27. Prayer

If prayer is to be spoken of at all, it goes without saying that the words only apply to those who concern themselves with prayer. Those who do not feel the urge to pray can quietly refrain from doing so, because their words or thoughts must dissolve into nothing. If a prayer is not felt deeply, it has no value and therefore no success. The moment of a surging feeling of gratitude in great joy, as well as the sensation of deepest pain in suffering, provides the best basis for a prayer that can expect success. In such moments the human being is permeated by a certain intuition that drowns out everything else in him. This makes it possible for the main wish of the prayer, be it a thanksgiving or a request, to receive unadulterated force.
 
Human beings often form the wrong picture about what happens and will become of a prayer in its further development. Not every prayer reaches the Highest Ruler of the Worlds. On the contrary, it is a very rare exception that a prayer really manages to reach the steps of the Throne. Here, too, the attraction of homogeneous species as a fundamental law plays the greatest role.
 
A sincere, deeply felt prayer itself attracts and is attracted by like kind in connection with a centre of force of the kind that permeates the main content of the prayer. The centres of force can just as well be called regions of spheres or be given some other name, it will always basically come to the same thing. Reciprocal effect then brings what was the main wish of the prayer. Either rest, strength, relaxation, plans suddenly arising within, solution to difficult problems, or other things. Something good will always come out of it, even if it is only one’s own increased calm and concentration, which then in turn leads to a way out, to a solution.
 
It is also possible that these prayers sent out, intensified in their strength by the reciprocity of similar centres of force, find a way ethereally to human beings who, stimulated by them, bring help in some way and thereby fulfilment of the prayer. All these processes are easily understandable when the ethereal life is taken into account. Here again justice lies in the fact that the decisive factor in prayer will always remain the inner nature of the person praying, which, depending on its depth, determines the force, thus the viability and effectiveness of the prayer.
 
In the great ethereal happenings of the Universe, every kind of intuition finds its own particular kind, since not only would it not be attracted by others, but would even be repelled. Only when there is a similarity does connection and thus reinforcement take place. A prayer that contains different intuitions, because the great deepening of the praying person, still carry a certain force despite the fragmentation, will thus attract different things and bring back different things in the reciprocal effects. Whether there can be fulfilment in this depends entirely on the nature of the individual parts, which can promote or inhibit each other. In any case, it is better to send out only one thought as an intuition in a prayer, so that no confusion can arise.
 
Christ did not intend that the “Our Father” should be prayed in its entirety; rather, He only gave a summary of everything that a person can ask for with certainty of fulfilment.
 
These petitions contain the foundations for everything that the human being needs for his physical well-being and spiritual ascent. But they give even more! At the same time, the petitions indicate the guidelines for the striving that human beings should pursue in their earthly life. The compilation of the petitions is a masterpiece in itself. The “Our Father” alone can be everything to the seeking human being if he delves into it and grasps it correctly. He does not need anything more than the “Our Father”. It shows him the whole Gospel in condensed form. It is the key to the Luminous Heights for those who know how to experience it correctly. It can be both a rod and a lamp for everyone’s forward and upward progress! It contains so much that is immeasurable.
 
This richness alone shows the actual purpose of the “Our Father”. Jesus gave humanity the key to the Kingdom of God in the “Our Father”! The core of His Message. But He did not mean that it should be prayed in this way.
 
Man need only pay attention when he has prayed and he will acknowledge of his own accord how much distraction it brought him and how it weakened the depth of his intuition, by following the order of the individual petitions, however familiar they may be to him.
 
It is also impossible for him to glide from one request to another with the deeper fervour that is necessary for proper prayer! But Jesus, in His way, made everything easy for humanity. The correct expression is “child’s play”. He particularly pointed out: “Become like children!” That is, thinking so simply, seeking so few difficulty. He would never have expected from humanity such an impossible thing as the truly profound praying of the Lord’s Prayer demands. This must also bring to humanity the conviction that Jesus wanted something else with it, something greater. He gave the key to the Kingdom of God, not simple prayer!
 
Versatility of a prayer will always weaken it. A child does not come to the Father with seven requests at the same time, but only with what is weighing most heavily on his heart at the moment, be it a sorrow or a wish.
 
In the same way, a human being in need should turn to his God with what is troubling him. And in most cases it will only be one particular matter, not many things together. He should not ask for something that is not really troubling him. Since such a request cannot be felt vividly enough within him, it becomes an empty form and naturally weakens another request that is perhaps really necessary.
 
Therefore, always ask only for what is really necessary! Just no forms that have to fragment and, over time, give rise to hypocrisy!
 
Prayer requires the deepest earnestness. Pray in peace and in purity, so that through peace the power of intuition may be increased and through purity it may receive that luminous lightness that prayer is able to carry up to the heights of all light, all purity. Then will that fulfilment come which will be of most use to the supplicant, which will really move him forward in his whole being!
 
The force of prayer is not able to hurl it up or push it up, but only purity in its corresponding lightness. Nevertheless, purity in prayer can be achieved by every human being as soon as the urge to ask comes alive in him, even if not in all his prayers. It is not necessary for him to be pure in his whole life. There is nothing to prevent him from rising up in the purity of intuition in prayer for a few seconds, at least from time to time, here and there.
 
The force of prayer, however, is not only the result of complete silence and the deepened concentration made possible by it, but also of every strong emotion, such as fear, worry or joy.
 
Now, it is not said that the fulfilment of a prayer always necessarily corresponds to earthly conceived ideas and wishes and is in harmony with them. The fulfilment goes far beyond this and leads the whole to the best, not the earthly moment! Often, therefore, an apparent non-fulfilment must later be recognized as the only correct and best fulfilment, and the human being is happy that it did not go according to his momentary wishes.
 
Now the intercession! The listener often wonders how the reciprocity of an intercession, that is, the supplication of another, can find its way to another human being who has not prayed himself, because the reciprocal effects must flow back to the supplicant himself.
 
Here, too, there is no deviation from the established laws. During his prayer, the intercessor thinks so strongly of the person for whom he is asking that his wishes are first anchored or knotted in the other person and then take their way upwards from there, in other words, they can also return to the person for whom the strong wishes of the supplicant have already come alive and revolve around him. However, it is absolutely essential that the soil in the person for whom the request is being made is receptive and suitable for anchoring and does not present obstacles to such an anchoring.
 
If the soil is not receptive, thus unworthy, then the slippage of intercessions is only the wonderful justice of Divine Laws, which cannot allow help to come from outside through another to completely barren soil. This bouncing off or slipping away of the intended anchorage of an intercession for a person who is unworthy by his inner state, results in the impossibility of bringing help. In this, too, there is something so perfect in this self-acting and self-evident working that man stands in amazement before the intact and just distribution of the fruits of all that is self-willed!
 
If this did not happen so inexorably, there would be a gap in the machinery of Creation, which would allow opportunities for injustice against such unworthy ones who cannot have intercessors, yet intercessors again only arise through reciprocal effects of previously given friendships or the like.
 
Intercessions by human beings who do it without their own inner and unconditional urge of true feelings have no value nor success. They are only empty chaff.
 
There is yet another kind of effect of genuine intercession. It is that of a signpost! The prayer rises directly and points to the one in need of help. If a spiritual messenger is sent to help by means of this signpost, the possibility of help is subject to the same laws of worthiness or unworthiness, that is, of receptivity or repulsion. If the person in need of help is inwardly turned towards the darkness, the messenger who wants to help in response to the intercession cannot make contact, is unable to have an effect and has to return without having achieved anything. The intercession could not be fulfilled because the laws in their vitality did not allow it. But if the given soil is there for this to happen, then a genuine intercession is of inestimable value! Either it brings help, even if the person in need knows nothing about it, or it unites with the desire or prayer of the person in need and thus gives him great strength.