January 12,  2022

PRAYER  AND  ILLUSION

 

 

Spending time in prayer can be a great illusion.

 

People who pray or people who don’t pray, as well as people who make inward fun of people who pray,  can  be involved with a great illusion.

 

People who pray have a unique opportunity to be in  touch with this illusion.

 

People can do that.  Better time with God can do that.  Better becoming  quiet, becoming still, becoming empty, becoming closer to God, can help me see who I am in comparison to God.

 

People who become close to God can say some strange and nasty things about themselves when this happens,  One reads words like “worm” or  “nothing” or “lowest of the low,” or “l am the greatest sinner”, etc.

 

A pebble looking at a mountain feels small. A drop of water falling into the ocean gets lost. A great violinist is not noticed.  It’s the music – the opening of one’s ears and eyes and hearts – becoming lost in the river of the music – as it flows – and we are all becoming one.

 

It's the same as being in the desert.  One can experience illusion … or maya or feelings that one is lost.

 

On a mountain, in the ocean, in the desert, one can become face to face with God.  One can also  become face to face with the devil. The fight is on.

 

Temptations are illusions – illusions to greatness and to grandeur -  to see rocks as bread or the ability to leap to greatness without any effort. The temptations Jesus was hit  with in the desert can hit us as well.

 

The desert tells us all. It’s death without  water.  Nothing grows.  Sand can become the stuff of silicone chips – but that takes work – work – and the cooperation of thousands. Sand can become soil for food – lots of food if we are willing to work and cooperate with nature.

 

Pausing to pray – to get away from it all, to be in the presence of God - can still turn us some of these things to reality – but beware: illusions can remain illusions – and we don’t even know it.

 

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022