The Prayer that Jesus Taught
It occurs to me that if an everyday Christian were to come to a true understanding of what Jesus was teaching in the prayer that has come to be known as "The Lord's Prayer," that that Christian would become prepared for some serious growth along spiritual lines. For it does seem to me that the saddest part of Christianity today is that portion of it which still revels in fundamentalist interpretations of exclusivity. And there is nothing to be found in this prayer which supports religious exclusivity. The world is too small now for the attitude which states, "my religion is the right religion and the only right way to turn in God's direction, and therefore, your religion is wrong!." It matters not whether it springs from the Christian Faith, the Muslim Faith, the Hebrew Faith, the Hindu, Siek, or Buddhist Faith, or from any other faith, such an attitude divides the world of humanity in a way that defies the Spirit of Truth when one considers that the qualities of what it means to say 'God' simply must include the qualities of Perfect Love, Perfect Understanding, Perfect Wisdom, and Absolute Truth.
An ever increasing understanding of the totality of the world's religions, rather than continuing to allow for attitudes of exclusivity, point out that there is a common thread running through them all which gives credence to more than one learned Guru's teachings that "Truth is One, Paths are Many." Today there are readily available to all of us the writings of Muslim Sufis, Rumi and Hazrat Inayat Khan, the Hindu writings of Swami Vivekinanda, Swami Sabramuniyaswami, and a variety of other Satgurus, and the Buddhist writings of Chogyam Trungpa and others as well as the sayings of the Buddha Himself. No one reading in these writings with an open mind could realistically state that Christians have the only answers concerning what it means to grow along spiritual lines. In fact, open-mindedness is becoming almost a requirement to prevent the fighting of the Spirit of Truth which Jesus spoke against to the point of calling it the "only unforgivable sin."
Jesus was well aware of what attitudes were required within a human in order to walk daily with a "Father God" of Perfect Love, Understanding, Wisdom, and Truth, which placed that walker in a position of being in the only heaven any human being need ever know. He taught that in order to acquire the attitudes allowing that daily walking with God a human would need to open his mind to the point where everything he used to believe important in being alive would fall out. In other words, a 'new birth' of the human is required. He knew the attitudes required to be in heaven because he lived them, and he further knew how he came to be living them.
Open-minded Christians have the opportunity today to peruse the writings of learned biblical scholars with no axe to grind who have diligently studied the words attributed to Jesus in order to determine, honestly,open mindedly, and learnedly what Jesus actually said and what was most probably added in later years in order to solidify the power of the early Chirstian leaders, and/or, in order to strengthen the church structure. It is in the perusal of these open-minded writings that one can come to see that Jesus was not giving orders on how one should live in order to attain some heavenly environment after death. He was rather pointing out what attitudes required changing within the human so that he could be in heaven as much of the time as he wanted to be in heaven right in the present. And in the prayer he gave to all of us humans, any and all of us who are willing to make use of it; Christian or otherwise, he summed up his teachings.
To receive the proper sense of what is happening within this prayer, one needs to see it as an acknowledgement of the spiritual truth of what is going on on earth on a daily basis. It is a prayer of surrender to 'what is,' and in no way a prayer of supplication to what one wishes will someday 'come about.'
He begins the prayer with the all inclusive, "'Our Father ,' Who art in heaven." as it would be ridiculous to believe that 'Father God' can in anyway be owned by one religion or another any more than could "Mother Nature."
"Hallowed be Thy Name," and, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven sets the tone for what portion of life we are dealing with here. If God be Holy, then all that is Holy is of God and all that is of God is Holy. Then, immediately, we are acknowledging that everything we do, all that we think, see and feel, are a part of the kingdom of God. Whether we are attending to earthly matters or 'spiritual matters' we are always within the kingdom of God. No longer is there to be a place where we enter God's realm and the rest of the time live outside of God's realm. We need to bring into our awareness that we are constantly living within God's kingdom and that whether or not we are getting our way in our lives, God is always getting God's way in our lives. When we pray, Thy will (not my will) be done we are very much surrendering to the attitude we need to maintain in order to walk through life with serenity of spirit, peace of mind, and a sense of being at home in the universe on a daily basis.
Now why will the reader balk at that paragraph above? Simply because it doesn't ring true to anyone who is sure he/she knows what is good and what is evil. [the 'he/she' will end here, the writer is simply acknowledging that he is aware of the English Language disparity] Those who know what is good and what is evil are used to dividing the world's activities between Satan (evil) driven and God (good) driven forces. Yet this is not the world of which Jesus taught. No more stoning the adultress. No more looking down on the prodigal son. No more thinking it is important to properly bury one's father with months and months of ceremonies. Jesus was pointing back to the God of Eden, and saying, "you can have that Perfect Father God in your lives once again if you are willing to give up your knowledge of good and evil." And it is still true today. You still can. Is it not silly for Christians to take with deadly seriousness the attitudes and statements attributed to concepts of God of which earlier humans made use after they decided they knew what was good and what was evil while theologically dancing their way out of obeying almost the first words out of the mouth of Perfectly Loving, Understanding, Wise, and Truthful God who ordered that humans, while being able to learn of all matters of which they are interested in learning, must never get the idea that they can know what is good and what is evil (because once they are sure they have that knowledge they cannot walk in the Garden with a Perfectly Loving God until they once again cast out that knowledge)? God's original mandate to man has never changed, and Jesus saw that most clearly. His teaching can readily be seen to be, Forget the rules, just learn how to love one another as I love you. He was certainly not admonishing his followers to act as if they loved one another, which is only dishonest foolishness, but was rather teaching them to change their attitudes concerning what is important in being alive to the point where they would truly have the capacity to love one another
And how will those attitudes get changed? Can we force them to change? Can we make ourselves capable of loving our fellow human beings? We cannot . . . but Truth can . . . and it's past time to let it. Two of perhaps many questions which come to mind when reading the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount are why are the meek and poor in spirit blessed, and how does one become one of these. And the question (1) answer is because the meek and poor in spirit (allowing for minor changes across time for word and phrase meaning) are those who are willingly humble. They do not get upset when they don't get their way. They do not need to 'get even' when they are treated unjustly, and they do not need to become anything because they are aware that they already are all they need to be.
Humility of spirit is what allows us to have peace of mind and a sense of being at home in the universe on a daily basis no matter what is going on around us. And thus do the meek and poor in spirit always walk among us in a blessed state. The question (2) answer is, the way to those attitudinal changes which allow us to joyfully become meek and poor in spirit is to acquire more of the blessed quality of humility into our lives. And increased humility, believe it or not, is simply and easily acquired.
Granting God the capacity to love us perfectly and understand us perfectly ( by actually getting within our spirits and knowing that there are many areas of our lives in which we wish we could improve our actions, but cannot), does it not make sense that God wants us to learn how to feel really good all day every day? Would the way be difficult and at times near impossible, or would the way be extremely simple and available to all who are willing to opt for meekness of bearing and poorness of spirit? Do you see it? It is not that the way to heaven is difficult to find, it is that if we cannot remain special and highly competitive with an eye to winning the game and always striving to be more than just one of the masses, we don't want to go there.
But there is good reason to go there. It is the only way to freedom from a state of self-will run riot, selfishness, and self centeredness, with all the loneliness and mental anguish associated with living in the bonds of those egoistic conditions. It matters not whether I am Muslim, Hebrew, Buddhist, Hindu, Siek, Taoist, Shinto, or Christian, Atheis, or Agnostic, being moved by truth from egoism towards humility is the only way out. It is the only way to the heaven of serenity of spirit, peace of mind, and a sense of being at home in the universe on a daily basis.
Humbling truths surround me on a daily basis, and while the 'way' that Jesus taught is certainly not the only way to amass increased humility into my life his way is certainly one of the easier ways. When I agree to base all of my reasoning on the premise that I am living in God's Kingdom, rather than God dwelling in a portion of my kingdom, the internalizing of humbling truths becomes the wisdom associated with those words in the prayer of Jesus, "Give us this day our daily bread." With these words we are stating our willingness to internalize those truths.
Humbling Truth is the food for our souls. Our souls grow ever closer to becoming Perfect Love, Understanding, Wisdom, and Truth as we continue on a daily basis to internalize our daily bread of humbling truths. And there is no force feeding required. It is the fighting of internalizing those truths which cause our upsets of all kinds and which leads to an ever increasing degree of mental anguish within us. I need only desire to be free from mental anguish (if at the cost of my great sense of importance) to make use of a simple feedback system which puts me in accord with internalizing humbling truths.
Let us imagine that as I walk through my day I meet a situation whereby I am being unjustly treated and cannot negatively react to that unjust treatment without causing myself more trouble. Old attitudes toward what is important in being alive inform me that I have a right to be miserable. But the new base for my reasoning that I am living in God's kingdom and that God knows how to make my soul grow and I do not, and that God wants me to learn new attitudes which will maintain my state of serenity of spirit, peace of mind, and a sense of being at home in the universe, causes me to lose my right to be miserable and rather trust that God is putting me through an experience that I need to go through in order to grow along spiritual lines. If at this point, I am willing to let my ego defenses drop sufficiently, I will, by making God's will for me more important than the fact that I am not getting my way, return to a state of serenity of spirit having acquired a bit more humility than I had before the incident occured.
As I continue to make use of that feedback system and note how much better I am beginning to feel about being alive I will see for myself that my ego-defense system is not, in fact, the friend I always thought it to be (if, in fact, God wants me to feel good all day every day). Thus will I become ever increasingly more willing to have that system decay as I continue to make use of this new feedback system in order to stay free from first, the right to be miserable, and then (since there is no reward for the ego in maintaining misery within me if I don't have a right to the misery) losing the feelings of misery themselves.
Thus it is a spiritual feedback system designed to keep me free from mental anguish that makes me ready and willing to internalize my daily bread of humbling truths, while this system, also, leaves me nothing to be proud about in pursuing its execution.
Moving further into the prayer, it has been pointed out by Bible Scholars that Jesus Called God by a term roughly translated into 'Daddy.' Can there be any doubt that Jesus as earlier here stated, had in fact returned to the Garden of Eden and was again walking in the garden with Perfectly Loving God as he walked through life? His teachings point out that God will forgive any sin we have ever committed, and He taught that the only unforgivable sin was the blaspheming of the Spirit of Truth (He used the terms, Holy Spirit or Ghost and Spirit of Truth interchangeably). And it is the Spirit of Truth that informs us that if we desire to feel the forgiveness of our sins we can use God's qualities of perfect Love and understanding to feel that forgiveness, but only so long as we afford those who we feel we have a right to resent that same access to God's Perfect Love. We cannot feel ourselves free from what we have done to others which we can't make amends for unless we cease to resent those who have been unable to obey the golden rule in their dealings with us. And therefore, the phrase, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us is nothing more than our agreeing that we are willing to let the Spirit of Truth work in our lives to take away our right to live with resentments towards others in order to feel the freedom from our past mistakes which allows us to maintain our daily state of serenity of spirit, peace of mind, and a sense of being at home in the universe.
As a result of making use of the simple spiritual feedback system (always based on the new foundation for my reasoning that God is walking me through this business of living and providing me with precisely those experiences which afford me growth along spiritual lines) the humbling truth deflates my ego (while giving me nothing to take credit for other than having sufficient common sense to want to stay free from mental anguish), and my ego neediness is similarly deflated. The day comes when my ego neediness is not driving me to do self defeating things that I used to 'need' to do, and I discover that more and more of my time is taken up with helping others feel better about being alive (both at work and at leisure), because I have learned how to feel good about being alive as much of the time as I want to feel good about being alive. Thus, do the next words of the prayer become truth in my life.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil is an aknowledgement of what is happening to us as we grow along spiritual lines. We are not tempted to take credit for how "good" we are becoming, but the feedback process leads us to freedom from our old obsessive/compulsive behaviors associated with our ego-neediness which caused hurt to both ourselves and others. Thus, can it not be seen that it is God (as the Spirit of Truth at this point) Who must receive full credit for first freeing us from the bondage of self and resultantly for our newfound capacity to love and our newfound desire to serve others?
Finally, holding the above paragraph within our psyches, is it any wonder that the final words of the prayer are just as they are (Whether added by some wise soul after the fact or simply stated by Jesus at a different time - since surely he publicly taught this prayer which sums up his teachings so well more than once): For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever, Amen Yes, it might seem that I am editorializing a bit with the underlining of Thine. Yet, when one sees that 'Thine' means 'Yours,' how else can one believe it should be stated, when the insistance is that it is not me who has accomplished any transformation within myself, but always the making use of God's perfect love, understanding, wisdom and truth which has accomplished the transformation?
Thus have we found, within this well used prayer, the stuff of the mystics. We have found the way to the Treasure in the field and the Pearl of Great Price. We have found the way to Serenity of Spirit, Peace of Mind, and a sense of being at home in the universe on a daily basis. Willingness to work the principles behind this prayer move us rapidly (rather than grudgingly slowly) along the continuum from egoism towards humility, granting us an ever enlarging capacity for loving and wanting to serve our fellow human beings. Thereby, in making use of this prayer, will any Christian, any other religious, and even any non-religious come to find himself at one with the single commandment of the Teacher Jesus. I.e., "And this is my commandment, That ye love one another."
Blessings - seerbeer
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Humility to Love to Service to FREEDOM
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