The Effective Prayer is easy to learn and gets powerful results. It teaches you how to have to a real experience of the Light within you. This is a story about my experiences with it and how I applied it to my life. If you like this meditation, you may also enjoy reading The Seven Steps of Effective Prayer, a talk given by Jim Gore, the originator of the prayer, on how to do it.
In the summer of 1980, my family and I drove to Florida to visit our friends, Satya and David. As soon as we arrive, they drove my husband and I, along with two other friends, Donna and Bob, to a retreat at Jim Gore’s Light Center in North Carolina.
Jim had been an atomic physicist, working for the government. Whatever he witnessed there gave him visions of the end of the world. He fervently prayed for God to show him what he could do to change this. He prayed, “Lord, I’m just one man, but there must be something I can do.”
God’s answer came in the form of an Effective Prayer, one of the most powerful meditations I have ever learned. Jim was told to make it freely available to people all over the world. This he has done, quitting his job to share this prayer full time. His story is a book in itself, so I will share only my experience using the prayer.
Effective Prayer includes seven parts of prayer. Most meditations and prayers use various forms of one or several of these parts. This is the only one I have found that includes all seven. (See Effective Prayer at end of this article.)
Jim explains this Effective Prayer as a series of steps to experiencing an effective prayer or meditation. He encouraged usnot to use it as memorized ritual, but to use the lines of the prayer as reminders of the essential ideas to be included in each personal prayer, making it whole and complete, and therefore, effective. The six of us learned how to use it creatively, expressing our own personal thoughts within each step.
The prayer helped us focus on seeing what is real, the light within us and within everything. We demonstrated our willingness to see and feel light by imagining what it would look and feel like if we could experience it. Our imagination is a very powerful tool of divine healing. Imagination creates the space for a real experience with real effects. We soon began to experience the reality and power of the light within us.
In this prayer, we don’t ask for things to change and be different than they are. We don’t ask for anything except to see the light and truth in everything, just as it is, allowing the light in us to join with the light in everyone and everything else. This empowers the truth to be made manifest in our life.
I am very practical, so I pray while I’m in activity, too. The first step in the Effective Prayer points out the importance of releasing ideas in our minds. I became aware that negative, fearful, and judgmental thoughts were passing through my mind on a fairly regular basis. While many of these thoughts appeared to be innocent, most of them were about the past or the future, thereby limiting my awareness of what was happening in the present moment. So, I practiced releasing my past or negative thoughts to the light as soon as I recognized them. It felt good, knowing I didn’t have to wait until I had time to meditate to clear my mind.
I was very vigilant in seeking and finding negative thoughts. In fact, I was so relentless that I got results I hadn’t expected. Instead of decreasing, the number of negative thoughts in my mind increased exponentially every hour. Instead of feeling lighter, I was feeling progressively worse. I was overwhelmed with negative thoughts. I began to think I wasn’t a very nice person. After all, my mind wasn’t a pretty sight. There was a lot of junk in there. Not only was I having negative thoughts, but I was also judging myself harshly for having them. I was buying the ego’s two-for-one special.
Then, I realized how I was hurting myself by using only the first step of the prayer by taking it out of context. In an effective prayer, releasing limitations and negativity is followed by remembering the truth of what we are. The second step is remembering what we are, “I am a light being. It is my nature to love.” I discovered it is essential to do the second step right after the first step. When I did only the first step, I was giving energy to the very things I was trying to get rid of. I wasn’t replacing my illusions with truth. By focusing only on illusions, I was taking on the identity of an unworthy illusion maker and sinking deeper and deeper into my own illusions.
After I realized this, I continued my vigilance of seeking and releasing limiting thoughts. However now, I became equally vigilant in seeking and remembering the truth, the light and love that I am. This change led to a huge shift in my awareness, bringing me tremendous peace. It also helped me learn how to choose peace more quickly and easily whenever I became disturbed by anything.
Part II: “The Light at Sea”
The six of us drove back to Florida feeling inspired by our new tool for enlightenment. Bob and Donna invited the four of us and our children to spend the next day on their sailboat, where we could practice using the Effective Prayer together. They had a huge sailboat that slept eight or ten people. Going to sea in a sailboat was the fulfillment of a dream for me. And it was free, which did a lot for my abundance consciousness.
The sailboat was tied up at a marina, just off Pensacola Bay. We used the sailboat’s motor to steer us through the narrow passageway that led from the marina to the bay. Once we got to the bay, we would unfurl the sails and sail twenty miles through the bay and then enter the Gulf of Mexico.
However, there was no wind in the bay that day, so we ended up using the motor through the entire length of the bay. Bob, the captain of our sailboat, guaranteed us there would be plenty of wind in the gulf.
Just as we were about to enter the Gulf of Mexico, the motor died. Bob sheepishly announced, “The sailboat is out of gas!”
He couldn’t just radio someone to bring us gas. Since the tank had run dry, the motor would have to be drained before gasoline could be added. We were at the mercy of the elements. The sails were our only remaining source of power, and not a breeze was stirring. We sat in the sailboat for hours, helpless to do anything but wait.
About mid-afternoon, Donna suggested we do the Effective Prayer together. Since we hadn’t memorized it yet, she said she would read it to us.
I remembered Jim had told us to be creative with the prayer and use it to see the light in everything, so I suggested, “When you get to the part in the prayer where we are suppose to radiate light to everything, would you please specifically mention the wind, the water, the boat, and the dock?” Donna thought that was a good idea.
It was a very quiet and peaceful meditation. In the appropriate place, Donna mentioned the wind, the water, the boat, and the dock. As soon as she did, we heard loud splashing just off the side of the sailboat. We thought a whole school of dolphins must be swimming beside us. We opened our eyes to see what was happening. What we saw was even more incredible than we had imagined.
The water all around the sailboat was boiling with fish, all kinds of fish. Fish were jumping into the air and landing on top of each other. There were so many of them, I wondered if I could walk on top of them. Bob exclaimed, “In thirty years of sailing, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Then we noticed that the winds were blowing in our sails. It had all happened in an instant of joining.
The scene reminded me of the Bible story about Jesus fishing from a sailboat. His disciples were having a bad day fishing. Jesus merely said, “Cast your nets on the other side.” When they tried to pull up their nets, the nets were so heavily loaded with fish they could barely lift them. Jesus also said, “Anything I have done, you can do, and even greater things than these you shall do.”
We were doing what Jesus had done by making the fish appear. However, we hadn’t done it by trying to make anything happen. We hadn’t asked God to make the winds blow in our sails or fish to appear. We hadn’t concentrated on what we wanted. We had simply experienced the light within us “as real” and felt our oneness with the wind and the water, because the light was in them too.
I was learning that when we experience our oneness with anything, our wills are joined, creating harmony in all that we do together. It is natural for all of God’s creations to express love to each other, each in its own way. We had come into harmony with the wind and the water, and we were dancing together in love.
It was dark when we finally reached the marina area. Bob reminded us that he needed the motor to be able to steer the sailboat through the long narrow channel leading to the dock. He decided to beach the sailboat in the sand near the entrance to the channel rather than risk getting stuck in the channel or running into other sailboats inside the marina.
Just as he was about the beach the sailboat, the winds suddenly shifted, taking us right into the channel. Bob was shocked and scared. He was not in control of his own sailboat, and he was helpless to turn back. I reminded him, “The dock and the boat were in the meditation.” He became calm once more as he remembered his deep faith in God.
The winds guided us through the channel without any problems. As we approached the dock, Bob shouted to us, “Throw out the lines as we pass by the dock. If they don’t catch, grab something and hold on tight, because we’re going to crash into that big ship on the other side of the dock.”
We came in for a perfect landing. We didn’t so much as bump the dock.
As we were getting off of the sailboat, Bob apologized for running out of gas. “Please, don’t apologize,” I protested. “If you hadn’t run out of gas, I never could have learned what I learned today. This has been one of the most powerful experiences of my life. Thank you, Bob, for a perfect day and a powerful lesson.”
This was the first time I had experienced the effect of what I then thought of as “thoughts at a distance.” I wasn’t big on praying for others, because I didn’t see how my prayers in one place could possibly effect someone far away. While I understood the power of prayer to bring inner peace and a healthy body, I didn’t even imagine prayer influenced anything or anyone outside of me.
The most powerful prayers are those of oneness. We hadn’t asked for anything. We didn’t ask for anything be other than what is was. This was not attempt to manipulate nature. We merely extended our light, peace and love to the wind, the water, the boat and the dock, and in so doing, we came into harmony with each other and our mutual needs were met. It is an abundant universe and this is an effortless prayer of seeing the truth instead of illusions of separation.
I hadn’t yet come to realize that nothing is outside of me. Separation is the illusion. Bodies are separated in time and space, but our mind is One in the love and light that dwells within everything and everyone. My thoughts affect what appears to be outside of me in time and space, because everything is actually happening within my mind. By experiencing the truth of our Oneness, we are healed together in light and love.
Part III: “Lighting Up the Body”
The next day, I was scheduled to speak for an A.R.E. group. I was so excited about my new discovery that I decided to tell them about our sailboat trip and then guide them in using the Effective Prayer.
We were just about to start the prayer, when one of the members arrived late. She made a grand entrance wearing a steal brace. She hadn’t been out of bed since she was in a car accident ten weeks before. She exclaimed, “I don’t know what’s going on here today, but I knew I just had to be here.”
I explained what we were doing and told her to feel the light radiating all though her body, especially in the areas of greatest pain. Then we closed our eyes and began.
After the meditation, the woman in the steel brace was radiant. She stood up and exclaimed that she was pain free for the first time in ten weeks. What a beautiful miracle.
Later that day, I met with a professional astrologer. She wanted to meet with me because I had a teacher’s degree in astrology and she was struggling with a problem in astrology.
Her husband needed open-heart surgery, a risky operation under the best of circumstances. He was to be operated on in one week. Being in the military, he had no choice of dates. She was terrified, because she could see that he had death aspects on the day assigned for surgery. “What should I do? I want your advise as professional astrologer.”
After looking at his aspects and agreeing they were deadly, I said, “Since you have no choice in the date, it occurs to me that astrology isn’t very useful. It’s only making you fearful. Why don’t we put astrology aside and find something useful instead. We always have a choice. After all, your husband’s future is in God’s Hands, not yours or the stars.” With a deep sigh, she let go of control.
She listened gratefully as I shared the Effective Prayer. She gave it to her husband to use daily before the operation, and she used it faithfully throughout the whole experience.
The operation was a total success. In fact, he recovered far more quickly than was expected and was home from the hospital two weeks early. There was nothing outside of him that had the power to hurt him, because he chose love instead of fear.
Art used the prayer to bring peace between his mother and sister. They hadn’t spoke to each other in over two years. After only two weeks of seeing them in the light together, they were reunited.
I used the prayer to help a man whose lung had collapsed. We were at the Kung Fu studio when it happened. Since this had happened to Larry many times before, he was prepared for the worst. His lungs were so bad that he was on disability and unable to work.
I asked Larry if he wanted to bring the light and heal them, because he had already successfully used the Effective Prayerin other areas of his life. Larry refused help. “This is different,” he said. So, I put him in my car and drove him to the hospital. On the way there, we cleared up some of his reasons for staying sick. His defenses against healing began to drop away.
I stayed with him in the emergency examining room. When the doctor examined him, he agreed that Larry’s condition was critical. The doctor ordered x-rays and left the room.
I asked Larry once more if he was ready to heal his body. He agreed this time with an open heart. We prayed together, flooding his body with light and love. His breathing became deeper and freer. By the time the x-ray technician arrived, Larry was feeling great. To the doctor’s surprise, the x-rays came out clear. Larry’s lungs have been doing great since then, and he is working full time.
There is no order of difficulty in miracles. We are always free to choose a peaceful and loving solution for every problem that confronts us. There is nothing outside of us that has the power to harm us in anyway, and there is no situation the love and light of Our True Self can’t heal.
© 1984-2014 Kalie Marino
Effective Prayer
1. I release all of my past, future, grievances, fears, human relationships, self-image and limitations, desire for love, sex and money, judgments and communications to the Light.
2. I am a Light Being. [It is my nature to love.]
3. I radiate the Light from my Light Center throughout my Being.
4. I radiate the Light from my Light Center to everyone.
5. I radiate the Light from my Light Center to everything.
6. I am in a bubble of Light and only Light can come to me and only Light can be here.
7. Thank you God for everything, for everyone, and for me.
Amen
Use your imagination to see and feel the light’s radiance, even if you do not experience this spontaneously. Imagination can create the space for a real experience. Use these steps twice a day, allowing at least two minutes per step, and you will get results within two weeks.
This prayer comes from
United Research, P.O. Box 1146
Black Mountain, North Carolina 28711
