The Karmic Savings and Loan Chapter: Why Prayer Is Important Now
by Tina D. Erwin

Many of people have commented that it seems that sending a few prayers is just a drop in the bucket of need for the victims of a tsunami, hurricane or an earthquake. Those of us who study Edgar Cayce noted how frequently he spoke about the value of prayer.

Perhaps understanding how prayer works would help all of us to see the importance of our prayers. When a disaster of great magnitude occurs, there is a wave of grief, horror, fear, anger, bewilderment, and shaken faith that sweeps the whole planet. In the ether, this wave looks like black soot. It adds to the soot that is already there, but it is such a huge volume of new sooty blackness that we can feel the difference. We feel bad, achy, irritable, sad, and prone to tears and have queasy stomachs.

Prayer is the one spiritual tool that works in the ether. Prayer cleans up this sooty blackness, transmuting it into pure light. Prayer that comes from our hearts and is sent to all of those who are grieving, injured, afraid, confused and alone helps to clear them so that they can think more clearly. Prayer cleans the blackness of hurt and replaces it with seeds of hope and energy. Prayer is the energy that people need to get up another day and face a shattered life. That is what we can give to a person we don't know and to a place we haven't been. Prayer opens the way to cleaning up the physical mess the on-scene people feel and see.

Prayer helps us to heal ourselves. As we grieve for others, we are often grieving for things that we have lost as well. When we pray, we open ourselves up to pure light and goodness. We may not realize it, but we fill ourselves up with this light so that we can send it to other people. This serves two purposes: we are healed and we are helping other people to heal.

Karma is always efficient and any natural disaster is a karmic opportunity to rise above our own problems. It allows us to focus on giving to others what we would want the most for ourselves: the energy and the courage to go on another day, to bury our dead friends and family members and to rebuild our shattered lives.

Prayer that is part of our daily practice helps us to heal every single cell in our body because we are filling all of those cells with light so that it can be sent out to others. If we can remember to brush our teeth every day, we can remember to take our physical vitamins and our spiritual vitamin—prayer.

What kinds of prayers are best? Christ was once asked about what was the best prayer and His answer was eloquent in its simplicity: the prayer that springs naturally from your heart, the one that you feel deep within you, the one that is the easiest for you to use to communicate with God.

When you build a spiritual practice of prayer, you know that every day you are of service to others and you can feel whole in your heart because you are continuously connecting to God.

The people who will be receiving your prayers will not know you personally, but they will be grateful to you spiritually. Love and gratitude begin to clean the darkness so that life can continue.

So, each disaster is also an opportunity if we choose to view it as such, to don our spiritual aprons and become spiritual cleaning folk, cleaning the darkness and affording aid and comfort. Think how powerful our service of prayer can be in any situation!

A.R.E. note: You can join our worldwide prayer group at WorldPrayerGroup.org.

TINA D. ERWIN, CDR, USN, Ret. has studied metaphysics all her life to enable her to understand her own psychic abilities. These intense studies were further enhanced by the experiences of a dynamic 20-year career in the Navy, working for the U.S. Submarine Force, retiring at the Commander level. Erwin is the author of the A.R.E. Press book, The Lightworker’s Guide to Healing Grief.

The Interconnectedness of Humankind

The Edgar Cayce readings respond to the Old Testament question “Am I my brother’s keeper?” with a resounding “YES!” From the perspective of the Cayce information we are ultimately responsible for one another. That responsibility has recently prompted countless thousands to reach out to the Haiti disaster in many, many ways. People the world over have been moved by this earthquake tragedy and the hundreds of thousands who have died, the many more who have been injured, and the millions who have been displaced.

Given the Cayce information on service and the importance of reaching out to others whether they are “next door” or “on the other side of the world,” perhaps it isn’t surprising that so many people feel a need to do something in times like these. What may come as a surprise, however, is that the Cayce material links each of us to personal responsibility long before addressing the after-effects of a tragedy.

In 1935, a 29-year-old man asked Cayce about the possibility of cataclysmic earth changes. Rather than responding with an exact date or a possible scenario as to what might happen, the reading instead connected potential disaster with the actions, thoughts, and deeds of humankind. Cayce said, in part: “Tendencies in the hearts and souls of men are such that these [disasters/cataclysms] may be brought about. For … man – by his compliance with divine law – bring[s] order out of chaos … by his disregard … bring[s] chaos and destructive forces into his experience.” (416-7)

On another occasion (reading 5751-1) Cayce made the astonishing observation that the phenomenon of “sunspots” was inextricably connected to instability and turmoil upon the planet earth itself. In fact, the readings state that whenever war, strife, and turmoil occurred in the affairs of humankind, sunspots would occur as a natural consequence. In other words, instability among people leads to instability upon the planet and throughout the universe!

When a 40-year-old woman asked for more information about herself and her relationship to the universe, the response came that for all individuals everything that was out of accord with spirit and divine laws somehow had an impact upon the heavens itself. In the language of the readings: “For, faults and failures, sin and sorrow, are the outgrowth of disobedience to the divine law, and influence the heavens in the experiences of individual souls!” (2408-1)

Is this science fiction? Or is it rather in accord with the laws of physics? After all, isn’t Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”? What if we were collectively just a little bit responsible for the initial “action” behind all kinds of “natural” disasters involving earthquakes, horrendous storms, wildfires, mudslides, and everything else that makes people too often ask, “Why did God let that happen?”

What if we had the capacity to affect the world and the people around us in ways that we often overlook? After all, Cayce suggested that the ultimate goal for each and every one of us was to bring spirit into the earth. What if by not working with spirit we perpetrated a “sin of omission” – overlooking our responsibility – rather than a “sin of commission” – purposefully doing something wrong?

Rather than being overwhelmed by the magnitude of this interconnectivity, the readings suggest that we can become a leavening influence that ultimately impacts the whole. This was described to Thomas Sugrue, Cayce’s biographer, as follows: “Not in mighty deeds of valor, not in the exaltation of thy knowledge or thy power; but in the gentleness of the things of the spirit: Love, kindness, longsuffering, patience …” (849-11)

On another occasion, when a 49-year-old accountant asked how he could be of the greatest service to humankind, Cayce recommended that he simply begin working with the daily practice of prayer and meditation. (270-33) Is this science fiction? Or is it rather in keeping with the universal law of Oneness, and the interconnectedness of all things?

Yes, we absolutely need to reach out to others in need – especially during times of human tragedy – but perhaps ultimately we need to understand that we are responsible for one another in ways that we have not yet dared to imagine.

Article from "A.R.E. Today" - April- June 2010 Issue of member benefit magazine Venture Inward 

KEVIN J. TODESCHI is Executive Director and CEO of Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. He is also the author of countless articles and more than twenty books, including Edgar Cayce on Soul Mates, God in Real Life: Personal Encounters with the Divine, and Edgar Cayce on the Akashic Records.

An Edgar Cayce Reading for Easter

The following reading (5749-13) was given March 12, 1941 at the Cayce’s home on Arctic Crescent in Virginia Beach at the request of the Glad Helpers Prayer Group.

As the conductor, Gertrude Cayce opened the reading, “You will have before you the desire of those present here to secure at this time an Easter message which may be an inspiration and a help to those to whom it is presented. You will consider the intention of those present to pass this discourse on to others, and give that which will be most helpful now.”

Edgar Cayce’s answer is just as appropriate now as it was during that trying time in 1941.

“In man's experience in the earth there comes those periods of doubt and fear, and of the loss of hope. Then to all such there should be the reminding of that Easter Morn; and as to what it has meant and does mean in the hearts and minds of those who have and do put their trust in Jesus, the Christ.

“There should be the reminding that - though He bowed under the burden of the Cross, though His blood was shed, though He entered into the tomb - through that power, that ability, that love as manifested in Himself among His fellow men He broke the bonds of death; proclaiming in that act that THERE IS NO DEATH when the individual, the soul, has and does put its trust in Him.

“ Thus in this hour of despair throughout the world, when those activities are such as to indicate hate, injustice, tyranny, desire to enslave or to impel others to submit to the dictates of this or that power, - let all take heart and know that this, too, as the hour upon Calvary, must pass away; and that as upon the wings of the morning there comes that new hope, that new desire, to the hearts and minds of all who seek to know His face.

“This must begin within thine own heart.”

He reminds them to meditate often and asks all to examine their hearts and minds and to replace fear, hate, jealousy and doubt with the desire to help, hope, and give to those in need. By doing this, with body, mind and spirit they be the Easter message, and create hope in the hearts, minds and lives of others.

Excerpts from Edgar Cayce Reading 254-91 All readings are available in the member-only section.
Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993-2005 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation. All Rights Reserved.