The Creative Power of Sound

Creative Power Seven Principles 1. Create Changes 2. Spoken Prayer 3. Decrees Power 4. I Am That I Am 5. Repetition 6. Visualization 7. Breathing How to decree

5. Repeating Decrees Increases Their Benefit

Decrees, fiats and mantras are all meant to be repeated. In the East, people repeat their mantras over and over, even thousands of times a day. But in the West we are not accustomed to the idea of repeating a prayer.

People often ask, "Why should I have to ask God for something more than once?" The answer is that repeating a prayer is not simply making a request over and over. Each time you repeat a prayer, you strengthen the power of the request by qualifing it with more and more of God's light-energy. You also begin to enter into a state of oneness with God.

The benefits of repetitive prayer have been demonstrated by both mystics and scientists. The mystics of the Eastern Orthodox Church have a tradition of repeating the simple prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me' thousands of times a day. Over the centuries, monks who have done this have reported extraordinary mystical experi- ences and a feeling of oneness with God.

Medieval monks claimed that after several weeks of repeating the prayer for many hours a day, they entered an altered state. They said they could see a powerful light around them, which they compared to the light the disciples saw on Jesus' face and garments when he was transfigured. One mystic described the condition as a "most pleasant heat," a "joyful boiling." He claimed to exist in a state beyond pleasure and pain, experiencing a "lightness and freshness, pleasantness of living, insensibility to sickness and sorrows." This is a state in which the flesh is "kindled by the Spirit, so that the whole man becomes spiritual."

Many mystics East and West who repeat prayers or chant mantras have reported similar experiences, as have people who decree. But for centuries, skeptics pooh-poohed repetitive prayer as a superstition without measurable benefit-until a doctor at Harvard Medical School documented beneficial physical effects from repetitive prayer, including the very prayer the monks had been using for centuries.

Saying your prayers over and over may be good for your health

In the early 1970's, Dr. Herbert Benson, president and founder of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Harvard Medical School, documented a phenomenon he dubbed "the relaxation response," which he says is the opposite of the body's fight-or-flight mechanism.

Benson experimented using Sanskrit mantras. He told his subjects to sit quietly and repeat the prayer either mentally or verbally for ten to twenty minutes, to breathe regularly and to push intruding thoughts aside as they entered their minds.

Benson found that those who repeated the Sanskrit mantras, for as little as ten minutes a day, experienced physiological changes-reduced heart race, lower stress levels and slower metabolism. Repeating the mantras also lowered the blood pressure of those who had high blood pressure and generally decreased the subjects' oxygen consumption (indicating that the body was in a restful state). Subsequent studies documented in Benson's Timeless Healing found that repeating mantras can benefit the immune system, relieve insomnia, reduce doctor visits and even increase high-school sophomores' self-esteem.

Benson and his colleagues also tested other prayers, including "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, and found that they had the same effect. Even words like one, ocean, love and peace produced the response. It appears that Benson and his colleagues had uncovered a universal principle: repetitive prayer allows human beings to enter a relaxed state.

Repeating prayers has spiritual benefits too

Benson documented the physical effects of repeating prayers, but what about the spiritual benefits? Hindus and Buddhists tell us that repetition allows the mind to focus on God. This makes it easier to become one with your Higher Self Eastern Orthodox monks found joy, happiness and oneness with God through repetitive prayen Jewish mystics described a similar feeling after repeating the names of God. They called it a transforming moment in which they entered the highest state of consciousness possible for human beings. This goal-entering a higher state of consciousness, a state of oneness with God-is why people repeat their decrees, chants, mantras and prayers.

Many who have decreed have felt this oneness with God. Ann, who has decreed for fifteen years, says that repeating her decrees makes her feel one with God: "You get to a point where you feel that your I AM Presence is decreeing through you, that you're the vessel and that the I AM Presence is doing the work. You are connected to God; but lt's not your power, it's God's. You're in sync with God. It's a high that's different from any artificial high that you could get."

You'll find decrees in the back of the booklet, The Creative Power of Sound, that will allow you not only to find the state known as the relaxation response but also to probe the heights of your higher reality.

Repeating your decrees allows you to "stock up" on spiritual energy

Another benefit of repeating your decrees is that you build a momentum of positive energy that you can use in moments of great need. You can think of it as stocking a reservoir. When you build this momentum or reservoir, it's there in an emergency, such as a car accident or a dangerous situation. You can then draw upon it by giving a powerful fiat.

Davies, a retired electronics engineer, began decreeing when he belonged to the "I AM" Religious Activity in the 1930's. He used this principle while returning from a spiritual conference in Los Angeles, where he had given many hours of decrees. He was sixteen years old and was riding in a car with his mother, brother and two friends. His mother started pulling the car over onto the shoulder of the road, but the shoulder was soft and couldn't support the car. She lost control and the car flew into the air.

Immediately, Davies said the name of Jesus, which he had learned to give as a powerful fiat to invoke protection: "Jesus Christ!" While some people might have said those words with a different meaning, he used them as a passkey to access his reservoir of light. The next thing he knew, the car had come to a halt upright. No one was seriously injured, although the car was totaled.

Davies believes that the response to his fiat was so powerful and immediate because he tapped into the reservoir of light he had stocked during the conference. At age seventy-three, he still decrees.