The Monday Essay

Food and Prayers

How human needs evolved rapidly

A few years ago, there was a bestseller book for some two and a half years called:  “Eat, Pray and Love”.  Later on this was made into a recent film. This is an indication of the interest in the subject. Even in a secular—and somewhat agnostic-- society, in which many people are non-believers or care less about prayer, the subject is worth examining. This is not related to religions in the traditional sense; prayers are more related to spiritual practices people love to practice privately or in community settings. Not even at a church or a temple. Maybe praying at home or in a park might bring relief, inspiration or both; nevertheless some people still pray; and most do not pray.

 

Some non-believers think that those who pray regularly are just talking to themselves, or to the walls, so they are “wasting their time” senselessly. On the other hand , some faithful people who pray regularly,  believe that they are never separated from the divine source, they never loose nothing, or loose anything at  all, because “ we are all sons of God”, to use  a Judeo Christian language; so—in these cases-- prayer is  never wasted.

Four Types of Prayers

Not all prayer is the same, although some are very typical ones.

1          Praying to ask for favors or results one wishes or needs. The most common

2          Prayer to thank results or outcomes, very common

3          Prayers to restore trust, confidence bond between humans and deity. In a nutshell, ask forgiveness

4          Prayers to adore, chant “alleluia,” for the wonders of everything. Very uncommon

 

Most prayers people do are asking for help type,--to an intangible force, source, or God-- favors or desired outcomes in times of hardships or uncertainty. However, there are some prayers that do not carry hope or fear: they are the gratefulness from heart to thank for all the wonders of existence.

Breakfast

At breakfast in Canada, most people eat cereal, bread and orange juice. In Singapore and Asia, most people eat rice. Neither is better than the other, they are both cereal grains; staple diet. We need food, despite all scientific and economic advances; humanity has not done away with the need for food. Not only do we need to eat well, we need to satisfy their needs. We all know that running in the agitated daily world of work, traffic jams, business and debt and some chaos, isn’t easy. To survive, humans do not need to hunt anymore and barely few go to toil the fields or care for a farm.

A remarkable new and “green” insight (in developing stages now) is that humanity beyond the year 2030 might feed from insect food rather than beef, cow, hogs and traditional animal livestock. In some parts of Asia it has been a common practice as staple food, now UN food agency called FAO and other businesses, ht contribute to a massive world wide undertaking, even a business.

Uncertainty and Factors we do not Control

We all have to face uncertainty and unwanted issues. Even certain facts such as death and illness scare us and worry us; much so the unseen and unpredictable ones, however powerful we are.  Scientist calls these “variables,” we do not control, and businesses call them “factors” or issues. Whatever they are called, we do not control most circumstances that happen to us. This is a harsh and unavoidable fact. We do not like them   or even try to avoid them, to think too much; and sometimes we plan for the “inevitable.” 

Nevertheless, despite all technology and success of modern times, unwanted issues are becoming responsible for what the situation is: obstacles, pollution, lack of honesty in business and close relationships, harsh competition, even wickedness and what have you. What we do like, and what we do care for, not being easy, is enjoyable. But life is both.  It doesn’t mean that prayer will do away with unwanted issues or uncertainty; it just means to take a closer look at them.

“Hope for the Best and Expect the Worst”—A Modern Tibetan Saying

Exiled Tibetans who—for half a century now-- have lost their country and culture, have a motto: “We must expect the best and prepare for the worst.” Their daily realities are of loss and loosing on and on again. China –their oppressor—is rising, everyone wants business with the Chinese, and no one wants to alienate them. They --the Chinese establishment-- are a rising super power in almost all fields: economic, science, technology, nuclear, space, except in the spiritual real, and human rights. In both these two area they seem far behind the average. The Tibetan predicament on the other hand, is not theory, the exiled Tibetan have been so for fifty years, with small gains and lots of loosing.

The old generation of Tibetans is strong on prayers; the young generation is more cynical and less devoted, but they trust their old parents, relatives and wise people. Among them the Dalai Lama, their spiritual and temporal leader won the Noble Peace Prize in 1989 as an example of peaceful resistance.

Who Needs Prayers Anymore?

So in this scenario, who needs prayers anymore? The great Spanish thinker Ortega y Gasset used to say,  that technological eras do away with  religions and God and in reverse, eras in which God is preeminent (as the Middle Ages in Europe and Asia) are low in technology . So now—nobody would argue -- most world societies are not technological. In effect some people or many do not need any prayers. Especially today, if prayers is associated with formal and classical religions, most people do not like or care to pray. Some Asian society’s still continue ancestor worship. In Japan the “Shinto” beliefs and shrines are still strong, a subtle mix of nature reverence and ancestor worship.  However, Japan still remains in the top of suicide rates in many ranks of industrial societies. Why? This is certainly hard to say.

In China among many people, Taoist and nature veneration is still very strong. This trend has been transposed to the West as “care for nature”, ecology or deep ecology. Some extraordinary experiments have been carried in which people “pray” for some plants and not for other; or pray for the recovery of surgical patients and not others. Some of these very well controlled experiments called “double blind studies” indicate beyond doubt, that prayer is very effective beyond chance or the called “placebo effects”  (which by the way, accounts for some 40% or more,  of the drug benefits on recovery from illness) . In other well controlled experiments, plants prayed for, grow stronger and faster; some claim surgical patients recover well, faster and wholesome than post surgical patients not prayed for. Other data and discoveries claim the exactly the opposite.

Do we Need Prayer Propaganda?

This short essay is not prayer propaganda.  In a wider context, well beyond formal religion, prayer and meditation are contacting the “whole” of the universe—whatever you may make of it--, of which nature is but the immediate manifestation. So what modern physics has discovered   at the subatomic level—the quantum physics effects—and at the macro level.—relativity of space, time and causation, at a deep level are accessible through meditation and prayer. Food and shelter are not incompatible with prayers.  Centuries –or even millennia-- ago when food and shelter were scare, people prayer a lot. We all know this has changed dramatically.  

So food and shelter, still stand for Earth, practicality. Prayer and meditation are space, heavens, the universe, cosmos, the intangible, the whole. We already know that inside the temple, most people are correct. That is not the issue today. Today the real challenges  is to be wholesome in daily living, working, in the family, at the store, with bills and credits, in business., and all sorts of pressure and rush. Can prayer help up in this, or is it just a waste of time?

Most of physical  matter is invisible in the universe—astronomers have found.

Astronomers agree that the “visible universe” is rather small compared to the invisible “dark matter and dark energy”; this might seem astonishing and rather unsettling. But in large portions of experiences, we usually believe that we see, or experience, the “whole picture” of reality. There is evidence that this is inexact. Most of us do not like to be contradicted in public. Lest of all to be ridiculed or ashamed in public. Most of us do not care, have no time or resources to stop and think of foundations of common sense, and regard it as “a waste of time.”

In God we Trust?

In the back of the $ 1 dollar US bill, one of the inscriptions says: “In God we trust.” This money was printed well after the US independence of 1776. Nevertheless, the general claim here, is that all people—we-- need to “trust or have confidence in” something whether tangible and most likely rather “intangible” —things, or realities we cannot see, touch or control. Some call it: God, Jews may call it:  Yawh (Yaveh), Muslims: Allah, Buddhist:  Emptiness, Wall Street people may call it: “profits”; scientists can call it: “facts”, or what have you.  We cannot live for a long time without believing in some collective super power or an intangible force. Whatever we may call it.

Although many claim today to be non-believers and agnostic in such transcendent forces, perhaps it might be correct to say, that a globalized, non-expressed belief might be: “In money we trust”.  People all over the word do includible things to get more money. Comments are totally unnecessary, since facts almost speak for them. This non-expressed “belief” seems to drive millions of people, institutions and other communities.

The old saying of the US bill ...In God we trust” has been radically changed. But common sense turns “rags into riches” or makes everyday living bearable and somewhat meaningful, because hidden assumptions go unnoticed and ease oneself of the hardship to philosophize everything again and again. None of us has seen an atom, seen a cell. We just “accept” other people word for it, we call “experts” or “scholars” or “technicians”. Yet we are very oriented to believe in “science” whatever that may entail.

Thousands of years ago,  science and experts or technicians were called: scribes, sorcerers, priests, magicians, monks or shamans (although what they do is very different). Today we call “expert advice” when we need it, and are willing to pay for it. We pay for what we need, and in a very direct way, we pay comfort for having peace and quiet. We buy gadgets and expertise. We usually take most things for granted. “That’s the way it is”, we casually say. We just expect “upgraded and updates” versions of gadgets, called “verssions or models”. Marketing has accustomed us to the “new” slogan: new fabrics, new qualities, “new” something seems better,  and we pay for it, fast.

When circumstances “get out of control” and we seem to loose hope or are possessed by fear; some scream, some pray, some freeze, and some curse. When squeezed –pushed to our  limits--most people crumble; our assumptions crack, held for generations, they go unnoticed and many are possessed by rage or fear.

The claim is that we all have—and cannot live without much time —“hidden assumptions.” We just can’t see that “common sense”, --as fishes cannot see the water they live in--our daily habits So we carry a   strong “baggage” of these hidden assumptions.  Whether this is confidence in “the market”, in “the nation,” in the “military”, in “morality,” in “religion.” all are very similar.  We carry these “hidden assumptions”· as the snail carries it home in the back with it.   In an era when most established assumptions seem crumbling… some people resort to “hocus pocus” superstitions, other to “science”, others to a very strong morals and religions, other to hate.

What do we trust in: money, business, and our families?

Please read this paper clip, appeared recently in “The Washington Post” USA, Op-Ed page

By Anne Applebaum

Monday, February 28, 2011

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Westerners, be careful the company you keep

The Washington Post

Money, even foreign money (and particularly that Saudi money) has always been able to buy access to Western statesmen. But in the past decade or so, the proportions have subtly shifted. The democratic West has become relatively poorer, while a clutch of undemocratic "emerging" markets have become richer. To put it more bluntly, Western politicians, ex-politicians and even aristocrats have become much, much poorer than the very, very rich businessmen emerging from the oil-and-gas states of central Asia, eastern Europe and the Middle East. Twenty years ago, no retired British or German statesman would have looked outside his country for employment. Nowadays, Blair advises the governments of Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, among others; former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder collects a paycheck from Gazprom, the Russian energy behemoth.

Who or what do you trust in?

The fact is that most of us do not like to feel vulnerable, or in strong need, or helpless in any situation.  Most men are educated not to cry in public and rarely in private. They have to display strength or at least pretend courage. British crown princes are forbidden to cry in public. But most people do not like to cry in public, except at funerals and disasters. Prayer has become similar; it is an almost private activity. Perhaps because we may associate strong need or lack of control.

Quote:

“The fruit of silence is prayer. The fruit of prayer is faith; the fruit of faith is love. The fruit of love is service. The fruit of service is peace.”

Mother Teresa

You don’t need to pray, of course, but we cannot get along much time in our lives, without believing in something,  in the near or distant future…and intangible source; and we hardly know what many issues that “escape our control” or understanding are all about. Some people abhor mystery, some like excitement that comes from curiosity. Others believe and pray, others try harder,

Whatever you believe is usually very good. Even for personal health, statistics show that “believers” in some transcendent after-life, have better health or life expectancy than non-believers. This is strange to say the least The French philosopher Luc Ferry –a former Minister of Education in France--says that parents usually “sacrifice” or put lots of efforts for their young children. Indeed we do, we expect—or shall we say believe—a bright and nice future for them, although no one can tell the future, we just believe, and act.

Gustavo Jimenez Lagos

Creative Commons Share alike 3.0 License

March 2011