Prayer

Prayer 

But all this is merely preparatory. The radio set may be lighted, the condensers and transformers and antennae in perfect operation - but what do we want to do with it? So also here. We need money. Sickness is present. Or we have undesirable moral or mental traits - or what not. We have so to elevate our minds, in the utilisation of this spiritual energy, that the desire of our heart automatically realizes itself with practically no effort at all. The wish, the heart’s desire, the goal to be reached, must be held firmly in mind, vitalised by divine power, but propelled forward into the universe by the fiery intensity of all the emotional exaltation we are capable of. Prayer is therefore indispensable. Prayer, not merely as a petition to some God outside of the universe, but prayer conceived as the spiritual and emotional stimulus calculated to bring about an identification with or realization of our own Godhead, Prayer, sincerely, undertaken, will mobilize all the qualities of the self, and the inner fervour that it will awaken will reinforce the work previously done. It will render success an almost 
infallible result. For in such a case, success not because of one’s own human effort, but because God brings about the result. The fervour and the emotional exaltation enable one to realize the divinity within, which is the spiritual factor which brings our desires to immediate and complete fulfillment. 

But I question whether prayer of the quite unemotional variety has any value at all here. This cold-blooded petitioning finds no place within the highest conceptions of spiritual achievement. An ancient metaphysician once said, ‘Inflame thyself with prayer.’ Here is the secret. We must so pray that the whole of our being becomes aflame with a spiritual intensity before which nothing can stand. All illusions and all limitations fade away utterly before this fervour. When the soul literally burns up, the spiritual identity with God is attained. Then the 
heart’s desire is accomplished without effort - because God does it. The wish becomes fact - objective, phenomenal fact, for all to see. 

What prayers, then, should be employed to lift the mind to this intensity, to awaken the emotional fervour of which it was said ‘inflame thyself in praying’? That I conceive to be a problem to be solved each one for himself. Every man and woman has some idea about prayer which, when sustained, will inflame him to inward 
realisation. Some people will use a poem that has always had the effect of exalting them. Others will use the Lord’s prayer, or maybe Psalm 23. And so on for all possible types. For myself, I prefer the use of some archaic hymns known as invocations, but which are prayers nonetheless, which certainly have the desired effect upon me 
of arousing the necessary emotional potential. In the hope that these might be useful to others, I append herewith a couple of fragments, the first one being composed of vesicles from various scriptures. 

I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whosoever believeth on me though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall have everlasting life. I am the First, 
and I am the Last. I am He that liveth and was dead - but behold! I am alive for evermore, and hold the keys of hell and death. For I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. I am the Purified. I have passed through the gates of darkness unto Light. I have fought upon earth for good. I have finished my work. I have entered into the invisible. 

I am the Sun in his rising, passed through the hour of cloud and of night. I am Amoun, the Concealed One, the opener of the day. I am Osiris Onnophris, the Justifed One, the Lord of Life, triumphant over death. There is no part of me which is not of the Gods. I am the preparer of the Pathway, the Rescuer of the Pathway, the Rescuer unto the Light. Let the White Light of the 

Divine Spirit Descend.

The second fragment is rather different from the above although both have a similar personal effect when slowly repeated, meditated upon and felt intensely. This second prayer consists of two parts - the first one being a sort of petition of the higher divine self, whilst the second part bespeaks of the realisation of identity with it. 

Thee I invoke the Bornless One. Thee that didst create the Earth and the Heavens. Thee that didst create the Night and Day. Thee that didst create the Darkness and the Light. Thou art Man Made-Perfect, whom no man hath seen at any time. Thou art God and very God. Thou hast 
distinguished between the Just and the Unjust. Thou didst make the female and the male. Thou 
produce the seed and the fruit. Thou didst form men to love one another and to hate one 
another. Thou didst produce the moist and the dry, and That which nourisheth all created things. 

The second half should follow only after a long pause, in which one attempts to realize just what it is that the prayer has asserted, and that it is raising the mind to an appreciation of the hidden secret Godhead within, which is the creator of all things. 

This is the Lord of the Gods. This is the Lord of the Universe. This is He whom the winds fear. This is He, who having made voice by his commandment is Lord of all things, king, ruler and helper. Hear me and make all spirits subject unto me, so that every spirit of the firmament and of the ether, upon the earth and under the earth, on dry land and in the water, of whirling air, and of rushing fire, and every spell and scourge of God the Vast One may be made obedient unto me. 

I am He, the Bornless Spirit, having sight in the feet, strong and the immortal Fire. I am He, he Truth, I am He who hate that evil should be wrought into the world. I am He that lighteneth 
and thundereth. I am He from whom is the shower of the Life of Earth. I am He whose mouth ever flameth. I am He, the begetter and manifester unto the Light. I am He, the Grace of the World. The 

Heart Girt with a Serpent is my Name.

The prayer fragments are suggested only and are to be used or rejected as each student feels fit. They operate for me - they may operate in the case of other students, or not, as the case may be.