How to pray
I still remember the first time I questioned the act of prayer. I was in my teens, in secondary school, and on the sidelines of a football pitch watching two opposing teams preparing to kick off a game of football. Each team got into a huddle, quite loudly praying to the Creator to grant them victory, and even going so far as declaring themselves already victorious in prayer. I remember being intrigued by this and asking myself: whose prayer will God answer?
I don’t recollect which team won but for the first time I gave serious thought to the act of prayer and also to the fairness of God. Why would He favour one team over the other if both teams have been working very hard to prepare for the match? Back then, most of my classmates were religious and the serious ones among us would all pray to be top of the class. This incident with the football match made me wonder for the first time which classmate’s prayer God should answer and also how ridiculous it must look for each individual to be praying for the same self-centred outcome.
I recall another memory from my time in university when a classmate was exhibiting a most perplexing behaviour: he spent most of his time in religious activity and little to no time studying. Yet he had this incredible confidence that his faith would see him through exams. Again, I queried why God would miraculously imbue this chap with knowledge the rest of us had to work so hard to grasp. It just didn’t seem fair. Why were we asking God to be unfair? Or partial?
And why, despite the most ardent prayer, do people still die from disease and other afflictions? Why do we claim that God has answered our prayer when we get the things we “pray” for and that he has not when we don’t? Also, what gives us the temerity to demand these things of God? We seem to give more respect to our parents in the way we ask them for things we want than we give to the Creator in prayer.
Some questions running through my head at the time:
Is there a purpose in Prayer? How should we pray? What things should we pray for?
This article is themed around knowledge that comes from the book “In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message” and includes a few excerpts from the book that provide answers to this topic of prayer.
Grail Message Volume 2, Lecture 19 – paragraphs 1 - 11
Prayer
If prayer is to be spoken of at all, then the following words are naturally only meant for those who concern themselves with prayer.
He who does not feel the inner urge to pray may well refrain from doing so, for his words or his thoughts would inevitably dissolve into nothingness. If prayer is not felt deeply within, through and through, it has no value, and therefore will have no effect.
The best foundation for a prayer which may be expected to have effect lies in those moments of spontaneous thankfulness arising out of great happiness or of deepest pain resulting from heartfelt grief. In such moments a person is filled with one particular intuitive perception which dominates all else. This enables the main wish of the prayer, be it gratitude or a request, to receive undimmed power.
People often have a wrong picture of how a prayer comes into existence, what happens to it, and how it further develops. Not every prayer penetrates to the Highest Ruler of the Universe. On the contrary, it is a very rare exception when a prayer is actually able to ascend to the steps of His Throne. Here also the basic Law of the Power of Attraction of Homogeneous Species plays the principal role.
A prayer which is seriously and deeply felt will be attracted to and itself attract those of similar nature, and come into contact with a power-centre of a kind identical to the main theme of the prayer. These power-centres can also be called sections of the spheres or something similar – basically it all amounts to the same!
The main wish of the prayer will become effective through reciprocal action. It will either bring calmness, strength, recovery, plans suddenly arising in the mind, the solution to difficult problems, or other things. Something good will always come of it, be it only increased composure and balance of mind, which will in turn lead to a solution and some way out of the difficulty.
It is also possible that the prayers sent out, having received increased power through the reciprocal action of homogeneous power-centres, will find an ethereal path to people who, being stimulated through this, will in some way bring help and thus fulfilment of the prayer.
All these happenings will be easily understood by observing ethereal life. Here again justice lies in the fact that it is always the inner quality of the one who prays which is decisive. The fervour with which he prays determines the power, i.e. the vitality and effectiveness of the prayer.
In the great ethereal happenings in the cosmos each variety of intuitive perception finds the homogeneous species to which it belongs, because not only could it not be attracted by others, but it would even be repelled. Only when meeting its similar kind does a connection take place with a consequent increase in strength.
A prayer embodying various intuitive perceptions, which still contain a certain measure of strength through the deep absorption of the one praying, will, in spite of its unconnected parts, thereby attract different things, and will also return different kinds of reciprocal effects.
Whether this results in any kind of fulfilment will depend entirely on the nature of the separate parts, which can either foster or hinder each other. However, in every case when praying it is better to send out only one thought as an intuitive perception in order to prevent confusion.
From the excerpt above, the Author uses the word “ethereal”. Also, He makes reference to the Law of the power of attraction of Homogeneous Species which, He explains, is one of the three fundamental Laws that form the cornerstone of the Divine Will. Here's a short excerpt from the Lecture “Errors” that addresses these two concepts and sheds some light on what they mean.
Grail Message, Volume 1 Lecture 20 – paragraphs 56 - 69
Errors
Imagine that all life therein, no matter in what part it is found, is of two kinds only. The one kind is self-conscious and the other unconscious of itself. It is of the utmost value to observe these two different categories! This is connected with the “origin of man”. The differences also give the stimulus to further development, to the apparent struggle. The unconscious is the basis of all the conscious, but its composition is of exactly the same nature. To become conscious is progress and development for the unconscious, which through association with the conscious is continually being stimulated also to attain to this consciousness.
In the process of developing downwards, the first Creation itself brought successively three great basic divisions: As uppermost and highest is the spiritual, the Primordial Creation, followed by the denser and thus also gradually heavier Sphere of Animistic Substance. Lastly as the lowest, and because of its greatest density the heaviest, still follows the great Realm of Matter which, severing itself from Primordial Creation, has gradually sunk down! Through this there finally remained as the uppermost only the Primordial Spiritual Substance, because in its pure nature it embodies what is lightest and most luminous. It is the oft-mentioned Paradise, the crown of all Creation.
With the sinking down of that which becomes denser we already touch upon the Law of Gravitation, which is not only anchored in matter, but has an effect in all Creation, from the so-called Paradise down to us.
The Law of Gravitation is of such decisive importance that everyone should hammer it into his mind; for it is the main lever in the whole evolution and process of development of the human spirit.
I have already said that this gravitation applies not only to earthly consistencies, but also works uniformly in those parts of Creation which earthmen can no longer see, and which they therefore simply call the beyond.
For a better understanding I must still divide the World of Matter into two sections. Into ethereal matter and gross matter. Ethereal matter is that matter which cannot become visible to the physical eye, owing to its different nature. And yet it still is matter.
The so-called “beyond” must not be confused with the longed-for Paradise, which is purely spiritual. The spiritual must not be taken as something “to do with thoughts”, but the spiritual is a consistency, just as the animistic and the material are each a consistency. Therefore now this ethereal matter is simply called the “beyond”, because it lies beyond earthly vision. Gross matter, however, is this side, all that is earthly, which on account of its similar species becomes visible to our gross material eyes.
Man should get rid of the habit of regarding things that are invisible to him as also incomprehensible and unnatural. Everything is natural, even the so-called beyond, and Paradise, which is still an immense distance from it.
Now just as here our physical body is sensitive to its surroundings of a homogeneous nature, which it can therefore see, hear and feel, so is it exactly the same in those parts of Creation whose consistency is not like ours. The ethereal man in the so-called beyond feels, hears and sees only his homogeneous ethereal environment; the higher spiritual man again can only feel his spiritual environment.
Thus it happens that many an earth-dweller now and then already sees and hears also the Ethereal World with his ethereal body, which he bears within, before the separation from the gross material earthly body takes place through physical death. There is absolutely nothing unnatural in this.
Side by side and co-operating with the Law of Gravitation is also the no less valuable Law of Homogeneous Species.
I have already touched upon this in saying that one species can only recognise the same species. The proverbs: “Birds of a feather flock together”, and “like father, like son” seem to have been sensed from the Primordial Law. Together with the Law of Gravitation it swings throughout Creation.
In addition to those already mentioned there is a third Primordial Law in Creation: The Law of Reciprocal Action. The effect of this Law is that man must reap what he has once sown, unconditionally. He cannot reap wheat where he sowed rye, nor clover where he sowed thistles. In the Ethereal World it is exactly the same. In the end he will not be able to reap kindness where he felt hatred, nor joy where he nourished envy!
These three fundamental Laws form the corner-stones of the Divine Will! They alone automatically work out reward or punishment for a human spirit, with inexorable justice!
Returning to the topic of prayer, there is another lecture from the Grail Message in which the author calls out the presumption and conceit in how we approach our Creator in prayer. The Lecture is “Wrong Courses” and it reads as follows:
Grail Message, Volume 1 Lecture 17
Wrong courses
With few exceptions, mankind labour under a boundless delusion which is fatal for them!
God has no need to run after them and beg them to believe in His existence. Nor are His servants sent out forever to admonish people on no account to turn away from Him. This would indeed be absurd. To think and expect such things is a dishonouring and debasing of the sublime Godhead.
This erroneous conception causes great harm. It is fostered by the behaviour of many truly earnest pastors who, out of a real love for God and men, try again and again to convert people who turn only to material things, to convince them and win them over to the church. All this only tends immeasurably to increase man’s conceit in regard to his importance, of which there is more than enough already, and in the end really to place many under the delusion that they must be begged to strive for what is good.
This is also the cause of the strange attitude of the majority of all “believers”, whose example is more often a deterrent than an inspiration. Thousands upon thousands feel a certain inner satisfaction, an exaltation, in the consciousness that they believe in God, that they utter their prayers with such earnestness as they are capable of bringing up, and that they do not intentionally harm their neighbours.
In this inner “exaltation”, they feel a certain reward for goodness, thanks from God for their obedience, and they sense a being linked with God, of Whom they also think at times with a certain sacred thrill that produces or leaves behind a state of bliss, in which they revel.
But these legions of believers take the wrong course. Living happily in a self-created delusion, they are unaware that it numbers them with those Pharisees who, with the genuine but mistaken feeling of gratitude, bring their small sacrifices: “Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are”. This is not expressed in words, nor really in thought, but the inner “uplifting feeling” is nothing more than this unconscious prayer of thanks, which Christ too has already shown to be false.
In these cases the inner “exaltation” is nothing more than the setting free of self-satisfaction engendered by prayer or forced good thoughts. Those who call themselves humble are mostly very far from really being humble! It often requires self-restraint to speak with such believers. In such a frame of mind they will never at any time attain to the bliss which they are confident they already possess! Let them take heed lest they be altogether lost through their spiritual arrogance, which they consider to be humility.
It will be easier for many who now are still absolute unbelievers to enter the Kingdom of God than for all the legions with their conceited humility, who do not really stand before God in simple supplication, but indirectly demanding that He reward them for their prayers and pious words. Their petitions are demands, their inner being hypocritical. They will be swept away like empty chaff before His Countenance. They will have their reward, certainly, but it will be different from what they imagine. They have already satiated themselves long enough on earth in the consciousness of their own value.
The feeling of well-being will rapidly disappear on passing into the Ethereal World, where the inner intuitive perception, which is scarcely sensed here, will come to the fore, while the feeling hitherto mainly produced only by thoughts will be blown to nothing.
This inner, silent, so-called humble expectation of something better is really nothing but a demand, even though it be expressed differently, in how- ever beautiful words.
Every demand, however, is a presumption. God alone has to demand! Nor did Christ come pleading to mankind with His Message, but warning and demanding. He certainly gave explanations about the Truth, but He did not enticingly hold out rewards before the eyes of His hearers to spur them on to become better. Calmly and sternly He commanded serious seekers:
“Go thou and do likewise!”
God stands before humanity *demanding,* not enticing and pleading, not lamenting and grieving. He will calmly abandon to the Darkness all the wicked, even all the wavering ones, so that those who are striving upwards shall no longer be exposed to their attacks; enabling the others thoroughly to experience everything they consider to be right, and thus come to the recognition of their error!
I will end this by inviting you to read the entire lecture Ask and it shall be given unto you from the Grail Message, which paints the picture for you of how to pray:
Grail Message, Volume 3 Lecture 36
Ask, and it shall be given unto you
Man is still in doubt about how to form his prayers. He desires to do what is right and not to omit anything. Although he gives the matter the most sincere and willing thought, he is still not really sure that he is not doing something wrong.
But such pondering is utterly useless; it only proves that man is ever again trying to approach God with his intellect, and this he will never achieve, for he always remains far away from the Almighty with such efforts!
Whoever has absorbed my Message aright is clear about the fact that words are much too limited in their nature to be able to ascend to the Luminous Heights. It is only the intuitive perceptions embraced by the words which, depending upon their strength and their purity, ascend above the boundaries of formed words.
Words are meant in part only as signposts to indicate the direction which the rays of the intuitive perception should take. In part they also release the nature of the rays within man himself, who uses the formed word as a support and as a cloak. The word which is thought during prayer reverberates within man, if he experiences it within himself or if he exerts himself to call it to life within himself.
With this explanation you already see two kinds of prayer arising before you. The one arises within you out of your intuitive perception, without reflection, through the experiencing itself, which is therefore the strong intuitive perception of some moment, and which while springing forth yet veils itself in words; and then the other kind, which in the process of reflection forms words beforehand, and in working backwards through the words it only seeks to set free the corresponding intuitive perception, i.e., it wishes to fill the already formed words with intuitive perception.
There is no need to state which of these kinds of prayer counts as the more powerful one, for you yourselves know that that which is more natural is always more correct. Thus in these cases it is that prayer which arises through the bursting forth of a sudden intuitive perception, and which only afterwards seeks to compress itself into words.
Just assume that you are unexpectedly hit by a very heavy blow of fate, which shakes you to the depths. Fear for someone or something you love grips your heart! In your need a cry for help arises within you with a strength which shakes your body!
It is in this that you see the strength of the intuitive perception which is capable of ascending to Luminous Heights, if… this intuitive perception bears within itself humble purity; for without this every ascent is already halted on its way at a very definite point, no matter how strong and powerful the intuitive perception is. It is utterly impossible without humility; it could never advance to that purity which in an immense circle surrounds all that is Divine.
Such a strong intuitive perception will also bring in its train only a stammering of words because its strength does not permit it to be squeezed into narrow words. The power streams far beyond the confines of all words, foaming over and tearing down the boundaries which words want to erect through the narrow limits of the earthly brain’s activity.
Every one of you will already have had such an experience in his life. Therefore you can grasp what I am trying to convey to you. That is the intuitive perception which you should have if you expect your prayer to be able to ascend to the Heights of Pure Light, from which all granting comes to you.
However, not only on account of fear shall you turn to the Heights, but also pure joy as well as happiness and gratitude can well up within you with the same strength! And this joyful kind swings upwards even faster, because it remains more undimmed. Fear very easily dims your purity of intuitive perception and forms a wrong kind. Too often it is connected with a silent reproach or even grudge that whatever hit your soul so severely just had to happen to you, and naturally this is not right. It must then hold back your cries!
It is not necessary to form words in order to pray. The words are for you, in order to grant you the support of your intuitive perception, so that it remains more concentrated and does not become dissipated in many varieties.
You are not accustomed to think clearly without words and to become absorbed without losing the straight direction, because through too much talk you actually became far too superficial and distracted. You still need the words as signposts and also as cloaks to keep certain types of your intuitive perceptions together, and to envisage more clearly through words whatever you wish to express in prayer.
Such is the way to pray if the urge to do so arises from the intuitive perception, i.e., if it is a volition of your spirit! But this rarely happens with the mankind of today – only when they are hit in some way or other by a very strong impulse, through suffering, joy or also through some physical pain! Nobody takes the trouble any more to think now and then about God the Dispenser of all mercies, voluntarily and without some impulse!
Now let us turn to the second kind of prayer! It comprises those which are intended to be said at very definite times and without the kind of cause we have just discussed. Man takes it upon himself to pray. It is a deliberate, especially willed prayer.
This brings about a change in the process. Man thinks or speaks certain words of the prayer, which he himself has composed or which he has learned. Usually these prayers have little of intuitive perception. Man thinks far too much about getting the words right, and this alone already diverts him from really perceiving intuitively that which he speaks or merely thinks.
Without any difficulty you will recognise that this explanation is right, if only you think back and examine yourselves carefully in this respect. It is not easy to fill such prayers with the capacity of pure intuitive perception. Even the slightest constraint weakens it, claiming part of the concentration for itself.
Here the formed words must first be called to life within yourselves, i.e., the words must arouse that kind of intuitive perception within you which in their form they express. The procedure does not then follow the course of bursting forth from within, and passing through the back brain into your frontal brain, which quickly forms words according to the impressions received; but the frontal brain begins by first forming words which only thereafter must be absorbed retroactively and assimilated by the back brain, in order to exercise from there a corresponding pressure on the nerve system of the solar plexus, which only after further proceedings can arouse an intuitive perception in accordance with the word.
It is true that everything in the sequence takes place at such an enormous speed that it appears to the observer as if it happens simultaneously, but nevertheless such forms are not so powerful or so original as those arising in the reverse manner. Therefore they cannot attain the effect, and in most cases remain devoid of intuitive perception. Even with a repetition of the same words ever again daily, they lose their power for you, they become habitual and thus meaningless.
Therefore become natural in your praying, men, become free and unaffected! What you have learned by heart so easily becomes a recitation. You only make it difficult for yourselves by this!
If you begin your day with truly heartfelt gratitude to God, and if you also finish it with equally heartfelt gratitude, be it only gratitude for the lesson you have learned on this day through experiencing, you live well! Through diligence and care let everything you do arise as a prayer of gratitude! Let each word you speak reflect the love which God grants you! Then life on this earth will soon become a joy for everyone who is allowed to live upon it!
It is not nearly so difficult, nor does it take up any of your time. A short moment of honest heartfelt gratitude is much better than praying for hours what you have learned by heart, and which you could not in any case follow with your intuitive perception. Moreover, such outward praying only takes up the time you should use for genuine thanksgiving through joyous activity.
A child which really loves its parents will demonstrate this love by its ways, by its actions, and not with flattering words, which in many cases remain nothing but an expression of nestling self-complacency, unless it is even a selfish desire. The so-called wheedlers are seldom of any value and only think of themselves, and of satisfying their own wishes!
You stand no differently before your God! Prove through the deed what you wish to say to Him!
You now know how you have to pray and already again you are anxiously facing the question as to what you shall pray!
If you wish to recognise the right way for this you must first separate your prayer from your petitions. Differentiate between prayer and petition! Do not always try to stamp your petitioning as prayer!
Prayer and petition must signify two different things to you; for prayer belongs to worship, whereas a petition cannot count as worship if you really want to adjust yourselves to the conception.
And it is necessary that henceforth you should adjust yourselves to it, and not intermingle everything!
When you pray give yourselves! This only I wish to call out to you, and in the word itself you have the explanation. Give yourselves to the Lord in your prayer, give yourselves entirely to Him and without reserve! Prayer must be the unfolding of your spirit at the feet of God in veneration, praise and gratitude for everything He grants you out of His great Love!
It is so inexhaustibly much! Up till now you just have not understood it; you have lost the way which would enable you to enjoy it in the full consciousness of all the capacities of your spirit!
Once you have found this way through recognising all the treasures of my Message you will no longer have any petition left. You will have nothing but praise and thanksgiving as soon as you turn your hands and eyes upward to the Highest, Who reveals Himself to you in His Love. Then you will stand in a perpetual state of prayer, such as the Lord cannot expect otherwise from you; for in Creation you may indeed take for yourselves whatever you need. The table is prepared therein at all times!
And you may choose from it through the abilities of your spirit. The table always offers you everything you need, and petitions are unnecessary if you only make the right kind of effort to move within the Laws of God.
All this has already been said in words well known to you: “Seek, and ye shall find! Ask, and it shall be given unto you! Knock, and it shall be opened unto you!”
These words teach you the necessary activity of the human spirit in Creation, and above all the right application of his abilities. They point out exactly the way in which he must comprehend Creation, and also the path which will help him onwards.
The words must not be regarded merely in a commonplace sense, for their meaning goes deeper, encompassing the existence of the human spirit in Creation in accordance with the Law of necessary Movement.
The words “Ask, and it shall be given unto you!” point very clearly to the ability of the spirit (which I mentioned in the lecture: “~The cycle of radiations~)”, causing it through a certain urge which cannot be shaken off always to will or to wish something; through its radiation this immediately attracts the homogeneous species, as a result of which it is automatically given what it desired.
The urge impelling the desire, however, must always remain a petition and must not become a one-sided demand, as unfortunately every human being of the present time has accustomed himself to making. For if it remains a petition it also holds humbleness, and consequently it will always contain what is good and will also bring in its train what is good.
With His words Jesus clearly showed how man has to adjust himself in order to direct all the self-acting abilities of his spirit onto the right course!
It is the same with all His words. Unfortunately, however, they were pressed into the narrow mould of the human earthly intellect, and thus became badly distorted, with the result that they were never understood any more, nor interpreted in the right way.
For it will probably be easily understandable to everybody that this does not refer to the ordinary relations between men, because men’s attitude was neither then, nor is it today, of such a nature that one could expect from them the fulfilment of such hints.
Go among men and ask, and you will be given nothing! Knock, and the door will not be opened unto you! Seek among men and their works, and you will not find what you are seeking!
Nor did Jesus refer to the attitude of man towards God personally, omitting all the huge worlds lying in between, which cannot be pushed aside as if non-existent. Neither did He mean the Living Word alone therewith, but Jesus always spoke out of the primordial wisdom, and this He never compressed into small earthly thinking or conditions. When He spoke He depicted man standing in Creation, and He chose His words in an all-embracing manner!
All reproductions, translations and interpretations, however, suffer from the neglect to think of this! They were always intermingled with and carried out by earthly, petty human thinking and thus distorted and misrepresented. And where understanding was lacking their own ideas were added, which could never answer the purpose, however good the intention!
That which is human always remained petty human; the Divine, however, is always all-embracing! In this way wine was badly mixed with water, and finally there emerged something different from the original. This you must never forget!
Similarly with “The Lord’s Prayer”, through the petitions stated therein Jesus merely sought to direct the human spirit’s volition in the most simple form, towards that which would permit the human spirit to desire only what is useful for its ascent, so that it could receive such from Creation.
This does not hold a contradiction, but it was the best signpost, the infallible staff for every human spirit of that time.
The man of today, however, needs the entire stock of words he has meantime created for himself, and the application of every conception arising therefrom, if he is to find a path out of the confusion of his intellectual sham wisdom.
Therefore, men of the present time, I must now grant you more extensive explanations, which in reality convey exactly the same again, only in your way!
It is now your duty to learn this, for your knowledge of Creation has become greater! So long as with this knowledge you do not now fulfil the duties laid upon you by your spirit’s abilities, which have to be developed, so long have you no right to ask either!
With the faithful fulfilment of your duty in Creation, however, you receive everything through the reciprocal effect, and there is no longer a reason for any petition; from within your soul there then streams forth only gratitude to Him Who in His Omniscience and Love ever again loads you with gifts every day!
You men, could you but pray aright at last! Really pray! How rich would your existence then be! For in prayer lies the greatest happiness you can receive. It uplifts you to immeasurable heights so that supreme happiness streams through you blissfully. Could you but pray, men! That shall now be my wish for you!
In your small thinking you will then no longer ask to Whom you shall and may pray. There is but One to Whom you are allowed to dedicate your prayers, only One: GOD!
Approach Him in solemn moments with a sacred intuitive perception, and pour out before Him what your spirit can bring up in the way of gratitude! Turn only to Him when you pray; for it is to Him alone that gratitude is due and to Him alone you yourself belong, Oh Man, because only through His great Love were you able to come into existence!