How to Get Your Prayers Answered

I feel a little uppity and out of place entitling a chapter How to Get Your Prayers Answered. Everyone who has ever lived asked this question at least once. It seems unlikely that a person like myself could find any important information about getting prayers answered while rooting through decades of deep intoxication and a few layers of insanity—and rarely saying a prayer or even believing in the concept.

It seems I may have gotten lucky.

There are three steps to getting your prayers answered. They are:

~ 1 ~

Set your hope, wish, prayer, aspiration, desired intent exactly where you want it, worded so that it is short, focused, and sticks to basics.

If your wish includes doing harm, or is of no benefit to others, restructure it. For a first step example, “I hope that nasty bastard dies painfully and that I never meet another asshole like him” probably won’t work too well. “I hope to never meet nasty people from now on and that everyone else has the same good luck” is much better, but not quite good enough. The desired result needs to always be framed in positive achievement. The “I hope…” sentence should be structured to say something like, “I will meet nicer people and be one. I welcome all help with this.”

To really want to make big points with the system, say something like the following and mean it. “I will meet nicer people and be one. I hope that all people, especially that one who has recently acted so nastily toward me, become decent and happy. I thank everything in existence (or God, any representative or representation of God, The Universe, The Force, The Collective Unconscious, Nature, Fate, Circumstance, Coincidence, Physics, or whatever name you have for your Bigger-Than-You thing) for help.”

The language of positive direction and a benevolent intent are extremely important! Use them. The potent effect of positive language can be seen in Mother Teresa’s comment, “I won’t go to your anti-war rally. If you ever have a peace really, call me.”

~ 2 ~

Empty your mind of everything else.

Don’t treat this step lightly! It is not as simple as it sounds. Most folks can’t sit for a single minute without having a thought. Clearing mental clutter will take some work, but it can be very enjoyable. Relax through any initial bits of impatience.

Here’s why this step is so important. Everything comes from nothing. Whatever you want to put anywhere starts with it not being there yet. Consider that nothing always comes before something. That’s why it can truly be said that there is no thing as real as nothing.

Any background is the birthplace of whatever stands out from it.

Then consider that there can only be 100% of anything and so there can only be 100% of a mind. If 90% of it is rattling around on things other than those that we want in our line of focus, other than fulfilling the prayer—well, you can do the math. The percentage of random thought prattling around the brain needs to be reduced as thoroughly as possible in order to have most of the brain available to focus on getting intentions fulfilled.

Thoughts will pop up, but don’t pay attention to them. Pay attention to the awareness that is recognizing them. To stabilize this ability will take patience, confidence, and consistent effort. There are tried and true methods that have been proven to work. My Temple mates and their ancestors have been using some of them for thousands of years. I strongly recommend a tried and true method, because employing your own unassisted mind to clean out the clutter spawned by that very mind would be similar to hiring soldiers to end the concept of war. There are a lot of dead soldiers who would like to tell you that this logic is fatally flawed.

Finding a good teacher with whom a good working rapport can be established is extremely beneficial to your mind-clearing process. The quality of attention paid by a student is more important than who the teacher is—but just a bit. Finding a spiritually qualified, dedicated teacher and bringing all of yourself to the learning process are both very important.

Being overanxious can work against a person who is picking a coach, teacher, or guide. It’s a wonderful thing to get help with this mind-clearing part of the prayer-fulfilling process. But just because one is well-motivated and anxious to start doesn’t mean that the first person to come along with a robe, a divinity degree, or a crystal ball is the right teacher. Try a few sessions each with as many teachers as you care to, and with an open mind. When the right time, person, and system for you arrive, it will be obvious.

“We should be very careful who we establish a relationship with as a teacher. First we should check him or her out and allow him or her to check us out. If this doesn’t work out, don’t push it. It is always better to develop a relationship that we can trust, rather than getting into one we are not sure of. This is essential advice. The student and the Lama have to have a strong faith and trust in each other.”

Lama Karma Rinchen

~ 3 ~

Take #1, plant it in #2, and don’t ever give up.

Take the wish/dream/intention/hope/aspiration/mantra/prayer phrase from #1 and give the thinking of it as much attention as possible. Obviously, this should not be done while driving a car, crossing a busy street, working with a power tool, if baby needs immediate attention, or the house is on fire. Keep your wits about you. Stay awake.

The aspiration, prayer, or whatever you want to call it will reach both its internal and external sources with the continuing practice of it, and you’ll notice something else too. It will become fun to do this. You’ll start making sure that the amount of time given to the process grows. The fun you are having and the fulfillment of your wishes will sprout and grow like everything does—from nothing into something, from a mere seed into a living, thriving entity.

The focus phrase/prayer can always be adjusted, amended, or altogether changed if it becomes appropriate to do so. As long as it contains the elements of doing no harm, benefiting more than just the self, a positive motivation and goal, and there is enough mental space for it to live and breed in, that prayer will inevitably be answered. How fast or completely it is answered depends on the practicality of the request, the honesty of altruistic intent, perseverance, strength of conviction and confidence in the process, stress-free determination, grace, patience, and of course the amount of time spent planting and watering the idea in our little and Big Brains. (Don’t go schizo! They may seem like two separate brains sometimes, but there is only one of you.)

As the lottery people say, “You’ve got to be in it to win it.” But the odds are a lot better of this process succeeding than are the odds of winning the lottery.

Available methods of emptying the mind and concentrating focus have been proven, century after century. A relaxed, consistent effort will pay dividends more valuable than money can buy. (These dividends can also include money, if the desire for it is based in well motivated goals and not selfish greed). These dividends are guaranteed to increase as your diligence does. There aren’t many lotteries with guarantees like that.

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