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This is a very powerful and personal question that I’m sure many of you have had. I’ve certainly been asked it many times and have asked myself this many times…
From the Emergence model and the perennial truth teachings, whatever is missing is what you’re not giving. The whole of ultimate reality is in your soul and your consciousness.
So if you are praying for something, trying to get, attract, achieve it or draw it to you, and using prayer either as a supplication or beseeching of something outside of you, you’re already praying amiss, because true prayer is an activation.
Prayer is an opening through and as which you get to express more of the infinitude that is within you. You’re never praying for anything, you are praying from the thing itself. You touch reality.
The core idea is that it’s already here, and I’ve used the radio analogy a lot to help explain this… The music is already broadcasting right where you are, but it’s not manifest until you tune your dial into the vibrational frequency of the station where the music is playing. When your vibration matches the vibration of the station, that station becomes manifests. It’s a manifest-station.
The music was already broadcasting. It wasn’t in the future. It wasn’t in the distance. It wasn’t even potential. It was potential in terms of your experience, but it was actual in terms of the dimension in which that music was broadcasting that actuality became manifest when you came into integrity with it vibrationally.
You must come into integrity; you must pray believing you already have in order to receive it. If you pray not believing you have it, it still gets activated, but you can’t receive it yet until you believe you have it.
As I’ve talked before, every sincere prayer, desire, and affirmation you’ve ever said, in that moment, that potential, seed of possibility, is activated. It’s deposited, but now the work is that you must come into alignment with it.
Listen to the podcast episode above for the full explanation and learn how you can put it to work in your life TODAY.
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Full Transcript
[The following is the full transcript of this episode of the Emergence, A Revolutionary Path for Radical Life Change, with Derek Rydall Podcast]
Derek Rydall here, and welcome to another episode of Ask Derek. As part of the Emergence series, we’re diving into this very powerful and very personal question that I’m sure many of you have had, and I’ve certainly had it asked me many times and have asked myself many times – Why aren’t my prayers answered? Again, I need to make the disclosure that when I talk about prayer and God and Biblical quotations and all of that, this is not a religious or dogmatic or doctrinal conversation. It’s always a conversation about principle. Praying is based on principle. In fact, when it doesn’t work, it’s because we’re not in league or in integrity with the principle. Now, that doesn’t mean that there’s not an element of devotion and that your heart and your body and your whole soul is not involved in all of this. That is indeed part of the principle, too.
One of the principles, of course, of manifesting is you must create the congruent conditions for that seed of potential to grow. If the soil is not cultivated in a way that is congruent with the kind of seed, that seed doesn’t grow or doesn’t thrive. The same thing is true with us. One of the elements of creating the conditions for your life to thrive has an element to do with devotion and feeling and all of that. When I say this is all about principle, I don’t mean it’s all clinical and dry, and that there’s no heart, emotion and soul involved, because indeed that’s a part of the principle of congruent conditions. I just want to make that clear. We’re talking about prayer. For some of you, you may like to pray. Most Americans and a large percentage of the world’s population does, in some way, pray. A great deal of individuals don’t really know what prayer is, don’t really do it in a way that is effective. That might seem like a very bold statement when you really begin to understand Emergence. So I’m going to break down a few reasons why your prayers aren’t answered.
One of the main first reasons is that from the Emergence model, remember, whatever’s missing is what you’re not giving. From the Emergence model, and just from the model of truth, the perennial truth teachings, the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. Nirvana is within you. The Tao is within you. The Atman is within you. The whole of ultimate reality is in your soul and your consciousness. If you are praying for something, trying to get it or attract it or achieve it or draw it to you from some God up in the sky or from some person, place or thing out in the world, and you’re trying to use prayer either as a supplication and beseeching of something outside of you or to use it as a practice or a law to try to get, achieve or attract, you’re already praying amiss, because true prayer is an activation. It’s the practice of touching the nature of your being. It’s the practice of touching the thing you are seeking. Through that touching of it, activating of it, steering that divinity into activity, striking that mystic chord of memory and allowing that which was always in you but was latent to now become active.
Prayer is an opening through and as which you get to express more of the infinitude or as the poet, Robert Browning said, the imprisoned splendor already in you. That’s why I say you’re never praying for anything, you are praying from the thing itself. You touch reality. You touch love and then you pray love. As the native American statement goes, You don’t pray for rain; you pray rain. You pray rain. The whole rain dance idea is the idea that they’re getting into a vibrational match with the mental, emotional, spiritual, physical condition as if they already have the rain, as if the rain has already soaked the ground and the seeds were already sprouted, and the harvest has already come. They’re celebrating it. If it’s going to work, that’s what has to take place. It’s a celebration that the rain has come, that the harvest is full, that the fields are white unto harvest, and all is fulfilled and well and wonderful. Now, let’s dance and affirm and celebrate that life is totally for us, that the rain and all of nature is working in harmony. Do you see the difference?
That’s why Jesus said, When you pray, pray believing that you already have it, that you may receive it. That wasn’t a metaphysical trick to attract it. It was a mystical truth that you already have it. Clearly, it wasn’t a beseeching of some God outside of you. If Jesus was teaching that there’s a God separate from you, why would he say pray believing that you already have it, that you may receive it? What would that matter? If I’m asking somebody for something, could you give me a bit of information or a name, or something, somebody separate from me, would I need to first know that I have it before I ask for it? No. If it was separate from me, I would ask for it and get it. He’s giving us a lesson in principle. He also said the Kingdom of Heaven was within us, which is a shocking missed opportunity by the vast majority of good-hearted, good Christian, God-loving, or God-fearing people. They don’t even understand that most basic principle that Heaven is within you. That’s what the man actually taught. I mean if we just got that much, if we just got that basic foundation that he said the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. It’s not a place; it’s a state of consciousness, and we know that he also taught that when they’re like when it’s going to come; what’s it’s going to look like? He said, It will not come by observation. It will not be lo here or lo there, for behold the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, and the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand now, but having eyes, you cannot see; having ears, you cannot hear it. This is what the great mystics and masters have been teaching us, all of them, that it’s already within us, and it’s already here now. It’s just that it’s here incorporeally or invisibly or vibrationally or spiritually.
All of these tools and techniques are not to attract or achieve something, but to make that which is always happening manifest. That’s the real meaning of manifestation. It’s making that which is already now visible, or tangible, or audible. It’s not about making something that isn’t suddenly be. That’s an impossibility when you understand Emergence or the quantum field or mystical truth teachings. You can’t make something that isn’t coming to be. You can only make that which already is manifest. Now, understand when I say that which already is, it’s not like there’s this realm of perfect forms and there’s like Ford Mustangs and Mercedes Benz and Ferraris and beautiful houses in Mulholland Drive – no. It’s spiritually, because spirit is infinite and eternal. It’s not in time or space. The spiritual ideas and forms are not human forms. So, it’s not like there’s a bunch of cabbages and kings, and castles and things in consciousness. It’s a Divine idea or pattern and a vibrational frequency and a quality. It’s a unique expression of the love, and the joy, and the peace, and the qualities of reality. All of that is already here according to your uniqueness, your unique pattern. When you pray love or pray joy or pray abundance, it’s going to manifest that love, joy, and abundance that is already here, but according to your unique pattern. Like pushing a bunch of pure pasta substance through a pasta machine, and it comes out very different depending on the filter you’ve got on the end, okay?
Now, I may be really going down the rabbit hole for you now. You’re like, I just want to figure out why my prayers aren’t getting answered, and you’re like tripping me out here and talking about pasta makers and going from Jesus to pasta makers. That’s quite a broad spectrum of metaphors and analogies there, Derek. Hopefully you’re having a little fun; you’re getting it from a lot of different angles. The core idea is that because it’s already here, and I’ve used the analogy a lot, which is just such a great analogy, of the radio. The music is already broadcasting right where you are, but it’s not manifest until you tune your dial into the vibrational frequency of the station where the music is playing. When your vibration matches the vibration of the station, that station becomes manifests. You have a manifestation, right? It’s a manifest station. The music becomes manifest. It was already broadcasting. It wasn’t in the future. It wasn’t in the distance. It wasn’t even potential. It was potential in terms of your experience, but it was actual in terms of the dimension in which that music was broadcasting that actuality became manifest when you came into integrity with it vibrationally. This is what Jesus is teaching when he says, Pray believing you already have that you may receive. This is where prayers are answered, when your prayer is an attaching of ultimate reality, of the thing you want and an activation of it, but not in any way, shape, or form seeking something separate from you.
Now, I’m going to do a sidebar or a caveat to this. It doesn’t mean that those prayers on your knees, in those darkest hours, when your back is against the wall and your heart is breaking and your body is aching and your bank account is empty and all of that, that you cry out God, somebody, if there’s anybody out there, help. It doesn’t mean that those aren’t answered. I want you to understand this. Those are activating something too. However, most of the time, they’re activating the potential, but you have not yet created the congruent condition internally for that potential to manifest. It’s like that gets answered and deposited in your Divine trust account, but it does not yet get released to you until on some level you come into integrity with it. Does that make sense? Because it’s the same principle, you must come into integrity; you must pray believing you already have in order to receive it. If you pray not believing you have it, it still gets activated, but you can’t receive it yet until you believe you have it. Do you see that? As I’ve talked before, every sincere prayer, desire, affirmation, your back against the wall, you’re like there’s going to be a better way, please show me a better way, in that moment, that potential, that seed of possibility is activated. It’s deposited, but now the work is that you must come into alignment with it.
Now, an important thing to understand – because it’s been activated, now it’s going to start trying to move you into alignment with it. It’s going to start working you and trying to transform you, and what that can start to look like sometimes is things you used to do don’t work anymore. There’s an increasing amount of pain and suffering when you think the same old thoughts or do the same old habits. Why? Because you’re living in a world and trying to manage life in a paradigm that’s smaller than the paradigm or the possibility or the potential that you’ve activated. It starts to work on those structures mentally, emotionally, physically, vibrationally that are no longer congruent with what you’ve activated. You may not even remember you activated it. You are on your knees in a dark hour when you said, Oh, God, please help. Somebody help me. I need to figure out a way to have more abundance. I need to figure out a way to heal my life, whatever. Now that’s working on you, at first, it might seem like, Why hast thou forsaken me,because things are getting worse, but what’s happening is you’re still trying to hold onto the old structures when you’ve activated a larger life, okay?
Now, that’s also why even we pray aright, even when we pray from the place of integrity, when we pray believing we’ve already got it, things can sometimes seem to get worse before they get better. We don’t understand that the answer to our prayer is coming by means of transformation. You pray to be more patient, and you pray and you touch the vibration of love and patience, and you know it’s done. It’s not a beseeching prayer. It’s not a supplication prayer. You know it’s done. Well, the Universe doesn’t necessarily just go, pop, you’re patient. In some cases where you’ve really activated it, you’ve really caught it, you might have a moment where there’s a dramatic shift in perception and an old structure is just disintegrated, and you’ve got it. That’s more the exception to the rule. The principle usually means, now you’ve activated it, you came into alignment with it, now still you’re going to find yourself in circumstances where you’re going to have to work out the muscle of patience. Suddenly, you’re in rush-hour traffic every day, and you’re angrier than ever before and you’re like, What went wrong with my prayer for patience here? Well, nothing. You’re being now called to go into training into the inner workout room of the Universe where you do resistance training. You’re lifting the weights of rush-hour traffic and lifting the weights of that integrated anger and frustration and victimization. You’re now coming back to that prayer for vibration and continuing to re-anchor the patience or the peace, until you embody it. Because in this world to manifest at a certain level, we have to exercise that particular quality until we have built it in, until we’ve grown in in the very sinew of our being.
That’s why sometimes our prayers don’t seen answered. That’s why some of our problems are actually answered prayer. They’re giving us that opportunity to train and to own it and to embody it. Again, sometimes, if the fire of that moment of realization is strong enough in prayer, it can be so powerful that it just where it was this red as crimson, now it is as white as snow. In other words, in a holy instant, you’re redeemed. Those structures are dissolved and transmuted and redeemed. Absolutely, that can happen. With a deep enough prayer and meditation practice, that can perhaps happen more often. In the majority of the cases, in all that I’ve seen and experienced and historically speaking, it’s a process. The prayer is like you planted the seed. You planted it in fertile soil by knowing it’s done. You watered it and weeded it and fed it and shined the light on it. Now you let it do its thing. That begins to gestate and germinate, and over a period of time it eventually breaks through the surface and reveals that new bud and that plant, and eventually the flower and the fruit.
Now, another little side sort of piece to this is that sometimes we’ve prayed a prayer, and we’ve prayed it powerfully, and then because it doesn’t manifest quickly enough, we go and we dig that seed up. We go, Did I plant this right? We looked at it, pulling up other roots again, and we actually stopped the process. You never pray, try to go back, and pray the same prayer a second time. Well, it doesn’t mean you don’t pray about the same thing a second time, but it’s not a second time, it’s a brand new first time. If you really feel the Divine impulse to know the truth and to pray, and it’s moving through you, you pray it again, but it’s the first time again. If you are trying to go back and pray your prayer, and then you’re looking for the results and the fruits, and then questioning it and doubting it, that’s like you’re pulling up the seed vibrationally. If you’re inspired, because it’s still pushing your button, and it’s still bothering you, the issue, and you’re inspired to go back in and know the truth again and do the work to touch ultimate reality and own it, that’s the first time again. You might have to do that a thousand times, but that’s not a thousand different prayers.
I want you to hear this. That’s not a thousand different prayers; that’s the same prayer and maybe by the thousandth time, you actually finally get it. Then, bam! The manifestation happens or begins to happen. Because true prayer, in its most literal and fundamentalist sense of principle, when you’ve truly done it completely, it’s done. It’s done for eternity, meaning you’ve touched ultimate reality, you’ve activated the timeless, dimensionless, eternal nature of the truth of your being. Now, that’s unfolding throughout all eternity. Nothing can stop it. What God has wrought, no man can put asunder. Heaven and earth may pass away, but my world shall never pass away. This is speaking of the principle. When you touch reality and activate reality, that prayer is ongoing forever until it fulfills itself. The sooner you get to say the prayer over and over and over again, and it’s the first time every time, but you’re activating the same prayer. Again, I hope this isn’t too far down the rabbit hole, and this was way more than I planned on getting into at the most basic level to understand why your prayers aren’t answered.
It’s because A, you’re praying for instead of praying from, or, B, you are praying the prayer but then mentally or emotionally or your physical habits are not congruent or in integrity with the prayer you’re praying. You’re praying for abundance, and then you go on and have conversations and thoughts and feelings of lack, limitation, worry, doubt, fear and your mental or physical habits are those the person in lack and limitation. You are not in integrity. You are a house that is divided. You are serving two masters – God and Mammon, the truth and the lie, abundance and lack. Do you see what I mean? You’re a house divided, and a house divided cannot stand. It has no structural integrity. That’s why the prayer is not manifesting. You have to come into integrity with it. The other thing why it doesn’t appear to be answered is it’s working you. It’s developing you. It’s transforming you. It’s redeeming you so that you become a fit and strong enough instrument to manifest that prayer.
I invite you to listen to this again to see where you fall on this scale and to begin to reengage your prayer life with another level of fervor and devotion and precision, because it’s principle. It’s not personal. It’s not luck; it’s law. You want to begin to engage, and not with just a blind faith or a blind devotion, but with a level of conscious methodology. Life doesn’t just happen; it happens just. It happens through law, so there is love, and there is law. The devotional absolute commitment and connection is beautiful, and you want to make sure you’re practicing in principle, because you could be the most loving good person but if you’re not in principle, it’s not going to work. It’s like I’ve used the analogy you could be a most loving good person, but if you don’t know the laws of buoyancy and you dive into a deep lake, you’re going to drown. If you’re a loving good devotional person, but you get in in a plane and try to fly it but you don’t understand the laws of aerodynamics, you’re going to crash. If you stick your finger in a light socket, you’re going to get electrocuted, because you’re not in integrity with the laws of electricity. It’s not personal, it’s principle. Understand the principle, practice it. I hope this has served you. Until next time. Remember to live authentically, love unconditionally, and follow your destiny.
