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A Few Words From Pastor Bryan
A Very Different Way To Pray
A few weeks ago during one of our weekday morning zoom devotions I shared some words from Eckhart Tolle about a pastor, author, and spiritual teacher named Joel Goldsmith. That's Joel Goldsmith in the picture to the left.
Joel Goldsmith wrote some amazing books in the 1950's and 60's that I've been drawn to lately. He was probably best known for his approach to prayer and what he referred to as "spiritual healing."
I've been very impacted by what Eckhart Tolle shared. So much so that I'm posting the reading below because I have a feeling it might be meaningful to some of you too. More than anything, I love the simplicity of this way of praying, and the absence of lots of words or "instructions to God" on our part. So many of my prayers somehow amount to me pretty much telling God what I want God to do, or what I think God should do. Even though my intentions are good, it has occurred to me lately that the most faithful and powerful thing I can do is to simply connect with and surrender to what God already knows is best in any given situation. It's kind of presumptuous when you think about it to think that I need to somehow let God know what needs to happen. Oh sure, it can be helpful for me or us to get clear on what we want, and finding the words to express the longings and desires within us can be helpful. There is power in clarity and in expressing our desires and hopes as honestly and specifically as possible. But we're really just being honest with ourselves about what we are hoping for, and bringing that clearly into our own hearts and minds. Maybe we are helping to create a focused energetic spiritual connection on behalf of someone or something, and I think there is power in doing that. But it's not as though God doesn't already know what we want or need, or what's best for us or for others.
In any case, I've found myself saying a lot less in prayer lately, and instead just envisioning people and situations in that place of complete wholeness and Divine presence deep within my own being, and in the embrace of God. Just being "there"--in the Divine stillness--with a person or situation in my heart, may be more powerful than my own very limited perspective on what I think needs to happen.
I hope you find these words of Eckhart's meaningful and helpful, and I hope our paths cross one way or another very soon.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Bryan
From Eckhart Tolle--The healing that was practiced by
Joel Goldsmith
The most powerful healing, I find, is to hold an image of that person and then go deeper into yourself, where the wholeness of life lies. Where nothing is needed, nothing needs to be added. There you find the wholeness also of that person – they are already healed at the deepest level, beyond form.
So you go from form, into formlessness.
That is the healing that was practiced by Joel Goldsmith. He has a lovely book called “The Art of Spiritual Healing."
That is really not to dwell at all on the condition that needs to be healed, but to focus on the essential reality of that human being which is one with your essential reality, and go into deep Stillness where nothing is needed.
He would often get phone calls, sometimes in the middle of the night. Someone would desperately need healing, and they would tell him the name of the person and what they were suffering from.
What he would then do is immediately put the phone down and go into absolutely no thought. For a moment he heard the name of the person, he heard what was wrong with them, and immediately let go of that, then for two or three minutes went into no thought – just absolute presence.
There is absolute perfection in the realm of the formless.
And that is the essence of the person who needed healing. So you take the form into the formless, where the form is no longer. No condition to be treated, nothing is needed, just go into that. That was his way of healing. He was quite a powerful healer.
That is the ultimate form of healing, and that really is the non-dual kind of prayer.
It’s going beyond prayer where you say “Please God, heal” – you go to the very Source itself, that is inseparable from who you are, and is inseparable from who that person is.
~ Eckhart Tolle
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