We, who dreamed with JFK about a greater reach of our economy -- clashed with minds, and not mainly on questions of economics. Much of the resistance was connected with philosophy, with religion, with prayer and, particularly, with fear. Among opposition groups, two were distinctly discernible: Anti-Catholic Protestants who saw Kennedy as a representative of the Pope in Rome; anti-religious people, Atheists, who thought Kennedy had a religious bias, thought that he was in love with myths. Both these groups questioned Kennedy's soundness in economic thinking for the above reasons alone, without delving into the economic realities.
Not only were they wrong about Kennedy, who was far from being an ambassador from the Pope and who did not favor myths; who, in fact, respected equally all religions including the religion of Atheism but, apart from that, not one of the others who worked with him on this specific matter was a Catholic and most of us were not religious in any sense of the word.
Concepts of this nature quite frequently enter and confuse our dialogue and our efforts, so this is as good an opportunity as any to clear up current misconceptions. Religious people who "pray" do not necessarily believe in a "supernatural" being and do not usually ask favors. They are and were concerned with training and tuning their minds, just as athletes tune and train their muscles.
When I worked at North American Aviation Company, the computers were not up to standards at three in the morning, the only time they were available to the Thermal Division. We blamed our programming and made a point of writing down everything well in advance, during daytime peak conditions. When we fed this peerless pastry into our little monsters they still got sick -- until one good night when everything seemed to work. Floyd, the operator, looked furtively around, then whispered into my ear,
"I prayed. Not to any of those high officials up there, you understand. I just slipped into John's erratic mind here," (he patted the computer's output snout)" and established communication and, by golly, from that moment I knew things would improve for the old fox winked at me!"
Now Floyd scrutinized me sternly,
"Tomorrow night you join me! Two are better than one and you look as daft as myself."
For two whole weeks Floyd and I prayed with old John before our sessions. The results were so outstanding that we confessed, and then all joined. None of the computers ever stood us up after that. Obviously, we had stumbled on to a secret that was not known to HAL 9000 and its operator of the 2001 Space Odyssey.
Does anybody believe we engineers of the North American Aviation Company indulged in myths? We knew our own minds were tuned by these exercises and we had fun spinning myths around it all.
That is how people pray in our time. What is more: That is how many people prayed in times past, as excavations in Palestine and Egypt and India show, and preceding chapters have explained.
Do not some add the myth of a supernatural being? What if they do! What if they find this adds grace and fun and efficiency to the procedure?
However, there is a feeling among people about religion and prayer that has been soberly expressed by Bill. Bill was a tailgunner in a B-24 over Germany in 1945 and we lost that tail, with Bill in it. Bill freed himself from the fractured structure but fell ten thousand feet before his parachute would open. He landed on an American tank that took an enthused Bill right into battle,
"Boy, this is the life! Nothing ever happens up there !"
But Fred, the pilot of the plane, asked him,
"What did you do all that time waiting for the chute to open? Pray?"
"What do you take me for? A sneak?" snorted Bill. To him prayers meant just begging favors; in his case begging for the chute to open or, if that couldn't be granted, then asking for admission to Heaven instead of that other place, and asking for either, at such short notice, seemed sneaky to Bill's fair mind.
However, small and great historical prayers were not begging favors. The LORD'S PRAYER was coined long ago, yet is subtler than what you may have at high-priced psychiatrists' couches.
The opening phrase,
"Our Father who art in Heaven" pinpoints the addressee. Until Freud came along, almost everybody used to like his father. OUR Father, the Father of all of us, should be a focusing point whether a mythical figure to those who so prefer -- or, to others, Just an image. "Who art in Heaven" provides the address. We may not know all about Heaven but we feel it should be a pleasant place or we make it a pleasant place. Our mouths water, our hearts flip-flop; we view the world like a day in May when we are in love. So far we haven't begged for a thing.
"Hallowed by Thy Name. . ." More tuning, more beauty; myths if you like, or not if you don't, and still no begging.
"Thy Kingdom come. . ." Kingdoms are ripe with beauty, glamour and the good things of life, though no begging.
"Thy Will be done. . ." Here, by degrees, you have been coaxed into accepting a collective will other than your limited own, and this is a crucifixion upon which follows a resurrection. Still no begging.
"On Earth as it is in Heaven . . . " So we have expanded our area and are down on Earth, which we know better than that place up there, and of which we are a part.
"Give us this day our daily bread." Here comes the first bit of begging and it isn't exuberant, no million dollars -- just the food we need and just for today. Good chance this request will be granted and give us confidence for the next.
"And forgive us our debts. . ."
This is a pleasant prospect but it has caused some to not pay the money they owe. In the old days it was called TRESPASSES or sometimes it was called sin or mistakes or yielding to temptations and if we can still take it in this sense, we may have more success than if we stopped paying our money debts.
"As we forgive our debtors. . ."
This, too, becomes easier if we take it in the old sense of forgiving insults, injustices, jabs and gossip. Taken in this sense, we would free ourselves of worry, anger and resentment.
"And lead us not into temptation. . ." Here we form our wish or determination into a request to that mythical Father or imagined Friend, or creator of us, and thus we make our resolve quite strong and definite. We haveovercome, certainly in part.
"But deliver us from evil . . ." My Lutheran Bishop uncle added: "And save me from those who BOTHER ME." Thus concretizing a happy thought.
"For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever. . ."
By renouncing these attractive things yourself but hanging them onto your Beloved Father, you still have some access to them. At least, you are heir to them and feel comforted.
Some feel so attached to this prayer that trying anything else seems to them treason. Others wish to adjust their lives, thoughts, prayers if you will, to this present age, its concepts, its physics, its computers. When this century was in its teens, a group of people in San Francisco composed a set of prayers they thought would satisfy their wishes and their needs. The group included many races, colors of skin, areas and degrees of education and, of course, both sexes. One was a clergyman. some were initiates of the ancient order of sufis. Bob Considine, Hearst columnist, learned about the prayers and proposed that, one of them should be used in the United Nations since it encompassed all known religions. The Russians objected: They did not want any prayer at all.
One of the group's offerings was a short morning prayer, to be voiced concurrently with breathing. A bit of fresh air early in the morning was felt to be a good beginning of any day. Then:
"BELOVED. . ." You stop, think, feel after that first word. Who is beloved? By whom? Without waiting for any answer yet, you let this one first word float enticingly in space and inside you, embracing you, bit by bit assuring you that every atom component of your body, of your surroundings, is beloved and loving; also the tiny thought components of your mind, feeling components of your heart. So your morning is new, your whole day is new and fresh, lovely and beloved! Cascades of fluid love course through your veins, circulate through your nerves, make you new and whole and incomparable and interlocked and interjoyed with all; with your friends and so-called enemies; with the whole.
And who is so compassionately loving all these atom components and thought and feeling components and friends, enemies and stars?
That lover must be whoever or whatever created all these things and beings, for why, otherwise, would It have taken on this gigantic task?
Who is this creating giant? Looking deeply into myself, could I possibly be involved? Being both creature and creator? And what shall we call It? The second word of that morning prayer suggests,
"LORD. . ."
It is a much-used word for this sort of thing and, perhaps, it is a good idea to use familiar words -- and let any new aspect we want to introduce be expressed by associations and environment. For example, the word LORD alone may be a bit scary like a servant would feel toward a rude and abrupt lord and master. But after our loving introduction in which we identify with this new Lord, he has taken on the close and dear look of one who is already part of us, closer than a brother, sister or lover.
Come the third and fourth words,
"Almighty God. . ." If those two words had come first, there would have been a distance; cool, possibly insurmountable! We made the acquaintanceship the right way through a lovely loving and beloved Lord whom, we now find, is the very same as the Almighty God, whom we did not know before because we had kept Him on a pedestal, high and dry and remote! Now we begin to suspect we ourselves are part of Him and He of us.
"Through the rays of the Sun. . ."
That mighty sun! Hot, beyond imagination, but its heat diffused so we can enjoy it and benefit from it -- what a magnificent sign and symbol of the mighty Creator! So, also, thought many of the old-timers, who by scholars are now classified as "sun-worshipers" -- a term encompassing a greater variety of wisdom, knowledge and maturity than our encyclopedia convey. In this morning prayer our magnificent sun becomes creature, creator -- and self.
"Through the waves of the air. . ."
The air is what we find around the earth. It belongs to Earth, clothes earth in an evanescent veil which defuses the sun rays, protects us and Earth from their stings and lets through what we need. The whole Earth is a sun dependency and the Earth is us and we are the Earth -- more so than is often understood. More mighty suns and more dependent planets with vast spaces between them form the universe. The following words of the prayer are,
"Through the all-pervading LIFE in space. . ."
Yes, LIFE pervades all space and that life is creature and Creator. It created us and so we ask "through the rays of the sun, through the waves of the air, through the all-pervading LIFE in space, purify and revivify us and heal our bodies, hearts and souls. . ."
Even though we are in and of that LIFE, one with it; yet, at this point in the prayer we dualize ourselves and think of that LIFE IN SPACE as coming to us (even though we are it) and purify, revivify and heal us. It sometimes is a little easier to think of it that way. In fact, it is so much easier that most religions and their sects today think only in dual terms and have forgotten the next essential step for each one as he is ready -- the step to THE ONE of which each of us is a part and, potentially, the whole.
Through this morning prayer that vital step has been brought back into use. From the first whispered "beloved", one surrenders oneself to the creative forces and, in response, a flow of new, fresh life pours into you and "heals our bodies, hearts and souls." You know and feel that you are a new and whole man or woman.
The prayer that Bob Considine wanted the United Nations to adopt begins, traditionally, conventionally, with a greeting to the Master and Saviour concept in all religions,
"Most gracious Lord, Master, Messiah, and Saviour of Humanity. . ." There you've got the address.
"We greet Thee with all humility. . ." Here, you've moved yourself into the picture, in a dualistic sense so far.
"Thou art the first cause and the last effect, the Divine Light and the Spirit of Guidance, Alpha and Omega. . ." The beginning, the ending, the contents and the time span are properly pin-pointed.
"Thy Light is in all forms, Thy Love in all beings. . ." Here are the how and the where: In all forms, including yours; in all beings among whom are you. Thus, slyly, we merge, changing from two, to ONE.
". . . in a loving mother . . ." Yes, the mother is the first to merge, to slip into that sacred one-ness. Then comes the father,
"In a kind father. . ." Then follow others,
"In an innocent child, in a helpful friend, in an inspiring teacher!" So all these are part of that Spirit of Guidance, that Alpha and Omega, that most gracious Lord, Master and Saviour of Humanity?
"Allow us to recognize Thee in all Thy holy names and forms, as Rama, as Krishna, as Shiva, as Buddha. Let us know Thee as Abraham, as Solomon, as Zarathustra, as Moses, as Jesus, as Mohammed and in many other names and forms known and unknown to the world. . ."
Thus, have we gradually been allowed to recognize, through this prayer, the Spirit in all things and beings, including the holy beings and this is why compassionate Bob Considine wanted this prayer to inspire and enlighten the United Nations.
There remains for us to see the moving of the Spirit, the religions through time, past, present and future, so the prayer goes on:
"We adore Thy past. Thy Presence deeply enlightens our being and we look for Thy blessing in the future. . ."
Past and future -- yes; everybody has heard about the great ones of the past and the great ones expected in the future. But Presence? That Gracious Lord, that Master, Messiah and Saviour of Humanity -- is He present among us here and now? Are there holy names of today too? Maybe we better look around. And within.
"Oh Messenger, Christ, Prophet, sacred Chain of Enlightened Ones, Thou whose heart constantly reaches upward, Thou comest on Earth with a Message when Humanity decayeth and speakest the Word that is put into Thy mouth as the light filleth the crescent moon. . ."
Is this how it happens? When the relationship between us humans decayeth, when wisdom recedes, then a messenger is chosen to bring the good word that is put into his mouth? To revivify and reaffirm that ancient truth and bugle?
"Let the Star of the Divine Light shining in Thy Heart be reflected in the hearts of Thy devotees . . . "
Is that how the Message is kindled in hearts and then spreads and causes the smitten to chant these last words of the prayer?
"May the Message of God reach far and wide and make the whole Humanity One single brotherhood in the Fatherhood of GOD."
According to the annals of the prophets of millenniums the preceding prayer is directed, not to the One and Only Creator, but to a specific aspect of Him: The prophets' prophet, the Teachers' teacher, the aspect that eagerly preaches, persuades and implores man to follow the path of Wisdom, of Love, Harmony and Beauty. For the sake of practical bookkeeping. the prophets divide the religious devotees in three groups: the first, the apprentice group, begins by listening to and adoring an individual teacher. He is then a Bramachari with the Hindus and yogis, a Fana-Fi-Sheik among the Sufis, Christians, Moslems and Hebrews. By and by, the devotee advances into the next higher group as he learns to listen to and adore the entire chain of teachers, prophets and saints. He worships Christ, the Universal Spirit of whom Jesus is an example, or the Boddhisattva among the Buddhists (The Lord Matreya, the female version of Quan Yin). Among the Sufis he is a Fana-fi-Rassoul. Finally, he soars so far and high he can only worship God himself, the Creator, the Unfathomable. He is an "Enlightened One" among the Buddhists; a "Yogachari" among the yogis, a "Fana-fi-Allah" among the Sufis.
In real life, man's evolution does not often pass through such prim stages. Many an infant worships God, the undefined and compassionate Spirit and some go through their entire lives worshipping only God the Creator and never the God-man, the Messenger, nor the individual teacher. Among scientists, particularly, we frequently find this type. To suggest that these need to come down on their knees to worship any certain name or form is like insisting that in the gardens of Earth there should be only orange trees, no other kind.
In a sense, all prayers as so far explained touch merely the surface. There is a world yet to explore, connected with what a limping branch of science terms subconscious, or unconscious, or superconscious. By repeating certain well-chosen words or phrases again and again, whimsical weaklings have turned into radiant power sources. If breathing is included and postures or rhythmic movement, the effect may be multiplied. Such procedures transform prayers into sacred practices, meditation, contemplation. These are essential tools of education which must immediately be added to the usual dosage of reading, writing and the shocking number of "essential subjects" now being taught in schools and universities, monopolizing the claim to "Education". In the following, therefore, we summarize what may be termed silent reach.
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