How shall we pray? To whom shall we pray? Shall we pray at all?
These are unsettled questions in the minds of many good persons who are
striving to perceive the highest truth and to be guided thereby. The
tests that have been applied to the usefulness of prayer by a large
class of religious people have been, for ages, purely materialistic.
The Lord has been importuned for the bestowal of personal favors, from
the manufacturing of the right kind of weather to the slaying of
enemies, and from the righteous putting down of infidels, to the
spending of dollars with which to build high steeples. Then, too, God
has had the benefit of the very best advice concerning the way He ought
to deal with the heathen, how He should treat sinners of every sort, so
as to show himself equal to managing his fractious subjects, and,
finally, how to carry things along generally after such a fashion as
should win and hold the respect of his earthly advisers.
This utter misunderstanding of the true function of prayer has caused
many earnest souls to sorrow over lost faith in what should have been
to them a source of strength and uplifting. Jesus said: "Ask, and ye
shall receive," and as all his teachings referred to things of the
spirit, he must have meant to indicate to his followers that whatever
was sought for in the line of true spiritual enlightenment would surely
be given. No one prays for houses and lands, for gold and other forms
of material wealth, "for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."
All through the teachings of Jesus run the mention of his and our
Heavenly Parent, "Our Father," and since much of our knowledge of
spiritual things comes through our perception of the law of
correspondences, we naturally feel and believe that we have not only a
Father but also a Mother in heaven. The recognition of the mother
element--the Divine Mother--has always been a most potent factor in the
power of the Roman Catholic Church to retain the unchanging devotion of
its faithful adherents.
The reaction from a bigoted belief in, and a blind reliance upon a
jealous and tyrannical Overseer sitting in state to judge and condemn
to everlasting torment all but a few of earth's children--a
terror-inspiring God--has naturally turned the minds of many from
recognition of any sort of relationship between humanity and a
superior, divine and beneficent Power. The atheist glories in his
disbelief, and calls exultingly upon those whose faith has become the
stepping-stone to knowledge for proofs that he is not right in assuming
to occupy the superior attitude of mind. Suppose for a moment, that
all the world were brought to coincide with him. How would it benefit
the race to prove it to be wholly orphaned--utterly left out of all
consideration for its future care and happiness?
"Like as an earthly father pitieth his children," Jesus affirmed, is
the love of our Father, God, for the human-race. "I and my Father are
one." "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." These are some of the
references made by Jesus to the relationship that he constantly
asserted was established between his own soul and that of his Father,
in the supernal world, and thus he taught his followers to pray:
"Our Father which art in Heaven." This is the first recorded utterance
of the modern shibboleth: "The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of
Man." In this now universally employed invocation, Jesus claimed for
himself no other mention than that in which he instructed all of
earth's children to join.
"Hallowed be thy name." In a sacred name there is power to hold the
wavering thought; so may thy name be hallowed! _i. e._, held sacred.
It is affirmed that every created thing has a real appellation, a name
given to it by its Creator. We pass through this rudimentary state of
existence known as John or Mary, or by some other of the thousand or
more titles in vogue that are indicative of different personalities;
but it was long ago shown to an inspired teacher that, at a given point
of development, each soul should be given its true name, a new one that
should be "written in the forehead." Our Puritan progenitors had a dim
perception of a higher and inner meaning to names. By calling their
children Grace, Mercy, Patience, Charity, etc., they sought to embody
spiritual principles.
"Thy kingdom come." No heavenly kingdom can ever be "let down" to the
earth. The earthly must become developed and interpenetrated by the
spiritual, and thus be lifted up into an harmonious co-relationship
with the Divine.
"Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." There is but one
will; so make it known to us that we may realize out [Transcriber's
note: our?] at-one-ment with the Divine, even as do the "angels in
heaven."
"Give us this day our daily bread." "The earth is the Lord's and the
fulness thereof." (Make us partakers of thy bounty, that our bodies
may have needed nourishment. Illuminate our spiritual understanding
that we may take to ourselves each day such spiritual food as we are
best fitted to appropriate and use.)
"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Up to this
point there is simply suggested the personal relationship between the
petitioner and the Being to whom he prays; but into this phrase quite
another element is introduced--a new factor; forgive us, as we in turn
forgive our enemies. This puts upon one who utters these words the
responsibility of answering his own prayer, or of making the conditions
whereby he shall be forgiven and accepted, that thus may be established
the eternal vibrations that bind the very lowest to the Highest.
"And lead us not into temptation;" _i. e._, graciously protect us from
following the devices of our own ignorance; but if we willfully go our
own way, and are overcome with grief and disappointment because of our
misdoing, "deliver us from [the] evil" consequences thereof, by
inspiring our minds with courage to bear our pains and penalties with
true heroism, and teach us through our experiences wherein lie our
highest growth and wisdom for all our future lives. "For thine is the
kingdom, and the power" to create and destroy, "and the glory." (All
things begin and end in God.) "Forever and ever. Amen."
Jesus had undoubtedly learned the pure ethics of this all-embracing
appeal. Principles are unchanging; but, as the law of evolution
carries each succeeding representation of the underlying facts of
spiritual science ever higher in the ascending series, on the spiral
pathway that leads to the kingdom of God, so in each is embodied a more
advanced phase or externalization of such facts. The revelations
vouchsafed to the world through the teachings of Confucius, Buddha, and
other saviors of men appealed only to the intellect. Jesus was the
first to announce to the heart-hungry that "God so loved the world"
that he sent one of his best beloved sons to bear witness to his own
eternal love, and to show how all may become participators in its
boundlessness.
The potency of prayer corresponds to the power of the thought or to the
exalted aspiration of the soul projecting it. There are some who,
seeking divine aid, are too weak in this respect to realize any special
results, while the prayers of others ascend as on the wings of eagles.
This attitude of the soul is not to be confounded with the "communion
of saints." Communion indicates the existence of a degree of equality
which, in the relation of finite man with his Maker, cannot be.
An occult wave has swept round the world. The seals are being broken,
and the sphinxes are speaking wherever they find ears to hear and minds
to comprehend. The heart of the mystery is this; there is no new thing
to be proclaimed. "Spiritual things are spiritually discerned," and,
with the divine illumination vouchsafed to all, "a wayfaring man,
though a fool," may see and know the deep things of God. But no door
will be opened, no angel or "minister of grace" or "spirit friend" will
descend the ladder of light that leads to the realms supernal, no
inspiration of God will ever come to any soul on earth without
prayer--in response to either conscious supplication or unconscious
aspiration toward the Giver of every good and perfect gift. The
ultimate function and use of prayer is simply to establish our
relationship with the divine and ever-lasting forces that rule and
guide our lives. These are ever operating to help us to live above the
purely personal relationships that limit our growth and advancement
along the lines of spiritual unfoldment, and to open to our souls
vistas of perfectness on the higher planes of wisdom and understanding
of the mysteries of immortal life.