Theos-Talk Archives (September 2012 Message tt00022)

HPB' early thoughts on meditation and prayer were that they should be undertaken as power mantrams or power prayers. See advanced teaching Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul - Letters on Occult Meditation - VI - Mantrams of Power 177. HPB calls such prayer 'Will Prayer' and Will-Power becomes a living power and this might be considered when we think of the Great Invocation. AAB/DK speak of the "saving force" and which may be searched in her books. HPB sayes of our 'Father in Heaven' "the inner man is the only God we can have cognizance of"... "in our heart and spiritual consciousness" "will-prayer" becomes the active or creative force." JPC. ENQUIRER. Do you not believe at all in the efficacy of prayer? THEOSOPHIST. Not in prayer taught in so many words and repeated externally, if by prayer you mean the outward petition to an unknown God as the addressee, which was inaugurated by the Jews and popularised by the Pharisees. ENQUIRER. Is there any other kind of prayer? THEOSOPHIST. Most decidedly; we call it WILL-PRAYER, and it is rather an internal command than a petition. ENQUIRER. To whom, then, do you pray when you do so? THEOSOPHIST. To "our Father in heaven" -- in its esoteric meaning. ENQUIRER. Is that different from the one given to it in theology? THEOSOPHIST. Entirely so. An Occultist or a Theosophist addresses his prayer to his Father which is in secret (read, and try to understand, ch. vi. v. 6, Matthew), not to an extra-cosmic and therefore finite God; and that "Father" is in man himself. ENQUIRER. Then you make of man a God? THEOSOPHIST. Please say "God" and not a God. In our sense, the inner man is the only God we can have cognizance of. And how can this be otherwise? Grant us our postulate that God is a universally diffused, infinite principle, and how can man alone escape from being soaked through by, and in, the Deity? We call our "Father in heaven" that deific essence of which we are cognizant within us, in our heart and spiritual consciousness, and which has nothing to do with the anthropomorphic conception we may form of it in our physical brain or its fancy: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of (the absolute) God dwelleth in you?" (3) Yet, let no man anthropomorphise that essence in us. Let no Theosophist, if he would hold to divine, not human truth, say that this "God in secret" listens to, or is distinct from, either finite man or the infinite essence -- for all are one. Nor, as just remarked, that a prayer is a petition. It is a mystery rather; an occult process by which finite and conditioned thoughts and desires, unable to be assimilated by the absolute spirit which is unconditioned, are translated into spiritual wills and the will; such process being called "spiritual transmutation." The intensity of our ardent aspirations changes prayer into the "philosopher's stone," or that which transmutes lead into pure gold. The only homogeneous essence, our "will-prayer" becomes the active or creative force, producing effects according to our desire. ENQUIRER. Do you mean to say that prayer is an occult process bringing about physical results? THEOSOPHIST. I do. Will-Power becomes a living power. But woe unto those Occultists and Theosophists, who, instead of crushing out the desires of the lower personal ego or physical man, and saying, addressing their Higher Spiritual EGO immersed in Atma-Buddhic light, "Thy will be done, not mine," etc., send up waves of will-power for selfish or unholy purposes! Key to Theosophy."This Invocation is not, however, a meditation exercise; it is essentially a prayer, synthesizing the highest desire, aspiration and spiritual demand of the very soul of humanity itself." DINA2 188. "This synthesis of the three energies, evoked through invocation and the response of certain divine Potencies, is esoterically given the name of "the saving Force." Of its exact nature and intended effects we know practically nothing. It has never before appeared in action on the physical plane, though it has been for some time active upon the mental plane. Though it is a blend of the energies of the three centers referred to above, it is primarily the energy of the divine Will, which will be its outstanding characteristic." EXT 275. 		 	   		  

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