–Well, yes, God talks to the prophets. But not the average person.
–I disagree. Honestly, I think the Divine talks to people all the time. It is the person who does not listen.
“I don’t know if anyone’s listening, but if you are…”
Those are always the prayers that are answered, isn’t it? It certainly seems that way. The prayers you make in the dark, alone, drowning in despair, those are the ones the gods hear. The rest? Whatever happens to them, perhaps only the Brahman can tell.
I think it feels this way not because these prayers–the ones we assume will be unheard–are accepted, but rather because these are the moments that we allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to pray. Ironically, while all we desperately want is to be heard, it is when we believe that no one is listening that we are the most open and allow ourselves to speak honestly. It is the safety of being alone, without witness, that grants us permission to be our most truthful selves and to leave our hearts barest.
If feeling without witness is what allows us to be the most truthful, who are we waiting on to witness us when we pray?
Prayer is a complicated experience for many people, though as a practice among humans, it is ancient and apparently far-spanning. It stretches across traditions and cultures. Perhaps to whom we pray may vary, or what we call the recipient of our prayers may vary, but that we all pray appears consistent. I find that beautiful, that no matter where we are, we still call out to something beyond ourselves.
In my own life, prayer has taken many forms. I have prayed with my hands folded; I have prayed pressing my forehead into the earth. I have prayed through laughter and tears; I have prayed through anger and rage. I have prayed with my words, my thoughts, and my actions; I have called my heartbeat and breath prayer.
I have prayed when I thought someone was listening to me, and I have prayed when I thought no one would ever listen to me again.
I remember how much it hurt to pray when I thought I didn’t deserve to have my prayers heard. The situation I was in was all my own fault, I kept reminding myself. And yet, I was lost in a sea of pain and suffering that I could not control. From the outside, my life was fine. I was housed, I was fed, and I was not alone. I thought I had finally built a life with people who loved me. I had no right to pray. So I shed tears alone in the dark instead. And I begged Shiva for relief.
Every night, Shiva sat with me. And most nights, I didn’t explain why I was miserable. I knew he could hold my heart, and so I was too afraid to burden him with any more of it. He returned night after night, without fail. I dared to notice that I was praying again. “Make my breath itself a prayer to you,” I had said when I was a child. Now, as an adult, waking up and breathing were my prayers. I didn’t fail them. And how silly, that I thought no one was listening!
Looking back now, it was a strange time for me. I had given up desire itself. I had given up hope and happiness. I had lost myself entirely. And still, at night, I cried to him. Even when I thought no one would hear me, when I thought I didn’t deserve to be heard anymore, I still called out hoping someone would.
Where did that call come from when I was dissolving into misery? Where did the courage to pray come from when I had given up on prayers themselves? From whence sprung the voice that called, and from whence that voice that answered?
Somewhere between his voice speaking and mine, I realized that, while his voice was decidedly different from mine, I wasn’t always sure I could tell the two apart. “I’m always here,” he reassured me. He really was always listening.
Eventually, I stopped distrusting myself when our voices blended. “We are One,” he would remind me. It took a long time for me to trust him enough to accept his words without the fear of his disappearing entirely. How could I possibly lose him? How did I ever think I had?
Prayer is the Brahman calling to itself.
If there were even just a single soul in the whole Brahman, it would pray. It would desire. It would hope. It would dream. If māyā is that force that allows us to experience ourselves as separate, then it is through that māyā that we experience listening. It is that māyā that allows us to call to someone or something beyond us; it is the same māyā that ensures that we are heard.
Prayer is strange because it is the bond formed between the seeker and the sought. But the sought remains hidden, because that is the nature of seeking. In other words, when we pray, we are praying from a place of uncertainty, and so it is natural that we do not get to know if our prayers are answered. That’s the deal with prayers; we only have the right to make them, not be certain what the answers to them are. But I don’t think that the beauty of prayer lies in certainty or in receiving answers.
It is natural to want; but not every desire can or should be fulfilled. Neither should every prayer be answered. It is crazy what prayers do and don’t get answered, and who answers them can be quite jarring. I sometimes wonder if that’s why we humans don’t always get to know who answered our prayer. We would see that information and try to control it instead of focusing on being ourselves. But if the desire is within you, take heart that the Brahman already heard your desire.
We keep forgetting that we are One with the Brahman. Then we call this forgetting abandonment.
Humans are stubborn, peculiar beings. We don’t get what we prayed for and immediately assume that we have been abandoned. Sometimes we hear voices of Divinity talk to us, and we are pleased with ourselves. But when that same Divinity silently listens, observes without responding, we believe that it has forsaken us. It is a lonely and terrifying existence for the human, because in its own mind and heart, it generates its self in one moment and, in another, erases it.
We keep pestering deities in our prayers, begging for our wishes to come true. I think it’s a good thing they’re so patient with us! And yet, I too find this endearing. No matter how much it hurts to keep wanting, every time we sit to pray, we demonstrate our dedication. We are still showing up. Prayer builds stamina, the stamina to continue to pursue and the stamina to face silence, change, and ourselves. Prayer is a doorway to imagination; it is also a doorway to acceptance. The one who prays chooses their own path forward. The prayer is both the choice and the choosing.
I know it can feel hopeless when we keep calling out and it feels like no one answers. But the feeling of separateness is itself the illusion that allows one to experience anything. It is through this illusion of separateness that something exists that wants and something exists that hears. As I said before, this is the māyā! We are already One with the Brahman. If prayer feels disconnecting rather than connecting, perhaps it is time to change the script.
Don't pray hoping someone will hear you.
Pray knowing that they already have.
Don't pray wondering if the Brahman is listening.
Pray knowing that it is the Brahman praying.
Don't pray wondering if you are all alone.
Pray knowing that prayer is companionship itself.
Pray with the certainty that the prayer itself is seeking sought;
Prayer is where the lost is found again.
It is natural for humans to doubt. Indeed, that is why we pray. We seek certainty outside ourselves. But that we would pray, that we would call to anyone or anything that listens, know that it is the soul itself seeking confirmation it is seen. How could it receive what it seeks unless it is out there waiting?
Prayers don’t always come true. They are not always answered. But they are always heard. Because it is the Brahman desiring itself, through you, with you, that becomes prayer. Allow it to flow through you and with you, and you will find that strangely, even in the most painful prayers, you will feel the heartbeat of Divinity itself. You will slowly become the heartbeat of the Divine.
Prayer is powerful because we become our prayers.
Sometimes I still worry about losing Shiva. I worry I’ve lost my mind, though he has shown me through painful direct experience what that looks and feels like. I worry he isn’t listening. I worry he will leave. Sometimes, the longing in my chest hurts so much, I can’t imagine what it would mean to pray.
But those are the moments I stop to listen. For me, listening itself is slowly becoming prayer. I allow myself to feel that longing and recognize that it is his longing. And when I pray, I push myself to be honest enough to see what the Brahman might want, to look honestly and accept myself as I am.
The more I pray, the more prayer becomes me. The more whole and complete I become as I speak and listen. The more I see him, the less I am, but the more whole we are. Prayer has become inextricable from me in my consciousness, but I have grown to realize that I could have never had my prayers or my right to them taken from me. I wonder how many people stop praying because they think no one is listening.
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