Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer

“THERE ARE BEAUTIFUL AND WILD FORCES WITHIN US.”
 
With these words, St. Francis of Assisi described the mystery and power that lives within every man, woman, and child born into this world. The Sufi poet Rumi further described the magnitude of that power by comparing it to a great oar that propels us through life. “If you put your soul against this oar with me,” he begins, “the power that made the universe will enter your sinew from a source not outside your limbs, but from a Holy realm that lives in us.”
 
Through the language of poetry, both Rumi and St. Francis express something beyond the obvious experience of our everyday world. In the words of their times, they remind us of what the ancients called the greatest force in the universe—the power that unites us with the cosmos. Today, we know that power as “prayer.” Elaborating on prayer, St. Francis simply stated, “The result of prayer is life.” Prayer brings us life, he says, because it “irrigates the earth and the heart.”
 
The Bridge to Our Past
 
Knowledge is the bridge that connects us with everyone who has ever lived before us. From civilization to civilization and lifetime to lifetime, we contribute the individual stories that become our collective history. No matter how well we preserve the information of the past, however, the words of these stories are little more than “data” until we give them meaning. It’s the way we apply what we know of our past that becomes the wisdom of the present.
 
For thousands of years, for example, those who have come before us preserved the knowledge of prayer, why it works, and how we may use it in our lives. In massive temples and hidden tombs, through language and customs that have changed very little for at least 5,000 years, our ancestors preserved the powerful knowledge of prayer. The secret, however, is not found in the words of the prayers themselves. Just as the power of a computer program is more than the language in which it’s written, we must search deeper to know the true power that awaits us when we pray.
 
It may be precisely this power that mystic George Gurdjieff discovered as the result of his lifelong search for truth. After years of following ancient clues that led him from temple to village and teacher to teacher, he found himself in a secret monastery hidden in the mountains of the Middle East. There, a great master offered the words of encouragement that made his search worthwhile: “You have now found the conditions in which the desire of your heart can become the reality of your being.” I can’t help but believe that prayer is part of the conditions that Gurdjieff discovered.
 
To unleash what St. Francis called the “beautiful and wild forces” within us and find the conditions in which our heart’s desire becomes reality, we must understand our relationship to ourselves, our world, and God. Through the words of our past, we’re given the knowledge of how to do just that. In his book The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran reminds us that we can’t be taught things we already know. “No man can reveal to you,” he states, “that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.” It makes tremendous sense that hidden within us we would already have the power to communicate with the force that’s responsible for our existence! To do so, however, we must discover who we really are.
 
The Two Universal Questions
 
The pioneering anthropologist Louis Leakey was once asked why his work to find the oldest evidence of human existence was so important. He replied, “Without an understanding of who we are, and from where we came, I do not think we can truly advance.” I believe there’s a lot of truth to what Leakey said—so much so that the bulk of my adult life has revolved around my search to know who we are, and how the knowledge of our past can help us become better people and create a better world.
 
With the exception of Antarctica, my research into the mystery of our past has taken me to every continent on the planet. From huge cities such as Cairo and Bangkok, to remote villages in Peru and Bolivia, from ancient monasteries in the Himalayas of Tibet, to Hindu temples in Nepal, during the time that I’ve experienced each culture, a single theme has emerged. The people of this world are ready for something more than the suffering and uncertainty that defined their lives for so much of the 20th century. They’re ready for peace, and the promise of a better tomorrow.
 
As different as our cultures and ways of life appear on the outside, beneath the surface we’re all searching for the same things—a land to call home, a way to provide for our families, and a better future for ourselves and our children. At the same time, there are two questions that people of all cultures ask me again and again, either directly or through translators. The first is simply: “What is happening to our world?” The second is: “What can we do to make things better?” The answers to both questions appear to be woven into a single understanding that links the traditions of prayer today with the most ancient and cherished spiritual traditions of our past.

Four hundred years ago in the high deserts of the American Southwest, the great wisdom keepers of the Navajo families were tested by the earth, nature, and the tribes that surrounded them. Through the extremes that drought, intense heat, and lack of food caused in their societies, the Navajo realized that they must harness the power of their inner pain to endure the harsh conditions of their outer world. Their very survival depended upon learning to do so.
 
Recognizing that life’s tests pushed them to the depths of their greatest suffering, they also discovered that the same tests revealed their greatest strengths. The key to their survival was to immerse themselves in life’s challenges without becoming lost in the experience. They had to find an “anchor” within themselves—a belief that gave them the inner strength to endure their tests—and the knowledge that a better day would follow. From this place of power they had the confidence to take risks, change their lives, and make sense of their world.
 
Our lives today may not be so very different from that of those brave individuals who roamed the high deserts of the American Southwest centuries before our country was created. Although the scenery has shifted and the circumstances have changed, we still find ourselves in situations that shake the foundation of our beliefs, test the limits of our sensibilities, and challenge us to rise above the things that hurt us. In a world that many describe as “coming apart at the seams,” punctuated by senseless acts of hate, record numbers of failed relationships, broken homes, and conditions that threaten the survival of entire societies, we’re challenged to find a way to live each day with peace, joy, and a sense of order.
 
With an eloquence that’s typical of such ancient wisdom, Navajo tradition describes a way of looking at life that places responsibility for our happiness or suffering squarely upon our shoulders. Preserved as the Beauty Prayer, the exact wording varies from record to record and telling to telling, although the essence of the prayer may be shared in three brief phrases. Through only 20 words, the Navajo elders convey sophisticated wisdom, reminding us of the connection between our inner and outer worlds that has been recognized only recently by modern science.
 
Arranged as three parts, each phrase offers insight into our power to shift the chemistry of our bodies and influence the quantum possibilities of our world. In its simplest form, the words of the prayer speak for themselves. The Navajo say, “Nizhonigoo bil iina,” words that roughly translate into:
 
The beauty that you live with,
 
The beauty that you live by,
 
The beauty upon which you base your life.
 
Through the words of an author forgotten long ago, the simplicity of this prayer offers renewed hope when all else seems to have failed. But the Beauty Prayer is more than words alone. Within its simplicity lies the key to solving one of humankind’s greatest mysteries: How do we survive life’s hurts? Rather than playing it safe and shying away from the very situations that give meaning to each day, the power of beauty and prayer allows us to jump right into our experience, knowing that any hurt we may suffer is temporary. Through the Beauty Prayer, the Navajo people have long found strength, comfort, and a way to deal with the suffering of our world.
 
What secrets have traditions like those of the Navajo of the American Southwest, the monks and nuns of Tibet, and others kept safe while much of the world has strayed from our relationship to the earth, one another, and a greater power? What wisdom did they know in their time that may help us become better people, and create a better world, in ours?
 
Hurt, Blessing, Beauty, and Prayer
 
Hidden in the knowledge of those who have come before us, we find the wisdom to empower our prayers of healing and peace. From the ancient writings of the Gnostics and Essenes, to the native traditions throughout the Americas, hurt, blessing, and beauty are acknowledged as the keys to surviving our greatest tests. Prayer is the language that allows us to apply the lessons of our experiences to the situations in our lives.
 
From this perspective, “wisdom” and “hurt” are two extremes of the same experience. They are the beginning and completion of the same cycle. Hurt is our initial feeling, our gut response to loss, disappointment, or the news of something that shocks our emotions. Wisdom is the healed expression of our hurt. We change hurt into wisdom by finding new meaning in painful experiences. Blessing, beauty, and prayer are the tools for our change.
 
Twentieth-century Christian visionary Reverend Samuel Shoemaker described the power of prayer to create change in a single, poetic, and perhaps deceptively simple sentence: “Prayer may not change things for you,” he says, “but it for sure changes you for things.” While we may not be able to go back in time to undo the reason we hurt to begin with, we do have the power to change what the loss of loved ones, the shock of broken promises, and life’s disappointments mean to us. In doing so, we open the door to move toward a healing resolution of even our most hurtful memories.
 
Without understanding the relationship between wisdom and hurt, our endurance of pain may seem senseless—even cruel—and continue, as the pain cycle remains open-ended. But how are we to remove ourselves from life’s hurt long enough to find the wisdom in our experiences? When we’re reeling from a loss, a violated trust, or a betrayal that was unthinkable only hours or moments before, how are we to find refuge from our emotions long enough to feel something else? This is where the power of blessing comes in.
 
Blessing Is the Release
 
“Blessing” is the ancient secret that releases us from life’s hurt long enough to replace it with another feeling. When we bless the people or things that have hurt us, we’re temporarily suspending the cycle of pain. Whether this suspension lasts for a nanosecond or an entire day makes no difference. Whatever the period of time, during the blessing a doorway opens for us to begin our healing and move on with life. The key is that for some period of time, we’re released from our hurt long enough to let something else into our hearts and minds. That something is the power of “beauty.”
 
Beauty Is the Transformer
 
The most sacred and ancient traditions remind us that beauty exists in all things, regardless of how we interpret them in our daily lives. Beauty is already created, and always present. While we may modify our surroundings, create new relationships, and move to new locations to please our ever-changing ideas of balance and harmony, the building blocks that go into such beauty are already there.
 
Beyond an appreciation for the things that are simply pleasing to our eyes, beauty is described by wisdom traditions as an experience that also touches our hearts, minds, and souls. Through our ability to perceive beauty in even the “ugliest” moments of life, we may elevate ourselves long enough to give new meaning to our hurt. In this way, beauty is a trigger that launches us into a new perspective. The key, however, is that it appears to be dormant until we give it our attention. Beauty awakens only when we invite it into our lives.
 
Our Lost Mode of Prayer
 
We find ourselves in a world of experiences that defy our sensibilities and push us to the limits of what we can accept as rational, loving people. In the presence of war and genocide beyond our borders, and hate based upon our differences within our own communities, how are we to feel emotions such as peace and healing? Clearly, we must find a way to break the cycle of hurt-suffering-anger-hate if we’re to transcend the conditions that we find ourselves in.
 
In the languages of their time, ancient traditions left us precise instructions for how to do just that! Through their words, we’re reminded that “life” is nothing more, and nothing less, than a mirror of what we’ve become within. The key to experiencing our lives as beauty, or as pain, rests solely within our ability to become these qualities in each moment of every day. A growing body of scientific evidence gives renewed credibility to such wisdom, and the powerful role that each of us plays in contributing to the healing, or the suffering, in our world.
 
Late in the 20th century, experiments confirmed that we’re bathed in a field of energy that connects us all with the events of our world. Given names that range from the Quantum Hologram to the Mind of God, research has shown that through this energy, the beliefs and prayers within us are carried into the world around us. Both science and ancient tradition suggest the very same thing: We must embody in our lives the very conditions that we wish to experience in our world. We find the instructions for a lost mode of prayer that helps us do just that, hidden within some of the most isolated and remote locations remaining on Earth today.
 
In the spring of 1998, I had the honor of facilitating a 22-day pilgrimage into the monasteries of central Tibet, searching for evidence of an ancient and forgotten form of prayer—the language that speaks to the field that unites all things. The monks and the nuns who live there shared the instructions for a way to pray that was largely lost to the West in the fourth-century biblical edits of the early Christian Church. Preserved for centuries in the texts and traditions of those living upon the roof of the world, this “lost” mode of prayer has no words or outward expressions. It is based solely in feeling.
 
Specifically, it invites us to feel as if our prayer has already been answered, rather than feeling powerless and needing to ask for help from a higher source. In recent years, studies have shown that it is this very quality of feeling that does, in fact, “speak” to the field that connects us with the world. Through prayers of feeling, we’re empowered to take part in the healing of our lives and relationships, as well as our bodies and our world.