The Gospel According to Acharya S
On a Wing and a Prayer
"Hands that help are far better than lips that
pray."
Robert Ingersoll
"Love is the very essence of prayer. Those who
pray without love, their prayer remains formal. It is an empty
gesture with no meaning, no significance. They can go on praying
for lives together - no transformation is going to happen through
their prayer. They are deceiving themselves and nobody else."
Osho
Many people pray in times of distress and
discomfort. Others do it out of a sense of obligation that some god
person is watching them and waiting for their begging and praise.
While prayer has its place, the simple fact is that we are not born
into this world to be beggars and naggers. We are born into this
world to become buddhas and christs who command godly energy,
rather than whimpering and whining to some unknown and imaginary
agency in the sky.
Is Begging a Religious Experience?
In most countries, begging is viewed as a
disgrace, a reduction in self-esteem, a sign of poor self-image.
Yet, when it comes to soliciting favors and blessings from a
created deity, begging is considered a great virtue. If a person
comes up to another on the street and says, "Father, please give me
some money. I am so hungry," many people cop an attitude towards
that person that he or she is "less than," even while they might
give him or her some money. Others are so scornful they would not
even consider giving the "bum" anything.
But if someone looks towards the heavens or
closes his or her eyes and begs instead to an invisible entity that
some call "God," saying, "Father, give me some money. I am so
hungry" - that is viewed as being highly virtuous and righteous.
Our so-called authorities such as priests and ministers really
approve of that kind of begging.
The begging called prayer is no less
dishonorable in terms of revealing lack of self-worth and power
than the begging called panhandling. The begging called prayer is
as pitiful and degrading as is bumming on the street. But this
cannot be seen by most people because they are so brainwashed into
believing that there is some god person on the other end of their
begging and nagging who is pleased by it.
Does God Like Begging?
If any such god person were real, who enjoyed
such lowly behavior as constant begging and nagging, and who also
got a real ego kick out of mousy little humans praising and
exalting "his" name, such a god person should surely be considered
a tyrant and a conceited creep. This kind of personality is
intolerable to us from other human beings - we call it a coward,
bully or egotist - but from our created god entity, we expect it
and go along with it. This behavior is truly hypocritical.
Whenever a person arises on this earth who has
such a conceited and arrogant "god" personality, he soon develops
many enemies who wish to destroy him because of his hubris and
arrogance. But this same kind of behavior from our deity is a
given, and humans seem to perversely admire that.
We Are Buddhas, Not Beggars
On the opposite side of a beggar is a buddha,
who does not ask for favors from any god person but who demands
that life improve around him or her. In actuality, there is nothing
particularly wrong with addressing an unseen entity or entities,
and even asking questions of what seems to be nothing. In addition,
by focusing psychic energy in "prayer," we can bring about healing,
by helping to increase the healing chemicals in our bodies. But
when it comes to giving away through sniveling and groveling one's
power over one's own life, this is not the experience of a
completed consciousness. To assume that there is some outside
authority who has control over your life is to give away your
autonomy. This is to suppose that someone else is living your life
for you. You are not really living your own life. This is the
problem with having a daddy figure in the sky from whom you must
continuously beg favors.
The paradox is that there are elements
"out there," beyond the third dimension - energy currents, if you
will - that one can utilize, even ask, to aid one in changing one's
circumstances. For example, shamans and masters who know how to
speak to such elements or spirits have seemingly been able change
the weather if they try. They do this by asking or commanding
elements, spirits or the "Great Spirit." But there is an entirely
different attitude involved here. This attitude is one of being in
control of the creative life force, of respecting the elements but
of knowing that one is not a victim or patsy of them.
Oh, Lord, Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes
Benz?
One can also meditate and commune with the
elements, whether or not you wish to call them "God," gods, angels,
etc. There is no law against what you can do with your
consciousness. But keep in mind that prayer is not all that it is
cracked up to be - think about it, how many of your "prayers" have
really been answered? This is not to say that at times prayers have
not been "answered" randomly, but far too many have gone unanswered
for this exercise to be reliable.
What is "True Prayer?"
Rather than begging, which simply doesn't work,
"true prayer" is an invitation to the universe, a welcoming, a
jubilation. The prayerful attitude is one of joy and delight. When
one is in "true prayer," one is silent, empty. One has no
designation or label; in other words, one is not a Christian,
Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or Jew. One is not repeating rote,
parroting scriptures - this is the opposite of true prayer. True
prayer is a state of being one with the Absolute. Hence, there is
no object or subject. There is only the One.
How does one attain to such a state of
peacefulness? Life is full of treachery and danger - can we not get
assistance in changing it? Is there no higher power upon which we
can rely at all? Are we simply alone to our own devices, which may
be useless? Is this all there is? These last sentiments are
frightening to most people, which is why they want to believe so
strongly in God. To think that they are ABSOLUTELY ALONE on this
planet is horrifying, and such fear is frequently justified,
because this world is so chaotic and crazed. We cannot attain to
peace within ourselves unless we also bring it about
without ourselves. Think about that double-entendre: You
are one with the cosmos; thus, everything is you. The search for
peace must include not only your inner being but your surroundings
as well. And in that search, the "you" becomes more expanded, to
the point of being nothing and encompassing everything.
There IS power in the universe. The question is
how we can tap into it. Is this higher energy a person with its own
mind and plan of whom we need to ask permission to live in a happy,
stressfree manner, which is really what people are praying for?
People just want to be happy, without the heart-rending tragedy
that too frequently befalls them. Many folks are not asking for
very much at all - to live unharrassed in simple enjoyment. You
would think that were there a higher power, it could at least
bestow that, since it supposedly created us in the first place!
What kind of cruel creator cannot even allow that simple reality?
This is the paradox of having a personal creator separate and apart
from creation who exclusively holds the keys to creation and is the
only one who knows the plan! And how come this supposedly
all-knowing God doesn't already know
what we need, such that we don't need to ask? Why do "Jesus" or "Mary" need to appear - such as at
Fatima - to tell people how to pray to them, when they obviously
know what the people's needs are, since they are telling them how
to pray to get their needs fulfilled?
The reality of the situation is that there is no
separation between us and "the Creator." We are the creators of our
own drama, and as long as we insist that someone else is, nothing
will change on this planet. The same dementia, neuroses and
psychoses that cause us so much grief, from which we pray for
release, will continue to rule the mass human psyche. These mental
and emotional debilitations are created by the notion that we are
separate from "God" in the first place. There is this immense and
magnificent otherworldly being who deserves high praise indeed, but
we ourselves - "his children" - are simply awful, wretched, sinful
creatures who need constant chastisement and repentance.
How do we change ourselves and the world? By
recognizing that the dense separation between us and the rest of
creation is artificial, such that instead of begging cosmic energy,
we can draw it into ourselves and spread it out into the world. By
knowing that we are godly beings, not wretches, we can reach a
state of responsibility and maturity. And we can get righteously
indignant and demand change, rather than begging for it.
In order to have a mature spiritual experience,
simply know that there is a difference between a buddha and a
beggar. Understand that a buddha is "God," his or her
experience is not separate from any god entity, and a beggar has a
layer of separation in his or her perception that "God" is an
entity "absolutely other," outside of him or herself and separate.
This separation from "God" is placed as a "meme" or mental
conditioning by the very priests who then profess to teach someone
how to pray to that God. Without the separation, the prayer becomes
unnecessary, as one is already "in prayer" with "God." One is in
fact praying to oneself. As Peter O'Toole says in "The Ruling
Class," when asked, "How do you know you're God?": "Simple. When I
pray to him, I find I'm speaking to myself."
And one is then answering one's own prayers.
This experience of empowerment can be called enlightenment, which
is what most people should be praying for in the first place.
"Prayer is wonder, reverence. Prayer is
receptivity for the miracle that surrounds you. Prayer is surrender
to beauty, to the grandeur, to this fantastic experience. Prayer is
a non-argumentative dialogue with existence. It is not a
discussion... it is a love-dialogue. You don't argue... you simply
whisper sweet nothings."
Osho
In reality, while fervent believers bleat and
wail about "witchcraft," a la "Harry Potter" for example, the
typical prayer represents mere voodoo and witchcraft itself, as the
person praying is attempting to supernaturally affect some aspect
of life, whether it is a global concern or a personal worry, such
as the status of an "unsaved" loved one. In other words, the
Christian who fervently prays for the soul of another, arrogantly
believing that he or she is "saved" and superior to the subject of
the prayer, and therefore has a direct pipeline to the "right" God,
is little different from the Pagan or the Wiccan, despite
fallacious claims otherwise.
The Gospel According to
Acharya S
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