When Prayers Aren't Answered:
Opening the Heart and Quieting the Mind in Challenging Times
By
John E. Welshons
In the depths of grief, some find solace in their faith, while others feel that God has deserted them. In this gentle and wise guide, a beloved spiritual teacher counsels that prayer works -- but not always in the ways we expect. Welshons, who has worked closely with Ram Dass and Stephen Levine and trained with Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, confronts life's most challenging experiences directly, acknowledging both the reality and inevitability of unexpected, unwanted change. Then, with insights gathered from the world's great spiritual traditions, he shows how to use painful circumstances as fuel for enlightenment. In short, step-by-step chapters, Welshons shares stories of transformation from his own life and the lives of those he has counseled. With deep empathy, he lights a path toward the communion, peace, and joy that are possible when we open our hearts to life in its totality.
WHERE IS GOD?
Where is God when tragedy strikes? When events happen that break
our hearts? When human beings inflict cruelty and suffering on one another?
Where was God on 9/11?
Where was God when Hurricane Katrina struck?
Where was God when the Asian Tsunami swept 250,000 people to their deaths
in a matter of minutes?
Where was God when
hundreds of Southern California homes burned to the ground?
These and similar questions form the basis of nearly every quest
for spiritual understanding, and nearly every individual crisis in faith.
In the thirty-five years I have worked to assist people who are grieving
I have heard these questions from parents who have lost children, from
heartbroken widows, from distraught victims of random violence, from people who
have experienced spinal cord injury, from confused people of faith, and from
cynical non-believers.
God is everywhere, in everything, and in everyone.
There is nothing but God.
If that is so - why do we so often feel so disconnected from God?
Why would an all-loving, all-powerful God leave us unprotected from
danger?
Most of the spiritual teachings to which we have been exposed have
offered us little insight into the answers to these questions.
They have also given us little preparation for life's inevitable
difficulties.
In some sense, this is a cultural problem.
Our culture tends to gravitate toward spiritual teachings that support
our system of values rather than teachings that might question the wisdom of
those values. We want to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
But the great irony is - the more committed we have become to seeking
pleasure - the less happy we have become.
The more material wealth we attain, the higher our levels of depression,
anxiety, despair, drug and alcohol addiction, and self-destructive habits.
We often think of God as a kind of cosmic vending machine - put in
a prayer and get what you want. We
also think of God as "anthropomorphic."
That means, we see our Creator as a very large and complex human being
who looks like us, thinks like us, experiences the same emotions we experience,
and holds the same values we hold.
One of the primary differences between "Eastern" thought and
"Western" thought is that Western spiritual traditions -- Christianity,
Judaism, and Islam -- perceive a fundamental separation between God
and His Creation.
In the East there is no separation.
All perception of separation is regarded as an "illusion."
If you can't see God everywhere and in everything, you are experiencing
illusion. Nothing is separate from
God.
If we look to quantum physics and unified field theory, we begin to
understand that there is really only one substance - one energy - in the
physical universe . . . and that energy is light.
And there is only one light.
Everything we perceive as a distinct form is just a patterns of that one light.
The entire process of evolution has been aiming toward a form of
consciousness so fully developed that it can perceive that one light . . . and
can know it as the essence of one's own being, and as the essence of all
Creation. The states of
consciousness we call "enlightenment" and "God-Realization," refer to the
culmination of awakened consciousness -- fully aware of the Source
of everything, and the interconnectedness of everything.
The most efficient means for awakening to the One Light is through
deepening our capacity to love. Love
. . . real, spiritual love . . . Divine Love . . . is the expression of one-ness
in form. Not loving with the
expectation of reward. But loving
purely for the sake of loving. Pure
Love doesn't seek anything in return.
Spiritual awakening is the process of deepening our ability to love,
expanding our awareness, and unfolding our true nature . . . our highest state
of being.
Our highest state is Love.
That's why the main thing we all seek in life is love.
It's like going home. Love is
within us -- Infinite, unbounded, Eternal Love.
Love is the expression of the One Light.
And God is Love.
Every moment of happiness we have ever experienced has been a
glimpse of our soul . . . a glimpse of the Love within us.
There is no loss, no disappointment, no injury, no illness which
-- in and of itself -- can take away our inherent ability to
be happy, to be loving, and thus to know God.
We can argue with the realities of life, and we can allow those arguments
to temporarily cause us to lose the awareness of our inner Light.
But only temporarily.
Suffering is an inevitable part of human life.
There is no way around it.
But if we are willing to let it do its work on us, it can open us to amazing new
levels of spiritual awareness . . . and eventually -- enlightenment.
The process can be painful at times.
But we ultimately recognize that God . . . Love . . . truly is
everywhere, in everyone, and in everything.
Even in us.
*
Based on the book
When Prayers Aren't Answered
Copyright C
2007 John Welshons. Printed with permission from New World Library, Novato, CA.
www.newworldlibrary.com or 800-972-6657
ext. 52.
AN
INTERVIEW with John E. Welshons
Q:
What inspired you to write When Prayers
Aren't Answered?
A: Well, that's an interesting story.
First of all, I think praying for something and not getting it is an
experience nearly all human beings share.
One of the most difficult questions for people of faith is, "If I am
good, why aren't my prayers being answered."
Even people who define themselves as atheists have probably prayed at
some time for some thing, and -- for many -- their
atheism may have arisen as a result of that prayer not being answered.
In recent years we've seen a resurgence of interest in the Power of Attraction,
Creative Visualization, Positive Affirmation, etc. These paths all --
essentially -- use prayer and positive thinking as means of getting
what we want. The current popularity
of The Secret and the Abraham
teachings is evidence of this resurgence.
Both are concerned with cultivating "spiritual" tools and techniques for
satisfying all our desires.
The Secret has been presented as if it was some mysterious new
revelation, but it really isn't. The
principles underlying the "secret" teachings are neither secret nor new.
They are as old as human consciousness and have been taught for thousands
of years. The bigger issue is, are
those teachings the most helpful spiritual teachings that are available to us?
A few years ago, I was having a dialogue with a well-known teacher - someone
who, many years ago, focused primarily on teaching people how to get everything
they wanted. I said to him, "You
know, I'm not sure teaching people how to satisfy every desire is the highest
and purest spiritual teaching we can offer."
This teacher said, "Yes, I know.
But those are the teachings people will buy."
What he said was quite true. Books
and workshops about how satisfy desire and how to make lots of money are big
sellers. But we have to decide
whether we are primarily concerned with making millions of dollars offering
workshops and selling books, or we are primarily concerned with offering a
teaching that is truly useful and uplifting, and really leads to happiness.
You know, the truth is that -- in most cases --
the people who are teaching others how to make lots of money are generally the
only ones who actually wind up making lots of money!
What we really need are teachings that can bring about a profound transformation
in the human heart, and thus in our world.
Our culture has focused almost entirely on creating and satisfying
desires. That's what keeps our
economy running. The problem is,
there are huge costs involved in perpetuating that syndrome, and the costs are
cultural, political and spiritual.
The highest spiritual teachings have always been about cultivating love,
compassion, and wisdom. They are
about alleviating suffering. They
are about treating other human beings as brothers and sisters.
They are not about satisfying all our desires.
They are about learning how -- as an individual --
to live in peace and harmony in this world where people and events don't always
behave the way we want them to. They
are about learning how to be a presence in the world that contributes to the
overall well being of everyone, not just "me."
That is why - from the spiritual point of view -- it is not
really helpful to offer teachings that just
increase desire.
Because those teachings do not, generally, cultivate compassion and
generosity. They tend to do just the
opposite. They perpetuate the
world's problems rather than alleviating them.
Q:
What has happened for you -- personally -- that
motivated you to write When Prayers Aren't
Answered?
Well, my life has been profoundly affected by many experiences of miraculously
answered prayers -- including a miraculous healing from polio in
1953 when I was three years old which was directly attributable to "the power of
prayer." The story is told in
greater detail in the book. But I
have also had many periods when no matter what I prayed for, none of my prayers
seemed to be answered, and no matter what I "visualized," none of my
visualizations came to pass.
Ironically, when I look back over the course of my entire life, I can see that
the times when prayers weren't answered -- when I didn't get what I
wanted -- turned out to be very fertile times of spiritual growth.
So I wanted to explore that, and share with others the ways in which,
sometimes, thwarted desire can actually lead us to a closer relationship with
God, or the Creator, or the Divine.
Of course, to a certain extent, it's our choice as to whether or not we want to
let it do that.
I have also worked for more than thirty years to help people who are dying and
people who are grieving find ways to stay spiritually connected when their hopes
are dashed and their hearts are broken.
In some sense you could say that the grief work focuses almost entirely
on prayers not being answered.
So, essentially, When Prayers Aren't
Answered offers a refocused vision of God and spirituality.
I would like to help people know that they have not been abandoned
-- or that there is no God, or that God isn't "all-powerful," or that God
is cruel just because what they prayed for didn't come to pass.
I also wanted to share a new vision of what our life experiences can
offer us in terms of guiding us to deeper spiritual growth -- even
the experiences we don't like. And I
wanted to talk about what our responsibilities are on the road to happiness
-- the fact that we may actually have to
do something to find it.
Happiness doesn't usually just fall in our laps.
We have to do some work to find it within ourselves . . . it isn't found
outside. Ultimately the book is
about how to stay connected to God, to the Spirit, to the Divine, to our Highest
Consciousness, to The One -- whatever you want to call it --
and how to experience deeper and deeper levels of love and inner peace no matter
what happens to you or to your loved ones.
The book is not about learning not to care.
It is about learning how not to get overwhelmed by caring.
Q:
Have you come to any conclusions about the effectiveness of prayer?
A: Well, simply this: that sometimes
it works, and sometimes it doesn't.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the response we get to our prayers
isn't always the one we were hoping for.
Because you can certainly make the case that prayers are always answered,
but sometimes we don't like the answer.
There's a wonderful quote from Wayne Dyer which I used at the opening of one of
the chapters in When Prayers Aren't
Answered.
He said, "The purpose of prayer . . . is not to influence God to grant
you special favors, but rather to remind yourself that you are always connected
to God." That's a VERY high
statement! And that --
ultimately -- is the message of the book.
The truth is, many, many individuals and spiritual teachings use answered
prayers as a measure of one's spiritual success or advancement . . . that is to
say, if your prayers are answered, it means that God loves you and is pleased
with you. But God loves everyone.
No exceptions. And it is
possible that -- in many circumstances - an unanswered prayer is as
great a gift as one that is answered.
Q:
I think that may be a difficult concept for people to grasp.
Many people think, "If God loves me then He will give me what I am asking
for."
A: Yes.
Many people do think that way.
And that is one of the primary reasons I wrote the book.
You know, think about it . . . if your parents gave you everything you
wanted when you were a child, you might have had some major problems.
If my mother had given me all the ice cream and candy I wanted, I would
have been diabetic and as big as a house!
If she had let me drop out of school at the age of sixteen --
which I wanted to do -- I would have had a radically different life
with much less freedom and opportunity than I have had.
It was her compassion and wisdom that often caused her to say, "no."
It was her ability to see a bigger picture that I was able to see at the
moment. It is entirely possible that
the guiding forces in the universe can work the same way in terms of steering us
around pitfalls which - with our limited vision - we can't see.
The irony of it all is that -- ultimately - happiness comes not from
getting what we want, but from getting free of wanting.
That's really what Buddhism is all about.
Buddha's teaching is based on the Four Noble Truths:
The first is that life inevitably involves suffering.
If you have a physical body, you will experience physical pain.
If you are a human being, you will experience emotional pain.
If you don't get what you want, you will suffer.
It's inevitable. But the
thing we often forget is that even when you
do get what you want, you will
experience suffering because whatever you get is in time and space, and
everything in time and space changes, decays, and ultimately dies.
So you get the car of your dreams, but eventually it's going to break
down, the paint is going to fade, it's going to get dented in parking lots, it's
going to get rusty, and it's going to fall apart.
You find the partner of your dreams, but eventually --
inevitably -- one of you is going to die.
That's not pessimistic -- it's realistic.
It is honoring reality.
The second Noble Truth of Buddhism is that the root cause of suffering is desire
-- or clinging, or attachment.
That is, if you didn't desire to have something you don't have, or you didn't
desire for things to be different than they are, or for people to be different
than they are . . . you could be happy right now.
The basic principle is that happiness is our natural state . . . our "True
Nature" or "Buddha Nature." There
are many names for it. In mystical
Christianity, it is called "Christ Consciousness."
So what inhibits our ability to be happy is not external conditions, but
all of the chatter in our minds - the desirous, analytical, fearful, judgmental
thoughts that fill our minds throughout most of our waking life.
We're so busy judging, desiring, analyzing, and fearing, and wanting
things to be different than they are, that there is no open space of clarity in
our minds -- no quietness.
Quietness of mind is absolutely necessary for us to be able to feel our eternal
"Buddha Nature," or "Christ Consciousness."
Our true nature gets crowded out by our incessant thinking, desiring,
analyzing, and judging. And when our
desires are thwarted, our minds are usually full of outraged, frustrated, sad,
victimized thoughts . . . many of which begin with the words, "If only . . ."
The truth is that happiness never comes from fulfillment of desire.
It comes from unveiling the infinite love, peace, and joy within us
-- or, we might say, the God within us.
Now, getting what you want may give you a little taste of that . . . a
little rush . . . a "cheap" high, but it's fleeting.
It is going to pass. And then
you're going to get addicted to having your desires fulfilled because the only
way you know to achieve happiness is to string together as many short-lived,
cheap highs as you can, while trying desperately to avoid the inevitable "lows"
in between.
Real happiness lasts. It comes
through giving rather than getting.
It flows from inside you rather than from external conditions.
The fulfillment of desire merely tends to generate more desires.
You get a new Toyota, and the next thing you know, you want a Lexus.
Then a Mercedes. Then a
Bentley. It's endless.
And it rarely occurs to you to give it away!
You know, you say, "Well, we're all One, but this is MY Bentley!"
True happiness and fulfillment become ever more elusive because you keep
desperately looking for happiness in external things and situations, and giving
predominance to your own desires rather than the overall well-being of other
human beings and the planet we live on.
You can never find happiness by being selfish.
Selfishness fosters disconnection.
And disconnection fosters selfishness.
And you can never find happiness in external things.
It just doesn't work. I'm not
talking about morality here. I'm
talking about the Truth of our existence.
You can't find happiness in anything external, because happiness is a
state of being within you. So when
you look outside of yourself, you are looking in the wrong place.
You are pursuing a perpetually elusive dream.
It's like a mirage in the distance that you think you can
almost reach.
That's why it never feels like enough.
No matter how much money you make, it never feels like enough.
No matter how many possessions you have, you never feel like you have
enough. There's always some new
trinket you simply have to have.
Eventually, you become a wealthy person who has everything the culture believes
is necessary for happiness, but -- BIG SURPRISE -- you
find that you are still dissatisfied.
That leads to a kind of bitterness, desperation, and existential despair.
It's what used to be called "The Elvis Syndrome."
You can see it clearly in the lives of today's celebrities, too.
We could call it the "Britney Syndrome," or the "Lindsay Syndrome," or
name it after any of the dozens of other "stars" whose success and fame have
engendered tormented lives . . . lives that are being decimated by
self-destructive behavior. The odd
thing is that these very unhappy people are the people who many in our culture
envy and worship -- especially our youth.
Our young people are getting such distorted messages about what is
important in life, that they actually wind up worshipping the people who are
probably the most unhappy people in the culture.
The perennial problem is, you get everything the culture has to offer in terms
of material wealth, fame, and power, and you find that it is all absolutely
empty and unfulfilling and you are still miserable.
What do you do then? Even at
the level where people have enough wealth to have their own jet airplane
-- BIG SURPIRISE -- they still want a bigger, better, more
luxurious airplane. Eventually, it
isn't enough to have a "corporate" jet.
Eventually they want their own airliner with bedrooms and butlers, a
grand piano, a dance floor, an on-board movie theatre, a wine cellar, and
five-star food. And when the thrill
of that wears off, they have to go into space.
You see? It never ends.
As long as you feed desire, you just keep increasing its hold over you.
Desire has a ravenous, insatiable appetite.
As long as you feed it, it just keeps getting fatter and fatter and
demanding more.
Now, superficially, there's nothing wrong with that.
You can say, "Oh, well I'm just enjoying all of the delightful enjoyments
of the physical universe." The
question I would ask, though, is how much do you have to close your heart in
order to be able to feel justified in leading that lifestyle?
How many poor, starving people do you have to ignore in order to feel
"happy" in your 200 million dollar airliner?
How much suffering do you have to close your eyes to in order to feel
happy in your own little bubble.
Imagine giving most of that 200 million dollars to charity, and flying on a
commercial airline instead. Would
that be so bad? I mean, you could
still fly first class! And you might
find yourself feeling MUCH happier.
I used to carry around a full-page ad I cut out of one of the national magazines
-- I think it was Sports Illustrated.
I would show it to all my audiences because it was such a clear statement
of our predicament. It showed a
photograph of two cars stopped at a traffic light in what was obviously Beverly
Hills or Palm Beach, or one of those quintessential affluent communities
-- you know, big tall elegant palm trees lining a gracefully curving
street with big elegant mansions.
The car in the right lane was a brand new shiny $90,000 BMW.
And the car in the left lane was a brand new shiny $350,000 Rolls Royce.
And the man behind the wheel of the $90,000 BMW is looking longingly at
the $350,000 Rolls Royce. The
caption on the ad reads, "Rolls Royce: Quite Simply the Finest Motor Car in the
World." But I took a piece of
adhesive tape, pasted it over that message and wrote, "IT'S NEVER ENOUGH!"
That made everybody laugh, but I think they could see the Truth in it.
That's a long-winded answer to your question, but that is why I think it's very
possible -- from the spiritual point of view -- that an
unanswered prayer might just be a blessing in disguise.
Q:
What about things what we pray for beyond material wealth -- like
the health of a loved one, or a healing in our own body?
A: Well, obviously, unanswered
prayers don't just involve material things that we desire, but they also involve
the quest to avoid some of the overwhelmingly painful emotional experiences we
can have as human beings. The book
contains many stories of people dealing with such events.
One is a story about a couple whose eleven year-old daughter was
abducted, raped, and murdered. Now,
surely, her parents had prayed for their daughter's safety.
All emotionally healthy parents just automatically pray for the safety
and health of their children. They
don't even have to think about it.
Again, even if they identify themselves as atheists, they're still at least
silently hoping for the safety and
well being of their children. Their
hopes and prayers are automatic. And
the pain of a parent whose child dies is an unimaginable pain.
In cases of unanswered prayer like these, it would be immensely cruel to
suggest to the parent that their unanswered prayer is a gift, or that the
child's death will lead to a spiritual blessing.
In all likelihood, they're going to have to go through an intense period
of sadness and disorientation. But
-- eventually -- they're going to have the opportunity to come
up for air. And when they do, they
will have one primary choice to make, and that choice is whether this event is
going to ruin their life, or they're going to find a way to use the pain to help
themselves grow spiritually. Nothing
will take away the pain. But, on the
other hand, nothing takes away our inherent ability to experience love, peace,
and joy. Love, peace, and joy are
the essence of who we are. They are
our True Nature. They can get
obscured -- temporarily - by sadness.
But only temporarily. To the
grieving parent, it can seem like forever.
But -- eventually - healing comes when the parent is able to
see the pain of the child's death as spiritual "fuel" that propels them more
deeply into their own heart . . . into the love that resides in their own heart.
Q:
What you are saying is a little scary.
I pray for the safety and health of my children every night.
Are you saying my prayers don't do any good?
A: No.
I'm not saying that at all. I
pray for all of my loved ones as well. Every day.
And I pray for everyone on Earth.
And I pray for peace. What I
am saying is that whatever we hope and pray for can only affect reality on this
plane of existence to a certain extent . . . or for a certain period of time.
For instance, no matter how many prayers for good health are "answered,"
everyone still dies. Everyone.
The death rate is 100 percent.
There's a point at which prayers for health just don't work.
A prayerful life would incorporate a full recognition of that reality.
You know, when I was a child and my mother was teaching us to pray, she always
emphasized that we must end all our prayers with, "Not my will, but
Thy will . . ." I didn't really like
that as a child, but my mother was very certain that it was a necessary
ingredient of prayer. And I think it
was a great thing to teach us.
A number of years ago, I realized that the thought that God should protect us
from anything bad ever happening to us is just wrong.
God does protect us. He
protects everyone. But the way He
protects us is by giving us everything we need to handle anything that happens
to us. You have Infinite Love in
your own heart. Infinite.
You may not realize that, but you do.
That is the essence of your soul.
That is your inherent, undiminished connection with God.
And that love is enough to heal any loss or disappointment.
That love is sufficient to help you bear whatever sadness and difficulty
comes into your life. You just have
to learn how to tap into it.
So our deepest prayer might be to ask that we -- and our children -
grow more and more aware of that extraordinary vastness of our own being . . .
the unlimited nature of the spiritual resources we already - naturally --
have within us. As Rabindranath
Tagore said so eloquently, "Let us not pray to be protected from dangers, but to
be fearless when facing them."
Q:
But don't you think the rules should be different for children?
Why should children have to suffer and die?
I mean, they're so innocent.
A: Why?
Why should the rules be different?
You see, that statement is a perfect example of the way we allow our
minds to torture us. In that case it
is your mind saying "the rules should be different for children."
Of course, we would all like that to be the case.
But no one promised you that.
Nothing in the universe says that.
None of our spiritual teachings say that.
That is your idea of how it should be.
It isn't how it is. But we'll
take an idea like that, turn it into a belief, and then get angry at God
-- or the Creator -- because He isn't running the universe the
way we think it should be run. And
then we lose our faith. Why?
Because we decided that we have a better idea about how this universe
should function that whoever or whatever created it.
We don't cultivate the wisdom to take life and the universe as they are.
We don't learn the lessons we could learn if we were to take it all
as it is.
We keep thinking we need to make it different . . . or that God should
have made it different. I mean, how
is a child going to learn to deal with life in this world if they are completely
protected from suffering? I'm not
saying "It's good for children to suffer."
I am saying, it's good for children to learn that suffering is a part of
human life so they can learn how to deal with it.
Here's another way to look at it.
Jesus said we should become "like little children."
I don't think that means "childish" . . . I think it means "child-like."
What does that mean? What
does it mean to be "child-like?"
You know, there is one truth that is often difficult for people to hear, but I
have seen it time and again. Most
children who are sick and dying have a great deal more equanimity, wisdom, and
inner peace than adults who are dying.
Children have a great deal more trust in the universe.
They are much less prone to feeling victimized.
They are just naturally spiritual. In
fact, they often wind up counseling their parents.
You see, your question about the rules being different for children
arises from the assumption that in order for a child's life to be "complete,"
they have to grow older and become an adult.
If they don't, we assume they've been cheated.
But maybe that's not the case.
Maybe that's just confused thinking on our part.
Maybe some children truly are angels who come to help us out of the
quagmire of confusion we're caught in.
And when their work here is done, they just leave.
You know?
Like Mattie Stepanek who was such an extraordinarily saintly being.
I believe he died at the age of twelve.
And yet, he touched the lives and hearts of millions and millions of
people. Would it have been better if
he had lived to be an adult? His
impact on the world came largely because he was a child who was dying and yet he
was extraordinarily wise, compassionate, and loving.
He got peoples' attention, he opened peoples' hearts . . . and then he
left. What a gift he was!
Q:
But still, his death must have been immensely painful for his parents.
A: Of course it was.
I am not trying to diminish the heartbreak we feel when children get
sick, or die, or get abused. Nor am
I saying that we should be complacent about injustice, unkindness, and cruelty.
I am merely saying that expecting those things not to happen in this
world is foolish. I am also
suggesting that our ideas that bigger is better and more is better are not
necessarily always true . . . and that applies to the length of a human life,
also.
Q:
But how do we deal with the overwhelming sadness and heartbreak?
A: Actually, I would like to suggest
something completely audacious. I
would like to suggest that instead of trying to figure out how to escape from
sadness and heartbreak, it would be good for us to learn how to allow ourselves
to feel more heartbreak than we are
usually willing to feel. Let us
learn real empathy and
real compassion. There
are so many things that we customarily ignore -- that we have to
divert our eyes away from - in order to keep feeling justified living the
lifestyle we live. For instance, are
you aware that every five seconds, a child somewhere on earth dies of
starvation? Every five seconds!
Is that God's fault? I mean, in the last five minutes while we've been
sitting here having an intellectual discussion about whether or not it's right
for children to die, about sixty children have died on our Earth from a cause we
could actually do something about.
So the question arises, is that God's fault?
Or is it our fault because we don't care enough to figure out how to share
the abundance we have with the people who need it?
We're too busy getting what we want.
We're too busy being obsessed with nonsense.
And actually, if we were to allow ourselves to really tune into those
starving children, and their grieving, heartbroken mothers, we would actually
have to do something about it. You
see? If we allowed ourselves to
recognize that they are all our children, and that their parents are all our
brothers and sisters, we would have to do something.
If we were to open our hearts to other people we would have to live our
lives differently. We could actually
use our heartbreak to motivate us to make the world a better place . . . to help
our fellow human beings. And that
sense of connection, that kind of loving care of others is what would really
make us happy. Not worrying about
who the next winner of American Idol is going to be, but caring about the
billions of people on Earth who are suffering.
Q:
One reviewer said he found your book confusing and, at times, even
disturbing.
A: Well, when you've had your head
buried in the sand, waking up to reality is often disturbing.
You know, 9/11 was disturbing.
The death of a loved one is disturbing. The death of a child is
disturbing. Recognizing that you
aren't going to live forever is disturbing.
The aftermath of a devastating storm or earthquake is disturbing.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about those things.
Unfortunately, many of the books that deal with these issues, and many of
the counselors who counsel people struggling with these issues use the strategy
of saying - essentially, "Oh, I see, you've had your head buried in the sand.
Well, here's some more sand.
Bury it deeper. That will make you
feel better." But it won't.
As for the issues that are "confusing" . . . in some sense it's
all confusing.
The book is attempting to deal with questions that have no rational,
absolute answers. It is exploring
issues that have no logical explanation.
Of course it's confusing. I
tried to convey that in the beginning of the book.
It's like a Zen koan. It
ultimately asks some unanswerable questions . . . or, at least, questions whose
answers require us to shift into another level of consciousness.
The book also deals with issues that are contradictory.
Because sometimes things are true at one level of consciousness, but are
not true at another level of consciousness.
When Prayers Aren't Answered
is an invitation to people to stretch their minds, to stretch their
consciousness . . . to let go of their attachment to rational understanding so
that they can experience Truth directly.
It is inviting people to be comfortable with the possibility that there
are no easy and absolute answers and that -- ultimately - striving
to find those answers will just exacerbate their suffering.
Like that wonderful book by Pema Chodron called
Comfortable With Uncertainty.
Real happiness requires the ability to be comfortable with uncertainty
and confusion.
We don't like that. But
there's really no way around it. The
point the book keeps coming back to is that Love is what heals.
Meher Baba used to say, "Understanding has no meaning.
Love has meaning."
And as one very astute interviewer said to me recently, "Understanding 'why?' is
like getting the booby prize." You
know? So you understand.
Or you think you understand.
So what? Whatever it is that
broke your heart still happened.
Intellectual understanding isn't going to change that.
But intuitive, loving awareness might.
Q:
Earlier you suggested that our culture is built on generating,
perpetuating, and attempting to fulfill desire, and that there are costs to that
approach to happiness. Can you
elaborate a bit more?
A: From the cultural point of view,
our perpetual desire keeps everyone yearning for some illusory happiness that
-- they've been taught -- comes from wealth, fame, and
possessions. I mean, just sit back
for a while and look objectively at the extraordinary amount of advertising that
we are bombarded with every day.
It's a constant barrage of images that keep telling us we need MORE . . . that
what we already have couldn't possibly be enough.
We have to keep the economic engine revving at as high a speed as
possible. Just keep people buying
and consuming, buying and consuming.
From the political point of view, this perpetual desire keeps the United States
in the position of needing to be the world's bully . . . needing to exert
control over smaller, less wealthy countries so that we can maintain our access
to their natural resources -- like oil, and cheap labor --
which we need to satisfy the unending desires generated by our own lifestyle.
The oil situation is a wonderful example of how our HUGE desire systems create
HUGE problems. For nearly
thirty-five years we have known that our dependence on Middle Eastern oil is a
problem. Thirty-five years!
As I recall, it was 1973 when the first Arab Oil Embargo took place, and
suddenly the cost of gasoline skyrocketed, and for a number of weeks we had to
wait in line at the gas station -- sometimes for four or five hours
-- just to get ten gallons of gas.
Now, President Carter realized the problem and he immediately responded
by lowering the speed limit on the highways to 55 miles per hour, and requiring
our auto manufacturers to begin producing smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
But Carter was voted out of office and replaced by President Reagan who
really didn't understand the problem.
I mean, he was a great president in many ways, but in other ways he was
just oblivious to many long-term problems.
My sense is that President Reagan felt it was just psychologically
unhealthy and "un-American" for the United States to feel that we couldn't just
control everything and have everything we want.
So he came into office and basically said, "never mind about slower speed
limits and fuel-efficient cars.
Never mind about the environment.
Never mind about alternative sources of energy.
We're Americans! Bigger is
better! Faster is best!
So let's just plow forward!
Fuel the economy and everything will be beautiful!"
But that was not wise leadership. As
soon as we realized the potential downside of our dependence on the Middle
Eastern oil we should have begun a massive national campaign to wean ourselves
off it. And, with the exception of
Jimmy Carter, every president since Nixon has essentially ignored this glaring
problem. I mean, the Middle East has
always been a difficult and volatile region of the world.
It is largely ruled by primitive tribal consciousness and ancient,
irrational conflicts and hatreds that we can't even begin to understand.
To have our destiny tied to such an unstable, and chaotic region is not
wise. And, you know, our country is
amazingly resourceful when we want to be.
During World War II we were able to invent something as scientifically
complex as the atomic bomb within just a few years.
In 1960, President Kennedy set a goal of sending men to the Moon within
ten years, and we did it! Do you
really think that in thirty-five years we couldn't have come up with
fuel-efficient cars that run on alternative sources of energy if we and our
government had made it a national priority?
Of course we could have.
If you're wondering how this all relates to unanswered prayer, let me clarify
the situation: If you are praying
for world peace, and yet you participate in a cultural lifestyle which ignores
the long-range effects of action, then you may be supporting a system that works
in opposition to your prayer. It's
like praying for your own health, and then eating candy and ice cream and
drinking beer all day instead of eating fruits, nuts, and vegetables.
You know, prayer is much less likely to work if the other aspects of your
life are working in opposition to it.
So the long-term view is that if we had been wise and made it our priority to be
"energy self-sufficient," we wouldn't be entrenched in a war in Iraq right now,
because we wouldn't have had to be meddling in the affairs of the Middle East
-- making it our business to try to create stability in a part of the
world where they don't seem to want stability.
And that's why so many in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world
don't like us. We meddle in their
affairs! We are seen as fat, greedy,
arrogant interlopers who support corrupt regimes because we want the corrupt
leaders to sell us their oil and other resources at a cheap price.
We've become too lazy to figure out how to do something else.
I mean, we were all buddy-buddy with Saddam Hussein when we believed it
to be in our own best interests to do so.
There was a time when we really didn't care about his tyranny and the
genocides and atrocities he committed.
We just ignored them because we thought it was in our best interests to
maintain a friendly relationship with him.
Think about this: Do Exxon and Mobil
want us to have solar powered cars?
Of course not! That would be a
disaster for them. How are they
going to charge us for sunlight? But
because of the political power that can be bought by the enormous wealth the oil
companies possess, here we are, some thirty-five years later with our pants
down. And we still have no
significant alternative fuel source for our vehicles.
That is a national disgrace.
Now, we can say that our intent is to bring freedom and liberty to all the
people of the world, but I am absolutely convinced that if we weren't just
desperate for oil, we wouldn't care about stability or freedom and liberty in
the Middle East. In fact, America
probably wouldn't care about the Middle East at all, because they wouldn't have
anything we want. In that case, our
attitude generally is, "so what?" I
mean, we don't really care all that much about genocide in Darfur, or about the
fact that the Tibetans have had their homeland stolen out from under them, do
we? Dafur and Tibet don't have
anything we want. So we pay lip
service to being horrified about what's happening in places like that, but we
don't really care enough to do anything about it.
Do we? Now . . . if Darfur or
Tibet had oil . . . well that would be
a different story.
There are many so-called religious leaders and theologians in our culture who
would like to suggest that our involvement in these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
has immense religious import and comes as a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.
But that is just absolute nonsense.
We are involved in these wars because we have been arrogant, greedy, and
foolish, and we have been asleep at the switch - not just during the current
administration, but for more than three decades.
I'm not placing the blame on our government.
Every one of us - each individual shares in the blame.
We all share the blame. So if
you want world peace, praying for it isn't enough.
You have to stop participating in actions that perpetuate oppression and
conflict.
Here's what the problem boils down to: When I believe that "I" am the center of
the universe, and that the immediate satisfaction of "my" desires is the most
important thing on Earth, then I feel justified in elbowing everyone else out of
my way in order to get what "I" want.
If we are a culture of individuals who are inclined to feel justified
doing that to each other, then we automatically become a culture that has no
qualms about doing it to the rest of the world, because we feel we are the most
important country in the world. And
we may be. But if we are, we are not
using our position wisely.
Years ago, President Kennedy pointed out that our ability -- as a
nation - to be a leader in this world is rooted in the quality of our character,
not in the vastness of our wealth and military might.
He suggested that if our intention is to spread our economic system and
our ideas about democracy throughout the world, then we have to be such a high
example of wisdom, virtue, compassion, justice, and generosity that others
around the world just naturally want to emulate us . . . to follow our example.
But we've fallen quite short of Kennedy's vision. We've been operating
from self-centered arrogance, greed, fear, and righteousness rather than
compassion and wisdom. We have
fallen victim to the old notion that the end justifies the means.
Another prime example of our self-centeredness involves our consciousness about
the number of deaths in the war in Iraq.
We keep a daily running log of the number of U.S. soldiers who have been
killed. The number is announced
every day in our newspapers and on our radio and television stations.
Right now, the number is approaching 4000.
And that is a tragedy. But do
we ever hear the number of innocent Iraqi people who have been killed since we
began this adventure? No.
The number of Iraqis who have died is -- for all intents and
purposes - never mentioned.
Apparently, it is considered irrelevant.
Is that because we don't care?
I mean, I have seen estimates running as high as 800,000 people dead as a
result of our invasion. And it is
estimated that 2 million Iraqi people have been displaced from their homes and
their own country by our war. We
don't like to talk about those numbers.
We don't want to think about them.
We don't want to hear them.
And I suspect that our government is doing its best to keep us "protected" from
hearing or thinking about them. But
the reality is, we may be responsible -- either directly or
indirectly -- for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
And we are responsible for completely disrupting the lives of
millions of people . . . and we really don't want to acknowledge
that. We focus on our own soldiers,
and give no importance to the Iraqi citizens.
They are equally important.
How is a country like ours ever going to gain the respect and influence we would
like to have if we are so profoundly indifferent to the welfare of others?
And it is all because, as President Bush so ironically pointed out to us,
"We are addicted to oil."
Oddly enough, it all goes back to desire.
When we live in desire, we don't live in reality.
And we certainly don't live in compassion.
But even if we could eliminate all of the cultural and geo-political
problems caused by our unending desires, we would still have to face the
personal crises that inevitably follow.
Because, after all the desires are created and satisfied, the question
that still remains is, "how do I find happiness?"
So you learn how to get what you want.
So what? What do you do then?
It turns out that getting what you want isn't the end of unhappiness.
Sometimes, it's just the beginning of unhappiness!
The great irony is that only when we surrender our attachment to desire can we
begin to touch a place of natural peace and happiness inside.
When we're not consumed with desire, inner peace and wisdom just
naturally arise.
They are always there -- inside us -- but we
usually can't feel them because we are so caught in our minds.
Q:
Do you think healing through prayer is possible?
A: Oh, absolutely!
I have seen SO MANY examples of
"miraculous" healings that could only have come from the power of prayer.
I have seen it in my own life and my own body.
But, as I said earlier, it doesn't always happen.
And I don't think a healing that has been prayed for which doesn't
actually come to pass is -- in any sense -- a reliable
indicator of that person's worthiness in the eyes, and in the heart of God.
Many, many people actually get closer to God when they go through an
illness, or an injury, or a devastating loss.
I have also seen many healings that weren't -- in fact --
being prayed for. That is, when an
individual has "surrendered" to the fact that their medical condition makes it
appear that they are going to leave their body, and they just resolve to spend
their final days surrounded with love, peace, equanimity, and a sprit of
sanctity . . . and then -- all of a sudden -- their body
starts to heal, and their disease goes into remission.
And the only healing modality they had practiced was love, acceptance,
and surrender. It's fascinating.
On the other hand, I have many times seen people work toward healing through
paths that emphasize the mind as the source of all disease and all healing.
In those circumstances, if the path appears to work for some, but not for
others, the despair for those who have not found success in healing can get
dramatically amplified because now they have the additional burden of having to
say, "Oh my God, now I understand that my own thoughts are creating my disease
and I am powerless to do anything about it.
I must be a really horrible person."
So, in the process of ostensibly helping the person to heal physically, those
spiritual paths can actually wind up fostering an increased sense of failure and
self-hatred.
Q:
Are there different kinds of prayers?
A: Many, many different kinds.
The most common form is prayer of "petition" or "supplication" in which
we are asking God for something we want, or asking not to have something we
don't want. These can run the gamut
from an athlete praying that he makes the big score, or wins his event -
something which I've never been convinced our Creator really cares about
-- to praying for a healing, to praying for safety, to praying for the
healing of our planet, to praying for world peace.
There are also prayers of praise, in which we just spontaneously offer our love,
our joy, and our sense of awe about the beauty of nature, or the vastness of the
universe, or the extraordinary beauty and wonder of love.
Prayers of praise can be intentional, or spontaneous, and some of the
highest teachers I've encountered refer to spontaneous praise of God as the
"highest" form of prayer. You know,
those moments when pure, unadulterated love, joy, and awe just burst forth out
of your heart, and you just want to fall on your knees and thank God for all of
the magnificence in life, in the physical universe, and in your own
consciousness.
Then there are prayers we might call prayers of attention . . . or connection .
. . prayers used to constantly remind ourselves of our connection with God.
That is where prayer crosses over into being a form of meditation . . .
or meditation becomes a form of prayer.
In addition there are many other forms of prayer:
Singing holy songs can be a form of prayer, chanting mantras can be a
form of prayer, singing in the Indian style known as "kirtan" is a form of
prayer. Physical disciplines like
yoga and tai chi can be forms of prayer.
Even dance can be a form of prayer - like the dances connected with the
Sufi tradition and the dances of the whirling dervishes.
These are means of using the body as a vehicle for prayer, and thus
-- in essence -- consecrating or sanctifying the physical
body. Simultaneously, when performed
purely, these physical disciplines can induce profound experiences of higher
consciousness.
When you get right down to it, a truly "spiritual" life involves, as Brother
Lawrence said, "Praying without ceasing."
That is to say that everything you do becomes a form of prayer.
You consecrate every act.
Just as we sometimes offer a blessing and a "thank you" before we eat in order
to consecrate the food, we can offer a blessing prior to every act we undertake.
We offer our thoughts, our words, our deeds . . . all to God.
That is what in India is called "karma yoga."
Whatever you do, from washing the dishes, to taking out the garbage, to
being president of a corporation, or president of an entire country, is given as
an offering to God. When we can do
that we have learned how to "pray without ceasing."
Q:
What kind of prayer do you practice in your own life?
A: The main form of prayer I use is
intimately connected with the Buddhist practice called "metta" or
"loving-kindness." Each morning and
each evening I sit in meditation. At
the end of each period of silent sitting practice, I consciously offer to the
whole world whatever benefits I've gained in terms of deepening love, developing
equanimity, and cultivating the qualities of compassion and forgiveness.
I send a blessing of love, light, healing, joy, and gratitude to my
teachers, to the people I am close to, to the people I am aware of who are
suffering, and to the people with whom I have experienced some conflict or
discord. Then I send out the same
blessing to the people who run our government and the people who run all the
other governments around the world.
I send love to people in prison. I
send love to the people who are plotting to destroy the United States.
I send love to everyone who is caught in the "prison" of the human mind -
people who are so filled with fear and anger that they believe the best thing
they can do with their lives is to cause suffering for other people.
Every day I send a blessing to President Bush and to Osama bin Laden.
I send a blessing to all those who believe that violence and hatred are a
route to happiness . . . or to God.
I send love to religious leaders who preach self-righteous judgment and hatred
in the name of God. I don't send
love out with the intent to change anybody other than myself.
My prayers might generally be characterized as "active" prayers.
I am seeking to find the ability -- within myself --
to be a vehicle for healing in the world.
One of my favorite lines from Mahatma Gandhi was,
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world."
My prayer is to be that change.
Q:
What is the relationship between prayer and meditation?
A: Well, we've already touched on
that somewhat. But another way to
characterize the difference is by saying that prayer is "talking to God," and
meditation is "listening to God."
One is active and the other is passive.
In meditation, generally, we are seeking to quiet our minds.
And in prayer we are generally thinking something.
Meditations can involve thinking and prayer can involve quieting.
There are no hard and fast rules.
Each can blend into the other.
They are like the two sides of the same coin . . . or two hands working
differently, but harmoniously on the same project.
Q:
How do you reconcile the concept that God is "all-loving" and
"all-powerful" with the existence of evil in the world?
A: In some sense, you could say that
"God," in "Its'" highest state -- in the formlessness that exists
beyond the physical universe -- is neither good nor evil.
It just "is." That's a
difficult concept for many westerners to accept, because in the Judeo-Christian
tradition, we're very attached to the concept that God is "all-good."
It might be too scary to think otherwise.
But in Oneness, there is just Oneness.
In Light there is just Light.
"Good" and "evil" imply "two" or "two-ness," or what is sometimes referred to as
"duality" or "the world of duality."
The universe of form is a universe of physical laws related to formlessness made
manifest in form. It is a universe
that functions according to what we sometimes call "scientific" principles.
Basic Newtonian physics state that "every action has an equal and
opposite reaction." There are also "spiritual" laws which parallel the
scientific laws. For instance, the
law of karma, which in the Christian Bible is expressed, "As you sow, so shall
you reap."
The simple answer to the question is that in the world of form, if we're going
to have "good" then we are inevitably going to have "evil."
Did God create evil? Well, in
a sense, yes -- because God created everything.
However, in "It's" formless state beyond good and evil, God doesn't
intentionally create evil . . . God
just creates. Creation involves
duality, and duality involves good and evil.
So, in some sense, you might say that God created good and evil --
in equal measure -- but not necessarily intentionally.
That is to say, it all may be an unintended result of the original act of
creation, just as a stone thrown into water creates waves that flow out from the
point of impact in ever-expanding circular orbs.
Does the stone intend to create
the waves? Probably not.
You could, instead, see the waves as an "unintended result."
And that is one way to look at the appearance of evil in the world of
form - as an "unintended result" of the act of Creation.
I go into all this in much greater depth in
When Prayers Aren't Answered.
What should be comforting to us, though, is that -- based on the
laws of Newtonian physics - there must be just as much good as evil in the
world. That means, for every Osama
bin Laden, there must also be a Mother Teresa.
It's that simple. And it's a
law.
The other comforting thing is that Love is the most efficient route back into
the essential Oneness of God. That
is to say, the more you love, the closer you get to God.
In simple terms, the more people you see as "family," the wider your
universe becomes, and the greater degree of happiness you feel.
So "love," which we might define as the ultimate "good" -- is
the route back to God. And the
behaviors we define as "good" -- kindness, generosity, honesty, etc.
-- are all behaviors that support the expansion of love, and thus enhance
our connection with God. Behaviors
we consider evil -- unkindness, selfishness, cruelty, and violence
-- are all expressions of disconnection and division.
In other words, we can't harm someone we truly love.
We just can't do it. No
matter how many country and western songs say, "we always hurt the ones we
love," in terms of real spiritual love - we just can't do it.
Q:
So, if our prayers are pure, and inspired by love, why doesn't God answer
them by eliminating suffering?
A: Well, I'm sorry to have to say
this, but it is just unrealistic to believe that there is some way for us to
live in this world completely protected from evil and completely free from
suffering. We certainly can have
much better lives and we certainly can enjoy our lives much more by simply by
changing our thought patterns and cultivating a much more positive perspective.
You know, as my good friend, Wayne Dyer says, "Change your Thoughts
-- Change Your Life." Changing
your thought patterns can affect many of the experiences that come your way.
However, I have known some of the greatest "positive thinkers" of our
time, and I can assure you that not one of them has a life that is completely
free of suffering. And most people
can acknowledge that the times of suffering have eventually turned out to be
times of growth. While we wouldn't
necessarily wish for suffering, it turns out that suffering can be an
extraordinary pathway to cultivating wisdom and compassion.
The other important ingredient in this discussion is the recognition that we are
often praying out of fear. We are
praying that something we fear doesn't happen.
Or we're praying that something we want does happen because we fear what
our life and our world will be like if it doesn't happen.
The times when desires are thwarted offer us extraordinary opportunities to
confront . . . and then let go of our fear.
That is a blessing, because fear is the greatest impediment standing
between us and happiness . . . or between us and God.
The challenge is for us to learn to love that which we fear --
to learn to love that which we define as "evil."
The spiritual path is about going back to our original nature, back to
The One. Anything or anyone that we
can't accept, anything or anyone our minds place outside The One, anything or
anyone that we feel is undeserving of love is showing us the places in ourselves
where we are not yet ready to go back to The One.
Our judgment and our fear cost us.
In a sense, everything we dislike or fear, or identify as "evil" is
another brick in the stone wall of fear and disconnection that so often
surrounds our hearts . . . that keeps us disconnected from the Love within us.
Again, that doesn't mean that we should be complacent about injustice,
dishonesty, and violence. We do our
best to stop them. But hating the
perpetrators just perpetuates suffering, because we are still putting hatred out
into the atmosphere. Loving them
does not justify or condone their unconscious behavior.
Loving them just allows us to be happy . . . and free.
Loving them allows us to stop participating in the perpetuation of
conflict. And it offers to them the
optimum opportunity to heal their own hearts.
I mean, when you hate someone who is already angry and paranoid, they
just become more angry and paranoid.
But when you offer them love, you offer them a precious opportunity to get free.
I would add, however, that love does not necessarily require blind submission to
dysfunction and injustice. I think
people sometimes mistake enabling for love.
I have seen many sick, manipulative, unconscious people just get worse
and worse and worse because everyone around them thinks that "loving" means just
letting them get away with anything -- with whatever they want to
do. Sometimes when someone is
asleep, you have to shout a bit to wake them up.
The trick is to shout without closing your heart.
That's one of the basic principles taught in
The Bhagavad Gita, perhaps the most
beloved holy book in India: That,
spiritually, there is a point at which complacency and tolerance can become
-- in essence -- "anti-spiritual."
You can begin to let sick and depraved people take more and more power,
because you keep saying, "well, just love them and everything will be fine."
That isn't going to help the world at all.
Many people in prisons and addiction treatment centers are there because
they have had so many people surrounding them with a kind of unwise form of
forgiveness. I mean, forgiveness is
always useful. There is no reason to
not forgive anyone for anything. But
forgiveness and tolerating injustice and cruelty are two different things.
There are some people in this world who belong in prison because --
otherwise - they're going to harm others.
So, lovingly put them in prison, forgive them, and love them.
No need to torture them . . . just remove their opportunities to harm
others.
Q:
What is "spiritual freedom?"
A: When the great Tibetan master,
Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche was asked what "enlightenment" meant, he said,
"absolute fearlessness." I think
that is the same as "spiritual freedom."
Q:
Can you imagine living in a state of "absolute fearlessness?
Is that possible?"
A: Yes it is possible.
In fact, right now -- at this very instant --
there is a place of absolute fearlessness in you.
But you can't access it when your mind is full of fear.
There is a place of consciousness -- beyond thought --
that is absolutely peaceful, loving, and content.
And that place is also eternal.
You see, the reason you don't love everyone is because of fear.
You fear those you don't love.
And you tend to not love those you fear.
You may experience your fear as anger, but it is very useful to recognize
that -- beneath the surface -- anger is always an
expression of fear . . . and sadness.
Q:
Why do we go through all this?
A: In some sense, you could say that
we come to Earth specifically because of the range of experiences it offers.
There are great lessons to be learned from these experiences.
For instance, there are great lessons to be learned from seeing how our
fear inhibits our ability to love.
There are also great lessons to be learned from our mortality . . . from the
fact that we and everyone we know and love are going to die, and we don't know
when or how. If we keep ourselves
aware of that, we pay much closer attention to our lives and to our
relationships. We live fully every
day. We love fully every day.
We become "spiritually awake and alive"
There are also great lessons to be learned from the fact that these bodies we
live in tend to age -- if they have the chance - before they die.
I mean, each gray hair and each wrinkle can be a reminder to stay alert .
. . to stay alive . . . to stay loving.
Each can be a reminder that the sand in our hourglass is running out, but
we can't see how much sand is left.
I mean, this very day -- any day - could very well be our last day
on Earth . . . or the last for someone we love. We would live our lives much
differently if we kept ourselves aware of that. But rather than reflect on all
the lessons gray hair and wrinkles are trying to teach us, rather than using
them as the "reminders" they can be, many of us would rather color our hair and
run off to the plastic surgeon. So
we don't learn the lessons that nature is offering to us because we don't like
to think about these things. They
frighten us. If we can get beyond
our fear, a whole new universe of spiritual experience opens up before us.
Q:
Why do bad things happen to good people?
A: In
When Prayers Aren't Answered, I
recounted the story of a man named Mogalanna, who was Buddha's closest disciple.
He was an absolutely pure, high being, who had attained a level of
consciousness in which he was able to cure people, and to do all kinds of
miraculous things. But he, himself,
was ultimately murdered -- beaten to death by a group of what were
known in India as "highwaymen."
Highwaymen were sort of like our modern concept of
"gangs." So Mogalanna was
brutally murdered after a life of intense spiritual practice, purity and
generosity. Now, when you think of
it, the same thing happened to Jesus, and Gandhi.
It happened to Martin Luther King, Yitzak Rabin, and John Lennon.
It would appear that, in this world, being a proponent of peace and love
can be hazardous to your health.
It is also clear that there are many ruthless, self-absorbed, cruel, and
dishonest people who appear to prosper in this world.
And there are many honest, kind-hearted, generous, ethical people who
experience financial ruin. There are
many wonderful parents whose children die.
And there are many unconscious, uncaring people who raise unpleasant
children who seem to flourish and prosper in their own right.
There are two primary fallacies which distort our perceptions about all this.
The first is that having our prayers answered the way we want them to be
is a measure of God's love for us, or a measure of our spiritual success or
advancement. It isn't.
Then second is that this world is fair . . . or that God should make it
BE fair. It isn't fair.
At the purely human level of perception, this world of form is absolutely
not set up to be fair.
Now, you can conclude that the fairness which is missing in the world of form is
ultimately Divinely interjected through the law of karma, or through eternal
damnation or eternal salvation, or through whatever philosophical or theological
scenario you want to project onto the world of form . . . but, the fact still
remains that there is no mechanism, no arbiter of what we call "fairness" in the
world of form. And trying to
perceive one, or railing against the fact that there isn't fairness in human
terms is a very good way to stay unhappy throughout most of your life.
It is an example of what Byron Katie calls our "arguments with reality."
That is to say, we want to argue with the absence of absolute fairness in
the world. But the world just isn't
fair. That's all there is to it.
End of story. Why beat your
head against a brick wall?
Q:
What do you feel about The Law of Attraction?
A: Well, it's obviously a law - both
in the science of physics, and in our mental, spiritual, and emotional lives.
But it isn't the totality of the story.
That is to say, our thoughts, predispositions and emotional states set up
what Deepak calls a "matrix of thought," and they "attract" to us --
at both the individual level and at the collective level - the very things we
focus on. But there are also other
forces at work -- forces beyond our own personal thoughts.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna
says to Arjuna, "Whatever you focus on you will draw to yourself."
He goes on to point out that we can draw experiences to ourselves through
love or through fear . . . or even through hate.
That is to say, whatever we love, we draw to ourselves through the power
of attraction. But whatever we fear,
whatever we dislike, and whatever we hate we also draw to ourselves.
Whatever we put a lot of time and psychic energy into thinking about, we
draw toward ourselves.
I had a friend who used to say, "Worrying is praying for something you don't
want." That's really a statement of
the law of attraction.
The only problem with the teachings that focus solely on the power of attraction
is that -- in constantly affirming to people that they can have
whatever they want, they tend to just keep the wheels of desire spinning faster
and faster. And, for those who are
not successful in applying the principles, there can be a painful diminishment
of self-worth. The notion that the
fulfillment of desire is the pinnacle of human accomplishment is just wrong.
As we've already seen, real and lasting happiness comes only from getting
free of the stranglehold desire usually has over us.
The great Indian spiritual master, Meher Baba, used to refer to the
attempts to control one's thought processes in order to become adept at changing
the conditions of one's life and body as the effort to exchange one illusion for
another. That is to say --
for instance - that from the spiritual point of view, any identity the ego holds
is an illusion. Identifying oneself
as a "rich" person is just as big an illusion, and just as big an impediment to
enlightenment as identifying oneself as a "poor" person.
Identifying oneself as being "unhealthy" is an illusion, but so is
identifying oneself as "healthy."
Each is in time and space, each is destined to pass away, and each can be
-- ultimately - a hindrance to the effort to evolve spiritually.
Q:
Is it possible to have whatever we want?
A: Well, in a very real sense, yes .
. . but perhaps not in this lifetime.
In the Vedas it is said that we must live out all our desires.
And it is said that we will have the opportunity to do so.
But that may mean that every desire you have could result in another
incarnation. If you see spiritual
awakening or enlightenment as the process of getting free of desire, you might
want to focus on practices that will help you do that, rather than practices
that just keep the carousel of desire going 'round and 'round.
Q:
Is unanswered prayer an indication that we are being punished by God?
A: Absolutely not.
As we've discussed previously, it may be an indication that God is doing
you a favor. I don't want to make
light of the issue, or offer simplistic rationalizations.
I think if you read When Prayers
Aren't Answered, you'll see that there are no easy explanations or answers
to these questions. There are,
however, simple, clear, concise things we can do to enhance our connection to
God even in life's difficult moments.
Again, that is the ultimate message of the book -- that no
matter what happens, we never lose our connection with the Divine.
Q:
Are there are certain forms of prayer that are more effective than
others?
A: Yes.
Clearly using positive imagery, and visualizing the results you are
seeking are both extraordinarily helpful.
When I am dealing with a health issue, I visualize my body as healthy,
and I meditate to access the inner place of pure awareness where disease is a
non-issue. I also try to avoid
telling people about it, because I don't want a lot of minds worrying and seeing
me as "unhealthy." You know, that's
just not helpful. Again, I think the
term "matrix of thought" which Deepak uses is extremely descriptive.
You don't want to create a matrix of negative thought around you when you
are trying to heal. Very few people
can keep their consciousness free of fear and agitation.
And fear and agitation are the last things you need when you are working
toward healing.
I also work with whatever is happening on other levels, through exercise, diet,
nutritional supplements, and Chinese medicinal herbal teas.
I use various forms of healing meditations, I use affirmative prayer, and
I sometimes work with Tibetan mandalas and yantras.
I think you go with as many positive elements and influences as you can.
You know, like that essential concept in the
Bhagavad Gita -- "Do your best and leave the results to
God." And when you're healing, try to stay away from negative, fearful, angry
people.
Q:
Are there specific teachers or traditions that have served to shape your
ideas about healing?
A: Yes.
My personal approach to healing has been most profoundly influenced by
the teachings of the Sufi master, Hazrat Inayat Khan.
I have also been deeply influenced by Emmet Fox, Mary Baker Eddy, and
Yeshe Donden who was for many years the personal physician to The Dalai Lama.
On the other hand, I also remember Ramakrishna saying the best thing to
do for your health is just not to worry about it . . . not to obsess about your
body.
Q:
What role does prayer play in creating a happy life?
A: Well, that depends on what you
are praying for and how you are praying for it.
There is a section in the book in which I relate a dialogue Ram Dass and I had
at his home on Maui last year. One
of the issues we explored was whether it is possible to -- in a
sense -- send conflicting messages in our prayers.
That is to say, if what we truly want in our heart of hearts, in the
deepest levels of our being, is enlightenment -- or God --
then the universe will align itself to give us that.
And if in the middle of that process, we suddenly say, "I want a million
dollars," we probably won't get it because the likelihood is that it would be a
distraction from what we really want .
. . which is God. It's really just a
further amplification of one of the essential core conflicts of being a human
being, and that is that we have all kinds of conflicting desires and
motivations.
It's like that wonderful statement which says, "Most of us don't want God.
Most of us want to want God." There
are a lot of people around who want to have God . . . AND be wealthy.
That is possible . . . but not likely.
In another section of the book I explore stories of people who became
wealthy thinking that it was the route to happiness, and to God, and they wound
up absolutely miserable. Now, there
are a few people who are both rich - and happy - and feel wonderfully connected
to God. But do you know what they
are doing? If you ask them what
makes them happy, they never say "it's my mansions," or "it's my huge investment
portfolio," or "it's my jet airplane," or "it's my exotic cars."
They always say, "It's giving my money away, and helping other people."
Isn't that remarkable?!
You see? Ultimately, our prayers are
most effective in leading us to happiness when they are in alignment with what
we really want, and when we are clear and focused about what we really want.
What we all really want is love and happiness.
And love and happiness come from a quiet mind and an open heart . . .
not, necessarily, from getting what we want.
Again, I'll refer to Wayne Dyer's statement that prayer isn't about
asking God for special favors, but about reminding us that we are always
connected to God. I mean, that
-- really -- is the ultimate source of happiness . . . just to
be constantly aware of our connection with God . . . through all of the
difficult times and disappointments -- to be constantly aware of our
connection with God. That connection
is easiest to recognize when we aren't ensnared in passionate desires for things
to be different than they are, but when we are quietly attentive to what is . .
. in this moment . . . and this moment . . . and this moment.
Also, I feel that prayer -- in order to be effective, and in order
to increase our happiness -- must not involve any motivations that
would do harm to others.
Q:
What are the conditions under which prayer is most likely to work?
A: When what we are asking for is in
the way of things . . . when it is in harmony with the unfolding of love on the
planet, and when it is in harmony with the greatest good for the largest number
of people.
My healing from polio at the age of three came on the heels of my father putting
out an appeal to all of his family, friends, business associates, and
acquaintances to pray for me in whatever tradition they belonged to.
Within a few days, prayers were being said by hundreds of people in
dozens of Protestant churches, Catholic churches, and Jewish synagogues.
Then my father had a vision of Jesus standing next to my hospital bed,
and he knew I would be healed. And I
was. But one of the effects of that
healing is that I have always known that I owe my life to God.
In fact, I think the circumstances fostered a very interesting quality in
my life, because I have many times been reminded that my path is a fairly narrow
and specific one, and that if I stray from it, I may die.
It's sort of like I was told, when I was healed at the age of three,
"Okay. You can stay on earth.
But don't screw around, or you'll have to leave."
Earlier, I mentioned Mattie Stepanek.
What an extraordinary being!
Does the fact that he died at the age of twelve and I have lived to be nearly
fifty-seven years old mean that I am better than him, or more important, or that
my parents were better, or holier?
Absolutely not! My parents were
rascals. Lovely, loving rascals, but
rascals nonetheless. And I am
probably a "dull normal" while Mattie was a wizard!
He just graduated much faster.
Mattie's impact on the unfolding of love on our planet was powerful and
profound largely because he was so young, and so sick, and so noble, and so
wise. His fearlessness, and lack of
resentment about his impending death made an extraordinary impression on
millions of people. Now, if he was
your child, you would want him to live no matter what.
But his impact on the planet came largely because he died so young.
He opened peoples' hearts.
Recently, a woman called me whose husband had died suddenly in middle age.
He had had a serious back problem for many years, and he had often been
in chronic, debilitating pain. After
his death his wife realized that she had been praying for years for her husband
to get free from his pain. Then,
suddenly he died. So he did get free
from his pain. But not exactly the
way she had hoped. Was her prayer
answered, or not?
It's tricky, because I could hear the place in her mind that was beginning to
lean toward self-doubt and self-judgment.
You know, like, "Oh my God! I
wasn't praying correctly! I didn't
specify that I wanted him alive when
his pain went away! I caused his
death with my unskillful prayers."
You know, we can just torture ourselves and destroy ourselves with self-doubt
and self-judgment.
I don't think that a prayer offered with love and compassion can lead to
anything wrong happening. If your
primary motivation is love, compassion, and the ultimate well-being of others,
then you can rest assured that whatever the ultimate tangible outcome of your
prayer is, the highest good has been served.
You know, people die because their soul has finished its work here.
That's all there is to it. If
the soul isn't finished, there is no way for an individual to die.
And if the soul is finished, there is no way for them to stay alive.
It really doesn't have anything to do with the length of someone's life.
The real issue is what work did their soul come to earth to do.
In the midst of overwhelming grief, that can be difficult to perceive.
But it is -- I believe -- an inviolable truth of
our existence here.
Q:
Is this primarily a "Christian" book?
A: No, it is primarily a "God" book.
Or, you could say it is primarily a "Love" book. For me, the concept of
"God" is interchangeable with "Love."
But, I have to say, I see God -- ultimately -- as
inconceivable. I don't think "It" is
capable of intellectual understanding.
Intuitive understanding, perhaps.
But not intellectual understanding.
So I think you can use the word "God" interchangeably with "Love,"
"Light," "awareness," "consciousness," whatever feels right to you.
My own understanding is that God is not relegated to any particular religion or
path. God is everywhere and in
everything. And also
beyond everywhere and
beyond everything.
Whatever path we follow is the one that is appropriate for us at any
given point in our spiritual unfolding.
But all paths are just like fingers pointing at the moon.
The moon is what we're seeking.
But we have a tendency to get attached to the particular fingers that are
guiding us at any given moment. I
tend to look toward paths that focus on Love and inner connection with God
rather than those which foster self-righteousness and divisiveness - you know,
the "My way is the ONLY way" mentality.
I mean, after all, nearly every religion I've ever studied thinks it is
the ONLY way. That would be a
humorous aspect of the human mind . . . if it weren't so dangerous.
I mean, right now we are witnessing a showdown in our world between
fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam.
And fundamentalist Judaism is thrown into the mix, too.
And everybody is shouting all this nonsense at each other, which
basically boils down to hate. I,
personally, don't believe that any valid spiritual path fosters hatred, or
division.
That's why my own path has always been influenced by the Buddhist perspective on
things. You know, Buddhism has often
been characterized as an atheistic religion.
But it really isn't. Buddha
just recognized the malevolent direction religion can take when it is centered
around an intellectual explanation of something which -- ultimately
-- can't be explained or understood.
Buddha said, essentially, if there is a God, then whatever it is is SO
big and SO vast that our human minds could never possibly understand it.
And then he said, look what happens when we try.
Before long, we start fighting and arguing over whose concept of God is
"right," and eventually we'll start killing each other because --
obviously -- the people who don't believe what we believe are evil.
That is about the most distorted, and deluded, perspective I can imagine
emerging out of the quest for spiritual awakening.
That's more like spiritual sleeping -- in a fog . . . and
believing that the nightmares in your own head are the essence of reality.
Buddha suggested that rather than confuse ourselves, we would be better to not
even try to understand God. Just
delve into the full experience of being alive, awake, and aware . . . and see
what follows. Cultivate wisdom,
compassion, kindness, and equanimity, and see what happens.
If God exists, then experience
Him, or Her, or It. Don't just think
about It. Experience It directly.
It's an interesting path, because you can be a Christian Buddhist, or a Jewish
Buddhist, or a Hindu Buddhist . . . you know . . . it's all open to
interpretation. Because Buddhism
isn't about being "right" or "holy."
It is about being kind, and loving, and peaceful.
When Prayers Aren't Answered
is a book with a "universal" perspective.
It draws on all of the great religious and spiritual traditions, and
attempts to mine the wisdom and compassion running through all of them, rather
than the divisiveness that so often becomes the focal point.
Q:
So what do you suggest we do when our prayers aren't answered?
A: Well, first of all, try to be
patient. The effects of your prayer
may appear slowly . . . over the course of years, or decades.
So just try to be patient.
And don't be so anxious to understand "why?"
There is an entire chapter devoted to the suffering created in our minds
by the question, "why?" Our human
minds habitually want to ask that question and have it answered.
But -- in many, many cases -- there really are no
answers. I mean, we can make up
answers. We can construct all kinds
of theological, philosophical, and psychological scenarios intended to imbue our
sadness and disappointment with some profound meaning.
But -- ultimately -- in the end, there is just
our experience, and our reaction to it.
Because, how do we know what God -- or the universe --
intends? How do we know that there
even is an "intention" which our minds
could possibly comprehend. I mean,
this universe we live in is infinite.
Infinite. How can I
understand why I didn't get what I wanted in an Infinite universe?
The more helpful question is, "How do I use this experience to go deeper into
love. How do I use this experience
to be a better person. How do I use
it to become a more loving and peaceful presence in the world."
Love is the greatest healer.
Love is how we heal our heartbreak.
And Love is how we connect with God.
The deeper and purer our Love, the deeper and purer our connection with God.
No matter what happens to us, no matter what losses and disappointments befall
us, there is no way for us to ever be disconnected from Love . . . and therefore
no way to be disconnected from God.
Real happiness lies in expanding the Love in our hearts to the point that our
individual thoughts of "I," "my," "me," and "mine" just fall away . . . and we
begin to focus our awareness more on "us," and "we," . . . on the bigger picture
. . . the larger universe.
Again, that universe is infinite.
And Love is Infinite. So we
ultimately Love ourselves right out of our selfishness and egocentricity.
We Love ourselves back into the Oneness . . . back into the unified field
of Light from which we all came.
About the Author
John Welshons
is the author of
When Prayers Aren't Answered and
Awakening from Grief. A much sought after speaker who offers lectures
and workshops on terminal illness, grief, and other topics, he has been helping
people deal with dramatic life change and loss for over 35 years. He is the
founder and president of Open Heart Seminars and lives in New Jersey.
Visit
his website
www.openheartseminars.com.