Winter is a reflective season, and the holidays are especially so. It is hard to think of peace on Earth, good will toward men, without the sight of soldiers on guard in Bethlehem. The gap between what we pray for and what we receive is wide. There are many reasons why holidays slip further and further away from their original role as holy days, and unanswered prayers play a critical part.
A prayer beseeches help from a higher power, and even people who aren’t devout cling to this hope. Recent Pew Research polling shows that 83% of Americans believe in “God or a universal spirit.” Almost as many, 82%, believe that “there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we cannot see it.” An even greater number, up to 86%, believe in the soul.
There’s a deep human need to be seen and heard, not to feel alone. Prayer fits into this need, but does it fulfill it? This profound question needs deep consideration. A world in turmoil, not to mention the daily suffering experienced by countless people, makes it hard to believe that a higher power listens to us or cares. Unthinkable horrors like the Holocaust seem to prove that the universe is as indifferent to us as physics says.
Yet the habit of prayer, whatever our level of belief that it makes a difference, persists. Only a third of Americans say that they “seldom or never” pray, while 44% say that they pray at least once a day. Statistics provide only a bare outline. In reality, some people feel that their prayers are answered. They become pregnant after years of trying; someone in the family goes into remission from cancer; a house survives intact after a hurricane or wildfire.
What determines how a prayer gets answered, or not? The simplest answer is through faith, which in the Bible is capable of moving mountains. The faithful pour into Lourdes by the millions, and although the percentage of miraculous cures is painfully tiny, dozens have been scrupulously documented by the Catholic Church.
But is religion or even a personified God necessary for a prayer to be answered? The media paid a lot of attention to claims that patients who were prayed for, including so-called “remote” praying done by strangers, led to better health outcomes: faster recovery, reduced complications, lower mortality, etc. These often involved patients in hospitals, surgical wards, or chronic-illness settings.
But such studies ran into skepticism and questions about methodology. The issue of the placebo effect was raised, and over the years the controversy has never been settled. Intercession through prayer is unlikely as far as scientific data is concerned.
But it only takes one person having a prayer answered to keep hope and belief alive. In fact, the placebo effect doesn’t refute prayer. Placebo is based on the expectation of a good outcome, and the expectation alone often rivals the effectiveness of a real drug instead of a sugar pill. In the case of prayer, expectation clears the way for a good outcome. “I hope this works, but it probably won’t” defeats the whole process.
“Process” is the pivotal term we need, because non-religious people want to know the mechanism behind answered prayers. Leaving everything to the whim of a higher power is untenable. To help us out, there are explanations that do not require God or the gods, faith, devotion, or spiritual discipline. In the East, the higher power you pray to is the Self.
In other words, the higher power is you, but not the ego personality. The power to grant a prayer doesn’t belong to the “me” that is the everyday self. What Eastern teachings, including Vedanta and Yoga, declare is that we are multi-dimensional. We exist here in the physical world pursuing our daily affairs, but we also transcend the physical world.
To avert the charge of mysticism or metaphysics, let’s be clear that a transcendent or higher world isn’t a place; it isn’t a heaven or a higher plane, whatever that means. Transcendence occurs in consciousness, meaning the same awareness you apply when you have any thought, feeling, sensation, or mental image.
The multi-dimensions you occupy are sometimes known in Vedanta as the five koshas, the Sanskrit word for “sheath” or “covering.” In your essence, your true self is simply aware, but it cloaks itself in the five levels of the physical body, Prana (breath or vital energy), mind, intellect, and bliss. These dimensions move from the gross to the subtle, so that the finest experience available to us is blissfulness.
For the devoutly religious, prayer is a portal not just to receiving an answer or a miracle but to the experience of bliss, which is divine. But beyond all five koshas is pure awareness, which is your source. At the source, all creative possibilities are open. If you can communicate on this transcendent level of the Self—your highest dimension, also known as Atman—placing an intention leads to an outcome in the physical world.
The underlying notion reaches beyond this terminology. What we are talking about is the process of attention and intention. A prayer consists of focusing your attention on a desired outcome (intention). Either the process works, or it doesn’t, which is why only some prayers are answered. In the scheme of Vedanta, the whole process occurs in consciousness, which naturally heeds itself, knows itself, and carries out what is needed in any sphere of life.
Therefore, nothing really separates a simple intention like picking up a fork, from a transcendent intention, like wanting a family member to recover from a serious illness. However, the circuity, as it were, isn’t always clear. It can be blocked, and these obstacles prevent your intention from coming true.
The kinds of blocks involved are both everyday and obscure. On the everyday level, an intention falters or fails if you are confused or conflicted, if you have doubts or underlying skepticism, if you are a pessimist or suffer from a feeling of victimhood. But it is also an obstacle if you are overconfident, self-important, and feel that you deserve anything and everything.
The mix of these elements is important in a person’s entire spiritual life, not simply confined to prayers. It is impossible to undo and straighten out each complicated strand in your multi-dimensional makeup. In Vedanta, Yoga, and Buddhism, much is left to the invisible working of Karma, which cannot be unraveled.
Yet the process for having your prayer answered remains untouched. It consists of having a clear intention communicated with a clear focus, an open mind, and genuine integrity. Nothing is forced; your role is to state your intention. The role of processing your request belongs to a deeper level of consciousness and ultimately to the source in pure consciousness. The best attitude to take is simple: Let go of your intention and await a response.
There will always be a response. It might not be the perfect result you prayed for, but it will be a message worth receiving. The distinction between an answered prayer and an unanswered one is arbitrary. If you gain compassion, understanding, peace, solace, comfort, or patience, those are answers just as much as the outcome you pray for. With this realization, prayer stops being a doubtful interface with the miraculous. It is seen as what it truly is, the natural communication between every level of consciousness that is the Self.
Namaste,
Deepak