"Silence, Prayer, Meditation and Contemplation blend into each other harmoniously." –Flower A. Newhouse

Finding Your True North

The Armor of Spiritual Life - Lesson 2

Prayer Is the Helmet of Our Spiritual Armor (Part II)

This lesson continues with the topic presented in Lesson 1, Prayer Is the Helmet of Our Spiritual Armor.

Sowing Seeds of Destiny

Most of us who have read deeply know much about the prayer consciousness and its science but there is one thing which we want to exercise. We want to achieve excellence and thoroughness. We all know what prayer is and does, but we are not thorough enough. Therefore our prayers are not "seeds of destiny." They are like chaff and we who cast them are not planting helpful seeds that will grow and unfold in our inner natures. We need to learn to sow real seed; we must learn to use prayer as a true line of communication with the Eternity which is our true Home.

How will we be more thorough? The first thing we will do is recognize with clarity the various needs that we know as unfolding individuals. Our personality selves in the outer world confront many crises and moods. Therefore our prayer by necessity will vary to suit different seasons. We must be conscious and instructed enough to know what type of prayer our soul is intimating or suggesting that we use to climb into the New Country through faithful communication.

To me, one of the most astonishing realizations (I knew it but intellectually until maturity) was a perception of areas of power, to which prayer aligns us. That is why our prayers must alter according to our requirement. There are moments when we walk the trails and are reverent in consciousness, when all we can think of is a prayer of adoration or a prayer of worship for the Presence of Light that enfolds us. These prayers are prayers of adoration. If we would follow them esoterically, we would realize that they attune us to areas of spiritual beneficence.

Esoteric students know much about the Spirit of Grace. Adoration aligns us with another great dominion of blessing where glorious Intelligences are active reverently in the ministry of God. They do their work with a love so vast that we can hardly imagine what their outpouring of joyous worship are actually like. We learn this through growing acquaintanceship with reverence and and through our being linked up with that reservoir of power. Our prayers of adoration should far exceed our prayers of request.

How would you describe the word reverence as it means to you today? How can you deepen your expression of reverence? Flower says, "through our being linked up with that reservoir of power". Let us work on sensing this connection through reverence each time we pray.

Click for Activity (Invoking the Presence of God P5)

All of us love God and want our time of communication with Him to be enduring and sustained; but there are many distractions. The chief distraction we realize is from our desire natures. Our wishes are manifold in their demands. But within us are radio-like selectors with antennas of spiritual awareness which can tune out the inferior sending station and bring to our attention the true desires of the inner man. We need to remain reverent, for reverence is the antenna; it is the awakener as well as the power by which we shall know alignment.

Many Ways to Pray

When we come to the table to partake of food, we should say a prayer of Grace for two reasons: First, these prayers lift up the vibrational tone of the food we eat as well as prepare our inner and physical selves to receive these ascended vibrations. Second, a prayer of Grace is another form of a prayer of thanksgiving. Prayers of this nature align us to great location of Spiritual Provision. If we are ungrateful, we are impoverished. The more grateful we are even for the slightest things and the more expressive we are, the more truly aligned we become with this repository of supply. This Provision is received through food, sustenance of earning, the endowment of ideas, and the incentive of Divine Contact which furnishes nutriment to the inner man.

There are many forms of prayer. For example, there are those antennas or prayers of invocation that quicken us and bring us affiliation with Areas where the atmosphere itself is electrically vibrant, where Intelligences more potent that any we know on earth, are forever active in the Ministry of Life. Prayers of invocation, in other words, cause us to step into an active alignment which attunes our thoughts to those Intelligences, which, through God-power carry out the needed work. They open us and our circumstances to the administrations of unique unfoldments and endowments of creativeness.

There are prayers of releasement which align us with the will of God. We could enumerate many more forms and types of prayer, but our own hearts must meet and exercise them as we sense the occasion for their requirement.

Click to Hear Flower's Thoughts

Read P2.

What is the most frequent form of prayer you practice? What forms of prayer might benefit those areas in your life that you spoke of in the last lesson?

Practice

S10 Find the card entitled Into the Silence (S10). Practice this silent technique along with your creative work on Invoking the Presence of God (P5).

Learn to look up into the open skies, through reverence, and find God.

Questions and Answers

Questions and answers with Flower A. Newhouse (excerpted from Here Are Your Answers, Volumes I, II and III)

Can we further the development of our intuitive powers by dwelling upon the assistance of the Holy Comforter?

The offices of the Holy Comforter are those for imbuing mankind with knowledge, guidance, revelation, and prophecy. By praying to receive direction from the Spirit of Truth and by being reverent and more attentive to this Third Aspect of the Trinity, we shall be more open to Its overshadowing and guidance. The more love, thought, and reverence we give the Holy Spirit, the more practiced shall we become in the reception of Its instructions.