This will be the first in a series of ten postings on the subject of prayer from William LePar’s spiritual source, The Council. There is a great deal more information available but for now we will present these ten. They will cover many aspects of the subject but most importantly they will point out methods to make prayer more powerful and more effective. They will answer questions such as the actual components of prayer and why prayers appear to go unanswered. Hopefully everyone will find something of value in these postings. In this one The Council gives some tips on how to increase the effectiveness of a prayer.

Questioner:  Sometimes prayers seem to become routine.  Do these prayers still do some good?

The Council:  Yes, but they are not quite as effective as if they were changed.

Questioner:  If you wanted to pray for the same thing, how do you change it?

The Council:  Reword the prayer.  Change the time of day in which it is said. If it is, shall we say, an informal prayer or personal prayer, then combine possibly some formal prayers with the situation and eliminate the informal portion, only the request or the intention of the prayer.

Questioner:  Do we have an exact definition of formal or informal prayer?

The Council:  A formal prayer is something that has been constructed and acknowledged on a wide basis as a prayer.  That is a formal prayer. Informal prayer is when you yourself talk to your creator in your own words.

Questioner:  One is not necessarily more effective than the other.  It depends on how you do it?

The Council:  It is the intention of the individual, the state of mind of the individual, what lies in the heart.  That is what does it.  Words are only words. Words release the energies that are within the heart.

Questioner:  Are prayers more effective if they are verbalized?

The Council:  Again, that is a yes or no answer.  Yes, if you need that and no, if you do not need that. It is the individual.  If it gives you more confidence in your prayer to verbalize them, then fine verbalize them.  If you are just as confident and believe as strongly in your prayer when it is in silence, then you do not need to verbalize it.  Although in most situations, if not in all, at one time or another or let us say with individuals, at times it does wonders to verbalize it, and at times it can do miracles when it is screamed out.  You see, this is part of the emotion system that we spoke of.  Do you understand?

Questioner:  Yes.  Would the same idea then apply to other things that we think of as normal praying like keeping your eyes closed, things like that?  It is a yes or no answer on that, too?

The Council:  Keeping your eyes closed is probably best for most individuals. It keeps your mind on what you are doing.  With your eyes open you are apt to be distracted by the visual stimulus, unless of course you are sitting in front of a blank wall, then it would really not make much difference.  In prayer one must concentrate on what is going on, either willfully or deliberately or by the state of the emotion that one is in.  In some situations the emotions can run at such a fever pitch that nothing could distract the individual from their prayer.  Consequently, they could be in the middle of a three ring circus and it would not bother them.

Next week: The Council will discuss how specific a prayer needs to be and how best to approach specific and general types of prayer.

For more information on William LePar and The Council see www.WilliamLePar.com

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