The Mystery of Prayer
Chapter 9
"Our Father, who art in Heaven"
The Lord's Prayer expresses the absolutely perfect mental attitude towards Providence or the Godhead in nine special "thought-concentrations". The first one comprises the words "Our Father, who art in Heaven". By the help of these words the one who prays will gradually be able to exclude completely all irrelevant thoughts and thereby be able to open up a channel between himself and almighty Providence or the eternal Father, through which his subsequent wishes can enter directly into the consciousness of the Heavenly Being. The words are so clear and formed in such a concentrated way that they can leave no shadow of doubt in the invisible, angelic beings who are present everywhere and in everything in nature as the Heavenly Father's special "auditory organs" for even the slightest sigh from the ones who pray. Through these angelic beings the vibrations of the prayer are passed on to other angelic, invisible, heavenly beings who are the divine Father's organs for creation of his reaction to the supplicant's prayer or application. As to the existence of these invisible beings I will have to refer the reader to my main work, "Livets Bog" ("Life's Book"). Here I would just like to mention that in reality it is these beings who are called "angels" and about whom Christ says: "Are not all angels ministering spirits sent forth to serve those who will inherit salvation?" Any correspondance between the one who prays and Providence, between God and the son of God, takes place through these beings. Without them as a connecting link, any correspondance with the Godhead would be totally impossible. God's consciousness cannot, any more than other forms of consciousness, function without organs; how could the Godhead's organs possibly exist without being identical with living beings? Therefore it is also so divinely arranged in the eternal order of the universe that we cannot perceive, see or experience all the living beings who are used by Providence as intermediaries between itself and us, because we would be mistaken about these beings and the Godhead in the same way as terrestrial Man at primitive stages is permanently mistaken about living beings and the Godhead. They thus believe that living beings, friends and foes, are one thing and that the Godhead is another thing. They are here able to see, perceive or experience these fellow beings while they believe the Godhead to be quite another being who is not physically visible and who even resides in quite another place. This other place they have described as "Heaven". But if the beings were able to see physically this "other place" and the Godhead as a being living in this "place", they would find the above mentioned "place" as populated with living beings as their own sphere and that the Godhead completely disappears in the multiplicity of life. They would never in all eternity be able to experience a Godhead. Everything in that place would merely be "fellow beings" and "things", just as everything consists only of "fellow beings" and "things" in their own sphere. But, thanks to the fact that the universe unwaveringly must appear to the sensory faculty of any living being in two sections, viz. a visible one and an invisible one, it becomes possible for the living being to liberate his sensory faculty and thereby his thought from the visible section, i.e. "the fellow beings" and "the things", and thereby experience the universe or nature in the form of the invisible section appearing as something quite different from "beings" and "things". That this invisible section of the universe is not a "nothing" is quickly revealed to the being as a fact. He sees, in fact, that everything visible emanates from this invisible section and returns to this section again. If this section were the same as "nothing", all the visible (viz. "beings" and "things") would have to come from nothing, and that is absolutely impossible. "Nothing" can ever become "something", just as "something" can never become "nothing". In addition, since the visible section appears solely as effects of the invisible section, the invisible section therefore becomes identical with "something", which is revealed through the visible section. But in this way the analysis of the universe becomes identical with the analysis of the living being, who also unshakably expresses an "invisible something" revealing itself through a "visible something". I cannot go into further details here concerning this problem; I have to refer you to my main work. I have only touched on the problem here to show that "beings" and "things" do not make up everything that exists, but that everything "invisible" in the universe together constitutes a "something" for which all "the visible" are tools. Everything visible is thus the manifestation or the revelation of this "something" and, as this manifestation or revelation is a logical creation, it is an expression of thought and will. The invisible part of the universe, life and existence thus constitutes "a thinking and willing something", and it is the perception of this highest something that forms the foundation of any being's religion or relationship with God. But this relationship would never have become reality or absolute experience if the sensory faculty of the beings had not been so limited that one part of the existing universe with its living beings and things became invisible, thereby liberating the beings from having to perceive the universe solely as a mere multitude of beings and things. Through this invisibility there arises the possibility of seeing the multitude as an expression of a willing invisible something and thereby as constituting a unity with the same analysis as that of the living being. The only thing which can be said about this being is therefore as is stated in the first thought-concentration of the Lord's Prayer: "Thou who art in Heaven". "Heaven" can only be the spheres or the universe. The attitude of the, one who prays to the Godhead in this way becomes one hundred per cent correctly or perfectly adjusted. It is not a being "up in Heaven" or in any other place, it is not a being of such and such a position or size towards whom the attention of the suppliant is concentrated or directed. In that case it would only be a "fellow being" to whom the suppliant would be addressing himself. A being who is in a certain place, a being who has a size, a position or who represents a stage of development, is not a Godhead but a son of God. But a being who is in "Heaven" can only be "omnipresent" constituting all the spheres; a being who is all the "Heavens". There can only be one such being, viz. the eternal Godhead. With the term "Our Father" we direct the whole of our soul towards a filial attitude to this Godhead. With the expression "Thou who art in Heaven" we give this filial attitude an absolutely unfailing address, an absolutely straight and unshakable direction towards the eternal Father. Here it can only be a question of the one being who is himself "Heaven". It appears clearly from the words "Our Father" that this prayer does not imply anything selfish. By the word "our" the one who prays clearly addresses the Godhead as "Father of all". He does not feel like any favourite of this Father but in his prayer to the Godhead he identifies himself with all fellow beings and he recognizes them as his brothers. A more perfect and noble attitude towards a prayer to the Godhead cannot be manifested.