Sidewalks and Skeletons

Why do people pray?

Commonly, we are used to thinking that people pray to be in contact with a superior metaphysical entity which is external to us. Although we know that prayers go outward, answers come from within. How is that possible?i

It might be because when we pray, we're not actually communicating with an external entity, but we're getting in touch with our inner emptiness, that unknown abyss that scares us, where believers feel the enlightening presence of God.

Thus, to me, God is nothing else that the external projection of our emptiness, cause the unknown meaning of the existence, and the lack of higher purpose of our earthly life.

Because of this, religion is a common trait for all the civilizations that set foot on Earth, maybe in different forms, but all the paths lead to the same destination, which is the unconscious, that drive us through our behaviors and choices, but we don't even realise that, because we're not coscious of the unconscious (Ça va sans dire), we can only rationalising afterwards by giving meanings to our actions.

Therefore, people pray in order to be in contact with whose inwardness, and meet "God" which is merely our soul, made of love, the basic drive of life, as Saint Augustin would say.

So, what is a pray? Very simple, it's a ritual.

Every civilization has developed its own rituals, because their function has always been the same: they're a medium to the unknown within ourselves; the repetition of certain actions allows our conscious mind to "fall asleep" and let the unconscious come to light... and what a coincidence! Rituals are always set up around the unknown, like funerals, when people face the dark void. So it is before falling asleep, believers pray, and arguably it is also the first thing they do as they open their eyes in the morning, because rituals allow us to detach from the cognitive rational part of the mind and also get back to an awakened one.

While we sleep, our thoughts come from the unconscious, which is trying to tell us something we rationally don't know. I don't wonder why Sigmund Freud, who discovered the unconscious, also wrote a book about the interpretation of dreams.

Consciousness is the medium through which we face the world, and the material dimension, to which belong our ego and our body, while unconsciousness doesn't have bonds to the real world, because it doesn't work in a rational way. It's made of energy, vibrations; we're matter and energy at the same time. We just can't see both of them at the same time, like electrons, but when you open your third eye, you'll understand many things about yourself.

Arguably, Giacomo Leopardi was talking about that in his poetry "The Infinite," when he was looking beyond the hedge, and he was drowning in the infinite.

Sidewalks and Skeletons gave us a different path for enlightenment.

His music will bring you on a rapid descent into the void, and you'll feel the sound punch your soul, but at the bottom of the darkness, you will be captured by a white light, which is blinding at first (Plato was telling us two thousand years ago that the enlightenment out of the cave would have been like this), but then, you will be closer to God than ever before.

So, in conclusion, I really suggest listening to his album "White Light," and if you liked it, also his entire discography. He really deserves it, but...brace yourselves!