M0096
The Psychic Aspect of Prayer
by Martinus

1. Everything that exists is God's being or proclamation
Life will eventually become, for the perfect or finished human being, a permanent dialogue with the Godhead. Each relationship to our neighbour is not only a relationship between that neighbour and ourselves, but is in its basic analysis a relationship between the Godhead and ourselves. But the ordinary terrestrial human being does not perceive life in this way. It believes that the Godhead is a person or a figure that sits up in heaven and is a being in itself, whereas its neighbour or fellow being is something quite different, and Nature, the Earth, the stars and the Universe are something different again. It does not understand that in reality there only exists itself and the Godhead. It has no understanding whatsoever that all that exists is the Godhead's being or proclamation. If this was not the case the Godhead would never ever become an experience. The prodigal son would never ever be able to find his father, he would never ever be able to perceive the experience of life at all.
2. By enjoying the fruits of the tree of knowledge the being loses its consciousness of God
The fact that the eternally existing living being has lost its understanding and consciousness of the Godhead and thereby also lost its own high identity as a son of God, is an expression of the death it had to undergo due to eating from the tree of knowledge. But once the terrestrial human being, due to reincarnation, has been through this period of death, in which it believes itself to be one with matter, one with space and time, one with weights and measures, one with beginning and end, and in which it believes that it shall die and disintegrate into nothing, it will rise again to real life, to the knowledge of its own eternal existence together with the Godhead. That this resurrection can take place is due to the fact that the being can never ever totally lose its connection with the Godhead.
3. The instinctive cry to God for help
In the midst of the being's dead materialistic existence there will still be burning a little flame of eternal life. In the strongly materialistic unloving being this little flame is usually hidden. The being persistently denies the existence of this flame until it finds itself in a dangerous, life-threatening situation that cannot be solved with the help of money, position, power or by running away. In such a situation the little flame, that is inherent in the being, comes to life to such an extent that the being instinctively cries out to heaven, cries to the unknown Providence or the Father who it denies for help. Since this cry begins as the animal's cry of anxiety and continues as each being's last resort in its most helpless, unhappy or life-threatening situations, this proves that it is not an idea that has been thought up by terrestrial mankind, but rather a ripple effect from the being's inborn, unconscious cosmic identity. If the most cold-hearted, materialistic "free-thinker" cries out to God when there is no other help available, it becomes obvious that between him and the Godhead there exists a psychic connection that cannot be broken. This shows that his idea that God or Providence does not exist, does not hold true in these dangerous situations. It becomes clear that denying God's existence is merely something dreamed up by human beings and can therefore only be something the being says in situations where it believes it is out of all danger, protected by its physical abilities, its power and position. Unlike the acknowledgement of the Godhead, this denial cannot become alive, become hope, become alight when darkness falls upon the being. And everything that is life at the onset of death can therefore survive death. And that is why prayer, the beings' connection with the Godhead, can survive everything.
This connection with the Godhead undergoes a great transformation as the being evolves. To begin with it is a cry at the moment of death, then it becomes a prayer to the Godhead, firstly a prayer for the forgiveness of sins, then it becomes a correspondence or a dialogue with the Godhead. The principle of prayer is the flame of eternal life as the being passes through the kingdom of death.
4. Life is a dialogue between the Godhead and the son of God
To understand prayer in the epoch in which it has become a dialogue with God, one has to come to an understanding of how the Godhead manifests. The Godhead cannot manifest without organs. By getting to know the organs of God, one gets to know the how God's body and consciousness function. With this knowledge, life soon becomes very different in that the universe becomes a living organism for the Godhead. In this organism all organs have as their purpose the expression of God's will. But towards whom does the Godhead express its will? – Well, as there besides the Godhead only exists the son of God, it is inevitable that life must be the revealing of the Godhead to this son. And as over against the son of God there thus also only exists the Godhead – owing to everything being God's organs: human beings, animals, Nature, the sky, the stars etc. – life becomes a dialogue between the Godhead and the son of God.
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Original Danish title: Bønnens psykiske side. The manuscript of a lecture given at the Martinus Institute on Sunday 20 April 1947. The lecture was illustrated with 7 symbols, which are not explained in the manuscript. Section headings by Ole Therkelsen, approved by the Council of the Martinus Institute on 27th October 2002. First published in the Danish edition of Kosmos no. 4, 2003. Translated by Anne Pullar, 2008.
Article ID: M0096
Published in the English edition of Kosmos no. 1, 2008
© Martinus Institut 1981, www.martinus.dk
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