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Hello again, readers! Today we'll begin our exploration of Luke Chapter 11 with verses 1-4, which detail Jesus' teaching the Lord's Prayer to the disciples.
And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth."
"Our Father, which art in heaven..." Here, contrary to orthodox Christian belief, Jesus is not counseling us to pray to a personal God, dwelling far off in some remote corner of space, but rather is telling us to turn to the One Source, Power, Cause, and Substance, which indwells each of us in our subconscious mind.
Webster's defines Spirit as "an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms." As research in psychology and neuroscience has increasingly revealed, the vast majority of our biological processes, behaviors, actions, ideas, thoughts, and emotions (good, bad, or indifferent) are governed by the imprints made upon the subconscious or unconscious mind by our environments and the beliefs and opinions of parents, teachers, relatives, and peers. It is this "vital principle" that we are to "worship in spirit and in truth" by being discerning in the thoughts, attitudes, concepts, and values that we entertain and form our philosophy of life around. To paraphrase the late Dr. Joseph Murphy, author of The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, the law of life is the law of belief: think good and good follows; think evil and evil follows.
With that established it logically follows that Heaven, rather than being a material realm where a personal God dwells, is symbolic of the state of conscious awareness of and union with the Divine Ideals of peace, harmony, love, compassion, wholeness, and vitality. Even Saint Augustine, that most orthodox Church Father, thought as much, writing in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount that heaven is "in the hearts of the righteous, as it were in His holy temple."
Furthermore:
And for the purpose of showing this, when we stand at prayer, we turn to the east, whence the heaven rises: not as if God also were dwelling there... but in order that the mind may be admonished to turn to a more excellent nature, i.e. to God."
And as Jesus himself said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17: 20 -21, emphasis added).
"Hallowed be thy name..."
As written in the book of Exodus, God reveals his name to Moses from the Burning Bush as "I Am That I Am" (Exodus 3:14). A name is representative of the nature of the person, place, or object that it is affixed to. In this case, the name of "I AM" is indicative of unconditioned consciousness. We are to "hallow" the name of God (the subconscious) by meditating on "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report." (Philippians 4:8) We take this name "in vain" by wedding it with false and destructive beliefs such as "I am weak", "I am poor", "I am unwanted", "I am a failure", etc.
"Thy kingdom come..."
This represents the manifold blessings (physical, material, intellectual, spiritual) which are born of joining wholesome, constructive concepts and imagery to the creative, receptive mold of the I AM (subconscious mind).
"Thy will be done..."
The "will of God" here refers to the plan of growth, unfoldment, and evolution of the indwelling Word (Christ Consciousness) of every individual soul.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men." John 1: 1-4
"As in heaven..."
Heaven, as we've discovered, refers to the mental state of conscious unity with the Divine Essence.
"So in earth..."
The realm of earth, metaphysically, refers to the objective, three dimensional plane on which the contents we impregnate our subconscious minds with are given physical manifestation on the screen of space. This is at the heart of the well known Hermetic axiom, "As within, so without."
"Our daily bread" is the bounty we receive when we tune in to the Infinite Storehouse, which "knoweth what things" we have need of and will bestow to us "pressed down, and shaken together, and running over" when we ask in confident faith. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." Psalm 23:1
"The forgiveness of sins", when stripped of the sense of wallowing guilt and self pity with which it has unfortunately been equated, is nothing more than the active cleansing and renewal of the subconscious mind, sifting out our false beliefs and perceptions, and cultivating new ones through dedicated and affirmative study, prayer, and meditation. We are also to "forgive" others who may have wronged us by changing our view of them, seeing them in a new light by wishing for them all the blessings of life. In doing this they no longer hold the "debt" of our previous judgment of them.
God, or Universal Spirit, being Love itself, does not "lead us into temptation." It is the metaphorical devils of ignorance, fear, and jealously which divert us from the path of perfection, leading us into limitation and calamity of all kinds (see James 1:12 - 15). Jesus, knowing this, was simply telling us to affirm and cleave to the good in thought, word, and deed, which "keeps us from evil."
I hope you enjoyed today's content! Until next time, keep on keeping onward, upward, and God-ward.
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