Pray for yourself first.

When you pray for someone, you become a channel through which the Holy Spirit (or “Life Force”) flows to address that person’s needs.  (See Mark 5:30.)  You may or may not perceive this flow as it happens.

The Spirit must first address any deficiencies in the channel itself, before it can optimally address the other person.  In particular, the Spirit must address any emotional imbalances that may exist in the person who intends to pray.  Without this adjustment, at best the Spirit’s flow will be constricted; at worst, the channel may project his or her own needs (e.g. anxieties, aches and pains) onto the patient.

Some years ago, we had weeknight prayer services at my church, with the laying on of hands.  Jean was one of the designated intercessors. Walking home after one service, Louise talked with me about Jean’s verbal prayer for her. “I listened and said, ‘This has nothing to do with me,'” she said. “Then I listened some more, and realized: she was praying for herself.” The channel needs to pray for oneself first.

There are seven places where the physical body and emotional body, or soul, are especially connected. Edgar Cayce identified these chakras (“Chakra” is Sanskrit for “wheel.”) with the endocrine glands, which secrete the hormones associated with our emotions. The flow of the Life Force through each chakra contributes a particular color to the aura. There is evidence that we all see auras without realizing it. Such evidence includes the accuracy of our common associations of colors and emotions. For example, we speak of a coward as “yellow,” an envious person as “green,” and of depression as “the blues.” Numerous emotions express through each chakra, however; courage, compassion, and hope are likewise, respectively, yellow, green and blue. When all the colors are in balance, the aura will be white.

In the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-3), Jesus’ aura became exceptionally bright.

The tasks we face from day to day aren’t orchestrated so as to keep our auras white. Just as the work of a blacksmith, on the one hand, or a surgeon on the other, will tax some muscles more than others and cause toxic waste products such as lactic acid to build up in the muscles that are over-used; so also one’s spiritual work will deplete the energies of some chakras more than others, leaving different wheels unbalanced (eccentric) by themselves and all of them out of kilter with each other.

One cannot channel Spirit under these conditions.

Silence stills the storm.  It returns each chakra to its own center and establishes harmony among them.  It restores depleted resources, like serotonin (liquid happiness) to their proper levels, and eliminates toxic waste products, like cortisol (liquid worry).  It restores the soul.

The ideal time to engage in intercession is immediately after one’s daily silence.

Many years ago, I began thinking of the chakras as being like the disks inside a combination lock.  At first, they are in disarray, all pointing in different directions.  But when you work the combination, they all line up, and the lock opens.  One can then channel Spirit.

I found a couple nice videos about the operation of a combination lock.  I enjoy watching these.  You may, too.

(1) From “How Stuff Works”
(2) From Woodgears.ca

(Reblogged 05/09/19.)