Wednesday, January 13, 2010

THOUGHTS ON PRAYER - 1

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Children, when first learning to make use
of language, are prone to think out loud,
to express their thoughts in words,
even if no one is present to hear them.
With the dawn of creative imagination
they evince a tendency to converse
with imaginary companions. In this way
a budding ego seeks to hold communion
with a fictitious alter ego.
By this technique the child early learns
to convert his monologue conversations
into pseudo dialogues in which this
alter ego makes replies to his verbal
thinking and wish expression.
Very much of an adult's thinking
is mentally carried on in
conversational form.




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The early and primitive form of prayer was
much like the semimagical recitations of the
present-day Toda tribe [of India], prayers
that were not addressed to anyone in
particular. But such techniques of praying
tend to evolve into the dialogue type of
communication by the emergence of the
idea of an alter ego. In time the alter-ego
concept is exalted to a superior status of
divine dignity, and prayer as an agency of
religion has appeared. Through many
phases and during long ages this
primitive type of praying is destined
to evolve before attaining the level
of intelligent and truly ethical prayer.
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The simple prayer of faith evidences
a mighty evolution in human experience
whereby the ancient conversations
with the fictitious symbol of the
alter ego in primitive religion have
become exalted to the level of
communion with the spirit of the
Infinite and to that of a bona fide
consciousness of the reality of
the eternal God and Paradise Father
of all intelligent creation.
*
The Urantia Book
Part III, 91, 3

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