Prayer is talking to God, or the gods.

For people who do not believe in God or gods, it’s addressing the Divine, the Beyond.

The Beyond and the Divine are closely related constructs, but not equivalent.

The Beyond is what lies beyond the common-sense world. It includes what is beyond our comprehension or knowledge, or what we can articulate. The Beyond is a horizon, and it is always there as our experience grows and our knowledge expands. Some people are fascinated by what lies beyond, and they explore it in earnest. Some people are scared by it, and choose to stay away. Some people project their fear, their desire, and other psychological or emotional needs on to the beyond. Our access to the beyond, therefore, includes almost all the human endeavors such as science, art, religion, literature, fantasies, and superstition.

Science is what transforms the beyond into common-sense, like the realities regarding the stars or the causes of many kinds of disease were once beyond us. Science has changed our perception of much of those, but the common-sense world can be slow in catching up. For instance, most people, including prominent physicists, are still talking about the sun rising in the east, when science has already rendered this perception erroneous for hundreds of years. Our current understanding is that the sun does not move around us, our planet earth revolves around the sun. Most people see the sun “rising” every morning, but in some parts of the world, like Antarctica and the Artic, you do not see it on a daily basis. Incorporating scientific knowledge into our shared common-sense world is not as straightforward as it seems. In the realm of physical and material reality, where things supposedly cut and dry, we can still find scientists arguing with one another. When the scientific method is applied to human realities, consensus is even more difficult to find. In the realm of medicine, for example, the political economy shapes medical discourse and practice. The value of the most widely prescribed medications such the statins and antidepressants is debatable. The United States, arguably the most advanced country where bio-medical technology is concerned, has very poor population health outcomes compared to other high-income countries. The science of medicine and the social science of health care combine to produce a complex picture. When we move into the realms of economy, human relationships, politics, and the like, hard science almost always leaves something beyond explanation and control.

It is estimated that about 30% of Americans are fundamentalist Christians. Many of them do not accept the evolution theory and insist that children should be taught the Sunday school version of creation – and they usually do not worry about this very story being contradicted in Chapter two of the book of Genesis. This is beyond me.

It is of interest to note that science is closely associated with probabilistic reasoning. Chance and uncertainty are associated with much of our experience. We have machines that have impressive consistency in their performance, and we seem to have increasing capacity for explaining and controlling aspects of life. Yet there remains an immense uncertainty in most people’s lives. The advancement of science has not eliminated the need for religion, and many forms of superstition and demonstrably problematic religious beliefs have remain popular, while some may even argue that they are increasingly popular, at least in some communities.

Many of us are still bewildered by the Beyond.

Some try to deal with it through superstition or fundamentalist faith. Some continue to rely on science. Quite a few combine the two and developed a differentiated strategy that allows them to deal with different domains in life with different approaches to knowledge. There are people who do not rely solely on their intellectual faculties. Some practice meditation, prayers, rituals, and a wide variety of other religious acts. Some go on pilgrimage, and some join a religious order. Some people deal with the beyond through their work in art, writing, or something that they get very involved in.

I have learned to embrace the Beyond, and take it as a precious privilege.

The beyond, however, can be very scary. In my life, I have seen people choosing to stay in the common-sense world, even when they had the chance to taste what lies beyond. There are, of course, many people who regard the beyond with ambivalence. On the one hand, we are amazed and fascinated, and on the other hand we are so frightened that we will lose our grounding, our sense of order, and all those that we are familiar with. There is a lot of back and forth. The path is rarely straightforward.

The divine is closely associated with the beyond. It refers to a state of being that takes us beyond our humanness to a higher plane. It takes what we value in the human world to an amplified or exaggerated state, sometimes even extreme, and most people can recognize it as it emerges. Of course, what is experienced as divine varies from person to person, and from situation to situation. What is common is this existential engagement with something that we recognize as different, refined, elevated, that stands in front of us and inspires fascination, amazement, and awe.

Praying is addressing the divine, the beyond.

Now I am praying, not because I feel confused and helpless. Well, I do feel confused and helpless at times. A lot of people pray when they think they need help, or some form of supernatural intervention, for things are not going well in their lives. This is not a bad reason for praying. I have done that in my own life, especially when I was younger. In recent years, I tend to pray for very different reasons. I am usually moved to prayer when I experience the divine, usually through something that is profoundly beautiful, that fills my soul with joy, faith, and love. Immense positive energy flows in me, and I just need to communicate with an object, or another subject, to make the experience complete. This need to communicate, to move from subjectivity to intersubjectivity is an existential moment, connecting us to the ground of our being.

My recent prayers are more likely praises, thanksgiving, and benediction. I am really thankful for what life has endowed me with.

I also pray when I see the dark side of our lifeworld with my left eye (metaphoric reference for an alternate view). I pray that love, faith, hope, truth, goodness, and beauty would prevail. I pray that I would have the capacity to embrace human frailty, others’ as well as mine, and bring about what would eventually heal us, and make us whole.

So may it be.

Postscript 2 (PS 1 is perhaps a bit too personal for this purpose)

A couple of friends of mine, who are not religious in the conventional sense, have told me about their praying experience. One guy friend of mine has been doing this for thirty years almost on a daily basis. Conversations with them are both humbling and inspiring. I will continue to learn more about the rich variety of spiritual life.

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