The Technology of Prayer
an interview with Gregg Braden
by Arlene Arnold
In a time of dire predictions and increasing concern caused by changes in weather patterns, changes in coastline due to sea level increases and increased seismic activity, Gregg Braden brings a message of hope. This hope arises out of his many years studying ancient texts and the cultural traditions of indigenous people combined with a growing body of scientific information.
Braden’s books Awakening to Zero Point and Walking Between the Worlds (which is also available on video) provide a solid foundation for what he calls "living the days of prophecy." To lay the groundwork for this present-day scenario, Braden takes us back 1700 years to a time when he claims that "at least 25 books were taken out of our Biblical texts and as many as an additional twenty supporting documents" were removed from the public, reserving them only for scholars or elite priesthoods.
These texts contained "our ancient history and our sacred memories, the written memories of our origins and the way we relate to one another." According to Braden, what was left was poorly translated, condensed, or rearranged. Braden asks, "Could it be possible that the very basis of our culture, our religion, our science, our technology, and even our interpersonal relationships…is based on incomplete understandings?" How would that affect our lives, the choices we have made, and our beliefs about our relationship to the creative forces of our world and, ultimately, to the cosmos? What is it that we have missed? How can that help us understand what is happening to us today?
"Almost universally, ancient calendars and traditions point to this time in history as very unique, saying that something very special is happening now that is rare by any measure; something that hasn’t happened before," says Braden. From the ancient prophesies of the Essenes found in the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the indigenous traditions that Braden found in Tibet, South America, little villages in Egypt and throughout the American desert Southwest, the common thread was warnings of changes in our natural world.
Yet, these ancient traditions also carried another vision. This vision of unfolding possibility was contained in the ancient texts that were withheld from future generations. Braden says, "There is a variable that is playing out now that dictates how our time in history ends. That variable is what I think is being overlooked by researchers and prophets of today. (It) simply says that the awareness and consciousness of the people are literally creating the outcome of this time in history." Therefore, no one can truly predict where this will lead.
Says Braden, "If this is true, if this is the time in history we believe it is, then it is the birth of something brand new. It’s the beginning of a new millennium. It’s the beginning of a new history." Braden claims that the ancient traditions remind us that "what we become in the last days of the millennium…lays the foundation for all we will know in this new experience, this new age that the Hopi (Native American traditions) call the coming of the sixth world. It’s the way we address the great challenges of life individually that becomes the collective foundation for the way consciousness deals with life."
For Braden this opens the door for tremendous hope. We, in this age, have the opportunity to experience love "in a way that even the angels of heaven have never had the opportunity to love, because through our experiences in this world we push ourselves to the edge — and sometimes right over the edge — of who we are. In the presence of peace, compassion, and love, we have the opportunity to develop the deepest levels of love, forgiveness, and acceptance that even the angels in heaven haven’t had to deal with."
So, how do we move into this possibility to which the ancients allude? In Walking Between the Worlds, Braden brings back to us teachings from the Essenes regarding life "mirrors" that show us places inside ourselves that need to be healed. Becoming aware of places in our lives where we feel separation from ourselves, others, and the creative forces of the universe, where we feel less than whole, begins the process of healing.
Braden then takes us further by showing us an ancient, yet mostly forgotten, way to bring wholeness into our lives and even create whatever we desire. He calls it "the fifth mode of prayer." Many of us have experienced the first four modes of prayer through our families, churches, or everyday experiences. They are: colloquial (informal prayer), petitionary ("asking" prayers), ritualistic (reciting predetermined prayers), and meditative (moving into silence). Braden reminds us that these modes of prayer have served us well and that now we have the opportunity to expand our experience to the fifth mode of prayer.
Braden discovered this mode of prayer "through the accounts of many indigenous traditions and mystery schools in both the present and past of Egypt and ancient pre-Peruvian and present…Tibetan mystery schools." This led Braden on a three-week trek into the Himalayan Mountains to witness the modern-day practice of this form of prayer among monks and nuns there.
Braden explains, "What we discovered there is this additional mode of prayer that is still used today by many indigenous traditions. It is a mode of prayer that incorporates much more than simply asking or the mental aspects of the asking for something to come to pass or something to change. It incorporates…the ancient parameters of prayer: thought, emotion, and feeling…merging them into a very powerful internal technology.
"Emotion can be viewed as a power center. It’s the power that moves us forward in the choices that we make in life. Thought is the guidance, the directional system, sometimes called visualization. Thought, in and of itself, is empty without the emotion to drive it forward." That’s why people who get up in the morning and say a billion affirmations may be disappointed by the results. "It’s an empty thought. There’s no emotion behind it. There’s a directive force, but no power. At the same time, if people feel all the time, but they don’t have a way to direct their feeling, then it may be that their emotions are scattered throughout their waking world. They create experiences they are not even aware of. Feeling is the union of the two."
Take the emotion of love, pump it into the guidance system of thought, and you have a feeling. "Feeling is a digitally measurable vibratory template that has a direct effect inside our body, and now it’s documented to have a direct effect outside the body. Feeling is what creates. Essene texts say that we live in this world in three places: thought, feeling, and emotion. When the three become one, we are capable of merging it into a unified template. That’s when you say to the mountain, ‘Move!’ and it moves."
Braden says that as the magnetics of the earth drop we are creating faster and faster. As we become aware of what we are creating in our personal lives, we also become aware of what we are creating globally. With that awareness, we can create our future consciously.
Braden has found several exciting ways to be effective in this process of creating our future. Along with Dr. Doreen Virtue and James Twyman he participated in what was called "The Great Experiment." This was an opportunity "to synchronize prayer through the Internet on a global scale in a particular moment in time and then, through scientific methods, to determine if prayer has an effect, a digitally determined effect, upon those parameters."
He also joined representatives from all over the world at the eighth annual World Peace Prayer Society Festival. It was broadcast for the first time via the Internet on a global scale, so everyone experienced the ceremony at exactly the same time. He is now working with James Twyman and others putting together "a forty-city tour of peace prayers in concert format from the twelve major religions of the world." It will be coming to Seattle and Portland (watch The New Times for dates) the first of next year.
Gregg Braden will be presenting a program called "Living the Days of Prophecy" on Saturday, October 24 in the Snoqualmie Room at the Seattle Center. Tickets available at East West Bookshop (Seattle) and Stonehouse Bookshop (Redmond). An unpublicized, rare showing of slides that prove scientifically the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin will be offered to participants and their guests.
