“Let us unite in prayer.” How familiar these words are on every religious occasion and, upon hearing them, the congregation automatically bows its head, bends its knees, and words come from the pulpit in earnest tones which may be superficially heard by some and hardly heard at all by others, while the very few who hear in their hearts are deeply stirred by the ardor of the supplication to God for forgiveness, or mercy, or blessings upon the congregation and various other human interests.
Prayer is just meaningless words if not felt in the heart; just as music is no more than sound if it does not reach the Soul. Prayer to God is a realization that the Soul of man is ONE with the Universal Soul. It is not an appeal by man to God. It is a communion between the divine man to the divine God of man. As such, it is the mightiest of man’s powers, but when prayer is but WORDS, not coming from the Soul, it is no more effectual than the hundreds of prayers written and distributed throughout the streets in Asia or prayers written into a disc and whirled to repeat themselves by turning the prayer wheel swiftly.
Worded and formal prayers, issued periodically like morning and evening prayers, prayers of thanks at mealtimes, and prayers on arising and retiring, become habits which people obey automatically. There may be great earnestness in them or there may be none. The habit of praying periodically, and with a sense of duty, tends to automatic prayer rather than devotional. A silent prayer at mealtime brings more realization of God than wordy prayers half listened to.
Those who thus pray might just as well not pray, for prayer is a union of Soul of man to Soul of God, and words alone cannot make that union.
Automatic, formal and habitual praying from the lips alone, whether in one’s chamber or in groups, is of no avail. Prayer based upon desire and uttered within the Soul of man wordlessly, or by silent thought, will always command the whole universe to fulfill the desire, but words alone are not prayer any more than paint is the art in a picture.
When you pray to God asking for all the things you want, enumerating them carefully–even to timing their arrival as your desire possessions–yea, even informing God as to what His method should be in giving them to you–detailing your business and family needs–never giving thought as to your worthiness to receive them, or whether it is wise to have them, or what you shall GIVE to deserve them–you are but making yourself into your own selfish image and not in the image of God’s spirit in you. You are thus telling God how He will serve you without thought of how you will be worthy of that service.
When your child prays for a long list of birthday or Christmas presents, ending with “God bless Papa–God bless Mama”, you tell the neighbors how CUTE that prayer is and then buy everything the child wants, to uphold its belief in prayer.
IT IS NOT CUTE IT IS TRAGIC. It is helping the child build its own selfish image. It is also helping the whole world to build its own selfish, greedy image. It is helping to perpetuate this barbaric age of greed, selfishness, and fear of neighbor against neighbor.
When will parents teach their children that they must give love for love given them? Not until THEY first know that they, themselves, must not ask to be given anything without a deep desire in their hearts for REGIVING LOVE EQUALLY FOR LOVE GIVEN. Parents who know that will say to the child:
“God will give you all you desire because He loves to give, but what are you planning to regive in love to God? You want God to show His love to you by giving you the things you want, but God wants love from you. The way you can show your love to God is to love all things which God puts on earth. When you ask God to bless Papa and Mama, you can help God bless them by giving love and doing loving things for them which gives them pleasure, help or assistance, i.e., bring Papa ‘s slippers and/or help Mama dry the dishes, etc. That is the way you can be WORTHY of receiving all the things you ask for.”
When a mother prays to God to extend His loving protection to her son and keep him from harm in transit on stormy seas, she, herself, must extend her love equally to all other sons of all mothers of earth, and to all things of God’s creating. It most certainly requires more than hanging a yellow ribbon bow on a tree–it requires the changing of a situation which takes the children away and places them in danger through the passage of life. Her devout prayer CAN ALONE BE ANSWERED THAT WAY.
When she prays devoutly, no matter how deep her sincerity in asking love from her mother’s heart, then turns angrily or impatiently upon her friend or neighbor, or a servant in her house, she, herself, VOIDS her own prayer as though it had never been uttered.
When you ask God to bless your business and make it prosper, God will answer your prayer when you go out into your plant and bless all in it and make them prosper. When you regive to your helpers the love given you by God, it is God’s love given to them by God through you. That is what is meant by manifesting God on earth.
When you pray for God to show His love for you by giving your field good crops, you must yourself give your love to your fields to regive His giving. Your love given to them is God’s love given to you for REGIVING. Your love and God’s love are ONE. Its manifestation is TWO in giving and regiving but that TWO is the ONE HEARTBEAT of God’s body, even as the swinging of the pendulum is the TWO of the ONE source of their manifestation.
If the farmer would but stand in the midst of his fields and pray, saying unto them,
“I love you, my green fields. I love every part of you, every grass blade, every root and herb and ear of ripening corn. I love every tree of you, each leaf of you which gives love in oxygen for nitrogen given you in love. I love the fruit of each tree of you–and the red-gold you regive to me in your luscious fruit for the love I have given to your roots.”
If the farmer would but pray that way–deeply and in his heart– he would prosper as his fields prospered with him. For if he surely and sincerely gave unselfishly of his love he would nurture and tend to the very best of his ability to show that love and it would be returned in a thousandfold. He would know no fatigue, for love given is not work–and there would be a light in his eyes and inner joyousness in his heart, which nothing but the manifestation of love given on Earth as it is in heaven can ever give to man.
Truth Reset 
Leave a comment