Prayer: I am literally the environment
I've been playing with atheistic prayer for about a month now, and I really like it. I'm seeking a spiritual connection - chills that come over me and a profound sense of connectedness and humbleness.
My prayer last night started with considerations of 'the environment', inspired by Never Enough (by Judith Grisel), a book about addiction that mentions the influence of our environment.
So I'm sitting at my Library, thinking about "my environment", and it hits me that I am literally the environment. (I would think and pray on this later.)
To me, the people sitting at the computers, the man with a cool hat, the bookshelves, and so much more makes up "the environment".
But for that man in the hat, I am his environment.
My body is also my environment. I am influenced by my body - feelings of joy or anger or sadness do affect my behavior. Compulsions erode my will more than anything.
I am not simply "part of" the environment, but I am literally the environment. There is no separation between "the environment" and my self (or at least my body & mind).
I wonder if "I" refers to my body & mind or if there's some intangible consciousness or observer that is the true "me". A "me" that observes my body, my thoughts, my feelings, my experiences.
Except they're not exactly "my" experiences, because I am the environment.
If I am joyful, the environment is more joyful. If my mom is present, she's influenced by this, as is the environment influenced by her (she is also literally the environment).
There's this deep connection between all of us that I can sense and feel and appreciate when I take this time to think and to pray.
After finding that spiritual connection, I move in to a more typical prayer-format.
Before last night, I would say "To the powers within me and the powers beyond me, I pray." I would humble myself, then ask for help with something for myself, something for a loved one, and something for the world.
But the "powers within me" are literally the powers beyond me. I'm not sure there's a true distinction there.
These categories are useful - clearly it's helpful to refer to myself as Reed + the body & mind, the fingerprints & birthdates, the DNA. I need this material sense of self to engage with others and participate in community and society.
But spiritually, this distinct material self is not so distinct.
Consider the blue sky. It's not literally blue. Your brain & your retinas & chemicals inside your body interpret light "wavelengths between 400 and 500 nanometers" (per wikipedia) as blue. You experience blue.
Someone with certain colorblindness won't see blue the way you do. Or think of the blue dress / gold dress meme.
So much of our world, insofar as we perceive it, is a construct of our minds, an interpretation of what actual reality is.
And it's in this view that I find the sense of material self can fade away.
With this view, I can help myself see that we are all one & deeply interconnected, and that separation is a mere figment of our imaginations, the way blue light is.
The world is a living organism, and we are all the world. As your body is a living organism, and all your cells are literally your body. Separate at a microscopic level, yet all one as they come together to form a body.
As we have many different cells within us, including bacteria, the world is comprised of people and bugs and trees and concrete and so many other "cells".
Let us see the connections between us, and between the other creatures and objects of our world, for we all together, are literally the world.