Praying to the Creator, Not the Creation
Orar al Creador, no a la creación
A question about whether replacing a traditional God with "the universe" is just another form of conditioning, leading into a discussion about the nature of true prayer, the mystery of relationship, and what it means to give rather than receive.
Praying to the Creator, Not the Creation
A question about whether replacing a traditional God with "the universe" is just another form of conditioning, leading into a discussion about the nature of true prayer, the mystery of relationship, and what it means to give rather than receive.
I was just caught in the baby-and-bathwater extremes. I definitely acknowledge that pattern in me. But I was thinking, which might have been the first problem, that I'm just replacing this God-being with the universe, making the universe the deity. Is that just a replacement? Does the conditioning need to go somewhere, so it creates some grander concept it can still maneuver its way into?
The universe is the creation, and what you should pray to is the creator. The universe is a mystery. The creator is a greater mystery. So notice your slipping into knowing what the universe is, what it does, how it works. Notice that it is a mystery. The praying should be toward the creator, which is a greater mystery.
Where you need to see and clarify, where you want to get rid of the bathwater, is in the knowing: the assumptions and projections of your knowing and your expectations about what the universe is and how it operates. The universe is the creation. You don't pray to the creation; you pray to the creator. In that relationship, you can recognize that they are not two.
But first, and I'm trying to meet you in the place you are: clarify that which you're praying to, and make sure you're praying to the right thing, which is the mystery of the creator.
So it's not like I need to be praying to myself or something.
Well, that depends on what you define as "myself," because it actually is the same thing. But if you think you know what you are, you're again praying to the wrong thing.
It's like when I pray, I think there are still remnants of "I have to be a good girl or I'm going to be punished." That's still operating a little bit subconsciously. I'm not praying to this God-being from modern Christianity, but it's still something that feels like it's out there, something that's going to give me what I want if I ask enough. It feels like something apart from me.
The honest starting point
Two things you said. One is "it's out there." That is fine, because until you see that there is no inside and outside, you have to honor your experience. Your experience is the perception from the point where there is an outside, a universe that you're separate from. So honor that. Respect that. Be curious about that.
There is a pointing that there is no such thing. But you don't come to see that by fighting it. You come to see it by recognizing, "This is my experience." Sure, it sounds like, or you are told, or it seems like you're misperceiving. But you have to be completely authentic and honest with what your experience actually is. That's the only way more clarity will come. So keep praying to that which is outside.
Flipping the prayer around
But now consider what you pray for. If you're praying for what you can get, you are praying to a universe or a God that you assume is interested in giving you something. What if, instead, it is interested in what you can give to it? What you can give back to life for giving you life.
What if the God of the universe is saying: "Pray to me. What do you want to give? How can you give to life for the gift of being given life?" You could pray, "Help me see how I can give my gift to life in appreciation for having been given life."
That completely flips the prayer around. It shifts the assumption that you need something, and not only the assumption that the universe is there to give you something, but a deeper assumption: that you are in need of something. What if what you need is to figure out how to give, and God, the universe, life has already given you everything it can give you?
This could come across as pointing to something in us humans where we can get self-involved. In a sense it does, but it actually points to the fact that we are a lot more than what we think. So question the assumption that you are in need.
I love that about the prayers, because sometimes my prayer is just, "Help me see more clearly." Full stop. That's it, especially if I know I'm churning about something.
But the reason I raised my hand was about the mystery of love. Earlier this year, I was seeing someone, and I noticed that when I was with him, it felt like there was me, and there was him, and then there was this force field, like a third entity. It had a life of its own. I got curious about it because it wasn't really a third thing. So is it perhaps more real than what I think I am? Or maybe it's just a mystery I'll never understand. If you were to walk into this room, the energy would change, and it would be like a different life force. I become a different life force, part of him but also not part of him. I was wondering if you had anything to say about that. What is that? Is it actually closer to reality than when I'm on my own, or is it something else?
The third energy in true relationship
First of all, it is. Explanations could be a disservice, but that said, it is real. There's no way to define something that is always in movement and changing, but a lot of the time it will be more real than when you're alone.
Because of how you're describing it, it seems like a real relationship. It's very likely that when you're alone, you often retreat into your own mind. When that happens, you're less in touch with reality. When you are with him, that relationship, because it appears to be a true relationship (and by "true" I mean there's something more real because of this third that you feel is present), that indicates to me it's a real relationship. There's truth in it.
It's shifting you out of your center of gravity being the "me" thought, the "me" world. And that's a whole spiritual path. No path is in opposition to any other; they're complementary. A true relationship is a complementary spiritual path. It's a mirror, and it's hard for us to stay self-involved and trapped in ideas of "me" when there's another that breaks that and invites us to relate to something beyond it.
If you're feeling this third energy, there's a maturity there. In general, I would say it's a mystery. Not too much can be said. The more that is said, the more risk there is of sterilizing it, pulling it into the world of thought, co-opting it into a mental understanding. But the relationship, if it's a true relationship and it stays true, will always break those barriers. It will always challenge those contractions and beliefs. That's the power of a relationship that is true. And it could be a friendship; it doesn't have to be romantic. The relationship with a teacher, if the match is right, produces the same thing in different ways, different flavors, different forms.
So what is a true relationship, then? Why would one person inspire that shift and another person just not?
What makes relationship true
It's a mystery. It's really magical when it happens. You could also say there are two people who are honest with each other. It's not black and white; there are always degrees of honesty. But there must be a certain openness, authenticity, and honesty for that third energy to be felt. I don't think you're imagining it. When you say there's a third energy, something that appears, that's a sign of two people who are more interested in truth, in relationship, in the other, than in their own self-involved world.
It just requires 51 percent: a tiny preference, just slightly more interest in the other than in my own world. That creates this energy, this interest in something beyond my ideas of my separate self.
I like the 51 percent thing, because the thoughts are still there. You can still sense the thought, but then there's the other force that is dominant when you're physically in the room. Not so much in different rooms. It's still there, but then the thoughts become the 51 percent.
The thoughts: it's never about them going away. It's about what we attribute to be more real and important. If the thoughts about "me" start to become more real and more important, we get lost in separation and ignorance and illusion. But I could be in a completely open, loving relationship and have thoughts. The thoughts are operational. They are creativity, problem-solving, forms of expression. There can also be thoughts that are neurotic.
Vulnerability and the mirror
But that's what can then become beautifully experienced in a mirroring relationship, where one is more interested in knowing the other as they are, in the mystery of the other, than in them being how I want them to be. That wanting is the self-involved need. But it doesn't mean the self-involved need can't be fully activated and present in a relationship. If the relationship has that 51 percent, that greater interest in the relationship itself, then I will be able to expose that need and say, "I really have this thing coming up. I'm wanting this. I'm feeling this." You can express and expose whatever activation of that neediness arises, and that can happen both ways.
Then there's vulnerability. There's fun, because it's like getting to know each other's way of being. In that openness, we learn to appreciate each other and the struggles we're in. There's more and more connection, bonding, and trust. And you start to see more and more of the mystery of the other, unfolding.