John Davies on Quieting Prayer

Quieting prayer is a process that opens up the deeper layers of awareness, allowing us to taste directly the divine presence within us. All the great spiritual traditions, while using different language, speak of this as key to opening four complementary layers of experience:

1. The outwardly oriented mind or ego sees the world as consisting of separate physical objects which we may desire, fear, and try to control through our coping behavior and concrete, operational thinking. We are each primarily a separate living object, conditioned by the world and dependent on it.

2. The heart reveals a more dynamic world where processes of relating, feeling and experiencing define us more than our objective bodies. Connecting, reflecting on subtle insights, relationships, perceptions or possibilities, valuing the good and true, choosing right from wrong, draw us more than outer wealth. Inner beauty satisfies more than outwardly looking good, though we are still emotionally pulled in different directions, experiencing pleasure and pain, fear and hope, love and pride, choice and consequence.

3. The soul opens us up as an almost boundless field, the inner essence of who I am as a human being, the experiencer or subject. By nature at this level we are drawn to a deep intimacy or alignment with the divine within us. Differences, past and future, even relationships, are no longer primary, since our fields overlap and profoundly connect us. Subtle perceptions are available, but the attraction is for the divine, experienced as the single essence of peace, compassion, love, freedom, justice, wisdom, beauty, truth, life itself, qualities that we naturally begin to reflect and to love also in the world around us.

4. The spirit is the reality of divine unity, where there is no separation, not even between experiencer, experience and experienced, inner and outer, human and divine, only pure being, beyond words and opposites, without boundaries, timeless presence, wholeness, perfect fulfillment, the secret reality of our existence unveiled. At first often experienced as briefly displacing the other layers, with time it is found to be the stable ground or containing ocean, gracing and supporting all levels of our being.

Quieting prayer usually takes a name of God, the highest reality, or a sacred (revealed) sound, as a catalyst for opening to these deeper levels. It starts with the intention to let go our desires, fears and attachments in the outer world, releasing all effort and agendas, trusting divine guidance, to open to the subtler world by gently bringing the name into the heart, creating a sacred space within, till in the soul we are fully open, awake, present to the qualities of the divine – then dropping or opening by attraction into presence itself.

We remember the name or sacred sound as it is, clear or subtle, without analyzing, avoiding, suppressing or pushing against anything else. If we notice effort or resistance, forgetfulness, distracting or negative thoughts, feelings or judgments, we turn to the name and allow the most high to center us, clean and open us deeper into the experience rather than suppressing it, dropping in and through any pain that may be behind it. There is no imposed agenda or judgment of success, just being with what is, no effort or conditions, remembering the most high, the essence of all that is.

Practicing this every day as a routine, for 40 minutes or more in total, as time and responsibilities allow, deepens and stabilizes the experience as the background supporting a fuller, active life both for ourselves and for those around us. Practicing with others, and receiving guidance from a teacher established in the unity, will enhance the process. By being peace, we are a vehicle for creating dynamic peace in the world at every level, transforming violence, stress and blame into constructive change, loving compassion and a sustainable and just world.

(From John Davies’ forthcoming book: Spiritual Peacemaking)

One % is the first multi-method, multi-faith, whole-community approach drawing from all traditions but based on the research of John Davies, which used the Transcendental Meditation method. While we are encouraged by their results, we are not committed to only their method. We believe we will be just as effective by encouraging each person to find their own practice to deep inner peace. One % is not affiliated with TM.

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