My cat, Beaujolais, stares at things with a slight tilt of the head.
There is an asking in that look. An inquiring. Curiosity, I think.
If the thing moves, Beau reacts. He investigates — but only enough to see if it is worth playing with.
Like all animals, Beau rituals. He notices the qualia projected by whatever it is he is looking at. He moves toward it. This is an investigation. He plays with it. And after he loses interest, the ritual is over.
If it was something he needed, like a place to sleep for the night, or food, or a warm hand, then the qualia would lead him to the matter he needed. This was an asking.
Beau asks, but he does not pray.
There is another element to prayer.
The middle part of the ritual, the moving toward, the playing, must also involve experimentation. There is a creative element here, which is the difference between ritualing, as it has been practiced since life began, and conscious ritualing.
This creative element is what makes conscious ritualing and prayer, synonymous. It necessitates a sustained interest, or focus. But that is not all.
We humans can always ask, like animals, for the qualia we need. But our minds set us apart from the animals (and the plants), because we are capable of asking our question directly to the source of the qualia we need.
Lots of people call the source “God,” but here on earth, let’s call a spade a spade. The source is Ecosystems. But to move on…
…The qualia that ecosystems provide has always been revealed to the senses — but to one who prays, qualia is revealed directly in the mind. It is not distorted by the brain, or the body, or the rest of the outer landscape.
When we pray for it, qualia appears in our inner landscape, in our imagination, and if our minds were not so cluttered with noisy chatter and false ideals, we would notice it right away.
Merely noticing is not enough, for prayer demands that we consciously ritual with the qualia that is revealed to us. We must play with it, experiment with it, and be creative with it.
Only then can we pay it forward and pass it on to others, to transform the landscape outside of us.