"...another popular rearticulation of prayer is to see prayer not as a means of influencing the divine but instead as an attempt to influence and change ourselves..." That's a very accurate description, I've always thought that way for a long time. When I stay away from prayer, I make many more mistakes in my daily life. Prayer is our most fundamental connection with God🙏🏼
"Prayer is an elevation of the heart to God who is absolute love and asks nothing for himself. Worship itself is the prayer answered; the petition itself is bliss. For although prayer may also contain a petition for some particular thing, this particular request is not what should really be expressed; on the contrary, the essential thing is the assurance of simply being heard, not of being heard in respect of this particular request, but absolute confidence that God will give me what is best for me. Even in this respect, prayer is itself satisfaction, enjoyment, the express feeling and consciousness of eternal love which is not only a ray of transfiguration shining through the worshipper's figure and situation, but is in itself the situation and what exists and is to be portrayed." -- G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on Fine Art, Volume II
Fantastic ! Prayer as a celebratory act of alignment in hope of remaining in this state while embodied as a human being. Becomes a natural act of Awe ‘ calling forth to BE’ a rebirth in every moment, every breath and in all things. Unity of One. ‘ here am I ‘ Here am I ‘ Your servant o’ Lover, Maker animator of Grace. Behold your beauty my hsbdscannot hold. Pours through like water to nurture your created ground ‘. I bow down 🙇🏽♀️ forehead to this ground. In ceasing weeping. O’ lover of true human heart. Hear our prayers. In unity we stand. O Divine. O Divine ‘. - NMS. G-d Bless All who come upon this work. Thank you Levi. 🙏🏼
Thank you, Zevi. With regards to the content of the video, words fail me; so for the sake of algorithmic engagement and with utmost sincerity, let me instead just say that your content and work here in the last few years has been illuminating, both intellectually and spiritually. Your videos have become noticeably more thorough and polished. The confidence with which you speak about such tricky subjects, and the amount of research, knowledge and growing wisdom that shines through when you do are matched equally by a sense of humility, curiosity, and compassion. The work is Good, and we are all so lucky to be growing through it alongside you.
Wow. Thank you Zoe. Thank you for your kind words. It’s such an honor to be creating these videos for you and to be learning and growing alongside you :)
Thank you for this lesson, it is much needed and very much appreciated. Sometimes we all need to go back and review the fundamentals of faith and its expression. I love you content Zevi and I will go back to watch more over the coming year. Also I enjoy watching you and Justin Sledge discuss Kabbalah.
It is perhaps this wondrous, simple, clean and inviting Art of Prayer, Zevi's The Art of Prayer and foundational universal overview of the essence and essential need for prayer is edifying and enlightening and has me contemplating in my ordinary musings what a centering meditative even mystical prayer might be to me, daily! To attain to that sought after natural state! 🎉 🌌 🌅 🧘♀️🙇♂️ 🏞 Thank you for that simple but deeply moving resonant reminder, as well! Pausing my analytical mind and encouraged by your mention of the simple Serenity Prayer, while transcending to a serendipitous glimpse of doable prayerful being and doing! Thank you, Zevi! 🙏 🙇♂️ 😊 🌌 🌅 🏞 🧘♀️❤️🔥🪽🎉
Thank you for this video. I look forward to more of these and hope you continue in this direction perhaps interviewing, discussing or moderating discussions of scholars and others immersed in the religious and spiritual experience.
Would love a video on the Kabbalistic intentions during prayer as brought down by the Arizal and especially the Rashash, and how that fits into the ideas of Jewish mysticism/philosophy. Thanks 🙏
Fantastic as always Zevi. Looking forward to what you have in store for us. I practice meditative and calligraphic prayer (writing out the "Pater hemon" in koine). Need to focus on the continous kind.
Interestingly all of what has been said can be said about most traditions not mentioned. Yoga as example means the path of re-connection with the divine - the practice is meditation and movement meant to provide meaning in, and manage our reality.
I think it would be a mistake to get rid of petitionary prayer completely, not only because it is a way to channel your inner 'child like' emotions in times of despair or as a way to express sympathy with the less fortunate, but also because it is a way to influence our reality in a positive way as God created the universe in such a way that our thoughts and words contain the power to change reality. God has given us the means to not just change reality through physical actions, but also through our thoughts. Prayer is a way to focus our thoughts on a certain outcome. Reality changes not because the prayer changes God, but because it changes us.
I don't know if you've ever seen Terrence Malick's 2019 film A Hidden Life, but I think it has moments that exemplify a kind of mystical prayer which is nevertheless rooted immanently in the world.
Rationalists (like Kant) should know that the BLESSED ONE, rules with justice but also with compassion. When "nature" cannot be changed (such as the impossibility of having children even with the support of the latest technological and medical techniques), prayer is useful to claim compassion so the HOLY ONE can change that "nature limitation". For those who have lived that kind of miracle, we know that prayers are always listened to, especially when they include gratitude (including accepting what we cannot have). So it is a very IMPORTANT subject to learn about and work to perfect its practice.
That all sounds wonderful but what about all the people that pray that their child or loved one doesn't die from some accident and does God suddenly not listen and let's the child die? It all sounds great when it goes your way and everything works out but what about when the all powerful does nothing.......by the way I believe in God but this really bothers me and when people say I'm really blessed as God saved my child etc etc, basically from what I've seen, it's all a roll of the dice.......
I wonder where transactional prayer fits in? Probably under petitionary prayer, where a person promises to do something in return for a boon or a sign.
Is the Consciousness that permeates the universe personal or impersonal? That is the question my person posed when an adolescent to the incomparable I Ching. The great teacher informed; it was both.
Maybe this is a weird place to ask a question like this but I feel like you or someone in your audience may be helpful: Four years ago I had a few very intense spiritual experiences. I could meditate quite deeply every day and I felt a strong sense of spiritual connection. Since then I have spent much time reading philosophy and religion, but mostly psychology (as I am a psychology student), and I feel that my original sense of connection has been replaced by an abstract intellectualized version of it. I can’t meditate the way I used to, and it’s really unfortunate. Does this sound like a familiar problem? If there is anything you could tell me or point me out to read I would really appreciate it. Thanks!
The spiritual experience your describing sounds like a mystical experience. I’d suggest you read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis as he wrote about his intense spiritual experiences and how his academic study and writings similarly intellectualized his connection, weren’t necessary, and brought him farther from his connection. If you want those experiences back, try to let go of all you know and fully submit to the spiritual connection. If that doesn’t work, then you may want to look into the “dark night of the soul”. I’m mysticism, this process of spiritual awakening and illumination is often followed by a period of darkness. Few make it past the dark night of the soul into divine union. Those that reach divine union often say the spirit didn’t come back until they stopped chasing the experience but rather pursued the spirit alone. In the end, they say by receiving the experience and having it taken away, their longings brought them into an even deeper spiritual state full of far more powerful spiritual experiences. Hope that helps.
Hello friend, I hope to do my best here to point you in a helpful direction, but I have also experienced this, following a bright period of spirituality. It's my understanding that this a natural part of the process - after the inhalation, an exhalation follows. First an ascent, and then a descent, in Platonic fashion. I found the book "After the Ecstacy, the Laundry" by Jack Kornfield to be helpful in making sense of this, at least insofar as how common it seems to be. If I may offer an opinion as well, personal and flawed though it may be, I would like to gently caution against replacing the mystery of spiritual experiences with the acquisition of raw information, which can lead a person to forget how much of the mystery is inaccessible to us, intellectually, at any given moment. There is a tendency among the mystic traditions with which I am most familiar to use language like "unknowing" when speaking about that wisdom; I believe that this is a crucial part of mature spirituality. It helps to guard against certainty, as certainty hardens us against our own senses of fallability or ignorance, and we become prone to forgetting that the mystery exists in the first place.
Great thank you so much, I will definitely read the book. And I agree totally, the only way to know the mystery is to become one with it, no analytical or symbolic system can truly do it justice. But in a way that is sort of baked into my concern. In my more rational analytical worldview I feel like I account for that, and I try to be weary of the sort of intellectual hubris which wants to understand of all of reality. So I feel I’ve made space for the mystery in my thinking, but regardless the intuitive feeling isn’t there like it used to be. Maybe I need to try new techniques of meditation or something. Thoughts?
objection: doesn't this mystical defense of prayer (as changing the petitioner and not the petitioned) presuppose an untenable rigid dichotomy between 'external empirical circumstances' and 'internal psychical state'? if we instead consider that our every thought and emotion is itself also nature or the will of god, just like any event in reality, then isn't it is just as nonsensical/heretical to pretend to change oneself? I would instead be inclined to argue for both 'outward-directed' and 'inward-directed' prayer being a kind of momentary conscious alignment between one's individuated perspective and the divine will of which one properly remains an expression, and ultimately a moment of the divine celebrating and worshipping itself through one - which would also lead me to put more emphasis on praise/celebration/song as the underlying meaning of prayer behind many of the categories discussed. let me know what you think:)
