Welcome to a new series of podcasts based upon the teachings of Russell A. Smith, a man who discovered an objective and accelerated way to awaken higher consciousness, the seats of conscience, pure reason and impartiality. Russell’s work expands upon the Fourth Way teachings of George I. Gurdjieff, and deciphers much of what Gurdjieff left behind. 

In this series, we play extracts of recordings of Russell teaching his classes. This episode is where Russell discusses the idea of right prayer, and talks in detail about the exercise, Objective Prayer.

We begin with a question asking what a right prayer is.

Most men they don't have much use in their intellectual center. Their intellect is down in their moving center, they live in their bottom story, in most of what we call the intellect for normal man, sleeping man his stuff in his in his moving center. So, he who has some control of his movements certainly is in a better shape than a guy that doesn't. But it doesn't mean that that's where right prayer is. Right prayer is the concept that with the mind is focused and on real ideas, ideas that will lead to effectuate a change in him, because real prayer is probably about us, it's not about “Oh I want a bicycle, I need a bicycle, God give me a bicycle.” Now, you know, I can't call that right prayer, but make me more tolerant, make me more forgiving, I need to be not as critical to other people, I need to forgive other people. Then I’m trying to effectuate a change in my myself, and so, I would call that right prayer

You know it's probably just common to say the higher a man is, the more he has right prayer.

That's the way I see it, we got this idea from the Bible that says of what prayer is, and you know on those kind of models asking you to receive seeking you shall find knocking the doors should be open to you so you want to ask don't mumble be clear actually try and do something that this idea of prayer I wish, a want,  a goal, an aim can can change there's so much in life that people pray for that they have no influence of over that that that will never happen in the in the world except maybe by acting in it.

But the only thing so we can pray for is in relation to ourselves and making us have an ability to not do the thing that we did before and then we're getting into the change of a man, and of course the more centers he has and the higher he has and the consciousness he has, and reason and impartiality the more he'll see what's not real prayer and what is something that might cause him to be better. We talked a few weeks ago about developing more of an essence and a personality and so then that became right prayer I want to be more tolerant and listen better and okay now we're making a right wish towards a name that can actually affect you with a change in us and so those are all things that would be considered right prayer

Russell then gives a talk on the exercise called “Objective Prayer.”

Okay, as we have added an exercise a week to our class schedule, today's exercise,  I thought we'd go over Objective Prayer, which was formulated in 1982. Wow, that's like 37 years ago. Holy moly. It's called Objective Prayer.  

We all have magnetic center moments during our life. Saw a pretty sunset, got promoted, married, had a child. A great many of those moments take place in our life. So, what we want to do with Objective Prayer is we want to find them. We want to find a moment that almost brings us to tears every time we recall it. And you know, it's funny, if we have that kind of a moment that enlivens us so much, why don't we live in it often? I guess we just don't. We forget about these things. But if we do this exercise, we're starting to gather them together. When did we get the diploma? You found the puppy. You had that particular walk on the beach. You start to write down those moments that enlivened you, that were special, that lifted you up, that were great and grand. And we gather them together in what I call a list of our objective moments. Our magnetic center moments are gathered up and put on a list. And therefore, by being gathered up and put on a list, they have more force because they're all put together.

And our inner world is kind of like a jungle. It's a chaos. It's a jungle. There's darkness and trees. But we know there's a clearing. We've heard about this clearing in the jungle, this place that we seek to get to. And once in a while, we stumble into it and find our way there, unfortunately, not legitimately, because we tied the bungee cord around our ankles and jumped off the bridge and hit the clearing. But then we're taken out and can't find our way back in. But no, it's there.

So, these magnetic center moments that we have are like little clearings. So, if we can imagine in our jungle, we have all these little clearings of these magnetic center moments. And by connecting them and writing them down and putting them all together, it's as if we're creating pathways between them. And you create enough pathways between all these magnetic center moments, you're probably going to find your way into the clearing.

So, we want to gather them together and make a list. Now, when you get your list of all your magnetic center moments, you realize that they all have a different effect on you. This one's really awesome. This one's nice. Oh, that one's cool. And so, you kind of dwindle your list down. You might have 30 things on it at first. And then you look and say, well, that was special, and that gave me a warm feeling, but this one over here, that's what I’m going to keep. And so out of the 30, you start to dwindle it down until you get all ten or so. Ten moments that if you recall any one of those ten moments, it kind of takes your breath away, it kind of tears your eye, kind of lifts you up as, wow, when I relive that moment, it changes me.

And then, since it's called an Objective Prayer, and not just a prayer, the recounting of these special moments, but an Objective Prayer, I want to find the moments that I can recant that do the greatest for my inner machine. So, then you get them down to maybe one word or two words to recall that objective moment, and then you play around with the order. You think of this one, this one, that one, that one, and that one. And you go, okay, that created something in me. All right, let's change the order. Let's try that one, this one, this one, that one, and that one. And you go, wow, that this one, that one, and that one, those three need to say together, because wow, they just really enliven me when I thought of those in that order.

And so, you start to find ones that really kind of crescendo off of previous ones. If you thought of this one first, and then that one, and then entertain the one over here, you are zinged into the heavens in yourself, where you didn't have that effect if you did them in a different order. So, you play around with the order to find something that's objective for you, and then you, like I said, get them down to where they can be defined by one word, you know, beach, or marriage, or the name of a child, or Cagney, one a mine, or He-Man, kind of enlivening moments. And then I've just got like a little memory work of my ten little things that are all, you know, formulated down to a simple word or two, and I can recount them and carry them with me anywhere I go. I don't have to be in a church on my knees. I don't have to be on the beach looking at the sunset. I can wup this list of these ten objective moments in my life, organized in a certain way, and I can start to recount them. And when I do, I go to my highest place. They enliven me more than anything.

So, we can use those to eliminate any frustration or difficulty. Always raise our state. That can be great for the present momentum where we raise our state to a high spot and then stop and let the momentum of that high spot linger as we continue our day. And when the state has dropped a little bit, we bring the Objective Prayer back up, raise our state again. So, you know, where am I at on a scale from one to ten? I can use my Objective Prayer to change my numbers. There's so many ways to do that. Then I can recount when I’m doing the Lying Still for an Hour exercise.

So, we all need an Objective Prayer because these are the moments that have the greatest meaning in our life and change us when we think of them. And now we've got them down to a list, and in an objective order that has a greater effect than any other order we've tried. And then, of course, as we go through life, maybe we find Cosmic Secrets or get a teacher or learn something new. And we might add a new moment. And as being a greater moment, than something on our list, so the list can change as we encounter, encounter. Wow, I had a higher feedback. That was incredible. I want to write that down. This should be on my list.

And so, we have a way, the weapons to overcome any adversities that we run across in our lives. So that's Objective Prayer. 

A question was then asked if we should aim for twenty items on the original list.

Oh, 10 is just an example. You might have seven or eight or nine or eleven. But you don't want twenty. That's too many. Get it down to that nice little handful in the tennish area, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 or so. It's probably all you need. 

A question was asked, that considering we generally have a lot of existing conditioning about what prayer is, what is prayer in terms of the Work?

That’s a great question actually. Now, in our work we don't really have a prayer. You know prayers are normally “Help me God, do something for me, make this go well.” And that's not what an Objective Prayer was. The only reason it’s called a prayer is because I’m looking for a way that influences me better than another way. So, what is the Objective Prayer? I have lived for a few years, and in the course of those few years, if I look back through my life, I’m not gonna remember it all. I can't tell you at the age three, on the first day, I did this, and recount the whole journey. I guess there’s some people have a memory that could tell you everything to happen, but I can't. All I know is during that course of that life I had moments where I woke up. I woke up that one time in high school, that one time in junior high school when I remember, you know, seeing the girl that I first married at the bar, and I looked at her and I really was struck by her, by her beauty.

And so I have these moments. We call them self-remembering moments because they're the moments we remember. For me it was the He-Man cartoon that my kids watched, and watching it when I'd be in the room, and I'd see the key man guy, this little meeky-mildy dude, evil Skeletor would come around, and the little meeky-mildy dude would pull his sword off his back and hold it up in the air and go “I have the power!” And there's something about that happening, the sound, the guy that said it, I would shiver. I mean it touched me, it was really amazing. And then I have Jimmy Cagney and Lassie and Babe and other things, that really make an impact on me. I can remember them. I can relive those moments. If I think about Jimmy Cagney dancing down the stairs, I can see it in my mind, I can relive the moment, I have a feeling that's evoked exactly the same as the feeling when I watched the movie, and he walked out on the street down the Pennsylvania Avenue, and the troops were marching down the street, and they were singing Over There. A song he just got the Congressional Medal of Honor for, wow, and he's walking along with this pride in his eyes, and some soldier looks over at him and says, “What's the matter old timer? Don't you remember the words to this one?” And my inner world just, my inner world just goes into this amazing thought of “Oh my God, he wrote the song!” And I’m touched you know, tears come to my eyes. All right, I remember those moments.

So, I go down and I try and make a list of all the ones I can remember that really punched me. That if I think about them now, if I think of the He-Man sound, if I think of Jim Cagney, I think of these other things, and seeing my wife, and what my son. Oh my God, you know, when my son was a little teeny guy before he was born, I thought what could I ever do to give a child. He's gonna get so much other confusing information. How am I gonna ever get anything in him? You know, with so many other kids and teachers and stuff, and commercials and TV, oh my God. And I thought and thought and thought, and I decided well maybe I could give him a good memory. If I told him he had a good memory, perfect memory, then maybe that would stick, and he'd start to believe it and he'd have good memory, because a man is what he thinks after all. And if I could give him that then school would go well and life would go well and job would go well, and I gave him a little leg up.

So, I started talking to him in the womb saying, “You have a perfect memory, you have a perfect memory.” When he was born, I said, “You have a perfect memory, you have a perfect memory.” Every time he was there I just kept repeating, “You have a perfect memory.” And when he first started to talk he wanted to know, the first thing he said was “What's a perfect memory?” And I said “What's your name?” He said, “Scott.” I said, “See, that's a perfect memory. You remember your name.”

And it was until he was maybe four, that we took him into the eye doctor, and he had to go through the first eye exam, and of course as his parents, we sat out in front of the room, you know, waiting for it to be over. And the door was open, so we could hear what was going on, but after it was done and he walked out and we acted like, you know, “Oh my God, what happened? What did you do? What was it like?” And he said, “It was cool. I had to put this card over my eye and go, “E, Z, B, D, P and O,” and oh my God, the doctor, eye guy, is standing in the doorway looking at this, and his mouth drops open and he goes “We'll never know if his left eye is any good because he has it memorized with his right eye.” I remember that moment. That's so clear, and how I felt. And then of course he did well in school, and he just was a genius, and ripped apart computers, put them back together, and now he's a vice president of some big company, running all their networking. Doing real well, a very good guy.

Anyway you know 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16 years ago, his son was born. And here in Denton, not too far from where we live, so me and the wife went down to the birth. We got there and they brought the child into the delivery room place, where you look through it, through the glass, and you see all the kids. Okay, okay, and they finally let us go back in because the mother had been brought back to the room. So, we went back there with the with the mother and my son, couple of their friends, you know, “Oh wonderful, congrats, congrats.” And then they brought the kid in for the first time, gave it to his mother, wrapped in swaddling, and she held it, everybody went “Oooh, ahh, that's so cool,” And then they said to my son, “You want to hold him?” And he said, “Sure I want to hold him,” and they give this baby to my son, and he grabs him in his arms and he pulls him up really close to him and he says, “You have a perfect memory.” Now, I can't I can't recall that moment without crying, and my whole body is affected.

So, those are my objective moments of my life. Those are the moments that if I think about them, I relive the same emotion. I relive the moment; the same smells and sounds are there vivid in me, and they enliven me. The rest of my life, I have no idea what that went on. But those moments are myself remembering moments and I say, “Cool, that's pretty good that I can have a moment that affects me so much.” You know, that really changes my machine. So, I thought it would be good to make a list of them. And I made a list, and I cut the list down to the really important ones, and now I cut it down to the really, really, really powerful ones. And I maybe had 8, 9, 10,11, 12 of these moments of my life that really influenced me. And then I said okay, now let me write them down on a piece of paper, so I know, and let me remember them; this one and that one, then this one and that one, and see what happens. And, oh boy, they all had their effect, and I said, cool. And then I thought, all right, let me change them around, let's think of that one and this one, then this one and that one, and then we'll change them around. And I started to play with the order in which I was recalling them. And I found a certain order that was objective to me, doing the He-Man guy, and then the Cagney one, and then my son, and then the doctor, and then seeing the wife, in that order, I just kept crescendoing and crescendoing and crescendoing, higher and higher, until I was looking down at God. And it was like, wow! So, these are all great moments, and if I think about any one of them they will change the state of myself, put me in a higher place. But if I think about them in this particular order, wow, I’m through the roof.

And so that became the Objective Prayer. The list of the moments that were sacred in my life, that I recounted them, had the greatest effect on the change of my being. So, it wasn't a fair like “Oh please God, help me, I might want to win a car.” You know, “Make me a good man.” You know wasn't it wasn't asking for anything outside or praying to something outside myself. It was just reliving all the sacred moments of my own existence, and remembering them in a certain way, which then became objective to me. That is gave me more force than remembering them in another order, and thus that became the Objective Prayer.

An experience was then described, where a student was walking in Hawaii, performing their Objective Prayer, and they felt as if their body was like the Mars rover, with something looking out of its eyes, independent of themselves, but with more capacity of self and presence. They then asked how to stay in touch with that feeling, and if it was an experience of higher centers.

That's a good question. I would lean to the idea of self-remembering. You know, we all look back in our life and what do we remember of it? Only the moments we were awake. We know we were in high school, but there's only a handful of moments we can really remember from high school. Now, here I am in Hawaii. What was I doing five minutes earlier? Do I remember? I was on the beach. I know that. What was I doing five minutes after? Do I remember that? No, I guess I got what I was going for in the car. I went back down to the beach. But at that one moment there I was, and as Ouspensky says, “You have this feeling of how strange I am here.” I am suddenly present in the moment, seeing the world with different I’s, than the I’s that were manifested by individual centers, that change at every moment, because of the competing kids in the classroom, all barking directions about what they want to look at next. But all of a sudden, there's this moment of great clarity, and that's the moment I remember. And that's why we organize these Objective Prayers to find those sacred moments when we woke up in life, and had them have some meaning to us and remember them.

But, that should be our normal state. That's the state we should live in. We should live as a unified machine. We should wake up every morning and say, “Everybody on board, everybody here?” And I should be looking out of those I’s the moment I get up in the morning, looking with all of me, not just one part of me. And I should be intentionally creating that on a day-to-day basis. That's the mark of waking up. It's not just a nice encounter on the beach that I remember. It's every moment since then, because I’m looking with the whole of me and not just part of me. So, just try and bring more of you.

Sometimes I do the “I Am” with people and I say, “Okay, say I Am. I on the inhale, Am on the exhale. And go ahead, do your I Am. I on the inhale, Am on the exhale.” And then as soon as you do that, tell yourself that ain't it yet. That's just an attempt. That wasn't all of me. Okay, so do it again. Make this next one better. I on the inhale, Am on the exhale. Try and make the second one better than the first. Okay, there you go. All right, that's not it yet, but that's better. I was trying to be more there. Let's do it a third time. Make the third one better. And I keep that up, always trying to make the next one better than the ones that came before. And maybe it takes 15 or 20 of them. But all of a sudden when I do one of those I am, there's so much of me there that boing! I am here doing this. Oh my God, I've recreated the presence in myself.

You know, sometimes I do have to turn around and look at my inner world and yell, “Who’s in charge in here? Come on guys!” We're trying to be present with these two words, I and Am. But I get it. Maybe 15, 20 breaths of doing that, and there's that moment of I Am. And when I get there, then I divide myself. I say, okay, let's do the I Am with just my instinctive center. I want all the instinctive guys to say I Am. I want all the hairs to stand up and my sight and my hearing and my smell. Everybody in the instinctive center, this next breath, I on the inhale and Am on the exhale. We want the instinctive center to be resonant. And I do that to get my instinctive center saying, “Oh, look at me. Okay, cool.” The instinctive center can be present. And when I get that, then I say, okay, now let's just do the moving center. Well, since I’m not moving, I freeze like a statue. And I stop my entire body. And in that frozen posture, it's like the moving center says, “Okay, we're here. We have total control over this machine and we can sit like a piece of stone granite sculpture.” Here we are, I Am. And we do it with my moving center. And when I get that, then I go on to my emotional center, and I think of what it means to know that I exist. I’m the only damn species on the whole planet that knows that I’m here. I’m the only one that can say the name of God, I Am. And I feel how important that is. Be that one species that can know I exist, and the great charge on me to actually be present, because God can't be here. He needs me to be here. And I feel my I Am. And then I get that going, and then I say, “Okay, now, now we've done it with each of you. Let's do with all three of you together.” Let's have the instinctive guy and the moving guy freeze the body. And the emotional guy feel the importance of it, and all say I Am together. And when I do that, man, I have this sense of being present in the moment. All parts of me are doing my I Am. We're all in sync and we're all present.

And then I say, “Fantastic. Wow. Now let's build it and finish with a great big crescendo.” Let's just hold the I, I, just the I, the idea of I, all that I know, all that I've understood. All that I've acquired. All that I've been given. All my personality. And I let the I build. I just keep saying “I.” Me, I kind of sit there in over several minutes just taking a little sip of air, and every little sip of air makes the I get fuller and bigger as I hold that idea, and tell it gets so big and so full that I know it's time to say Am. And I breathe out and I say, “Am.” And it just wooshes the energies, wishes from my head brain down through my body. And I say, “Good on you guys.” Great little exercise. Let me start my day that way every day.”

An observation was then made that the Objective Prayer can take someone from a 10 out of 10 state to an 11, and that it’s a description of one’s life from a personal first line of Work point of view, but that it could be applied to second and third lines of Work, for others and for the Work itself.

Oh, that could be very useful. Anything that you do intentionally with the aim of raising your state is a good thing. Anything you do mechanically without knowing you're doing is probably a good thing. It might have good results, but it's always better if you do something with intention. So, kudos on that and I hope you find a good Objective Prayer for second line and third line works as well.

But remember, the Objective Prayer are in my original formulation, our sacred moments in life where they changed us if we recall them. Remember the moment our physiology changes, and why not organize them so that I can pull them out of my back pocket whenever my physiology is not what I want it to be and change my state. You know, raise myself to a higher place, have the sword and the staff available to confront whatever it is out there and stop that from entering. First of all, if I’m able to occupy the place with an Objective Prayer memorization then other things can't occupy the place. It's hard, like in that video on the vocal majority, the guy said “It's hard to be a jerk and sing,” because it's hard to have thoughts that are opposite of what you're thinking. You know, you say Mary had a little lamb over and over, real loud in your inner world, and you can't have thoughts about being mad at your boss. It's only when you stop saying Mary had little lamb that those other thoughts can get in. So, to have Objective Prayer or memory work is a great way to keep the place occupied that, you know, the other dis-settling thoughts don't have a chance to take root and then start their chain of associations, which lead to another one and another one, and then you're down in the dumps. So always do anything intentional. I applaud your efforts. Keep those up.

Finally, an experience of performing the Objective Prayer in a chronological order was described, where the student became aware of their whole life, their time, body and their whole existence, all in the present moment.

Oh, that's wonderful. A great lesson for all of us. We have the right to change ourself with a thought. What an amazing moment to realize that I can change myself with a thought. And if I have these moments in my life that not only conjure up a thought, but contain an emotion, a feeling, something that enlightens me. If a thought will change me, then something that has the emotional content. And so, I want to get my list of things that are important to me, my best moments, and arrange those 10, 11, 12 things, and do an Objective Prayer. So that at any moment, I can wup out my memory work, I can have each one of those moments coated with one word to remember that moment, then I just really only have to remember 12 words to remember the 12 moments, and recount them in that order and relive my life, relive the sacred moments.

And then after I find them all, I arrange them in an order, which seems to have a greater impact. At least that's the way it seems for me. This one followed by that one, followed by that one, could be cool. But this one followed by that one and then that one, that was awesome. So, I keep certain ones in order and they kind of build on each other, and it's just like one big crescendo of these incredible moments of my life that's really bringing me out of any other difficulties that may be present, because after five minutes of going through my Objective Prayer, even God and the Devil are of no account.

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That concludes today’s podcast. Thank you for listening.

If you would like to learn more about Russell’s work on how to become objectively conscious, simply visit our website thedogteachings.com and acquire Russell Smith’s book, The Blueprint of Consciousness - An Accelerated Path to Awakening, which is also available as a PDF download.

There, you will also be able to listen to other talks, access transcripts of these podcasts, diagrams, animations, supporting videos, and much more.

But most importantly, you may fulfill your true potential, which is your right, and it no longer takes a lifetime to achieve.

And as a reminder, we have two ZOOM classes every Sunday to assist you; one is for purchasers of Mr. Smith’s book, and the other is for those who have additionally obtained the Master Exercises and the Double or Nothing Exercises. See under Resources/Zoom Classes for more details.

At the thedogteachings.com. 

That’s T H E D O G  T E A C H I N G S  Dot Com.

Goodbye, until next time.