THE PROVINCE OF PRAYER

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Prayer, unless in liaison with the will and actions

of the personal spiritual forces and material supervisors of a realm, can have no direct effect upon one’s physical environment. While there is a very definite limit to the province of the petitions of prayer, such limits do not equally apply to the faith of those who pray.

Prayer is not a technique for curing real and organic

diseases, but it has contributed enormously

to the enjoyment of abundant health and to the

cure of numerous mental, emotional, and nervous

ailments. And even in actual bacterial disease,

prayer has many times added to the efficacy

of other remedial procedures. Prayer has turned

many an irritable and complaining invalid

into a paragon of patience and made him

an inspiration to all other human sufferers.

No matter how difficult it may be to reconcile

the scientific doubtings regarding the efficacy

of prayer with the ever-present urge to

seek help and guidance from divine sources,

never forget that the sincere prayer of faith

is a mighty force for the promotion of personal

happiness, individual self-control, social harmony,

moral progress, and spiritual attainment.

Prayer, even as a purely human practice,

a dialogue with one’s alter ego, constitutes a technique of the most efficient approach to the realization of those reserve powers of human nature which are stored and conserved in the unconscious realms of the human mind. Prayer is a sound psychologic practice, aside from its religious implications and its spiritual significance. It is a fact of human experience that most persons, if sufficiently hard pressed, will pray in some way to some source of help.

Do not be so slothful as to ask God to solve

your difficulties, but never hesitate to ask him

for wisdom and spiritual strength to guide

and sustain you while you yourself resolutely

and courageously attack the problems at hand.

Prayer has been an indispensable factor

in the progress and preservation of religious

civilization, and it still has mighty contributions

to make to the further enhancement and

spiritualization of society if those who pray

will only do so in the light of scientific facts,

philosophic wisdom, intellectual sincerity, and

spiritual faith. Pray as Jesus taught his disciples —

honestly, unselfishly, with fairness,

and without doubting.

But the efficacy of prayer in the personal

spiritual experience of the one who prays

is in no way dependent on such a worshiper’s

intellectual understanding, philosophic acumen,

social level, cultural status, or other mortal

acquirements. The psychic and spiritual

concomitants of the prayer of faith are

immediate, personal, and experiential.

There is no other technique whereby every man,

regardless of all other mortal accomplishments,

can so effectively and immediately approach

the threshold of that realm wherein he can

communicate with his Maker,

where the creature contacts with the reality

of the Creator, with the indwelling

Thought Adjuster.

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From THE URANTIA BOOK

Part III, 91, 6
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THE DALAI LAMA

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My religion is kindness.

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The Dalai Lama

THE INHERENT VALUE OF SILENCE

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The first American mingled with his pride

a singular humility. Spiritual arrogance was

foreign to his nature and teaching.

He never claimed that the power

of articulate speech was proof of

superiority over the dumb creation;

on the other hand, it is to him

a perilous gift. He believes profoundly

in silence - the sign of a perfect equilibrium.

Silence is the absolute poise or

balance of body, mind, and spirit.

The man who preserves his selfhood

ever calm and unshaken by the storms

of existence - not a leaf, as it were,

astir on the tree; not a ripple upon the

surface of shining pool - his, in the mind

of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude

and conduct of life.

If you ask him: "What is silence?"

he will answer: "It is the Great Mystery!"

"The holy silence is his voice!"

If you ask: "What are the fruits of silence?"

he will say: "They are self-control,

true courage or endurance, patience,

dignity, and reverence.

Silence is the corner-stone of character."

"Guard your tongue in youth," said

the old chief Wabashaw, "and in age you

may mature a thought that will be

of service to your people."

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Charles Alexander Eastman

(Ohiyesa) - Santee Sioux

From THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN

First published in 1911

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OLD TIME RELIGION AND AMERICAN CULTURE

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From: SELLING GOD - American Religion

in the Marketplace of Culture,

by R. Laurence Moore

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Religious leaders had started national life

aware that they had to deal with competition.

They said so in many forums, and in one way or

another they declared it a problem.

All procedures were in the beginning ad hoc.

Innovation was a forced option. One locus

of competition was between denominations,

but in some ways that was the easy part of it.

The unexpected proliferation and prosperity

of new religious groups aided church leaders

generally. Looming as a bigger problem was

competition with non-religious enterprises on

the cultural landscape that attracted people's

attention and energies. Many of those

enterprises were changing the nature of leisure

in the United States. Increasingly, they turned

casual pastimes into organized businesses.

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Religious leaders entered a long struggle

to try to control the direction that commercial

culture took. In many ways, religion's determined

intrusion into the marketplace of culture made

that arena the central moral battleground of

American life. What religious leaders did early

in national history, they continued to do later.

They opposed many new forms of commercial

culture as they came along. They tried to set up

attractive, alternative diversions under church

sponsorship. They fought with cultural

entrepreneurs who resisted the idea of running

their businesses according to guidelines dictated

by a Protestant moral economy.

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These efforts gave American religious life a

distinctive quality that was radically different

from what it had been in the colonial era.

For one thing, almost all of them committed

religious leaders to a process of popularization.

They had to attract people to what they were doing.

Whether they were trying to clamp controls

on the marketplace of culture or not,

they found themselves using the language

of selling and commodification.

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