XIV. The Lord's Prayer: An Esoteric Study, Prayer and Meditation

Praying in that way people forget the prayer in which Christ Jesus set the basic mood that should prevail in any prayer, the prayer that says: ‘Father, let this cup pass; but not my will but your will be done.’[^1] That is the basic mood of Christian prayer. Whatever people intercede or pray for, this basic mood must be a bright note sounding again and again in the soul as someone seeks to offer Christian prayer. The prayer formula then becomes a means of raising ourselves to higher regions so that we may feel the god within us. The formula will then also drive away any egoistical wish and will impulse, so that the words ‘not my will but your will be done’ will have real meaning. We then give ourselves up to and enter deeply into the divine world. When we achieve this basic mood as the true mood for prayer, Christian prayer is exactly the same—only with more of a feeling note to it as meditation. And this Christian prayer originally was exactly what meditation also is. It is only that meditation is more at the level of thought, seeking to be in harmony with the divine streams that go through the world and doing so by means of the thoughts of the great guides of humanity. The same thing is achieved, but more at the level of feelings, in prayer.