much for me.
Even having reached this before; the particulars of how and why never felt obvious to my conscious mind, so i would sometimes worship and pray in such a way that i got to the same place you gently guide us to here; but now i have a way to approach and make it less chance based now.
Thank you Zevi.
😢 You’re so very welcome my dear friend. Thank you for your kind works. I’m so glad I was able to be helpful.
This is awesome. I was raised secular but started learning and doing mitzvot in the last year or two. This is so helpful for me. Thank you so much.
You’re so very welcome. Thank you.
This approach to prayer is beautiful.
What you say is beautiful and very true. Just like you are: truly beautiful !
I am sure your loving and open way will help many others as is helping me…I carry on listening to you, and will do as long as you are there. It brings peace to my soul and strength to follow the path….
❤❤❤ Elena
I'm in awe! Your notion is of prayer is beautiful, and it appears to me as such a beautiful journey I'm excited to explore because of this video.
Thank you, Zevi!
True-hearted prayers for an other, while not looking for anything in return for oneself, will enhance Beauty within you.
"To pour out your heart to a listening ear." Beautiful. Great job as usual Zevi.🙏🏼
Thank you my kind friend :)
@@SeekersofUnityThis was so much more vital to me in a time of need that I was surprised to see my comment and remember seeing it before. I have had a few difficult months. Difficult lessons needed to be learned. Viewing this again, it spoke to me much more powerfully. Blue-gray is my, in the arms of my maternal grandmother hue and the bright warm colors the opposite. Even with the opposite color palette , this spoke to me so directly. Thank you for the powerful gift of this instruction. If you aren't familiar with it, check out "Practicing His Presence" by Bother Lawrence about living in continuous prayer.
I loved the moment when you spoke to God with sincerity. I love you my son, my brother and my father.
Hi Zevi ! I want to thank you for sharing generously you knowledge with us ! My name is Anass and I'm a muslim from Morocco. Your videos are enlightening deepely my intellect, I can say I'm in my highest experiences of spirituality when I'm learning from you ! I believe that "reviving "God"" is the individual and collective human mission that leads to joyful human experience individually and collectively. Let's keep seaking ! God bless you!
أضاء الله طريقك و طريقنا!
Thank you my friend. Good to have you here with us. God bless you.
Thank you for this. Much needed indeed.
You’re most welcome 🙏🏼
¡Gracias!
You’re most welcome 🙏🏼 thank you my friend.
Beautifully presented. Thank you so much
You’re most welcome. Thank you 🙏🏼
Your voice and heart is both delivering. Thank you. Some reason, something sent me to listen to you. It all started with Esoterica. I have no words… glad to have found your words.
Thank You! It was truly elegant and beautiful guide.
Thank you friend.
Love this Zevi, thank you!
You’re most welcome my friend.
You have a smooth relaxing voice. I’m saving this so I can return and play over an over again ❤😊
Thank you
You’re welcome my friend.
Such a beautiful video series ❤
Thank you friend.
What a wonderful episode! Thank you
You’re most welcome. Thank you Ron.
This was so moving.
Thanks for this Zevi!
You’re most welcome 🙏🏼
Psalm 19 and 23 have always been the base and foundation in life. I start my prayer with these Psalms and they calm my anxieties. Thank you for your usual deep discourses.
23 is like sweet water to the heart's tongue 💜
🙏
Great stuff
I've only recently discovered your channel.. I've always been drawn to the Platonic tradition, from the ancient times through the medieval period till now. I watched your video on Eriugena and was inspired. All this interest and reading though I never really put it into practice. This video on prayer is a beautiful introduction for me to finally walk the walk. Bless you.
You’re most welcome. I’m glad you’ve been enjoying the work we’re doing here. Welcome.
Hello Zevi. Love this. Appreciate the incorporation of meditation as the first step of prayer. It mirrors my own journey. I think it’s also part of the communing. Don’t leave it behind as a mere step 1. The communing should be FELT. I was never a theist, but couldn’t deny that when I address “God”, there is a felt response, a sensation, a presence and tangible “communing” that is observable. This isn’t really moving beyond mindfulness-it’s being mindful of the presence of God (with that same bodily awareness). It’s on that basis for me that the communing is known and felt; not just imagined and aspired to. Mindful communion with God-how is it not both mindfulness and communion? 💛🙏
Also, have you read the Irish lady Lorna Byrne’s accounts of prayer? Check them out if you haven’t, Zevi. She speaks in a universalist paradigm, like you-of the “intertwining of the soul and the body” and of “seeing through the eyes of the soul”, and of course about LOVE (in a remarkable way). Love and thanks to you, Zevi 💛
You’re most welcome Sean. Thank you kindly. I haven’t seen her work but looking forward to encountering it.
Love,
Zevi
Beautiful! Thank you🙏
What? 44k Subscribers! Amazing & congrats
Thank you very much for this video. I was always wondering what's the difference between meditation and prayer. Prayers seem very useful in investigating and becoming comfortable with the problems of life. Seems like a good place to solve human issues.
My meditations brought me to a place of extreme silence, where I would become "melded" with the rest of the world, but it was just it, a silent place of calm. It seems to me that a prayer would be the next step, where that place of silence would be useful in solving life problems.
🙏🏼
Please, would you consider doing a video on practices suggested in various traditions, to open oneself to a possible encounter with the Divine? Would it be possible to discuss the similarities and differences in those practices? Thank you. I enjoy your channel very much.
Thank you friend.
" Prayer is not a technique, it is not a ritual, it is not a formality. There is no pattern to it. It is a spontaneous outpouring of the heart, so don’t ask how, because there is no how and there cannot be any how to it. Whatsoever happens in the moment is right. If tears come, good. If you sing, good. If you dance, good. If nothing comes and you simply remain silent, good. Because prayer is not in the expression; it is not in the container, it is in the content. Sometimes silence is prayerful, sometimes singing is prayerful. It depends on you, it depends on the heart. So if I say sing, and you sing because I have told you to sing, then the prayer is false from the very beginning. Listen to your heart, feel your moment, and let it be. And whatsoever happens is good.
Sometimes nothing will happen, but that is what is happening. You allow it, you don’t impose your will on it. When you ask how, you are trying to impose your will, you are trying to plan. That’s how prayer has been missed. That’s how all the churches and religions have become rituals. They have a set prayer, a set form: the authorized version, the approved. But how can anybody approve prayer? How can anybody give you an authorized version?
Prayer has to arise in you, it has to flower in you. And each moment has its own prayer, and each mood has its own prayer. Nobody knows what is going to happen to your innermost world tomorrow morning. How can it be fixed? A fixed prayer is a false prayer: this much can certainly be said. A ritualized prayer is no longer prayer: this can be said in absolute terms. An unritualized, spontaneous gesture - that’s what prayer is. Sometimes you may feel very sad, because sadness also belongs to God. Sadness is also divine. There is no necessity to always be happy. Then sadness is your prayer. Then let your heart cry and let your eyes pour down tears. Then let sadness be offered to God. Whatsoever is there in your heart, let it be offered to the Divine Feet - joy or sadness, sometimes even anger.
Sometimes one is angry with God. If you cannot be angry with God, you have not yet known love. Sometimes one is really in a deep rage. Then let anger be your prayer. Fight with God - He is yours, you are His, and love knows no formality. Love can survive all fights. If it cannot survive a fight, then it is not love. So sometimes you don’t feel like praying; then let that be your prayer. You say to God, “Wait! I’m not in the mood, and the way you are doing things, it is not even worth praying.” But let it be a spontaneous pouring of your heart.
Never be inauthentic with God because that is the way of not being with Him. If you are insincere with God - deep down you are complaining, and on the surface praying? - then God will see the complaint, not the prayer. You have been false. He can look directly into your heart. Whom are you trying to deceive? The smile on your face is not going to deceive God; your truth will be known to Him. He can only know your truth; lies don’t exist for Him. So let the truth be there. You simply present your truth to Him and say that today you are angry, you are angry with His world, you are angry with Him, you are angry with your life: “I hate it! And I cannot pray, so you will have to remain without my prayer today. I suffer much; now you suffer.” Talk to Him as one talks to one’s lover, one’s friend, one’s mother. Talk to Him as one talks to a small child.
I was staying with a family, and the mother ordered the small child to pray. He was very interested, and he was not ready to go to sleep, and he wanted to be with me a little longer. But the family was very disciplinarian, so they said, “Now it is nine o’clock. You go and sleep, and don’t forget your prayer.” He was angry; I could see it. He went into his room. I followed just to listen to what he was going to pray. In the darkness I heard him say, “God, make bad people good and good people nice.” He knows his mother is good, his father is good, but not nice. I have heard about another child. He was staying in a guest house with the family. The first night he prayed. He always used to sleep with a small light on, but there was no light and the electricity had gone. Suddenly, as he prayed the electricity disappeared. He was just getting into his bed, and he told his mother, “Let me get up again and let me pray again more carefully, because the night is going to be dark.”
First he had just prayed by the way, but now the night was going to be dark and there was no light and he was more afraid. He said, “Let me pray again. Let me get out, and let me pray more carefully, because now there is more danger.”
Listen to children’s prayer and become a child. All the religions say that God is Father. In fact, the emphasis should be that man is the child. That is the real meaning when we call God ‘the Father’. But we have forgotten; God is the Father but we are not His children. Forget whether He is Father or not. You just be a child - spontaneous, true, authentic.
Don’t ask me and don’t ask anybody how to pray. Let the moment decide, let the moment be decisive, and the truth of the moment should be your prayer. That’s my answer: the truth of the moment, whatsoever it is, unconditionally, should be your prayer. And once you allow the truth of the moment to possess you, you will start growing, and you will know tremendous beauties of prayer. You have entered on the path. But if you simply go on repeating a certain prayer, a technique, then you will miss. You will never enter on the path, you will just remain outside."
Wonderful video. Thank you.
You’re most welcome 🙏🏼 Thank you
Thank you so much brother. Wonderful video
You have definitely found your niche - wow
This is surprisingly similar to vipassana meditation.
How to avoid saying "the same things all the time"?, it feels like I'm repeating the same ideas/words every time. Wonderful suggestions. Thanks from all my heart!!!
Just talk to God...
Thank you. There’s something calming or prayerful about listening to this presentation. I have been thinking about converting for a while, because my reading of the Bible has made the position that Jesus was messiah untenable for me. It’s a question I have everyday. I don’t know what to do with my good memories of prayer as a Christian. What even happened there? And what now? I feel cut off from spirituality losing my religion.
❤
Got it! 🇺🇸 ✅
💜
Praying to God is a one way conversation. However, when He answers you, you're NOT crazy. You're just having a super cool dialogue...
I don't want to get too deep or anything, but in times of severe depression it can be hard to be grateful even for the simple things that you mentioned. What do you do then? When it feels like there's nothing you can be grateful for?
In those moments for me the only things I feel I can be grateful for are past experiences I've had
Thank you for the question. I’m sorry you feel that way at times. You’re not alone. I feel that way too. God feels that way with you. Hold on to whatever you can in those moments. Whether it’s past experiences or whatever you can muster. And know that it will get better.
Try reminding yourself not to identify with the experience. We are deeper than our depression. We’re experiencing and feeling depression and it sucks but we are not depressed. We don’t have to identify with how we’re feeling. It too will pass.
With love,
Zevi
God loves us even when we are hurting too badly for gratitude. I have a lot of personal experience with depression. When gratitude isn't possible, I find that if I can remember that God is sharing my pain, sometimes I can release some of it. Sometimes people release pain on each other, but if you can find a way to release some of if to God, God has an infinite capacity to carry it away and take it from here. Not easy or always possible even but it is a skill that one can get better at over the years. I heard older black ladies in my part of the world talk about this as "rocking it out " by literally praying in the rocking chair on the front porch. Black ladies that can remember the 1970's and earlier in the American South are experts on surviving pain and adversity.
15:50
My spiritual youtube channel randomly condemning neoliberalism is frankly way less jarring than tha Vatican doing it, but still, I am at the very least surprised I heard it first here and not at Esoterica
Great as always
Is posture really that important? I try just meditating witb my back as straight as possible and i always feel pain 😅
Try using a pillow for some lumbar support.
@SeekersofUnity also just one more thing, would it be okay to wear ear plugs or something to block out noise (sounds from other people, even at night)? Or would it be better to pray *through* the noise?
Sorry again pretty oddly specific lol
@user-ur4cv7hn2f Feel free to use whatever’s at your disposal to best achieve silence :)