Ep.107 The Only Prayer That Actually Works

7 Aug 2026 · 30 min · 11 chapters

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In short

The episode argues that people act to maximize pleasure and minimize pain through constant “calculations,” and that Kabbalah teaches how to rise above pain by connecting the soul to the “light of the creator” (tree of life/99% realm). It claims prayer is a “technology” that expands the vessel to receive light—not a way to bribe God to remove problems. It emphasizes unconditional joy, “aim nothingness” (being like the endless parchment), and that the evil inclination/opponent delays miracles until sadness is transformed.

Guest backgrounds

No guests are mentioned; the host, David Ghiyam, speaks throughout.

Key claims

darkness disappears when connected to light; time doesn’t heal—micro-actions do; rock bottom is the most powerful state; suicidal thoughts reflect being in a miraculous “nothingness” state; don’t ask to lose everything.

Notable examples

doomscrolling/toxic relationships as pain-pleasure calculations; an anecdote about an 18-year-old seminar leading to 50+ signups; a parent praying for a severely ill child; Job’s losses leading to unconditional happiness; a meditation about cells dying/reborn.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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Understanding Pain and Pleasure

0:46 to 2:36

Exploration of why we experience pain and the calculations behind our choices.

“This is why a person decides to go in a relationship.”

Kabbalah's Role in Fulfillment

2:37 to 4:00

Discussion on how Kabbalah helps us to achieve greater fulfillment in life.

“Do you remember or do you know what your great-grandfather did?”

Connecting to the Light

4:01 to 6:05

Explains how connecting with the light can alleviate darkness and pain in life.

“It comes with the mission and objective to receive so much fulfillment, so much divine fulfillment, divine energy.”

The Power of Prayer

6:06 to 8:00

Describes prayer as a technology for enhancing our ability to receive divine energy.

“Maybe you'll meet somebody else right away.”

Prayer as Spiritual Technology

8:01 to 11:20

Explains the misconceptions about prayer and its true purpose in personal transformation.

“One thing I do talk about in Your Infinite Soul, which is the introductory masterclass on the wisdom of Kabbalah.”

The Importance of Connection

11:21 to 13:18

Highlights the significance of connecting with the light of the creator over personal experience.

“And I remember walking into that room and I was 18 years old and I saw everybody in the room was at least two to three times my age with life experience.”

The Essence of Connection to the Creator

14:00 to 14:40

Discover how the connection to the light of the creator transcends age and experience.

“and that was the moment i realized it has nothing to do with your age has nothing to do with your experience, has nothing to do with how much you've learned.”

Humility and Ego in Spirituality

14:40 to 18:36

Explore the misconceptions of humility and ego in spiritual practice.

“Age means nothing when you want to bring any of the great pleasures or fulfillment into this world.”

The Power of Nothingness

18:36 to 23:04

Learn about the transformative power of reaching a state of 'nothingness'.

“When you really think that you've lost it all, have joy.”

Embracing Joy Through Struggles

23:04 to 28:00

Understand how to find joy in challenges and transform sadness into miracles.

“Can't tell you how many times in my life the moment I started to think I'm a somebody I lost, I lost, I lost everything.”
Show all 11 chapters

Embracing the Light of the Creator

28:00 to 29:44

Learn how trusting in the creator's light can transform your mindset and release burdens.

“Let's all trust the light a little bit more this week.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:06David Ghiyam:Welcome, everyone, to the David Ghiyam podcast, where we talk about the energy of the week from both a spiritual and practical point of view. So here's a question for all of us for this week's energy. Why do we go through pain? And how can we rise above pain? Sages explained that every soul in this world operates with two missions every day. How to acquire more pleasure and how to avoid pain. This is why we do everything. This is why we go to work in the morning, why we even get up in the morning. This is why a person goes to the gym. This is why a person decides to eat healthy or not eat healthy.

0:46David Ghiyam:This is why a person decides to go in a relationship. Even when a person is doing actions that they know on some level isn't good for them. Someone is doom scrolling before they go to bed at night. Someone is eating foods that they know are unhealthy for them. Someone is talking to a man or a woman that they know is toxic for them. Even though when we do things that we know aren't so good for us, there's still a part of us that believes it is good, that's why we do it. If you think about it, you could be very, very angry with someone, but so angry that you want to kill them. But you're not going to kill them because in your mind, you know that the pain will outweigh the pleasure.

1:38The pain will be you're going to go to

1:41David Ghiyam:jail for the rest of your life. The pleasure will be what? That your ego gets vengeance for a moment. And so we have a calculation there that the pain outweighs the pleasure. So you're not going to do it. The reason you go to work every morning is you have a calculation that the pleasure outweighs the pain. Yes, there's some pain. It may be a job you don't like. It may be a job you do like. And there's a lot that you have to work through. There's clients. There's customers. There's HR. There's culture issues. I mean, there's so many things, right? Painful things, challenging things. But you've made a calculation that the pleasure of getting the paycheck and having financial freedom, or one day you're going to sell your company, whatever it is, outweighs the pain.

2:24David Ghiyam:You've made that calculation. So everything in our lives comes with this calculation of pain and pleasure. Now, where does Kabbalah fit in all this? The wisdom that the sages gave us, what purpose does it serve? actually the purpose that it serves is to rise above all the pain and how do you create the vessel for the maximum amount of fulfillment and pleasure because the truth is the life that all of us are living or were living at least before we found this wisdom the amount of joy and pleasure we were receiving which is often only like five percent of our day when you really think about it obviously everyone is different we will we will work so hard to obtain something just for five minutes about you think about you do a person will work so hard to become the president of a country or to uh achieve certain goals and then everybody gives them an award they want an actor that makes a movie and then they get an oscar and everybody's clapping for them and like they're they're the most desired actor and everybody's talking about them and they made all this money and then two years later, nobody even remembers them.

3:38David Ghiyam:They don't make another movie. Do you remember or do you know what your great-grandfather did? No, you don't even remember. Most people don't even know who their grandfather or great-grandfather is. Whatever they've done, whatever they achieved, has disappeared.

3:59David Ghiyam:So when our soul comes to this world, It comes with the mission and objective to receive so much fulfillment, so much divine fulfillment, divine energy. and that is a combination of both the physical pleasures of life, going to nice places, eating great food, wearing the clothing that you love, being with friends that you love, having good friends, having at least one amazing friend in your life, having love in your life, feeling love, feeling intimacy, feeling passion, which a lot of people don't feel, feeling abundance, not having to worry about money, not having to worry about what things cost.

4:45David Ghiyam:Most people in the world worry. Even very wealthy people worry. So when you really analyze it, 95 % of a person's day often is about worry, regret, the past, the future. And even if they have things, they can't really enjoy it. So here comes Kabbalah and says, there's a realm you can connect to. Some call it the tree of life. Some call it the realm of the light of the creator. Some call it God. Sages also call it the 99 % realm. These are all the same names for the same thing. It's a realm that your soul can connect to. And when it does, the darkness in your physical life goes away. The darkness goes away.

5:28David Ghiyam:How it goes away, we don't know. And we don't really care. When someone comes to me and says, I'm going through a big problem. Can you tell me what to do? I don't know what they need to do to get rid of the problem. That darkness is there for a reason. I can help give them spiritual advice and guidance as to how to connect their soul to the light, the light of the creator, this endless force of creation, to connect to the universal GPS. I know from personal experience and what I've read and what the history of our sages say for the last 5 ,000 years, when you connect your soul to the light, then whatever darkness you're going through disappears so if it's cancer if it's some form of death if you're going through a breakup and you can't get over the person you're going through a breakup and you're experiencing this lack this void and you're wondering when will you ever find someone else you're getting older when will you ever be as happy when you connect with the light the light will remove all those questions for you.

6:39David Ghiyam:I don't know how. Maybe you'll meet somebody else right away. Maybe you'll just have an epiphany that you want to be single and you want to just work on yourself and you get really excited about that. Why do people say that time heals everything? It's not that time heals everything. It's that over time, you do enough micro actions that connect you to the light of the creator so the darkness goes away. Whether that darkness goes away because you found someone else that you fell in love with or the darkness goes away because you just learned to love yourself and be single. And you can't even imagine that person who was crying and worrying and in so much pain about the person they lost.

7:14David Ghiyam:So the creator has this way of solving each one of our problems. And the creator, this light, this energy desires to come into our soul and into our lives unequivocally, without limit. It is only us, we, that we are not letting the full extent of the light in. And how do you let the light in? Which is part of the energy of this week, one way.

7:43David Ghiyam:I've talked about this before. And obviously, there's many different concepts that I always tell people to, if you're just listening to my podcast, I invite you, I ask you to learn deeper if you feel called to do so. Take a masterclass. Come on a journey. All of these things are pay what feels right. But learn, learn more. Learn more about your soul. Learn more about creation. I can't fit all of this into a podcast. I'm just giving you highlights. One thing I do talk about in Your Infinite Soul, which is the introductory masterclass on the wisdom of Kabbalah. We talk about prayer. Prayer is the most powerful technology that exists.

8:25David Ghiyam:It's so powerful that religion started to corrupt it. It's so powerful that the negative side wants you to believe that prayer is something religious, something that is really about asking God or some force up there that's almighty and powerful to remove your problems for you because you're uncomfortable right now. Prayer is none of those things. Prayer is a technology that expands your vessel to receive the light of the creator. Prayer is the technology that gives you the strength to align yourself with the vibration of the light so the light can come in. Creator wants to come in, but when we're angry, when we're reactive, when we're afraid, when we're dwelling on the future, dwelling on the past, that light, that energy has no room to get in.

9:08David Ghiyam:There's no affinity or form. You have to be in the miracle zone, the miracle vibration to see miracles. So when you pray from a place of, hey, give me my soulmate. When you pray for, hey, heal me or heal my friend or heal my mom. Or when you pray because you're worried about your kids, what are you doing? You're just asking for God to remove the problem because it's bothering you? That doesn't make any sense. How can just asking God to remove the problem remove the problem? There's a reason why the problem exists. The problem exists to expand who you are. So use prayer not to bribe God to remove your problem.

9:48David Ghiyam:Use prayer to ask for the strength to change yourself. pray for the strength to have certainty that you're going to find your soul man pray for the strength to have certainty that your child's going to be okay talking to someone recently whose child is very sick it's very it's very heartbreaking to watch and as a parent you know even when your child gets a cold breaks a bone or has a difficult day at school how much it can bother you as a parent. So imagine a child who is in so much physical pain that they don't even want to live. I was talking with her about this. And I said, truly, I didn't know what the answer is.

10:35David Ghiyam:I never actually know what the answer is. Whenever I do personal coaching with someone, I don't go into my bank of examples or books that I've read or my own life and say, well, based on what I've learned in my life, you should do this. Because that's just so limited, right? What I've gone through, what other people have gone through, even if I've read hundreds of books or whatever, how many years I've been doing this, that will always be limited compared to the universal GPS. I really pray when I speak to someone and I ask the creator, I say, please, what words need to come out of my mouth? I don't even want my knowledge or my ego to be involved here.

11:20David Ghiyam:sidebar for a moment i remember when i first came my first seminar i was 18 years old my very first it was an introduction to kabbalah for something like 25 30 people i remember the room these are people who i think at the time this was this was 24 years ago they had received either a flyer or got something in the mail or friend told them to come for a one-hour introductory course on Kabbalah. And I remember walking into that room and I was 18 years old and I saw everybody in the room was at least two to three times my age with life experience. And they're coming to this room to learn about spirituality, to learn about manifestation of miracles, sustenance and love.

12:02David Ghiyam:And here I am, 18 years old with no life experience, never created a business, no relationship, nothing. Why would they listen to me? And I remember walking out of that room before I even started. I walked in, then I walked out. And my mentor at the time, he was waiting outside and he said, why'd you come out? And I think part of him knew that I was really scared or I didn't believe that I could do this. And I said, you know, I'm 18 years old. Yes, I've been studying Kabbalah for three years. I understand a lot of the content, but I don't have any life experience. I don't know why they would listen to me.

12:39and he said, when you get older

12:42David Ghiyam:and you've mastered this content and you have a lot of life experience, that's when I'm really going to be worried because then you're going to talk from your life experience. Then you're going to talk from your wisdom that you've learned, all of which is extremely limited. The fact that you are so scared because you truly believe you have nothing to offer these people, now have certainty that the light of the creator will speak through you. And you're connecting the people with the endless information, the endless bank of information, when the AI were like the singularity, the quantum. Because as you get older and more mature and wealthier and more successful, more wise, you are going to think you're giving more value, but you're actually cutting them off from their direct connection with the light of the created so now go in there egoless and beg god to be a channel through you and i said well how do you do that he's like just ask walk in and just start talking to the crowd and what's amazing is i forgot what it was but over like 50 of the class that day signed up for the course which was like an astonishing conversion rate and that was the moment i realized it has nothing to do with your age has nothing to do with your experience, has nothing to do with how much you've learned.

14:10David Ghiyam:It only has to do with your connection to the light of the creator. There are stories in the Zohar about sages who used to study and learn from five or six-year-olds. I know some of the people who inspire me most in my life, some of them are in their teenage years or in their early 20s or late 20s. Some of my mentors are half my age. And I've learned, and I'm sure you've learned this, age means nothing. Age means nothing when you're looking for your soulmate. Age means nothing when you're looking to manifest wealth. Age means nothing when you want to bring any of the great pleasures or fulfillment into this world.

14:45David Ghiyam:You must have certainty. You must have certainty, not just in yourself, but have certainty in yourself being a vessel for the light of the creator. And that is something we need to say all the time. That is the prayer. We ask the creator to remove us, our experience, our ego, what we think, the good and the bad. You think you're great, remove it. You think you're horrible, remove it. It's not about you in any way. What's a bigger ego, thinking you're great or thinking you're horrible? Actually, thinking you're horrible is a bigger ego. At least when you think you're great, you're going to help people after you think you're great.

15:21David Ghiyam:When you think you're horrible, then you're just going to be depressed and do nothing about it. So it's actually more selfish to think you're nobody. Some people think humility is, I think I'm a nobody. I don't receive compliments. I push everything away. No, no, no. I don't want to be in the spotlight. That's not humility. That's also a different type of ego. It's reverse ego. I'm so spiritual that I tell everybody I don't need anything. I'm so spiritual that I don't want to be in the spotlight. I hide myself. No, you just found a way to be in your comfort zone, most likely. true humility is to enter the what's called ain nothingness because when you're nothing then you're everything in the bible and there's a the scroll though call it the torah five books of moses bible old testament all the same thing if you actually look at a scroll there's two parts of the scroll.

16:17David Ghiyam:There's a white parchment. It's often made of some kind of hide or animal skin. It's very specific spiritual rules and laws of how to make a scroll. And then there's the letters that are written on the scroll with ink, this very special pen written in a very special way by a very special person who does very special meditations and has a very special consciousness and there's all these different spiritual rules around it. So there's the parchment and there's the black letters, the ink. What's more powerful? When someone is reading the Bible, the Torah, and they're reading these letters, he's reading these holy names and these holy stories, what's more powerful, the words or the parchment?

17:10David Ghiyam:so the sages actually say the parchment is more powerful than the letters people are so focused on the letters it's the parchment that's powerful why is the parchment more powerful? because the parchment is endless it's the light of the creator the parchment represents the light of the creator the letters represent the vessel that holds that light so actually the parchment's more elevated than the letters because the moment you write a letter you reduce or you limit what the parchment can be you've restricted it now The moment you think you're somebody or you think you're nobody, you've just limited your vessel.

17:44David Ghiyam:You've now limited your income. You've now limited the love that can come and drive. You've now limited the wisdom. This is why the greatest miracles come into our lives after the greatest pain, after you feel broken. And so broken, you feel like nothing. You feel like, oh my God, there's nothing you can do. There's nothing you can say. Everyone's judging you. Nobody likes you. Everything you touch just gets destroyed, falls apart. Nothing's working for you. There are no green lights anymore. This is the greatest moment of your life. Because now you actually feel like nothing. Now you're the white parchment.

18:15David Ghiyam:Now you're endless. Now God's like, oh, I can give him everything now. The creator just has to wait for one thing. When you hit rock bottom, when you feel like, oh, who am I? I can't, I can't. There's nothing I can do right. When you really think that you've lost it all, have joy. Joy plus bottom equals miracles. Because it says that the creator cannot coexist in a place where a person is sad. So if you're at the bottom, just know that the bottom is the most powerful place to be. That's why the negative side is making you sad about it. The negative side is making you sad and have more worries and more doubt.

19:06David Ghiyam:Often that's when people have suicidal thoughts. I always say people who have suicidal thoughts are actually, they don't realize that they're actually in the most miraculous state right now. They're in the aim, the nothingness, the parchment. They're in such a powerful place that the negative side is trying to convince them to take their life because the negative side does not want you to create miracles. The angel of death, the samech mem, the satan, these are all names for the same force, evil inclination. This angel, this force was created as our opponent. It's actually a good angel disguised as a bad one just to oppose us, to help us earn the light, to remove what we call in your infinite soul, the bread of shame, the feeling of receiving something without earning it.

19:47David Ghiyam:So we have to always have an opponent that's on our level. So when the opponent sees this great miracle that's coming for you, this great light that's coming for you, when the opponent sees you're literally five minutes away from meeting your soulmate, opponent's gonna make you so sad, so depressed, so ruminating in your thoughts of doubt and insecurity because the opponent knows the creator has to delay the meeting of the soulmate as long as you're sad. You're not allowed to meet your soulmate when you're sad. You're not allowed to receive great wealth when you're sad. You're not allowed to receive miracles when you're sad.

20:23David Ghiyam:So all of it, even if you've earned it, even if it's meant for you, even if it's coming for you, it stays in suspended animation in this like delay in the upper world. It waits until you can transform the sadness into unconditional happiness and joy. Not, oh, I'm sad until something good happens and I'm happy. No, forget about this. It's reactive. It's how most people live. I'm sad, I'm sad, I'm sad until something good happens, until someone tells me something I like to hear. Is this the kind of life you want to live? You're happy when people tell you good things and you're sad when people don't.

20:52David Ghiyam:You're up and you're down. You're up and you're down. The stock market goes up. You have a little bit more money. You're happy. The stock market goes down. You're sad. You have good news in your business. You're happy. You have bad news. you're sad. Your wife said something nice to you, gave you respect, so you're happy. The next day, she doesn't look at you right. She criticized you for something. You're sad. Is this the kind of life you want to live? Reactive? You can't be with the light. You can't be in the miracle world. Unconditional joy and happiness when things are great and when you're at the bottom.

21:20David Ghiyam:Oh, and when you hit the bottom. So good. It's so exciting. The sages would, one sage, He's Rav Ashlag. Rav Yehuda Ashlag, born, lived 100 years ago. So the greatest moment of his life was when he saw nothing was working for him and he had no clue how he would get out of it. I'm not saying that we should ask to be there. I'm saying once you're there, this part's very important. Listen to it again. Don't ask to lose everything. This is also denying creation. It's like spitting in the face of God. You don't ask to lose everything. But when you are losing everything, or when it looks like you're losing everything, or even when you think you're losing one thing, pause.

22:07David Ghiyam:What a pleasure. What a gift. It's okay. It's exactly what the creator wants. I'm in it. Seems like I'm losing everything. It's all a test. It's like Job. He lost everything. God tested Job on the Bible. The negative side said, Job's only happy and spiritual because you gave him everything. Take it all away and see how he acts. He lost his wife, he lost his kids, he lost his money, he lost his health, and then he was still happy. Unconditional happy. He said, my happiness doesn't depend on having my soulmate. My happiness doesn't even depend on having my children. My happiness doesn't depend if I'm wealthy or not.

22:44David Ghiyam:I am ain, nothing. And because you're nothing, the creator will choose you to be a vessel, a chariot to hold everything. So what do you want to be? You want to be a somebody? creator will make you a nobody. If you're willing to be a nobody with happiness creator will make you a somebody. Remember this. Can't tell you how many times in my life the moment I started to think I'm a somebody I lost, I lost, I lost everything.

23:17David Ghiyam:And when I think I'm a nobody I also don't see miracles. It's not about me this way or that way. I get a compliment or I get an insult, nothing should change. A compliment and an insult should be equal to you. That's the goal. I'm not saying any of us are there yet. I'm not even saying I'm there yet. I am not there yet. But you got to know what the goal is. The goal has to be this equilibrium of aim, nothingness, parchment, endless, endless possibilities, endless life. And so once you go through pain, it's just trying to get you there. Accept it, love it, then it's not painful anymore. it's serving its purpose when you go through pleasure same thing i remember being on a family vacation recently and i was at an event and i was having so much fun and in the midst of the fun i walked outside and i just said to the creator as much fun as i'm having i want to also hold on to the equilibrium the aim i'm gonna go and receive this fun i want to receive this happiness this joy that I'm having at this event, but I don't want to be the effect of it.

24:23David Ghiyam:I just want to be a vessel for it. Please help me. Please guide me to make sure I hold this energy in the right way because we lose ourselves when we start having great things happen. We start to develop weird egos and we think we're better than, or we think we know something. We think we know better than everybody else. It's like you're on a new weight loss, a new peptide, a new diet, and it's working for you. So you think you're smarter than everybody. You're telling everybody about the peptide and you're telling everybody about the diet and you're telling everybody about the chiropractor you have.

24:48David Ghiyam:It's like, you know, like who knows? Maybe the chiropractor that saved your life is going to screw up someone else's back. You don't know. You just can't, you can't ever know. At the same time, you have certainty that the creator can come through you. Let's do a meditation to help ground this energy into our wake. Let's start by taking in a deep breath. there. And upon exhaling, just visualize your entire body dematerializing. You know, at this very moment, there are trillions of cells that are actually dying in our body right now and being reborn.

25:35Our stomach lining every seven days, cells die and they're reborn. In our skin, it's every few months. Our organs, our taste buds, different cells all throughout our body are constantly dying and being reborn.

26:02we want to get to a place where we want everything yet need nothing the creator wants me to let go i let go like the cells they have a job to do they let go when they are told to let go and when the cells let go they're reborn brand new imagine one of the cells holds on and says no i don't want to let go I don't want to rejuvenate or reincarnate or be reborn I'm going to hold on to doing it my way I call this a cancer cell don't be a cancer cell don't be a cancer cell in society flow with society flow with people you can be your own person be unique be an individual but

27:03be a builder not a destroyer be constructive not destructive desire to be with the light of the creator don't just desire to take things from people because you think you deserve it when you're with the light when you're with the creator creator will take from other people and hand to you all in the right way in the right time and make sure that everybody wins

Read the full transcript

27:41how great is this place to not be afraid of receiving not receiving losing not losing and so tiresome. Into this place of certainty with the light, if the creator the light will take care of you. Whether you're up or down, the light will take care of you. Trust the light of the creator.

28:09Trust the light. Let's all trust the light a little bit more this week. So much the creator wants to give us. if we could only see how we're just holding on to such a small vessel we think it's such a big vessel but it's so small compared to the light that is waiting to come into each one of our lives let go of the hurt or of your blaming just let that go let it go thank the person that hurt you bless them see that they were just an angel sent from god the person that you're worried about just let it go, don't worry, let them live their life you think you're going to protect them, let the creator protect them don't helicopter parent don't be the helicopter friend don't be the helicopter boss don't be worried about your business if you're trying to save your business, then you're pushing the creator out let the creator come in

29:16of the control melt away. If you can let go now, you won't have to lose anything. Because you've already let it go. Now you can have it forever.

29:44Thank you.

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Prayer is the most powerful technology that exists in this world, and it has almost nothing to do with what you were taught. In this episode I share the one prayer that actually works, the story of the seminar I gave when I was 18 years old that changed my entire understanding of what a teacher is, why rock bottom is the most miraculous place your soul can ever be in, and why the moment you feel closest to giving up is the moment your soulmate is 5 minutes away.

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