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Story of Progress From primitive time man has
instinctively sought a higher power when he has felt the need of help. He has
been inclined to depend upon himself, exhausting every idea and every
apparent resource before turning to God for help. Sine he was usually in a
state of desperation when he at last sought spiritual help, quite naturally
his prayer was one of supplication, of pleading and beseeching a god or some
unknown power to come to his aid. This type of prayer added nothing to his
self-confidence or to his ability to meet new difficulties as they arose. Students of Divine
Science are being illumined by greater understanding and are cultivating the
habit of true thinking, that is, knowing that God has already given man all
that He, Himself, is. As man lives in the knowledge of the truth of himself
and knows his oneness with All Wisdom, All Power, All Resourcefulness, he no
longer prays at God but commune with God. He withdraws his thoughts from
appearances in the physical realm and centers them upon the omnipresence,
omnipotence, and omniscience of God. He openly declares his oneness with the
one God-Mind and as he brings all his thoughts into alignment with that Mind,
he partakes of the riches of Spirit. Thus he increases his ability to receive
the flood of goodness which is constantly flowing out from God to His whole
creation. The prayer of Divine
Science become affirmative statements of our hearts’ praise of the Father and
a thankful acknowledgment of what we are and what we are to express here. It
directs our thinking from the need, or the problem, to the One Abiding
Presence and Power. Affirmative prayer establishes confidence and enables us
to meet all situations with poise and peace of mind. Prayer becomes an
expression of our willingness to do our part in fulfilling God’s plan for peace
on earth and good will toward all, so that man may actually abide in the
Kingdom of Heaven here and now. Chapter Six Prayer Blessed be thou, Lord God
of Israel our father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and
the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is
in the heavens and earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art
exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor
come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and
might, and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God we
thank thee, and praise they glorious name. 1Chron 29: 10-13 Questions to Alert Your Thinking 1.
What
does Divine Science consider the true purpose of prayer?
Thinking
of Truth reveals it to us more and more clearly. As we study and practice,
our thoughts are steadily enlightened and there comes to us a greater
realization of our oneness with God. As
a student trains his thinking, the process may be likened to a mental fast. A
fast of though which we shall give recognition: we refuse to entertain any
concept of evil; we reject every negative thought; we release our previously
accumulated beliefs and opinions; we give up human comparisons of good and evil.
The results are positive: anger and the inclination to become angry grow less
as we refuse to give place to evil; weariness, fear, and pain drift away; we
see ourselves and our fellowmen in a new light and with greater
understanding; our world becomes a pleasanter place in which to live. Hitherto
prayer has been considered an expressed desire to be released from some
condition or to have some need supplied. Hitherto we have not realized that
the conditions we experience in our lives are the automatic fulfillment of
our own state of consciousness, and so we have prayed that they might pass
from us, not realizing that we must pass from them. More
and more as our thought is illumined by truth we see the whole world and all
that belongs in it as God’s creation, His expression and this creation is
potentially as perfect as He is perfect. Again our eyes are opened to see
that prayer is not what we had previously thought it to be. We begin to
understand that we shall no longer beseech our God for what we desire. Now we
shall pray to realize the God presence, the Christ within ourselves, to feel
His love, and to become aware of His purpose for us. We shall pray in order
to become more certain of that which is. We shall pray for a fuller
realization of God, not primarily for things or for favors from God. When our
thoughts accept the Omnipresence and its Good, we know that we have received;
we know that all good is already ours and is only awaiting our recognition
and acceptance. After
we understand Omnipresence as the "fullness filling all" we can
say, "I have received." Now we shall "speak with new
tongues," we shall pray in a new way. Prayer in Divine Science becomes
the method of recognizing God and His fullness, for recognition is the sure
method of seeking, receiving and having. It is the method that brings the
highest unfoldment to the individual. True prayer is recognition, acceptance,
thanksgiving, and acting the true nature of God. To recognize the One All as
present is finding and receiving our good. The scientist declares the
everlasting, eternal truth of God; realizes that God is continually
expressing Himself in, through, and as His creation. The scientist prays in
Spirit with understanding; he renders thanks for what has been received and
joyfully acknowledges omnipresent good. The
true prayer is the prayer of illumined faith and of the acknowledgement of
God’s loving presence. It is the foundation of all clear seeing and believing
and through it comes the greatest of all joys, the comradeship of God and man.
Through prayer we constantly become more conscious of God and God in action
in all life’s experiences, more conscious of the immediate nearness and
availability of God. Through prayer we become more conscious of what we are,
of what God knows us to be, His own image and likeness. The
affirmative prayer of Divine Science is patterned after the Lord’s Prayer. In
this prayer we find not pleading but affirmation of truth. It is often used
in Divine Science services as a powerful means of emphasizing oneness with
God which Jesus so definitely expressed in all his teachings. It is spoken in
the present tense for it is believed that Jesus spoke it in his native
language, the Aramaic, which had neither past nor future tense. Read it in
the present tense and see how much stronger and more meaningful it become to
you: Our
Father which art in heaven, Hallowed
is Thy name. Thy
kingdom come; Thy will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Thou
givest us this day our daily bread: Thou
forgivest us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Thou
leadest us not into temptation but dost deliver us from all evil: For
thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. The
Creator expresses His own nature in living form and is always saying to His
expression, "Because I am, thou art; thou art my very Self revealed and
like ever expresses like." The law of love is God’s givingness of all
that He is to His creation. Truth never changes. Law is unchangeable.
Personal opinion has no influence over law. In the practice of Truth, by
means of true prayer, personal opinions must be set aside for unchangeable
law. Prayer, therefore becomes an acknowledgment of the divine order or plan;
the acceptance of the perfect adjustment of mentality and body to the truth
of Spirit. How
natural it is that the Creator, infinite Mind, should know His creations
individually; should know man as His own thought. This is the reason that
direct communication with God is possible. God is more conscious of us than
we are of Him; His capacity for being intensely conscious is so much greater
than ours that it is beyond comparison. God knows when we turn to Him and our
love for Him is met by His own outflowing love for us. Our need is to know
the truth and to listen to the voice of intuitionwhich is ever speaking
within us. To this purpose the present chapter will present a proven method
by which the student may establish the habit of affirmative prayer and the
art of silent listening in order that he may more fully partake of Truth. One
soon learns that prayer may be instantaneous, for by the quick turning of
thought to the Christ Mind within, one receives added strength, renewed love,
guidance, and assurance. But it is also necessary to acquire the habit of a
longer communication with God. This requires a daily period of quiet when we
"enter the closet…and shut the door." This is the time of
meditation which will keep us alert to the ever-present God in the midst of
us. The period of daily meditation is an excellent preparation for the true
Silence wherein we listen to God who is ever seeking to express through us.
Meditation includes our affirmative statement of our origin, of our
inheritance, and of our desire to open the way for God’s plan to work out
through us. It is the time when we bring our thinking into alignment with the
God idea; when we agree with His divine nature; when we center our whole
attention in the divine Mind and openly declare the truth of our oneness with
that Mind. To keep thought centered in God and to declare our oneness with
Him is to enter heaven and partake of the kingdom. The infinite consciousness
of God, or Mind, becomes our consciousness when we identify and locate
ourselves in the presence of God. His resourcefulness becomes real to us in
proportion as we become conscious of His presence with us and within us. In
order to meditate effectively let us set aside a time for meditation when we
may be as undisturbed as possible. Sit in a comfortable position so that we
may forget the body and our surroundings. Before meditating we decide upon
the inherency or aspect of God we wish to realize for that day. It may be one
today, another tomorrow. It is far better to concentrate upon a single God
inherency than it is to attempt to realize the complete omnipresence of God
in a single meditation. We choose for the subject of our meditation something
for which we feel the need of a deeper realization. We meditate upon the need
of a deeper realization. We meditate upon tat one subject only, be it of
health, supply, guidance, wisdom, love, strength, peace or any other subject
– until we begin to sense its completeness in God, and until in our thought
we bring ourselves to an awareness that it is ours also, and until this truth
permeates our consciousness. As
we affirm our true nature until we are certain of its truth; as we shut out
thought of all that is contrary to our peace; as we know that that which is
true of God’s nature is also true of our own for we are the image and
likeness of God, we enter into a state of mind which accepts the truth that
God has provided for us all that we can possibly need. This is the first step
in meditation. It is called Recognition of Omnipresence. Now
at this time when thoughts, emotions, opinions, and questions are stilled, we
make our definite affirmative statement of the truth we wish to dwell upon in
order to attain a deeper realization of it as actuality in our experience. We
repeat this affirmation several times until we feel its truth and think of
nothing else. As we dwell upon it with all our attention, feel it to the core
of our hearts, we life our consciousness into a state of true prayer. This is
the second step in meditation and is called Affirmation. Continue
to think of this attribute or characteristic as it exists perfectly in the
God-Mind, in the Perfect Uncreate. Enumerate all the ways which convince us
of the existence of this characteristic in God. Now, we bring our thought to
the world at large and think of every evidence of God’s expressing this
characteristic in the natural universe. Again we bring thought still closer
to our own immediate surroundings and ourselves. We always hold to the one
thought that God is expressing Himself in, through, and as us. This detailed
"thinking through" from the perfect Source to perfect manifestation
is the third step in meditation, called Concentration. The
foregoing three steps, wherein we praise and described the goodness of God,
wherein we magnify the good in our conscious thinking until the subconscious
realm of our soul becomes full of the recognition of good, will lead us into
an inner spiritual-mental practice of the Presence which results in intuitive
comunication. The fourth step should follow automatically; it is the Silence
wherein we cease our thinking, direct all our attention to the Christ Mind
within and listen only to Spirit. Christ Mind, which is the presence of God
within the individual, we may receive wisdom direct from divine Mind. We
listen attentively, yet quietly, that we may be fully receptive to this
direct knowing as it flows forth from the Infinite; listen while allowing the
hidden glories and truths of life to be revealed to our thinking, listen to
be convinced of Truth, listen inwardly that we may receive the intuitions of
the Spirit. We come out of the Silence with a grateful outpouring of thanks
for if we have carried out these directions conscientiously we shall feel
such an upwelling of spontaneous gratitude to the Father for all that He
means to us that we will be compelled to express our thanks. This fourth step
is call Conscious Realization. After
this time in the Silence and the full expression of our gratitude we return
to the normal activities of daily living carrying an enlightened
consciousness with us, and we go forth in a godly way from Invisible Being to
visible expression, even as a completed example is the perfect expression of
a perfect principle in the science of mathematics. For in truth we include
our expression within our consciousness just as omnipresence includes all
creation within its infinite Consciousness. Hence our freedom is of the same
nature as is the freedom of omnipresent Spirit. To
be sure that we are contacting the Christ Mind, which is the greatest achievement
that can come to us, here are some points to e kept in mind as we practice
meditation: First,
we must establish a strong unwavering belief in the indwelling Christ Mind.
By means of regular, daily affirmation, meditation and study, we shall
implant such a deep and abiding faith that eventually it becomes a rock upon
which to build. Second,
we must make it our responsibility to grasp every opportunity to recognize
the expression of a God inherency in our contact with others. Let us name if,
claim it as part of ourselves, give thanks for it and for our ability to
discern it, give it more than a passing thought. Third,
our conscious mind must be alert and dynamic during meditation, for
meditation is not a subjective state in which we invite into our mentality
anything that may want to come. If we are apathetic we open ourselves to a
host of jumbled impressions and desires that will rise out of the
subconscious realm of mind. Fourth,
we are creatures of free will and we can decide to open to the Christ Mind
and to it alone. Affirmations and meditation bring us into a close feeling of
intimacy with that Mind and we can follow out our intent. As we are steadfast
in study and prayer, knowing that we are turning to the indwelling Father in
deep earnestness, we shall find Him as willing to give as we are to receive. Fifth,
after patient practice we shall come to an inner knowing, a clear conviction
that it is the Christ with whom we have been communing. When this conviction
comes it brings a wonderful sense of joy and satisfaction, and it is sure to
come as a reward of earnest and persistent seeking. There is no set form in
which it must come. Some say that they see a light, some say that they hear a
voice, some have a deep knowing that it is unaccompanied by any phenomena of
physical senses. It will come to each one in the way best for him, so do not
make any special attempt to bring lights, colors or voices. Finally,
let us not permit the intellect to reason away what we may have received
intuitively. Intuition is superior to intellect for intellect must ultimately
depend upon intuition for its clearest explanation of Truth and for is
working ideas. To
pray the meditative prayer takes more time and thought than a supplication
for help, for it means consistently thinking through and the earnest endeavor
to be true in all thinking, speaking, and reacting in accordance therewith.
In fact it loses all value unless followed by action which conforms to the
knowing. The practice of living the truth is of such vital importance that
later there will be an entire lesson devoted to the practical application of
it. Meditation and practice are the two phases of strong living. In
stillness, strength is gathered for activity; in action, the energy realized
is stillness is exercised. Stillness is the night wherein the soul reposes
and is refreshed for the activity of the day. One soon appreciates the
reminder that we continue "instant in prayer," for the affirmative
prayer requires that every minute be attuned to a constant acknowledgment of
God, the One All. To
pray and depend upon God as the source of life and strength is to worship in
Spirit and in Truth; is to base motive and faith aright; and is to fulfill
the purpose of Life in creation. The purpose of Life is that God may be made
manifest; that we may, as individuals, come to know our true Sonship. This is
a consciousness of Life Eternal. He who finds not God within himself may seek
in vain elsewhere. He who finds not himself in God and as God will have
sought the Christ in vain. When God is sought and found as the expresser of
form, and as expressed in form, there is no place where He is not apparent. Regular,
persistent practice of affirmative prayer will bring us eventually to the
place where we will establish a strong, unwavering belief in the Christ Mind
which is the eternal Self of each one. It will implant such a deep and
abiding faith in the guidance of that Indwelling One in both the conscious
and subconscious levels of our thought that nothing can dislodge it. It will
bring to each one who practices faithfully an established consciousness which
will promote progressive spiritual unfoldment. This is our goal in the
understanding and use of prayer. Study
these lessons from the plane of Spirit; meditate upon their truths from that
high plane and the light of understanding will reveal their truth. If you
will pray as herein instructed you will feel the power of communing with the
Father; you will become aware that Father and son are one. You will worship
in spirit and in Truth. STATEMENTS OF TRUTH Affirmations declare that which is forever true. Affirmation
brings realization. Realization
is conscious possession. Meditative
prayer has the same purpose as the practice of any art or skill – the
attainment of perfect results. Time
spent in meditation gives me opportunity to enumerate in definite statements,
aloud or silently, the truth I know about God and about myself. For
a successful Silence:
It
may take much practice in meditation before we attain the real Silence and
have an awareness of the presence of God. Be persistent, be humble, have
faith, and one day you will find a refuge, and abiding place within Spirit.
This is the "Pearl of Great Price." QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND
DISCUSSION 1. Explain why the Lord’s Prayer may rightly be prayed n the present tense.
Divine Science Its Principle and Practice
Copyright ã1957 by Divine Science Church and College Denver, Colorado Made
available here by the ministry of Rev.
Lawrence C. Terry, M.Msc., D.Min. P. O. Box
68324 Indianapolis,
IN 46268-0324 |
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