More on the Lord's Prayer
This page provides a modest and unassuming commentary on the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer with links to topic pages on this site, thereby deepening the meaning of each statement as a top level pyramidion for further study. Every statement, and word, is a pointer to immense underlying meaning and spiritual realities of a multiplicity that cannot be grasped in an intellectual way by waking consciousness.
The daily praying of the Lord's prayer, in meditation and contemplation, as part of one's practice of daily Initiation exercises, will bring these imaginations to life in a way that no sequential or intellectual language can convey.
Further materials see: Lord's Prayer#References and further reading
Note that quotes were added with perspectives that shed light on the broader and deeper meaning.
Our Father
you highest divinity, you are our father
meaning: we are atma
we originate from you as the monad
implies: Man is divine in origin and nature
RS version
Father, you who were, are, and will be in our inmost being,
which art in heaven
we call upon the highest principle of light and energy
absolute beingness, first logos ... absolute life and love second ... and wisdom third
so high above us we cannot imagine with our current faculties, consciousness, brain and heart
way above the astral, spirit world, budhi and nirvana planes (see: Planes or worlds of consciousness)
Note that 'being in heaven' means high above us, but can also mean in all heavens above us
See also:
- Schema FMC00.410 (and Schema FMC00.171) on Trinity
- re concepts of the three logoi and trinity
Hallowed be thy name
divine is all that is around us
everything we know, see, experience, and have given names
is hallowed, is divine in nature, is an emanation of you father
atma seed in everything, spawned off from seven rays .. now appearing with different clothing, different maturity, consciousness at different levels for different kingdoms of nature and manifold spiritual entities
RS version
May your name be glorified and praised in us.
See also
- Schema FMC00.095
- first hermetic principle: 'all is spirit, the spiritual nature of creation and the universe'
- Mahat (to be added to this site still, see 1903-09-28-GA090A, 1904-06-GA090A, 1904-02-02-GA090A)
- Rawn Clark: 'Love Letter To A Dying World: A Handbook For Humanity'
- as therein he describes everything in nature as having a divine origin (atma emanation tree of life)
Thy kingdom come
one day the kingdom of pure selfless love will come
see also the stage of sacrifice CoC8 - see Schema FMC00.048 on Twelve Conditions of Consciousness
and even streaming back into you - see IAO
just as we are now experiencing the mineral kingdom
Times will come in the future, just as the tree blossoms and carries fruit, that also the cosmic breath cycle of the Logos will result in the achievement of it's true nature .. we are in a process of emanation through the CoC
.. and even in the current Earth planetary stage of evolution, we are only in the mineral CoL and not even in the seventh CoL which is Man itself.
this also implies that everything, creation and the cosmos, is dynamic and not static, but in continuous evolution towards a target, in other words it has purpose and a goal, it's not just random. See also Meaning of life#.5B1.5D - Relevant concepts and terminology
RS version
May your kingdom grow in our deeds and inmost lives.
See also:
- third and fifth hermetic principles and the dynamic nature of the Cosmic fractal: nothing is static, everything vibrates and has rhythm
- Schema FMC00.329 on IAO
- background: Three dimensions of evolution
Thy will be done in Earth, as it is in heaven
Note upfront:
- As described in oa 1904-10-20-GA053, 1907-02-04-GA097, 1913-03-11-GA110: essential in prayer is the basic mood of 'not my will but your will be done', giving ourselves up to the will of the divine rather than our egotistical desires originating from wishes, wants, needs.
- The seven petitions 'start with the end in mind' .. atman, the will .. sacrifice as the purpose of evolution.
like a boat screw propeller with three leaves
the threefoldedness of the logos
is the force of the cosmic fractal, the cosmic breath pulse
driving the cilinders down and up with every breath, at each level simultaneously
so also we have this threefoldedness in us, as we do the will, atma
the will-pleasure from high above downwards, is like a tree that grows
and thy kingdom come is when the breath has pushed out its growth power all the way to the end of the blossoms and leaves and fruits on the tree in the right season .. what comes out then is thy kingdom come .. and everything else is a long pathway towards that
because 'THY kingdom comes' means the divine nature and its three characteristics
1908-08-30-GA244 - Q&A 168b.2
Not my but thy will .. is the basic and essential mood of prayer. That way Man prays correctly, else prayer would be egoistical. And in this way Christ hears us and let's us come to the spirit.
1910-12-31-GA266
A frequently heard statement that’s misused more than most is: I am a Christian. An esoteric should realize that being a Christian is a distant ideal that he must constantly try to attain.
To live like a Christian mainly means to accept whatever destiny may bring us with equanimity, to never grumble about the Gods’ work, and to joyfully accept whatever they send. It means to let the sentence “Look at the birds of the air, they don’t sow, reap or store in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them” pass over into your flesh and blood.
We’re living in accordance with this saying if we thankfully accept what’s given to us. If we don’t do than it becomes blasphemy in our mouth.
RS version
May we perform your will as you, Father, lay it down in our inmost being.
See also:
- second hermetic principle: 'As above, so below; as below, so above', and Emerald Table: Seven hermetic principles#2. Correspondence: as above so below
Transition
Thy will be done - on Earth as in heaven - connects the above and below, so the will connects those .. and then the transition of the statements about the divine father to Mankind, humanity, you.
So we can relate this to personal transformation.
Now consider, pray:
I am calling to you ‘father’, the divine principle, I am calling as a human being, I have the divine in me
you are within me
from this "not me but the Christ in me", I am now praying
And then the following statements follow.
Links to contemplate
- In the human will, 'will pleasure' is atma
- Link with life ether, and the switch from the highest to lowest is not really a transition .. rather they are one and the same. We are a drop of the divine consciousness. See also IAO. Or also: 'Thy will' is what streams down in everything .. and can be seen as the 'daily bread' as in 'life ether'.
Give us this day our daily bread
Provide us with the life ether to sustain our physical existence in this lower realm
provide us with bread, with all we need
because we - the divine Christ in me seed - are here below living incarnated and pray to you, need you to sustain us
we are fully 'below' here
Regarding life ether and relating it to one's own microcosm, there lies much into the study of the two schemas FMC00.015A and FMC00.463 on Human breath together, as it is the life ether carrying all the others .. that we inhale through cosmic breathing. These schemas relate the physiological functioning to what we can experience in meditation practice (for example certainly typically in kriya yoga).
1913-03-12-GA244 - Q&A 254.20
prayer for daily bread has a larger meaning .. it means that our daily bread will follow and be given through our work.
Prayer in this or any prayer should never for egoistic purposes.
One has to uplift the meaning of these concepts and statements, not pull it down into the ordinary or trivial.
Daskalos in MoS
It is etheric vitality that keeps us in good health and we must be ready to provide it for those in need. When we pray to God and ask for "our daily bread" in reality we are asking for life-giving ether. It is not bread we are praying for. Etheric vitality is required not only to keep the material body in good health but also to maintain our astral and mental bodies.
RS version
You give us spiritual nourishment, the bread of life, superabundantly in all the changing conditions of our lives.
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors
or: and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us
We pray:
we cannot help it that we are blind now to the reality that the others, the other and ourselves are one
that we are part of the same group soul
so if we sin against this, to the other, and forgive eachother when they do so to us .. then you too forgive us of this situation we are now in
What are debts or sins? these are actions against 'all-being-one' above, in the higher spirit world (budhi or life spirit group soul), because we have differences-between-all-of-us down below in the physical world .. so if below we do something to another, this is in conflict with the fact we do this to ourselves
There is no other choice, as we are all branches or leaves of the same tree. See the commentary below that explains this image.
RS version
Let our mercy toward others make up for the sins done to our being.
Commentary
- See Human 'I' (and the Discussion area): the true Human I is not our physical body enclosure, but we are - by constitution of our bodily principles, reaching up to the astral world, lower spirit world, and higher spirit world (see Planes or Worlds of Consciousness). Here below in the physical world, we live incarnate, characterized by our Personality, but our higher triad contains the Causal body or 'book of lives, as we are a spiritual entity or Individuality. Above this spirit self (or manas) and 'individualized drop of consciousness', we are still individualized (life spirit and spirit man, budhi and atma), but we are at the same time part of a higher 'ray' or group soul. Rawn Clark calls this the 'greater self', we see ourselves as atma. This is summarized on the topic page Monad
- Another way to approach this is the concept of the Second Adam, that spiritually we are all 'in process' of becoming part of the future group soul of humanity, called or represented by the Christ. This is exactly at this level of budhi and atma, see Schema FMC00.141 on Overview Golden Chain and Schema FMC00.128 on Man's higher triad. With our higher spiritual principles we are 'with one foot or leg' (actually two - budhi/atma or life spirit/spirit man)' in the higher spirit world, but at the same time 'with the other foot or leg' these two structural principles are also in its core originating from and hence at home in the even higher worlds of the budhi and nirvana plane. This is how to understand that Man is divine and a drop of the Logos, as per IAO.
And lead us not into temptation
We pray:
provide us with the strength to succomb the luciferic temptation guide us to stand above it so we can redeem the luciferic in us
we are being distracted and mislead here by the appearances of the physical material world (maya, ahrimanic influences) and still victim of our lower astral body and its passions and desires .. this lower astral body runs after things needed for survival or spurred by its own drives or engine, uncontrolled by a conscious spirit
may this magnetic field attracts us as a lighthouse
1912-01-14-GA244 - Q&A 223.8
let the divine seed and essence not work in me so that I can fall into temptation, that it may strengthen my inner being, so I can face the temptation. ... [extra sentence] ... Man has to do everything so as to resist and not succomb to temptation, and do nothing to bring about temptation.
Note: the extra sentence in this quote (regarding Luciferic influences) may be erroneously transcribed
RS version
You do not allow the tempter to work in us beyond the capacity of our strength. For no temptation can live in your being, Father, and the tempter is only appearance and delusion, from which you lead us, Father. through the light of knowledge.
See also
- as part of Initiation, see IIH steps 1 and 2
but deliver us from evil
us, as in .. myself
however everything comes in through the I, so not bottom up but top down
so the character attributes and personal drives we have ... [name a few, like three, here for yourself, see IIH step 1 astral mirrors] .. elemental unbalance in one's personality .. is a consequence of something higher up .. already in the soul, in the I
and so try to take things by the root, grab the chord higher up, see from where they are coming in through .. as ultimately they are consequences .. just as a physical ailment comes rippling through the higher bodies
now ponder over [these three behavioural patterns of your character listed above] .. and what they mean for your spirit I
(see also Moon, Sun, Saturn Man .. gazing through the different layers, a bit the same sequence here looking up)
evil and the worst is still to come, yet ..
... and we know the hardest is still to come, as the soratic evil storms are still ahead
free us from this misguided good in the wrong place with such horrible evil effects
enable us and provide us the strength to cleanse our I and with pure love stand above and be stronger than evil
guide us to a pathway out ofthe lower realms to above the spirit world where no evil exists
all these other beings here are also rightly divine in their own right, they are part of 'Hallowed be thy name' even if they are out of place (see Evil, evil is good that is out of synch and or out of place) and because they are out-of-place they hamper us, they bother and make it difficult for us .. let us rise above this and get rid of these at a certain stage
.. and this will happen, it's all going to be all right due to the cosmic fractal .. hence the statement:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.
RS version
For no temptation can live in your being, Father, and the tempter is only appearance and delusion, from which you lead us, Father. through the light of knowledge.
Links:
- with Manicheism: facing evil with greater love
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
1907-03-06-GA097
RS version
May your power and glory work in us through all periods and ages of time.
See also:
- Schema FMC00.093 on Three dimensions of evolution: Power, Kingdom and Glory are the terms, in esoteric Christianity, for CoC, CoL and CoF. In this case kingdom is stated first, re 'Thy kingdom come'.
Discussion
Note 1 - Imaginative reasoning
This note sheds an 'imaginative reasoning' perspective on the structure of the Lord's Prayer. With imaginative reasoning is meant, a reasoning that stands above the rational intellectual, but rather is from an imaginative insight.
In the note below, we 'document' such associations referring to topic pages and schemas, so they can be followed for meditation.
The term 'imaginative reasoning' is used on this site for this process, to give clues and support the earnest student of spiritual student to rise above the strict intellectual thinking. To leave behind strict definitions and boundaries, and see the higher dimensionality of meaning in every thing, concept, or symbol, as explained through the very nature of the Cosmic fractal.
Rudolf Steiner described this as "living sentences that germinate during meditation, and sprouts of knowledge grow from them."
In this case the particular point is about finding back 'in allmost everything' the threefoldness of creation, as described a.o. in Trinity and The three Logoi (with reference to Schema FMC00.410) and the four elements (with reference to Schema FMC00.225 for the spiritual meaning of the elemental principles) or the polarity of sulphur and mercury (fire and water).
The basis of a meditative insight into Man's bodily principles, Man's higher triad (Man's true spiritual nature or 'I') and the Monad or divine spiritual origin of Man.
The second part of the Lord's Prayer can then be considered as follows.
- Our daily bread .. is about the nourishing with the life ether as well as the mineral element earth. It is the lowest part of the outbreathing of the great breath of Brahma in the current CoC, CoL and CoF. It is a result, not the essence, we have a vehicle for our spirit here when currently incarnating on Earth. We ask the divine father to sustain us.
- Forgive us our sins .. is about mercy. Mercy or love is one of the three divine attributes of the Trinity, and Love is the greatest or most essential nature of divinity, can be linked to the element water or mercury (see the two schemas mentioned above). This pure love links to the second logos, to Christ, to buddhi, to our core buddhi as a branch of the group soul of humanity's second Adam.
- Lead us not in temptation is about the tempter, being seduced by all around us, the maya of divine creation in all its forms, and can be associated with the element air. It's also wisdom, purity, bestowing virtue.
- Deliver us from evil then comes to the element warmth or fire, the divine will or force. We are at atma, we are part of the divine ray in our essence. And hence Man will be purified to stand above evil.
In other words, in the second part of the Lord's prayer we see the divine nature of the microscosm of Man described also. The statements are not just their plain english mundane meaning for Man in the physical world, they map to their true nature, as symbols or expression of the outbreathing of the divinity, of which we are just a leaf on the tree or a drop in the ocean of Mind.
Note 2 - macrocosm and microcosm
If you have followed the above contents on this page, and studied the site contents and the concepts it covers, and have been praying the Lord's Prayer daily for an extended period, then you can also try the following. In the prayer, try to keep in your mind all statements that you have prayed so often, after having studied them so you fully assimilated the concepts and contents in your own mind. The idea is that you try to hold the first group (A) of statements below together in an integrated way, so they are no longer separate but became one feeling-thought.
- Our Father who art in heaven
- Hallowed be thy name
- Thy kingdom come,
- thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven
These four are you who are addressing the macrocosm, the logos and origin behind all creation in the cosmos.
Then proceed similary for the following group (B):
- Give us this day our daily bread
- and forgive us our transgressions, as we forgive those who transgress against us
- And lead us while in temptation
- and deliver us from evil
These represent you as a person, the microcosm, a drop of consciousness part of this ocean .. on it's way on the IAO journey (oa Schema FMC00.329).
And realize: you are part of the whole.
In other words: reciting the Lord's Prayer can really fill one's soul with the feeling of belonging to the Logos godhead, not I but the Christ in me. Not all our lower bodily principles, but my true core of life spirit (budhu) and spirit-man (atma).
And realize: you are on a journey.
A journey to refine our lower bodily principles, as referenced in the group (B) statements. We actually ask for the right guidance on our journey in our process of becoming the Tenth Hierarchy, not just during the Earth planetary stage of evolution, but this even hold for the future stages. And our guide through this on Earth, and also on Future Jupiter, is the Christ. (see eg Schema FMC00.022 on Christ Impulse at planetary chain level).
Note 3 - Note on link with higher virtues
The following is extracted from a lecture quote on the three higher virtues of faith, hope and love (see full quote on Virtues#1903-12-02-GA088).
It is offered here for contemplation against the petitions in the Lord's Prayer.
This requires first an understanding of what is meant with faith, hope, love - see Virtues#Faith Love Hope
Hallowed be thy name
[Faith] .. Goethe expressed it with the words: "Everything transitory is only a parable." If, in everything we see and hear, we see merely a symbol for something eternal, of which it is the expression, then we have faith.
Thy will be done in Earth, as it is in heaven
[Hope] .. Hope .. is to develop a feeling for the fact that we should never remain standing at the same place where we are standing now: a feeling for the fact that we human beings today of the fifth post-Atlantean age will later develop ourselves to a higher level. That is hope. We have then faith in the eternal and then trust; hope in higher levels of development.
Thy kingdom come
[Love] .. The last virtue is love, the last goal of our cosmos to be developed. For this reason we also call our Earth the cosmos of love. Because we belong to the Earth we are to develop love within ourselves, and when we will have completed our earthly pilgrimage the Earth will be a cosmos of love. Love will then be a power we expect to find in every human being. It will then be present as a matter of course, just as much as the magnetic force of attraction and repulsion is a matter of course in magnets.
