Episode:Prayer—Petitions and Answers (Part 1)
Prayer is the sincere and longing look of the child to its spirit Father; it is a psychologic process of exchanging the human will for the divine will. Prayer never fails to expand the soul’s capacity for spiritual receptivity and may be likened to recharging the spiritual batteries of the soul.
Keywords: Urantia, Prayer, Thanksgiving, Worship, Supercommunion
Summary by Kermit
Commentary on Review
We commented upon the statement that Jesus prayed very little for himself. There were significant differences in Jesus’ prayer life pre and post baptism, private ministry and public ministry. In his public ministry, he was fully conscious of his divine nature and as such engaged in prayer in large part for instructive purposes for his apostles and disciples. In his private ministry Jesus would have engaged in prayer as part of his process of self mastery and cosmic circle attainment.
144:4. More About Prayer
This section consists of a restatement in modern phraseology of Jesus’ instructions to the twelve during their encampment on the slopes of Mt. Gilboa, in the days following his giving them the Believer’s Prayer.
The initial point made by the authors underscores a principle introduced earlier and reiterated over past parts of this series, that sincerity and faith are the keys to expanding the soul’s capacity for spiritual receptivity, notwithstanding how ill-advised the petition or the impossibility of its receiving a direct answer.
What followed was a masterly teaching on the two different connotations of the revelators’ use of the word soul. While a full explication of this teaching is beyond the scope of this summary, the serious student of the revelation who revisits this in the archive of our broadcast will be richly rewarded.
Briefly, the word soul can refer to the evolving immortal soul of man, the joint creation of the material mind and the Adjuster that is resurrected on Mansonia number one. This soul has been called our morontia self, having its own consciousness and thoughts, of which we are largely unaware in our earthly experience. But, going to [100:2.7] we read in part:
“When the flood tides of human adversity, selfishness, cruelty, hate, malice, and jealousy beat about the mortal soul, you may rest in the assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is absolutely unassailable; at least this is true of every human being who has dedicated the keeping of his soul to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God.”
Here, the term “mortal soul” is explained as the spiritualized mind in the upper domain in our hourglass analogy. This is the higher human consciousness engaged with our personality, the contents of which are worthy of being copied into our immortal soul through the ministry of our indwelling Adjuster. This then is that which is expanded through sincere prayer in faith.
I can here only allude to the illuminating effect of incorporating of the symbols of the “inner bastion”, the citadel of the spirit in the extension of the hourglass analogy, which conveys the absolute security experienced by those who have dedicated the keeping of this soul to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God. You must listen to the teaching in its entirety for the full story. Additionally a parallel reference to the cosmology of the Master Universe, our Paradise ascension, and eventual transcendence of time and space illustrates the utility of the oft’ cited principle in the revelation “as above, so below”. All meaningful aspects of our material existence are really downstepped expressions of existence in the higher realms of creation.
Jesus’ instruction continues emphasizing that sonship is a gift, bestowed by grace and received through faith, as by a little child. However, righteousness is earned through progressive character development fostered by our courageous and independent cosmic thinking.
Being fully conscious of his divine nature, prayer led Jesus up to supercommunion of his soul with the Supreme Rulers of the universe of universes. Prayer for us mere mortals will lead us to the communion of true worship. And here and now in this life, our soul’s (spiritualized mind) capacity for receptivity determines the quantity of heavenly blessings we can receive and realize as an answer to prayer.
In our discussion concerning prayer being an antidote for harmful introspection, further extension of the versatile hourglass analogy clarified the difference between harmful introspection and the sublime thinking that is true prayer. Sublime thinking takes the form of directionizing and harmonizing the cross currents of adjutant mind energy in the lower domain from above. Whereas, harmful introspection results from the injection of the poorly controlled spirit energy into the lower domain with disruptive consequences, for such is the stuff of fanaticism.
Worship is the salvation for the pleasure-seeking generations of mortals. What does this mean? Remembering we are in the “material-comfort era” of progressing civilization, and rather than attempting to expunge the pleasure seeking urge of mortal man, we can reflect on the work of the Conductors of Worship on Paradise, and see that worship “...eventually attains the glory of the highest experiential delight and the most exquisite pleasure known to created beings.” [27:7.1] As above, so below.
The midwayers display their reprocessing of Jesus’ teaching for modern consumption by likening prayer to recharging the spiritual batteries of the soul, and worship to the act of tuning in the soul to catch the universe broadcasts of the infinite spirit of the Universal Father.
The next point the midwayers give us hearkens back to the evolutionary purpose of prayer of the child of God, who in sincerity looks to the Father in a psychologic movement of exchanging the human will for the divine will. For prayer is part of the divine plan for making over that which is into that which ought to be.
Finally, we are told that practically all of Jesus’ praying was done in the spirit and in the heart—silently.
144:5. Other Forms of Prayer
In this section the midwayers tell us that Jesus brought additional prayers to the notice of the apostles in illustration of other matters. The apostles were enjoined not to share these with the multitudes. Although not revealed to the apostles, many of these prayers were from other inhabited planets. We are further told that special permission was granted for including seven of the other forms of prayer in the revelation.
We took turns reading these other prayers and reflecting on their form and content, and speculating on their various aspects, posing questions as, which ones were from other inhabited planets?, to what stage of planetary development might these prayers belong?. Further it was noted that these prayers paralleled the Believer’s Prayer in several respects. Was this Jesus’ doing in attempting to highlight meaning in the Believer’s Prayer, or did the midwayers rework them utilizing human expressions according to their mandate?
