Prayer

Chapter 3: Prayer – Neville Goddard Lecture

PRAYER, like sleep, is also an entrance into the subconscious.

"When you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door,

pray to your Father which is in secret and your Father which is in secret shall
reward you openly" [Matthew 6:6].

Prayer is an illusion of sleep which diminishes the impression of the outer world and renders the mind more receptive to suggestion from within. The mind in prayer is in a state of relaxation and receptivity akin to the feeling attained just before dropping off to sleep. Prayer is not so much what you ask for, as how you prepare for its reception.

"Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray believe that you have received
them, and ye shall have them" [Mark 11:24].

The only condition required is that you believe that your prayers are already realized. Your prayer must be answered if you assume the feeling that would be yours were you already in possession of your objective. The moment you accept the wish as an accomplished fact, the subconscious finds means for its realization. To pray successfully then, you must yield to the wish, that is, feel the wish fulfilled.

The perfectly disciplined man is always in tune with the wish as an accomplished fact. He knows that consciousness is the one and only reality, that ideas and feelings are facts of consciousness and are as real as objects in space; therefore he never entertains a feeling which does not contribute to his happiness, for feelings are the causes of the actions and circumstances of his life.

On the other hand, the undisciplined man finds it difficult to believe that which is denied by the senses and usually accepts or rejects solely on appearances of the senses. Because of this tendency to rely on the evidence of the senses, it is necessary to shut them out before starting to pray, before attempting to feel that which they deny. Whenever you are in the state of mind "I should like to, but I cannot", the harder you try, the less you are able to yield to the wish. You never attract that which you want, but always attract that which you are conscious of being.

Prayer is the art of assuming the feeling of being and having that which you want. When the senses confirm the absence of your wish, all conscious
effort to counteract this suggestion is futile and tends to intensify the suggestion. Prayer is the art of yielding to the wish and not the forcing of the wish.
Whenever your feeling is in conflict with your wish, feeling will be the victor. The dominant feeling invariably expresses itself. Prayer must be
without effort.

In attempting to fix an attitude of mind which is denied by the senses, effort is fatal. To yield successfully to the wish as an accomplished fact, you must create a passive state, a kind of reverie or meditative reflection similar to the feeling which precedes sleep. In such a relaxed state, the mind is turned from the objective world and easily senses the reality of a subjective state. It is a state in which you are conscious and quite able to move or open your eyes but have no desire to do so.

An easy way to create this passive state is to relax in a comfortable chair or on a bed.

If on a bed, lie flat on your back with your head on a level with your body, close the eyes and imagine that you are sleepy.

Feel – I am sleepy, so sleepy, so very sleepy.

In a little while, a faraway feeling accompanied by a general lassitude and loss of all desire to move envelops you.

You feel a pleasant, comfortable rest and not inclined to alter your position,  although under other circumstances you would not be at all comfortable.

When this passive state is reached, imagine that you have realized your wish – not how it was realized, but simply the wish fulfilled.

Imagine in picture form – what you desire to achieve in life; then feel yourself as having already achieved it.

Thoughts produce tiny little speech movements which may be heard in the passive state of prayer as pronouncements from without. However, this degree of passivity is not essential to the realization of your prayers. All that is necessary is to create a passive state and feel the wish fulfilled. All you can possibly need or desire is already yours. You need no helper to give it to you; it is yours now. Call your desires into being by imagining and feeling your wish fulfilled. As the end is accepted, you become totally indifferent as to possible failure, for acceptance of the end wills the means to that end. When you emerge from the moment of prayer, it is as though you were shown the happy and successful end of a play although you were not shown how that end was achieved. However, having witnessed the end, regardless of any anticlimactic sequence, you remain calm and secure in the knowledge that the end has been perfectly defined.