A Ramble About Thoughts in Prayer

There is a scene in one of my favorite movies, "Peaceful Warrior", that is one of the best I've seen. In it, the main character, Dan, come up to meet his mentor, Socrates, in a park. Socrates was supposed to teach him something new. Dan is in a hurry, so he asks him if he could hurry it up so he can make it to a gym tryout. Socrates shrugs his shoulders, says "ok," and then pushes Dan off of a small bridge and into the water below. Upon recovering himself from the water, Dan marches up to Socrates and demands an explanation for throwing him off of the bridge. Socrates then asks him what he was thinking about when he was falling. Flustered Dan says, "I don't know... I..." Socrates then fills in the blanks for him, "Nothing. You were thinking about nothing. You were focused, in the moment. You even had a word word it, 'ahhhhh!'" Dan replies, "you're out of your mind!" Socrates replies "it's taken a lifetime of practice."



In the writings of the ancient Fathers of the Church, one of the things which tends to stand out is their insistence that you can't trust the thoughts and images which come into your mind during prayer. They insist that the demons will try to pull your mind this way and that with any distraction possible during prayer so that you will lose focus on the Lord and go chasing after some tangent. These distractions don't have to be anything particularly harmful or sinful, they can even be images of good things and good works done, but regardless of the content they all accomplish the same thing. They all pull your awareness away from God and back to your own thoughts.



For this reason, to a man they all taught and wrote that you couldn't trust anything your mind threw at you especially during contemplative prayer. As a result, they highly encouraged the use of a single verbal prayer or word to keep the thoughts occupied and focused so that when they began to break free of their restraints they could be reigned back in.



I have experienced this more than once and I'm coming to understand why they said what they said. It's too easy for your thoughts to masquerade as something good and spiritual. You may be seeking to listen for the Lord's message, and your own thoughts disguise themselves as His voice. Sometimes, they can be very good at it. This is bad enough, but the worse problem is when unseen powers start influencing your thoughts masquerading as His messenger. There is practically no way to truly distinguish the good from the bad, and they are masters of deception. The best thing which can be done during prayer is to ignore all thoughts that enter your mind.



"But then how am I to know when the Lord is speaking?" I am coming to understand in my own prayer life that He doesn't generally speak through your thoughts. The first priority in prayer is to focus on being aware of His presence. This is hard enough. It is often like trying to look at someone out of the corner of your eye. When you turn to look directly at that person, there is no one there. The author of "The Cloud of Unknowing" says that God cannot be known by the thoughts or the mind. He can only be known through love, and that we must extend our love towards Him. Since He is not directly observable, the author calls this a "cloud of unknowing." Other authors have called it a "holy darkness." It is dark because it is unknown and unseen, like wandering through a room that is pitch black and you can't see anything. God will not be known by extending your thoughts towards Him. You must extend your love for Him out into the darkness and He will respond to it. "He who does not love, does not know God, because God is love." And when He does respond, you will know, and you must be paying attention, focused, in order to receive it.



The simplest prayer for keep your awareness centered on Him is just "God." Another prayer which has been used by the Church since the earliest of times is "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner," or more simply just "Lord Jesus Christ," or more simply still just "Jesus." One useful technique that I have learned from Buddhist books is simply to focus on your breathing, not trying to influence it but just each breath as they come in and out. Once you've centered your awareness on your breathing, then extend it with your love for Him out towards Him with one of those two prayers, or some other prayer that is short and simple. Don't worry, you don't have to wait for Him to arrive. He's already there, and always will be. You're not trying to get into the presence of God as though you were calling Him towards you. Your objective here is to just recognize and be aware of His continuous presence around and within you. You don't have to get His attention. You're trying to give Him yours.



Our thoughts can be our worst enemies as they yell for our attention and must be brought into submission to our love for Him. When we pray, we must learn to do so out of our minds.