The Healing Power of Prayer: Remembering the Divine Intelligence Within
Prayer is divine remembrance. Life is divinely intelligent and organized to heal itself. Learn how to cooperate with the healing power already within.
Contents
Open Your Heart and Mind to Healing
Life Is Divinely Intelligent and Organized to Heal Itself
Where Shall We Look for Divine Healing?
The Healing Process Occurs Wherever God Is
Divine Intelligence at Work in the Body and in Life
Healing Through Prayer: An Antidote to Worry
Prayer for healing calls us back to the remembrance that life is divinely intelligent and already organized to heal itself.
The healing power of prayer rests in remembrance. Life is divinely intelligent and already organized to heal itself. In times of illness, uncertainty, or difficulty, prayer guides us back to that truth. Through conscious prayer for healing, we cooperate with the healing presence of God already active in body, mind, relationships, and world.
Open Your Heart and Mind to Healing
This second message in our series on Health, Healing, and Awakened Living turns to the power of prayer, because the healing power of prayer is what we most need for healing, for peace, and for renewal.
There is an ancient teaching:
Don’t fight sickness. Bring in health.
Don’t fight darkness. Bring in light.
So we ask: what exactly is it to bring in light? How do we bring in healing through prayer? How do we cooperate with the divine intelligence that is already present?
The first practice I offered in this series was discernment. Begin to be aware that in the omnipresence we call God—and many other names, Brahman—in that omnipresence, nothing is left out of that mystery. The healing power and presence are always there. We just have to remember it, turn to it, cooperate with it.
We are not alone. We are one with the One that is all that is.
"Within every part of our body, within every relationship, within every circumstance, the soul’s intelligence knows how to bring forth healing. It already knows. It’s inherent to life."
—Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian
Life Is Divinely Intelligent and Organized to Heal Itself
Let us begin with this affirmation:
Life is divinely intelligent, and it is organized to heal itself.
I know sometimes it doesn’t seem that way. But life is divinely intelligent, and it is organized to heal itself. The Divine Self—God within all—is the Healer. All healing arises from that reality.
Within every part of our body, within every relationship, within every circumstance, the soul’s intelligence knows how to bring forth healing. It already knows. It is inherent to life.
Life is not static. We are always looking for balance, but balance is not a static thing. We imagine we could just find balance and hold it. But life moves and changes all the time. That is its nature.
And within that movement, we are offered continual opportunities for growth, for awakening, for healing, for returning our awareness to the source of our being.
This is the foundation of spiritual healing. Divine healing is not something we invent. God is the healer. Life itself carries the intelligence of restoration.
Even when we do not understand what is happening, even when we cannot yet see evidence of healing, divine intelligence is at work.
Where Shall We Look for Divine Healing?
Paramahansa Yogananda wrote:
Make the Lord the shepherd of your soul, your Searchlight when you move along a shadowy pathway in life. Seek divine guidance. The world will go on like this in its ups and downs. Where shall we look for a sense of direction? Not to the prejudice roused within us by our habits and the environmental influences of our families, our country, or the world; But to the guiding voice of truth within.
So where shall we look for direction? Not to the prejudice roused within us by our habits or environmental influences—not to the voices of fear or conditioning—but to the guiding voice of truth within.
Where shall we look for healing?
To the guiding voice of truth within.
The intelligence, intelligent power, and presence of divine peace that we touch in meditation—that is the healing power and presence within us always. And the supportive grace that is always around us.
To heal is to return to the awareness of that mystery, of the Divine Self, and to realize our inherent wholeness and call it forth into expression.
Draw from that. Draw your inherent wholeness. Bring it forth as divine light into expression.
The Healing Process Occurs Wherever God Is
Back to the broken arm story I shared in my previous post. After I fell and my arm was broken, I looked at the X-ray and saw misalignment and a large gap. And I wondered: How is this going to heal?
There were skilled helpers, and I am deeply grateful for them. But I also knew this clearly: no matter how skilled anyone is, they cannot make a bone heal. Only the soul, only God accomplishes that.
We assign healing powers to circumstances and people. But there is only one healing power, and that is the divine reality.
Healers are helpers. They support the healing process, which is innate to us.
The healing process occurs wherever God is.
And where is that?
Everywhere.
The divine healing power is at work all the time. Our work is to cooperate with it.
Divine Intelligence at Work in the Body and in Life
Bone healing is a dynamic, multi-step process. Inflammation. Repair. Remodeling. Immune cells remove what no longer serves. Other cells are recruited. Cartilage bridges the gap. Bone strengthens and reshapes itself.
Think about that intelligence and healing power operating 24/7 without your management or conscious participation.
This is not accidental. This is divine intelligence in action.
Bones know how to heal themselves.
Your body knows how to heal itself.
Our relationships know how to heal themselves.
Our nation knows how to heal itself.
Our world knows how to heal itself.
Where is this intelligent healing process happening?
Wherever God is.
Healing through prayer begins by remembering that truth. When we forget, we become anxious. When we remember, we relax into cooperation.
Prayer as Divine Remembrance
Through prayer, we change our mind.
We change our thoughts of brokenness to remembrance of wholeness. We change despair to hope. We stop fighting darkness and bring in the light of spiritual consciousness.
Prayer for healing is not about convincing God to act. It is about recognizing that divine healing is already underway.
This is not a begging prayer.
Paramahansa Yogananda did not favor begging prayers because they often come from a sense of separation. There are more intelligent forms of prayer—where we acknowledge the presence of God and tune into it rather than pleading from a distance.
Prayer as divine remembrance shifts us from fear into alignment. It softens resistance. It opens awareness.
When we pray consciously, we are cooperating with divine intelligence.
The Five-Step Healing Prayer
When I saw my acupuncturist to support my healing, she shared a prayer she had learned from Dr. Sha, a Taoist teacher. It’s a simple and powerful five-step healing prayer that recognizes divine intelligence already engaged in the healing process.
First step:
“Soul of my…”
Name what you are praying for—the pain place where healing is invited. Soul of my arm. Soul of my heart. Soul of my relationship. Soul of my nation.
Second:
“I love you.”
Notice the shift from anger or resistance to love and appreciation. Instead of criticizing or fearing what is happening, we send love.
Third:
“You have the power to heal yourself.”
Or,
“You know how to heal yourself.”
We affirm that divine intelligence is already present.
Fourth:
“Do a good job.”
We affirm and trust.
And then:
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
Grateful for that amazing healing power and presence.
This prayer can be used for anything—physical, emotional, relational, or global healing.
It is simple. It is direct. And it brings us into alignment with the healing power already within.
Healing Through Prayer: An Antidote to Worry
This prayer is an antidote for worry.
Worry repeats fear. Prayer repeats truth.
When your mind goes down dark alleyways—imagining outcomes, rehearsing worst-case scenarios—how do you bring in light?
Through prayer.
Through divine remembrance.
You turn your attention to remembering that what you are praying about knows how to heal itself because divine intelligence is already at work.
Worry tightens the mind. Prayer opens it.
Worry isolates. Prayer reconnects.
Worry forgets the mystery. Prayer remembers it.
Each time you practice healing through prayer, you are training your mind to return to wholeness rather than fragmentation.
You are building trust in divine intelligence. And that trust itself becomes healing.
Cooperating with the Healing Power Already Within
We do not create healing.
We cooperate with it.
Life is divinely intelligent. It is organized to heal itself. God is the healer.
Wherever God is, healing is occurring.
Prayer restores our awareness of that truth.
And when we remember, something softens within us. We are no longer fighting life. We are participating in it.
We begin to see that healing is not absent. It is unfolding.
Even when we do not see immediate results, divine intelligence is active.
Even when circumstances appear unchanged, the healing power of prayer is at work within consciousness.
And as consciousness shifts, life responds.
Healing is happening.
Divine intelligence is active.
The mystery is present. Hour by hour, sustaining everything.
Our work is to remember—and through prayer, to cooperate with the healing power already within.
Listen to a recording of Yogacharya's message below.
Open Your Heart and Mind to Healing
Life is divinely intelligent and is organized to heal itself. The divine Self is the healer; all useful methods arise from that. Within every part of the body and within every relationship, the soul’s intelligence knows how to bring forth healing. Cultivate awe for that amazing intelligence and power by learning to open your heart and mind with healing prayers.
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