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Cosmic
Interpretation of the Lord's PrayerBy Soror Marion Foster Wotherspoon[From The Rosicrucian Digest April 1930] Source of all Being--Being Supreme--Who fillest all Space and all Time; and whose laws are made manifest in the circlings of Thy suns, in their births and transitions and their giving births, living cells in Thy wondrous body. "Hallowed be Thy name." Thy nature is holy--it is whole and perfect--it is One. "May Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is done in Heaven." May Thy perfect Law--Thy perfect Way of Existence--prevail upon this planet, which is our home, as it prevails with all Thy suns and planets in the sky. "Give us this day our daily bread," As Thy sun's seasons perfect our grains and our fruits and endlessly bring forth forms of life to feed other forms of life. "And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us." For in our ignorance we struggle against Thy law, hurting ourselves and others; and knowing our own ignorance we understand and forgive the ignorance and self-will of those who hurt us. "And leave* us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil." For as Thy winters try us with cold, and Thy summers with heat, Thy springtimes with flood, and Thine autumns with drouth, while yet all give life and strength to seed and fruit, so are transition, sin, and sorrow a part of Thy Law for the perfecting of our souls' experience. When those dark days are upon us, leave us not to face them in our separate consciousness but by making known to us Thy Presence in Evil, deliver us from terror and despair. "For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever and ever, Amen." For Thou, the Spirit of the Living Universe, in Whom our spirits live and move and have their being, art the One Ruler and the One Power. Thou art the life of all that live, the thought of all that think, the goodness of all that love; and through whatsoever agency Thou dost act, whether through Man, or Nature, or Law, Thine is the Glory that shineth through. Amen. - - - The effect of the habitual repetition of this prayer is to recall to man's consciousness, too much absorbed with affairs of this earth only, his real union with the Great Life of the whole cosmos. In his limited earth-bound consciousness man is the helpless victim of self-created fate. The farmer may plant his crops ever so cunningly; he cannot control cyclone or untimely frost. Whatever care man may take of his health, he cannot escape change and transition. So much is he the result of heredity and environment that many thinkers deny him any free will at all--yet a spirit within him urges him ever to make essay to control his fate. Apart from God, and knowledge of and obedience to Nature's laws, which are God's laws, he is, indeed, helpless. But because his inmost being is one with the Supreme Being, he partakes of the freedom of that Supreme Being. He cannot, by his own efforts, and to further his own ends, alter one jot or one tittle of the Law; but he can, to some extent, adjust himself to it. The method of such adjustment is two-fold: by knowledge of the Law; and by training the consciousness to oneness with it. The first is the way of science; the second the way of prayer. Jesus taught the above prayer to his disciples; but He did not use it to try to escape His crucifixion. The habit of mind it inculcates enabled Him to bear the crucifixion in such a way that it led inevitably to the resurrection. Every cell of his body knew itself to be not merely under the law of nature, but an ever-living part of the ever-living Body of God. -------------- * In some old translations of the Prayer, the word leave is used instead of lead. | ||
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