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Asking and Receiving Are Connected
All fulfillment comes from within. This may seem to be one of Jesus’s most extravagant promises. We have all asked and not received. To find out what Jesus actually meant, then, we have to answer a few questions: Who is asking? Where is the request going? Whom does it reach?
For most people, the asking comes from the ego, with its unending stream of desires. The request is going out into empty space or to a vaguely remembered God from childhood. The receiver of the request is unknown.
What this means is that asking and receiving are disconnected. Indeed, they must be, because in everyday awareness the world is separate from us and fragmented into millions of isolated events. When you ask for anything, the One is asking the One, God is asking God. And there is always a response.
Learn to ask in a new way, by expecting every wish to bring a response. Take the attitude expressed by the Persian poet Rumi: “Ask all of yourself.” The mechanics of giving and receiving are inside you. Therefore, the next time you pray for something, or simply desire it, go through the following steps:
Expressed the desired outcome to yourself clearly. Detach yourself from the request after you make it. Take an undemanding attitude to the outcome. Be open to whatever response the universe gives back. Know that there is always a response.
In this case, “response” doesn’t mean a yes or a no from God. There is no judge deciding whether you are worthy or not. Those perceptions were born of separation.
When Jesus told his followers that God sees and knows everything, he was describing the complete intimacy between the self and the intelligence that pervades the universe. Since you could not exist without being part of that intelligence, praying to God is circular, a feedback loop.
Adapted from The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2008).
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15 comments
add your comment »I know this sounds silly guys, but what if we all asked for world peace? It is something we all want, after all.
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thanks for the post
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Good observation Lia. :) I tend to get everything I want as I feel I deserve it. I'm not the bit of God that would deny myself, after all. And as you said, both the me who asks, and the me who answers are one.
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In my experience, the gratitude and trust that what I see is accomplished and complete even before the date I have written down for completion has always worked for me.
I write down what God has shown me is for my highest good and what date it is to be done. I put the paper under my pillow and sleep on it each night Then I FEEL the gratitude, SPEAK the gratitude and TRUST it to be complete by that date. It is amazing how it comes into being, sometimes in the nick of time. Occasionally fear sneaks in and I wonder how in the world it can come about in the allotted time. I have to force myself to stay in the gratitude and trust, erasing the fear. It always come into being, sometimes it takes a little longer than the allotted time. What I want to do is convince myself that ti is being accomplished a week before my due date instead of cutting it so close.
Have fun with life, with creating and trusting. We are all one, so when one accomplishes it, the rest of us can get it more easily.
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As a prayer believing Christian I know that one has to ask with the right intention. Just asking because I think I want something, when in fact I am acting in an immature way, doesn't mean I should expect to get what I want. Spoiled children are not attractive. And knowing a need from a want is important. Personally I have no need for an expensive car like a Mercedes.
So it would be foolish of me to ask for one, out of pure greed or ego. Living simply I know I have a right to ask for and receive at some time a clean off the grid small modern home. With room for a big vegetable garden and my chickens. As well as a clothesline.
In 2000 I bought a book titled Write It Down, Make It Happen: Knowing What You Want And Getting It by Henriette Anne Klauser, Ph.D. She helped me see the difference between thinking I wanted or needed something and actually wanting or needing it. She recommends keeping a journal where over weeks and months one fine tunes their thinking.
Six months later we moved to the place I had written of in my journal. It had what I had sought. That move then helped me fine tune what I needed and wanted, and where I moved after Ron died, has helped me fine tune life again. Its a great gift and calms you and makes life less stressful.
In 2005 I asked and received and what I received wasn't used wisely and I actually became miserable. The lessons learned have served me well and I wont make the same mistake. But I so believe in answered prayer.
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I've actually noticed that I am sometimes making a subconscious request to the universe, and when I get an answer, I am always surprised! I don't think we are necessarily aware of what we are asking most of the time. For example, I had been using a virtual community online to talk to some avatars who are into all things esoteric, and struck up a relationship with someone who is now my partner. Sometimes the power of looking into things I am interested in scares me a bit. The response from the universe can be very welcome, but sometimes overwhelming!
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The universe doesn't judge the worth of the petitioner, that is left up to the piece of god in us; the pure heart or conscience that will be the judge at the end of time. "They" get all those goodies because they expect them and there is nothing to judge their worth on that level. "Poverty consciousness " is so devastating because if someone wrongly judges their self worth, part of their unconscious self image, there's nothing out there to contradict it.Those attitudes are absorbed from our surroundings.One must ask to break the pattern and gain confidence that will be fed by success. If a person is carrying a core belief that wealth or anything else sought will degrade their personal holiness (wholeness?) or that it would be worse to have it than not, it takes effort to change that belief to the point that will allow the fulfillment of the prayer. If one believes that wealthy people are greedy and mean how will their inner guide allow them to have it? If a person's core belief is that marriage and love mean enslavement how will that inner judge allow it to them no matter how deprived they may feel on the surface. Those beliefs that stand between one and their happiness are meant to be challenged and overcome. Persistence may bring success,signs show progress. Suddenly the deprived may notice great couples, generous wealthy people, etc. Otherwise the universe, god ,THE ALL THAT IS will materialize what is sought through intention, prayer, and release.
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Thank you for all the very interesting, and useful, comments. :0)
When I feel down and wish for - possibly a dozen things, my thought turn to those who suffer, are in need and I sign a petition, pray, take an action and my heart is lifted! When I turn to my problems, from where my wishes come, they are so very small most disappear.
My thought then turn to thank you for showing me how to overcome my problems that generate wishes.
Sending a BIG thank you 2 Care and member to.
Love C.K.
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Interesting to say the least. Another translation as to what was ment. So many "Have to be in the right mind or right careing" state of mind to recive any desires reasonings. Have to "PAY YOUR DUES", have to "BE AS WE DISCRIBE". Ok, Explain why everyone whom is "Under-handed" continues to reap. They continue to gain everything they ask for. Politicians are the perfect example of lauging in God's face yet they continue to prosper. When you are truthful, you lose. When you attempt to do things the "Legal Way" you lose. How about all God's "REPRESENTITIVES" who live in million dollar homes, make money off the poor and never even really help anyone but their selves? How about all the millions of people killed in the name of GOD? The children violated by a trusted "MESSENGER" of God. All the helpless animal lives God created that have been torchered and abused all in the name of knowledge and greed. Anyone with half a brain knows the old game of passing the story. How it changes from 1 person to another depending on how many are in the line. The book was added to, removed from and even "Filled in" years after the original senarios. These men "EDITED" what they felt they wanted to use and removed, changed or left out the other things. They even created what they wanted durring the times to help "CONTROL" the people in the way they desired. Think I'm wrong? Well research who King James really was and how his revalation came about. Better yet, only one race of people were ever suppos
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DC was certainly on target is saying that we need to ask those questions about Jesus' staement. However he seems to answered them very much out of bounds. Jesus qualified ir by saying,"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
I wonder why DC missed that??????
Jesus also said in the same discourse that God knows what you NEED before you ever ask.
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