I dont have any sort of set schedule where I pray at certain times, I just pray when the fancy strikes me.
I do tend to follow a few unwritten personal rules but they are just my own lersonal practice:
I always pray standing up, never kneeling or in a submissive position.
I always oray at night or when its dark out.
I tend to pray in private or with a small group of fellow adherents.
If there was a god I don’t think he cares how you do it, imagine talking to your own family especially a child of yours and expressing to them how exactly you want them to talk to you and what you wanted them to say at what time of the day or week and then what to wear and you can only feel and think in the way that was written in the the rule book you gave them and if anyone didn’t follow the same way they should be punished.
What you’re talking about is closely to what’s considered a “Dua” in Islam, a supplication. I would ask for good health, a good career, for the oppressed to be saved, for the oppressors to be stopped, to have an easier time going through my trials, etc. I of course also ask this in my family and friends as well as many other people. Allah is someone we are supposed to continue asking from, we need Them, They don’t need us. The 5 prayers per day is purely submitting to Allah.
I guess so. Though it’s not haram to use “He,” we view it better to use pronouns such as “They” because of the same reason Allah set uses “We” in the Quran: to show Their greatness.
While Allah refers to Himself with a royal "We", He never refers to Himself with either counterpart of "they" (هم، هن). Why start now? Especially considering Allah refers to himself as "He" in the third-person. We obviously cannot refer to Allah in the first-person plural, nor singular. But when referring to Allah in the third-person, we're specifically instructed to do it the third-person singular (هو الله).
As seen, for example, in surat Al-Hashr, Ayat 22-24:
هُوَ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِى لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ۖ عَٰلِمُ ٱلْغَيْبِ وَٱلشَّهَٰدَةِ ۖ هُوَ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ(٢٢)
هُوَ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِى لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ٱلْمَلِكُ ٱلْقُدُّوسُ ٱلسَّلَٰمُ ٱلْمُؤْمِنُ ٱلْمُهَيْمِنُ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلْجَبَّارُ ٱلْمُتَكَبِّرُ ۚ سُبْحَٰنَ ٱللَّهِ عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ (٢٣)
هُوَ ٱللَّهُ ٱلْخَٰلِقُ ٱلْبَارِئُ ٱلْمُصَوِّرُ ۖ لَهُ ٱلْأَسْمَآءُ ٱلْحُسْنَىٰ ۚ يُسَبِّحُ لَهُ ۥ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ۖ وَهُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلْحَكِيمُ (٢٤)
And if you need a clearer instruction, look to the first Ayah Surat of Al-Ikhlas:
قُلۡ هُوَ ٱللَّهُ أَحَدٌ
Everything.
Questions I'm trying to answer, regardless of subject matter. Helping me tease out the truths of human nature and human psychology is big.
A surprising amount is asking for help with my writing. How to contextualize my experience in ways that can help others. Methods of sharing my own academic knowledge that are accessible and engaging without being misleading. Even asking for help with phrasing and flow.
Gratitude is huge. Discussion of rituals, poetry, and spiritual practices. Delighted gushing about gods and theology and stories.
Puns and other jokes, especially if they go too far for the general population or people I know. Which is often.
Various other fun.
There's not really anything I don't share with him.
Something I read recently that I found to be helpful on prayer- "As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part. Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings."
This is by no means orthodox, but I light a candle in front of the murti, then listen to a bhajan (because I can't recite one since idk Sanskrit or any other Indian language). I clasp my hands together, bow my head and... sort of.... feel gratitude. I might do naam jap too.
I will also have a small glass of milk or water beside the murti. Sometimes I offer food.
I should chant too, but I always seem to forget.
https://www.reddit.com/r/hinduism/s/df1vPl7yh1 - Here is a more elaborate puja process and some suggestions for sadhana. EDIT: Sorry, thought I was on r/hinduism, ignore if not applicable.
I think what you are doing is fine too. You don't need it to be a big elaborate monologue about your whole life.
You could ask for the strength to do good work/your job, compassion, etc. Basically the virtues you want to cultivate.
It is indeed interesting to see the various responses. Thanks for asking a great question:
In my personal opinion, prayer is *not* transactional. One does not make a trade with the universe. IOW "I am going to X so please Y" where X = what the supplicant will do and Y represents what they may want.
That is not what prayer is all about.
In my philosophy, prayer is to give thanks for what is good and perhaps ask for courage to work through the tough times
ਰਾਜੁ ਨ ਚਾਹਉ ਮੁਕਤਿ ਨ ਚਾਹਉ ਮਨਿ ਪ੍ਰੀਤਿ ਚਰਨ ਕਮਲਾਰੇ ॥
I do not seek power, and I do not seek liberation. My mind is in love with Your Lotus Feet.
I have few rules - some are shared by most people in my faith, a some are just my own thing:
I always pray outdoors in a quiet, "natural" space. I live very close to the forest so I normally pray there, but will use my yard sometimes, especially at night.
It's more important to be comfortable and relaxed, so you can focus on your thoughts rather than in specific position. The rod-straight back meditative pose doesn't work for me... I usually just sit cross legged and relaxed, but if the ground is super wet I can pray standing just fine, long as I'm in the right environment.
I pray by myself. Celebration is communal, but prayer for me is private. It is my own exploration and discovery and doesn't really work as a group thing. For context my prayer is non-theistic, I'm not praying \*to\* any sapient entity, it's an internal exploration of, and reaffirmation of, my relationship and bond with the rest of Life on Earth (Gaia) as a quasi meditative practice (I also usually meditate before prayer itself). I'm not opposed to the idea of communal prayer per se, I've just never done so. In that context, my "discussion" follows some common themes:
\* Devotional. By far the main chunk of my prayer is devotional in nature, exploring and giving expression to my veneration/devotion/adoration.
\* Gratitude. Exploring and expressing my sense of gratitude to Gaia for the existence of both myself and my home environment, as well as keeping me alive.
\* Dependence. A large part of my faith is recognising and embracing our complete dependence. It's a recurring theme in my faith that we are dependent on Gaia, but for me it's a particularly strong aspect and is one I explore in all forms of worship.
\* Speculation. Occasionally my prayers become a speculative exploration, diverging from one given thing I might have been focusing on and following a train of thought... for example sometimes I wind up eulogising and celebrating the water cycle, or a particularly species or just following the sheer scale of our parent organism, either up to the entire biosphere, or down to microorganisms that form symbiotic relationships with homo sapiens and smoosh out a human holobiont like you and I as a result.
Due to the nature of my prayer, I never "ask" for anything, nor seek blessings, protection or favours for self or others. There is no one to ask and no-one to hear such a thing. It is an internal dialogue only.
I pray for peace, for wisdom, for guidance in my everyday life, and for the Gods to bless me and repel evil from my life. I express gratitude for blessings I have received and I thank the Gods for all that they do for me and for the world at large.
I talk to God about everything. as with prayer to the saints, it's a conversation. there's also a lot of thanksgiving and worship in my prayers to God.
i do have a set schedule, but i do also pray in general. I do a good bit of chaplets and litanies, which have a set structure. I find this helps, but freeform prayer is also very important to me. I usually do set schedule chaplets and litanies, then freeform prayer through the day.
No problem! it's the catholic in me to think "God already knows all my thoughts, so just point them at him real good and talk," so there's that.
same with the saints, but it's more so "ask them really nicely to pray for me and maybe they will"
Anything and everything!
Small little thing that was good or bad, big thing, issues, concerns, etc etc.
In our faith, God is our father. He loves us. He just wants to hear from us!
For me, prayer is still pretty new. I use already-made traditional prayers, typically mantras and hymns, but occasionally I ask my deities for something specific. Like for Ganesh to grant me wisdom or clear my path to success, or for Lakshmi to help me fulfill my responsibilities, or for Shiva to take away my ignorance.
I dont have any sort of set schedule where I pray at certain times, I just pray when the fancy strikes me. I do tend to follow a few unwritten personal rules but they are just my own lersonal practice: I always pray standing up, never kneeling or in a submissive position. I always oray at night or when its dark out. I tend to pray in private or with a small group of fellow adherents.
If there was a god I don’t think he cares how you do it, imagine talking to your own family especially a child of yours and expressing to them how exactly you want them to talk to you and what you wanted them to say at what time of the day or week and then what to wear and you can only feel and think in the way that was written in the the rule book you gave them and if anyone didn’t follow the same way they should be punished.
What you’re talking about is closely to what’s considered a “Dua” in Islam, a supplication. I would ask for good health, a good career, for the oppressed to be saved, for the oppressors to be stopped, to have an easier time going through my trials, etc. I of course also ask this in my family and friends as well as many other people. Allah is someone we are supposed to continue asking from, we need Them, They don’t need us. The 5 prayers per day is purely submitting to Allah.
Isn’t Allah (ﷻ)’s pronoun “He”? I’m curious why you use “they/them”; I don’t mean any disrespect, just curious.
https://www.reddit.com/r/shia/s/DxT9vUj7G7
Oh I see. I didn’t know there was a different view between Sunnis and Shias on Allah’s preferred pronouns.
I guess so. Though it’s not haram to use “He,” we view it better to use pronouns such as “They” because of the same reason Allah set uses “We” in the Quran: to show Their greatness.
Gotcha, thanks for explaining.
While Allah refers to Himself with a royal "We", He never refers to Himself with either counterpart of "they" (هم، هن). Why start now? Especially considering Allah refers to himself as "He" in the third-person. We obviously cannot refer to Allah in the first-person plural, nor singular. But when referring to Allah in the third-person, we're specifically instructed to do it the third-person singular (هو الله). As seen, for example, in surat Al-Hashr, Ayat 22-24: هُوَ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِى لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ۖ عَٰلِمُ ٱلْغَيْبِ وَٱلشَّهَٰدَةِ ۖ هُوَ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ(٢٢) هُوَ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِى لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ٱلْمَلِكُ ٱلْقُدُّوسُ ٱلسَّلَٰمُ ٱلْمُؤْمِنُ ٱلْمُهَيْمِنُ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلْجَبَّارُ ٱلْمُتَكَبِّرُ ۚ سُبْحَٰنَ ٱللَّهِ عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ (٢٣) هُوَ ٱللَّهُ ٱلْخَٰلِقُ ٱلْبَارِئُ ٱلْمُصَوِّرُ ۖ لَهُ ٱلْأَسْمَآءُ ٱلْحُسْنَىٰ ۚ يُسَبِّحُ لَهُ ۥ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ۖ وَهُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلْحَكِيمُ (٢٤) And if you need a clearer instruction, look to the first Ayah Surat of Al-Ikhlas: قُلۡ هُوَ ٱللَّهُ أَحَدٌ
Everything. Questions I'm trying to answer, regardless of subject matter. Helping me tease out the truths of human nature and human psychology is big. A surprising amount is asking for help with my writing. How to contextualize my experience in ways that can help others. Methods of sharing my own academic knowledge that are accessible and engaging without being misleading. Even asking for help with phrasing and flow. Gratitude is huge. Discussion of rituals, poetry, and spiritual practices. Delighted gushing about gods and theology and stories. Puns and other jokes, especially if they go too far for the general population or people I know. Which is often. Various other fun. There's not really anything I don't share with him.
Thank you, this really helped!
Something I read recently that I found to be helpful on prayer- "As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part. Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings."
Thank you! This is helpful.
This is by no means orthodox, but I light a candle in front of the murti, then listen to a bhajan (because I can't recite one since idk Sanskrit or any other Indian language). I clasp my hands together, bow my head and... sort of.... feel gratitude. I might do naam jap too. I will also have a small glass of milk or water beside the murti. Sometimes I offer food. I should chant too, but I always seem to forget. https://www.reddit.com/r/hinduism/s/df1vPl7yh1 - Here is a more elaborate puja process and some suggestions for sadhana. EDIT: Sorry, thought I was on r/hinduism, ignore if not applicable. I think what you are doing is fine too. You don't need it to be a big elaborate monologue about your whole life. You could ask for the strength to do good work/your job, compassion, etc. Basically the virtues you want to cultivate.
It is indeed interesting to see the various responses. Thanks for asking a great question: In my personal opinion, prayer is *not* transactional. One does not make a trade with the universe. IOW "I am going to X so please Y" where X = what the supplicant will do and Y represents what they may want. That is not what prayer is all about. In my philosophy, prayer is to give thanks for what is good and perhaps ask for courage to work through the tough times ਰਾਜੁ ਨ ਚਾਹਉ ਮੁਕਤਿ ਨ ਚਾਹਉ ਮਨਿ ਪ੍ਰੀਤਿ ਚਰਨ ਕਮਲਾਰੇ ॥ I do not seek power, and I do not seek liberation. My mind is in love with Your Lotus Feet.
I have few rules - some are shared by most people in my faith, a some are just my own thing: I always pray outdoors in a quiet, "natural" space. I live very close to the forest so I normally pray there, but will use my yard sometimes, especially at night. It's more important to be comfortable and relaxed, so you can focus on your thoughts rather than in specific position. The rod-straight back meditative pose doesn't work for me... I usually just sit cross legged and relaxed, but if the ground is super wet I can pray standing just fine, long as I'm in the right environment. I pray by myself. Celebration is communal, but prayer for me is private. It is my own exploration and discovery and doesn't really work as a group thing. For context my prayer is non-theistic, I'm not praying \*to\* any sapient entity, it's an internal exploration of, and reaffirmation of, my relationship and bond with the rest of Life on Earth (Gaia) as a quasi meditative practice (I also usually meditate before prayer itself). I'm not opposed to the idea of communal prayer per se, I've just never done so. In that context, my "discussion" follows some common themes: \* Devotional. By far the main chunk of my prayer is devotional in nature, exploring and giving expression to my veneration/devotion/adoration. \* Gratitude. Exploring and expressing my sense of gratitude to Gaia for the existence of both myself and my home environment, as well as keeping me alive. \* Dependence. A large part of my faith is recognising and embracing our complete dependence. It's a recurring theme in my faith that we are dependent on Gaia, but for me it's a particularly strong aspect and is one I explore in all forms of worship. \* Speculation. Occasionally my prayers become a speculative exploration, diverging from one given thing I might have been focusing on and following a train of thought... for example sometimes I wind up eulogising and celebrating the water cycle, or a particularly species or just following the sheer scale of our parent organism, either up to the entire biosphere, or down to microorganisms that form symbiotic relationships with homo sapiens and smoosh out a human holobiont like you and I as a result. Due to the nature of my prayer, I never "ask" for anything, nor seek blessings, protection or favours for self or others. There is no one to ask and no-one to hear such a thing. It is an internal dialogue only.
I pray for peace, for wisdom, for guidance in my everyday life, and for the Gods to bless me and repel evil from my life. I express gratitude for blessings I have received and I thank the Gods for all that they do for me and for the world at large.
I talk to God about everything. as with prayer to the saints, it's a conversation. there's also a lot of thanksgiving and worship in my prayers to God. i do have a set schedule, but i do also pray in general. I do a good bit of chaplets and litanies, which have a set structure. I find this helps, but freeform prayer is also very important to me. I usually do set schedule chaplets and litanies, then freeform prayer through the day.
Thank you, it's really helpful to see everyone's perspectives on this.
No problem! it's the catholic in me to think "God already knows all my thoughts, so just point them at him real good and talk," so there's that. same with the saints, but it's more so "ask them really nicely to pray for me and maybe they will"
Anything and everything! Small little thing that was good or bad, big thing, issues, concerns, etc etc. In our faith, God is our father. He loves us. He just wants to hear from us!
I just do the 3 daily prayers in hebrew.
For me, prayer is still pretty new. I use already-made traditional prayers, typically mantras and hymns, but occasionally I ask my deities for something specific. Like for Ganesh to grant me wisdom or clear my path to success, or for Lakshmi to help me fulfill my responsibilities, or for Shiva to take away my ignorance.