Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer: The Hidden Power of Beauty, Blessing, Wisdom, and Hurt

by Gregg Braden

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.

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.

Unlike the traditional prayers that we may have used in the past, however, this technique of prayer has no words. It is based in the silent language of human emotion. It invites us to feel gratitude and appreciation, as if our prayers have already been answered. Through this quality of feeling, the ancients believed that we’re given direct access to the power of creation: the Spirit of God.

Regardless of what we call it or how science and religion define it, it’s clear that there’s something out there—a force, a field, a presence—that is the “great magnet” constantly pulling us toward one another and connecting us to a higher power.

The worldwide census that was conducted in 2000 is believed to be the most accurate accounting of our world in recorded history. Among the compelling statistics that the survey revealed about our global family, and perhaps the most telling, is our nearly universal sense that we’re here on purpose, and we’re not alone. Over 95 percent of the world’s population believes in the existence of a higher power. Of that number, over half call that power “God.”

“When we see your prayers,” I began, “what are you doing? When we see you tone and chant for 14 and 16 hours a day, when we see the bells, the bowls, the gongs, the chimes, the mudras, and the mantras on the outside, what is happening to you on the inside?”

I knew that this was the reason we’d come to this place. “You have never seen our prayers,” he answered, “because a prayer cannot be seen.” Adjusting the heavy wool robes beneath his feet, the abbot continued. “What you have seen is what we do to create the feeling in our bodies. Feeling is the prayer!”

Without any words, without our hands held in a certain position or any outward physical expression, this mode of prayer simply invites us to feel a clear and powerful feeling as if our prayers have already been answered. Through this intangible “language,” we participate in the healing of our bodies, the abundance that comes to our friends and families, and the peace between nations.

“It’s simple,” he replied. “I began to have the feeling of what rain feels like. I felt the feeling of rain on my body, and what it feels like to stand with my naked feet in the mud of our village plaza because there has been so much rain. I smelled the smells of rain on the earthen walls in our village, and felt what it feels like to walk through fields of corn chest high because there has been so much rain.” David’s explanation made perfect sense. He was engaging all of his senses—the hidden powers of thought, feeling, and emotion that set us apart from all other forms of life—in addition to the senses of smell, sight, taste, and touch that connect us to the world. In doing so, he was using the powerful and ancient language that “speaks” to nature. It was the next part of his explanation that touched my scientific mind, as well as my heart, and truly resonated with me. Following the prayers of rain, he described how feelings of thanks and appreciation were the completion of the prayers, like the “amen” of Christianity. Rather than giving thanks for what he created, however, David told me that he felt grateful for the opportunity to participate in creation. “Through our thanks, we honor all possibilities, while bringing the ones we choose to this world.” Research has shown that it’s precisely this quality of gratitude and appreciation that releases the life-affirming chemistry of powerful hormones in our bodies and strengthens our immune systems. It’s these chemical chang...

This subtle energy field works differently from the kinds of energy we’re typically used to measuring. While it’s not entirely electrical or magnetic, these familiar forces are a part of the unified field that appears to bathe all of creation. Because awareness of this field is so new, scientists have yet to agree on a single name for it. It’s identified in research papers and books by names ranging from the Quantum Hologram and Nature’s Mind, to the Mind of God, and often simply the “Field.” Whatever we choose to call it, this energy appears to be the living canvas upon which the events of our lives are inscribed!

Just as ripples radiate from the place where a stone is thrown into a pool of water, our sometimes-unconscious thoughts, feelings, emotions, and beliefs create the “disturbances” in the Field that become the blueprints for our lives.

They suggest that it’s the quality of our beliefs while we’re looking that determines what our consciousness creates. In other words, if we view our bodies and the world through a lens of separateness, anger, hurt, and hate, then the quantum mirror reflects these qualities back to us as anger in our families, illness in our bodies, and war between nations. If feeling is the prayer, as David and the abbot both suggested, then when we pray for something to happen, while feeling as if that same something is missing in our lives, we may actually be denying ourselves the very blessings we hoped to create.

So what we choose to create, we must first feel as a reality. If we can feel it in our hearts—not just think it, but also really feel it—then it’s possible in our lives!

If the world and our bodies are reflecting our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and beliefs, then with record numbers of broken homes, failed relationships, job losses, and threats of war at present, how we feel about our world takes on an importance greater than ever before.

The average human heart beats approximately 100,000 times daily, equaling over 2.5 billion times a year, and pumps 6 quarts of blood through approximately 12,000 miles of arteries, vessels, and capillaries every 24 hours. Our hearts appear to be so vital to who and what we become in life that it’s the first organ to form in our mother’s womb, even before the brain!

Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that all of the lifestyle factors linked to heart failure are also linked to the unseen force that ancient spiritual traditions describe as the powerful language that speaks to the universe itself: human emotion. Is there something that we feel over the course of our lives that, for some of us, can lead to the catastrophic failure of the most important organ in the body?

The answer to the question of what ends our lives may seem surprising. A growing body of evidence from leading-edge researchers suggests that life itself can lead to the failure of the body! Specifically, it is the unresolved negative emotions—our hurts—that have the power to create the physical conditions that we recognize as cardiovascular disease: tension, inflammation, high blood pressure, and clogged arteries. This mind-body relationship was documented recently in a landmark study at Duke University directed by James Blumenthal.4 He identified long-term experiences of fear, frustration, anxiety, and disappointment as examples of the kind of heightened negative emotions that are destructive to the heart and put us at risk. Each is part of a broader umbrella that we commonly identify as “hurt.”

we are souls expressing ourselves through bodies. And while they’re made of the elements of the universe, it’s our souls that bring the bodies to life. When our souls hurt, our pain is transmitted into our bodies as the spiritual quality of the life force that we feed into each cell.

Through our hurt, we’re shown our capacity to feel—the deeper the hurt, the more powerful the feelings. In our deepest feelings of pain, we discover the depth of our capacity to love. Forgiveness appears to be directly linked to our hurt as well. The greater the hurt, explains Tim Laurence, the greater the benefits of forgiveness. From this perspective, our hurt may be considered to be a barometer of our ability to love, rather than a punishment for the choices we make. It is this subtle relationship that demonstrates the force that many traditions describe as the “glue” that holds our world together—the power of our love. We find our greatest healing in our power to love.

That principle suggests that the world around us is a living mirror—the quantum fabric that reflects the emotions that live within us. More specifically, the patterns of health in our bodies, the support of our families, communities, and the peace of our world, tend to mirror our deepest beliefs. This relationship between belief and experience is now firmly supported in the newest theories of 21st-century physics.

example, the ancient Song of Creation describes a time when the people of the earth will remember that the feminine energy of Spider Woman is the web that unites the universe. The Buddhist sutras tell of a place “far away in the heavenly abode of the great God Indra” where the “wonderful net” that unites us with the universe actually originates.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”2

The Instructions

personally believe that this is the intent of the statement found in the Gospel of Thomas that reads: “If you bring forth that which you have within you, it will save you. If you do not, it will destroy you.”

I reply, “Great! One time is all it takes!” I feel confident in my response for one reason alone. The moment—the instant—that we open the door to a greater possibility of blessing in our lives, we change inside. There’s a shift. In that change, we can never go back . . . and why would we want to? Why would we ever choose to feel the feelings that hurt us in the long run if we can feel the feelings that heal us instead?

The Blessing Template

If, as ancient traditions proclaimed, beauty is a force unto itself, it is perhaps the strangest of nature’s forces. Unlike gravity and electromagnetism, which seem to exist with or without us, the power of beauty appears to be dormant until we give it our attention. While it may very well have the power to change our world, that power is asleep until it’s awakened. And we are the only ones who can awaken it! As the only form of life with the power to experience beauty, it is awakened only when we acknowledge it in our lives. From this perspective, beauty is more than the things that are pleasing to our eyes. It is an experience of heart, mind, and soul.

world around them, and within the experiences of their lives. Through our experience of beauty, we’re given the power to change the feelings that we have in our bodies. Our feelings, in turn, are directly linked to the world beyond our bodies. The ancients believed that feeling—especially the form of feeling that we call “prayer”—is the single most powerful force in the universe.

Prayer is the language of God and the angels. From the wisdom recorded in the Dead Sea Scrolls to the native practices that have survived until this day, prayer is universally described as a mystical language with the power to change our bodies, our lives, and the world. Within these same traditions, however, there are many different ideas regarding the most effective ways to “speak” the language of prayer. In its own way, each spiritual practice throughout the ages has put its unique spin on precisely what prayer is, how it works, and how to apply it in our lives. Ultimately, what we find is that the language of prayer has no rules, and cannot be done in a right or wrong manner. It lives within us as something that comes naturally: feeling.

We are always feeling in each moment of every day of our lives. While we may not always be aware of just what we’re feeling, we are feeling nonetheless. If feeling is the prayer and we’re always feeling, then that means we’re always in a state of prayer. Each moment is a prayer. Life is a prayer! We’re always sending a message to the mirror of creation, signaling healing or disease, peace or war, honoring or dishonoring our relationships with those we love. “Life” is the Mind of God sending back to us what we feel—what we’ve prayed.

Prayer is what we are! Rather than something that we do sometimes, these traditions invite us to accept prayer as something that we become always.

“All things that you ask straightly, directly . . . from inside my name, you will be given. So far you have not done this. Ask without hidden motive and be surrounded by your answer. Be enveloped by what you desire, that your gladness be full.”2 [Author’s emphasis]

Rather than simply reciting the familiar words, I invite you to try an experiment. As you read the words of the Great Prayer, or perhaps say them out loud, make a mental note of how the words make you feel. How do you feel as you personally speak to the force that created the entire universe, as well as the life in each cell of your body? What do you feel as you acknowledge that the name of God is a holy name to be used only in an honoring and sacred way? There are no right or wrong ways to feel about this prayer. The point here is that the words that were recorded more than 2,000 years ago were designed to elicit feeling! Unbound by time and civilizations, the words speak to the part of us that’s constant: our hearts. Whatever feeling the words create in you, that feeling is your Great Prayer.

— Hurt Is the Teacher, Wisdom Is the Lesson: The key to healing whatever tests life brings to us is that we can hurt only when we’re ready to hurt. That is, only when we already have all of the emotional tools to heal our pain can we draw to us the experiences to demonstrate our mastery. This is the subtle yet powerful secret to coping with suffering.

— Beauty Is the Transformer of Our Hurt: Beyond something that we see only with our eyes, when we can see the symmetry, balance, and the give- and-take of a situation, we begin to see why things have happened the way they have. This is where the magic occurs! When our hurt makes sense to us and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, we begin to feel differently about our experience. In that difference, our hurt becomes wisdom. This is where the healing begins. — Feeling Is the Prayer: Ancient traditions remind us that the world around us is nothing more and nothing less than the mirror of what we’ve become in our lives: what we feel about our relationships with ourselves, one another, and, ultimately, God. Scientific evidence now suggests precisely the same thing; what we feel inside our bodies is carried into the world beyond our bodies.