Have you ever wanted to pray while in a public setting, but hesitated to show any signs that you were praying for fear of drawing attention to yourself?
A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in a tennis club lounge waiting for my match to be called. Dozens of players were milling around, talking and having a grand time. I was having a grand time too, but I also craved a few silent moments with God. So I sat down, closed my eyes, mentally blocked out all the sounds and distractions around me, and went directly to divine Love. I became oblivious to material surroundings and let the heavenly inspiration flow freely. The effect was exhilarating and liberating.
When I ended my prayer and opened my eyes, I turned to my coach who had sat next to me, and was greeted with, “Are you alright? Are you feeling okay?” Surprised by his observation, I assured him I felt better than ever, and that he had no reason to be concerned.
I pondered his reaction, wondering why he drew a conclusion opposite to the truth.
One reason, I decided, was that it was unusual to see someone totally “check out” from engagement with the senses while participating in otherwise very physically engaged environments. Another reason, I thought, was the common perception that if one is very quiet and unengaged physically, there is something wrong with him. He’s probably sick or has mental problems, many might conclude.
Do these common perceptions about what constitutes “normal” behavior prevent many people from praying in public settings when they may need God more than ever? I asked myself.
Yes, I understand the concept of praying on the run, praying while grocery shopping, and praying in the middle of intense business negotiations. But there is no substitute for totally shutting down the material senses and receiving God’s full blessing of Truth.
Yesterday, I took my 13 year old son to the Hot Shots Lazer Tag fun center in town for a father/son activity.
If you can imagine the setting, with dozens of 5-15 year olds bouncing off each other in the waiting area like popcorn popping in a kettle quickly eating up the limited available space and with no where to go until released, and with a few parents standing around wondering, “What am I doing here?” you have an idea of the environment I was in.
After the first 15 minute match, I craved a few quiet moments with God. So I found a remote corner with a couch, sat down, closed my eyes, shut down the material senses and went directly to heaven. It was a quiet place to be, and it brought immense peace.
When it was time to enter the arena, I stood in line with my son and a woman next to me commented, with a very supportive and perhaps a bit of an envious tone, “You’re the guy who was sleeping on the sofa!”
I thought, “There it is again. The expectation in active public settings is that one is to be physically engaged. A prayerful state of thought is not recognized. If I had been sitting in a church building, people would have known I was praying.
I’ve wondered since, does this expectation that you should stay physically engaged prevent many of us from praying when we ought to be praying?
Have you ever been in a busy public place where you would have loved to stop everything, sit down, shut your eyes and commune solely with God?
Why didn’t you? What prevented you from doing the one thing that would have accomplished the most good, and the fastest?
Did you not stop and pray for fear of being seen by someone else? For fear of being judged as unusual or weird?
Maybe it’s time to change our priorities. We might be better off in the long run to put the maintenance of spiritual mindedness above worrying about what other people think.
In the middle of a noisy party, wouldn’t it be neat if you could sit down a few minutes, mentally check out of the commotion, pray in solitude and have everyone around you observe, “They are taking a few moments out with God. That is cool. I will let them be.”
I hope that day is coming! Keeping our thought spiritually inspired is the most constructive thing we can do under all circumstances, and it’s for everyone’s benefit.
Prayer in public: it should not be an odd event, but a common occurrence.
I hope you’ll join me if you’re not already.
Happy day!
Yes, I’ve had that experience often. I go daily to the gym to work out. Yesterday while on a weight machine I closed my eyes to be with God, even as I lifted. I have a way of being with the Spirit as body in a very cool way. It is not “me” making muscular effort to do exercise then, it is more Love rejoicing at It’s own meeting and moving through resistence! Anyway, I was closing my eyes, connecting with Him, and the personal trainer came up to me and said, “Are you sleeping while you do weights” I opened my eyes and smiled. “No, it’s just my meditation.”
In this world but not of it 🙂
Laurie
Dear Evan, When I pray the way in which you describe, I often do fall asleep. Any advice on how to stay awake when praying?
To anon above,
If you’re falling asleep while praying, then I suggest a new approach to prayer.
Prayer is not a mindless void of unconsciousness. It is an active, often vigorous and fervent striving to know and understand Truth.
The temptation to doze when needing to pray is mortal mind’s efforts to stop you from progressing spiritually. It is subtle, and appears innocent, but it is very evil and counterproductive. Oppose the temptation vigorously.
Prayer is not for God, but for us. God knows our need and has supplied it. Prayer is our means of opening to God’s supply and experiencing its presence. We are not mentally opening to God’s good if our thought is dozing off. Quite the opposite, in essence we’re closing to it by letting our thought shut down and become inactive.
So, pray first for an active consciousness. Wrestle with Truth. Struggle to understand Truth more. Demand progress in your understanding of Truth. Don’t settle for repeating truth you already know by memory. Strive for freshness, newness, reformation. Don’t stop until you are renewed in some significant way from your prayer.
Pray with purpose.
About a week, I fell on the ice outside a business place. I landed on my head and back with a thump. A lady while pulling in to a parking place came over immediately and begn to describe how hard I had fallen and wanted to call 911. I closed my eyes and began to acknowledge God’s presence and love and I opened my eyes and told her I was in God’s hands and I was ok. I immediately got up, felt no pain, drove my car to a car wash and spent two hours in Macy’s buying my wife a gift.
I had no pain or injury. Several days later, I was in the business where I fell and several employees who knew me said they wanted to call my wife and tell her about the fall, but decided not to worry her. I thanked them for their concern and their healing thoughts.
They were surprised and thankfull. So a few moments of silent prayer,being answered, which had the wrong appearance by an unknown woman who thought I had passed out, was awakened by my statement to her of God’s presence
To above,
Thanks for sharing. Excellent example!!!
I find that sometimes sleep is part of the sign following — especially if I am dealing with a severe headache or a lot of stress. A couple of times, I’ve found myself so concerned about another’s well-being that I couldn’t unwind; I would just pray and pray and pray and pray and study and study and study and study, and I couldn’t rest because my thought was so overloaded with fear, which of course didn’t help the person at all. In those cases, I’ve prayed to understand God’s allness and to let go of my own fear about the situation.
In such cases, I’ve interpreted sleep as the sign following, indicating that I’d finally calmed down and given the problem over to God instead of mistakenly thinking someone else’s outcome somehow depended on something I was doing.
Of course, I’ve also fallen asleep while praying because I was just too tired or lazy to think clearly, but obviously I know the difference….
It is amazing to me to ponder this: the Father above neither slumbers nor sleeps, and I and my Father are one — so in my Consciousness, that which I am is fully awake, neither slumbers nor sleeps, even through dreams.
I have begun to experience this, but not all the time. It is my desire to fully wake up, to “wrestle” with the angel that would keep me asleep to God and my true nature. Jacob wrestled all night, and had the audacity to say to it, “I will not let you go til you bless me!” Sometimes I have to fight sleep with this kind of intensity.
I’m talking about the sleep of unconsciousness, not the healthy sleep at night 🙂
hmmm…all of these thoughts are so remarkable…I love reading about everyone’s experience with prayer…one of the most powerful times of praying in public was quite a number of years ago when I had purchased tickets to a Paul McCartney concert for my husband as a surprise gift (he is a big Paul fan…) and just before we were to leave for the concert I received a call to pray for someone…I was so torn and didn’t feel that I could not go with my husband to this concert…so I decided that I would go and be with him, but that I would not be in a huge (REALLY HUGE!) arena…I would be in the “kingdom of heaven”…the “closet”, a temple….
when we arrived at the concert I was surprised to find that we (for the exorbitant price of the tickets) were in a section of the arena that was almost like crowd seating…there were folks drinking and smoking and the noise was arresting…but I God gave me the most amazing reminder that I could do what I needed to do….
As I was sitting there waiting for the concert to begin a memory flooded my thoughts of being a teenager in high school with 7 younger brothers and sisters running around our very small hosue each evening as I sat at the kitchen table doing my homework and I was able to focus in and find a sense of peace in the midst of family noise and busy-ness…
I found the same focus in the midst of the fireworks above me during “Live and Let Die” and I have never forgotten how completely suffused with God’s grace I felt that night…or the gratitude I felt….
thanks for this reminder Evan…Kate
Your comment about falling asleep during prayer being evil makes me feel very guilty. The problem for me comes in not so much in active praying and dealing with thoughts, but when trying to listen for the still small voice.
I work many hours and so am very exhausted at the end of the day. I pretty well have given up on praying in this way, although I do pray through out the day.
To Kate,
Wow! What a terrific example of being able to pray anywhere anytime. Prayer can be an oasis of peace in the midst of any amount of mortal mind “fireworks!”
To Dennis,
Well, don’t get down on yourself. As Emily mentions above, finding the ability to sleep after prayer can be a good thing if struggling with angst and pain. However, if our intent is to stay awake and accomplish a truly spiritually productive session with God, then the temptation to fall asleep is the effect of error trying to stop our spiritual progress. That’s what we must guard against.
Per your comment about being tired after a long day at work. Think about a battery getting drained after long use. Is it any more difficult for it to get charged up again because it’s been used a long time? Not typically. Plug it in to the electrical socket and it charges up with no strain or stress at all. Prayer is your opportunity to get “charged up” with God again. It’s not hard or difficult. Value the opportunity. Tune into Spirit and let the infinite energies of Life flow!