Prayer is a puzzle. I have it on good authority (as I explain at the end of the article) that no one can really communicate directly with God, but praying to God can be powerful… life-changing.

Here’s how it seems to work:

The spiritual networks and hierarchies throughout the vast omniverse might look something like this.   (Picture adapted from here….)

There are vast spiritual networks and hierarchies extending from us carnal humans on Earth all the way to that central source (God, Allah, Brahman….) whose emissions manifest and sustain all realms. There are spiritual hierarchies that are Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, and Hebrew… and many, many others. Our prayers always channel through those networks and get the appropriate attention from the appropriate intercessors. Many of those intercessors can make miracles happen on Earth, as I learned first-hand in my ITC research.

The same kind of communication happens here on Earth, but on a much smaller scale. If we have a big concern about a country’s direction or a corporation’s policies, we might send a message to the leader of the country or the company CEO. It’s unlikely that the message ever gets to the top of the hierarchy. But it’ll probably be received by the appropriate intercessor (for example, a representative or staff member or someone in public relations), and our message will be handled in a way that is deemed appropriate.

So, every prayer we make does go through the spiritual hierarchies and is handled by intercessors in a way that’s deemed appropriate.

The key, then, is to know how to send effective prayers that light up those spiritual hierarchies and get a lot of attention. I can think of a couple of things that probably make a difference:

• How we pray, and
• How often we pray.

How We Pray

A few people are born with a powerful psyche. Their thoughts and desires naturally make changes in this world and in the spirit worlds around us… and their prayers get a lot of attention. Most of us don’t have that gift of a strong psyche, so we have to work a little harder to make our prayers effective. Here are a few time-proven tips for effective prayer:

1. Most important, we ask that God’s will (not our own little desires) be done. So it helps if we each start shaping our own will to resonate with God’s will. Simply put, that involves focusing on the noble, not the savage. Focus on love, trust, honesty, friendship, community service, helping those who are suffering, the betterment of humanity… the sorts of things that comprise God’s will. (Focusing on savage motivations such as fear or envy or doubt activates other, darker spiritual networks that stir up conflict and chaos, sort of an anti-prayer.)
2. Be grateful for the opportunity to spend this Earth lifetime within the grand scheme of things, and be thankful for our gifts and our relationships, and for the invisible help we get from noble spiritual intercessors.
3. Learn to clear the mind and focus our thoughts and intentions. That removes uncertainty and mixed messages, giving prayer a clarity that finer spirit can more easily work with.
4. Pray from the heart. My friend John Day is an expert on the heart as the body’s main life-energy center. A retired chief surgeon who now focuses on holistic healing, John echoes what mystics have told us down through the ages: That the heart is the seat of the soul, our unfiltered, personal connection to that omnipresent central source. But John takes a more technical, scientific approach that I find fascinating and convincing. Basically, going to the heart can provide power and passion to prayer.

So as we enter a period of silent prayer, it’s probably good to start off with a short check-list like this: God’s will, gratitude, focus, from the heart.

How Often We Pray

The more we pray, the stronger our link gets established in the spiritual hierarchies.

How often we pray—how intimately we want to be connected to finer spirit—is a personal choice we each get to make. Living in this noisy, active world with all of its mental distractions doesn’t lend itself to prayer, which involves turning off all the noise and withdrawing from all the activity and finding a place of peace within.

Prayer isn’t easy in this roller-coaster world, but the more we can take a few minutes here, a few minutes there, to be prayerful, the better connections we’ll have in the spiritual hierarchy.

Perpetual Prayer

Most religions provide the opportunity for a few devoted monks and ascetics to withdraw altogether from the noises and activities of society in order to immerse themselves in perpetual prayer. In Eastern Orthodox Christianity it’s called hesychasm.

Again, a few of these ascetics have naturally strong psyches, so that the energy bridges they forge through their prayers not only light up various spiritual networks but also stream powerful energies into our world that can make “miracles” happen. They are the Saint Anthonys, Saint Francises, Sai Babas, and Ahmed Radwans of the world.

Most monks make the world a better place through noble living and frequent prayer, but only a few have the gift of miracles.

What That Means for the Rest of Us

Most of us don’t have the time or opportunity for perpetual prayer. Bills need paying, relationships need tending, homes need uncluttering….

Still, it’s possible to be “prayerful” as a way of life.

• Wake up in the morning with a good prayer (God’s will, gratitude, clear mind, and a few moments in the heart).
• Try to hold onto that mindfulness throughout the day.

The more we practice being prayerful throughout the day, the more we light up those spiritual networks for our own good, for the good of the world, and for the good of God.

(After I originally posted this article, my pal John Day reminded me that if we can get into the habit of spending much of the day thinking from the heart instead of the head, we can get close to a perpetual prayerful state. We discuss that in the comments below.)

Unraveling the Prayer Puzzle

Here’s a short excerpt from a message from The Seven ethereal beings (received by our INIT group) that made me do a lot of soul-searching over the years, especially on the subject of prayer:

Many people claim to have a direct (mediumistic) connection to God. It is not correct. God is everything, and everything is God. God is the unlimited and all-encompassing universe, not one of the creative individuals who are numerous in the cosmos….   Ishkumar.

My brothers and I grew up saying, “Dear God…” just about every day. We were taught to pray at dinnertime and bedtime.

Were we misguided? If having “a direct connection to God” is impossible, is praying to God a waste of time? That’s something I’ve pondered since getting that contact from The Seven.

Conclusion? Of course it’s not a waste of time. For one thing, we each have a “piece of God” at the center of our being—a soul or atman or rūh—that can help us shape our life, even if we can’t really “talk” to it.

But more important, as I explain above, there’s a vast network of powerful spirits who act as intercessors between humans and God.

We know a few of those intercessors. Christians know Jesus, Muslims know Mohammed, Hindus know their pantheon of gods… but I’m sure there are trillions of other intercessors out there whose vast power and wisdom we can’t even begin to fathom.

The best bet, in my opinion, is to pray directly to God with time-proven techniques like those four listed above. Do that, and you begin to activate channels throughout that vast spiritual hierarchy.

And it’ll be life-changing.