And so, as we come to the hour of meditation on another Sunday evening, we will continue our basic theme of our morning meditation—and to the degree that you began to realize the great significance of the Words of the Master, as recorded in the first part of the sixth Chapter of Matthew, you have already recognized that here we are dealing with the Secrets of Power. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2023/11/secret-of-power-1alms.html]
The first half of our meditation this morning established the essential attitude, the basis of approach, to correct function. “That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.” And these are the words the Master spoke next: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”
This classification of the heathen suggests that they do not all live beyond the boundaries of the United States of America. “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.” This is one of the basic factors which must of necessity be cleared from consciousness if we are to experience the fulfilment of Being which the Master made available to us through these words. It is not by “much speaking.”
In another place, the Master said, “For your heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.” So, we begin to see that prayer is not a means of telling God what to do, or making specific requests in the sense of trying to get something. True prayer carries the spirit of communion, but there must be a pattern of harmony, of relatedness, if there is to be true prayer. The person who takes the attitude of the “have not,” and begins to beg for that which he thinks he wants, is revealing by that very attitude that he is not in attunement with God. He feels separate from God, he feels segregated, and there needs to be an attunement, a closeness, a state of harmony, an agreement within the individual between God and man, an agreement on earth, in you, between heaven and earth, not seeking to escape from earth or the things of earth, not trying to get into some heaven, but letting the heaven that is at hand take form in our lives by reason of our living. And so, prayer gives us an opportunity of communion with God.
And what is it in prayer, in communion, which gives us the greatest possible opportunity to find that attunement? There must, of course, be the fulfilment of the Law—love response to God. But when the human being tries to respond to God, he finds that such effort does not bring him into attunement with God nor make him feel close to God. Such effort fails to achieve the desired result. In this consideration of the Secrets of Being, we are now opening the door to an understanding of the Secrets of Power, in life on earth, the means by which the effectiveness of our living may reveal the Divine.
If we, as human beings, try to be effective, we fail. We may go through the form of action, we may speak the words, but of themselves they are nothing. How shall we let the effectiveness be established in us, in our thoughts and words and deeds? By God, for true effectiveness must come from the Divine Source. If there is power in relationship to the Divine Design, and a correct pattern of agreement with God, our lives will bring forth something on earth. And here is the secret of bringing forth, of the actual manifestation. But before we proceed, we need to stop and consider the fact that, human beings, through impatience, generally prevent the manifestation of the blessing which God would release on earth through us.
In our meditation this morning we considered something of the Secret Place. “That thine alms may be in secret,” not merely secret from human beings but in secret. And the place that is secret from fallen humanity is the place of God's Presence, the place of God's Love, the place of God's Truth, the place of Eternal Life, all of which the Master said were “at hand”; in secret, at a level of consciousness which the human mind, of and by itself, is not able to comprehend, is not able to grasp or realize. The distinction between the form of action and the true action—right action for right action's sake, in the current of the Spirit of God—needs to be remembered. “He that dwelleth in the Secret Place of the Most High shall abide under the Shadow of the Almighty.”
The shadow is the evidence of the presence of something, and the Shadow of the Almighty is the evidence of the Presence of the Almighty—not of the weak, not a weak God—a strong, all-mighty God. And yet human beings live through the pattern of their lives seeking to worship God, seeking to follow our LORD, without ever coming into the Shadow of the Almighty, without ever coming into the evidence of the Presence of the Almighty, without ever revealing the reality of the presence of the Almighty. “He that dwelleth in the Secret Place of the Most High, shall abide under the Shadow of the Almighty.” The place where we abide is the place where we live. It is our dwelling place, the place where we are at home. “Shall abide under the Shadow of the Almighty”—under the evidence of the Presence of the Almighty, we shall live. And once we begin to actually realize this point and accept its significance in relationship to ourselves, we can begin to appreciate the wonder, the beauty, of the open door which the Master established on earth for us.
What is the Way of beginning the process of attunement, that we may have communion? It is the way of thanksgiving. Most human beings spend a remarkable proportion of their lives complaining about something, complaining about so many things they do not like. We may recognize that there are things that are not as we would that they should be, but if anyone here has ever complained about things that he or she did not like, did that complaining help any? Did it change the situation? Perhaps it aggravated it. I have known people who were legally married, a man and a wife, who did not act like they were married; who, in fact, were not, in spirit, married; and one way or the other, or perhaps both ways, there was nagging, fault-finding, complaining, always fussing at each other, always complaining at each other, finding fault one with another. And did that correct anything, did it change it, did it improve it? No. Never! The complainer either fails to do anything, or merely aggravates and makes a bad condition worse. It is not by complaining, fault-finding, by talking loudly of the things that one does not like, that we improve any situation.
If then, we recognize that, gratitude, thanksgiving, provides us the starting point with respect to drawing near unto God, for whenever the word of God begins to find expression in the consciousness of the individual, there is the invitation, “Come near unto me.” Come near unto me. And when the Lord calls, the responding one answers, “Here I am. Let Thy Will be done in me.” Here I am, without any reservations, without any bargaining, without any attitude that, “If you will do so-and-so, Lord, then I will do so-and-so.” If we would begin to actually experience that which is possible to us by reason of the Master's word, we must let the spirit of complaining, resentment, fault-finding, nagging, whatever form it may take, be removed, and there must be, instead, the Spirit of thanksgiving, the Spirit of appreciation, not merely appreciation in the heart, that never gets said, but appreciation that is expressed, that is given form through words and deeds—appreciation, gratitude, thanksgiving. And when there is true thanksgiving the individual's attention is taken away from the things he thinks he does not like, the things about which he is wont to complain, and his attention is centered in the things for which he is thankful to God.
Now the Master says here, “But thou, when thou prayest.” We must, then, of necessity, begin to recognize the process of prayer, the process of coming into attunement with God so that we may have communion with God. And without that communion, without that dwelling in the Secret Place and abiding under the Shadow, there will be no true prayer. I could give you the words of the secret, but if you did not ever pray, in actual fact, they would never mean anything to you. Each must do something about it, not just hear an idea and say, “Well, that sounds pretty good,” and go on and forget it. One must begin to be in position to pray. And so, the process of attunement must come first, when we pray, in actual fact, not by much speaking, not by many words, but to actually pray.
Does one have to actually form words to pray? We are admonished in another place, “Pray without ceasing.” Can one pray without forming words in one's mind, silently, or with one's lips, whispering, or audible expression? Must one form words to pray? One may form words in prayer, that is true, but we must not imagine that there can be no prayer without the forming of words, as such. We cannot go around all the time whispering or saying—“much speaking.” The Master said, “For the hypocrites use vain repetitions.” Well then, repetitions are in vain. They accomplish nothing. Repetitions are in vain, saying something over and over and over again. And if we imagine that we shall be heard by our “much speaking,” by our much forming of words, we have missed the point of prayer.
Now the Master here is talking about the actuality of prayer—not what man had thought it to be, but what it actually is—“when thou prayest.” Millions of people think they pray to God when they never do. They may say the words of a prayer, that is supposed to be addressed to God, but their prayers are to something else, to false gods. Now the Master is talking about prayer to God. Why have I emphasized this point about resentment, complaining, fault-finding, nagging, etc.? Because he who feels resentment is responding not to God but to the thing which he resents. If you resent something, then that which you resent is your false god. And the Commandment is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” And if you are complaining, you feel keenly that about which you complain or you would not be complaining about it. If it made utterly no difference to you, if you felt nothing about it, you would not complain about it.
So, complaining always has a feeling current in it, and complaining is prayer to false gods. He who is a complainer, a fault-finder, who is given to nagging, is thereby praying to false gods, and such a person has no time to pray to God. Oh, he or she might take off three or four minutes sometime in the day to repeat the words of a prayer that is supposed to be addressed to God, but note how empty those words are of feeling. They want to get something. They want to tell God what to do. They are begging for something. That is not prayer. I have heard ministers on the platform give prayers which sounded as if they thought that God could not possibly run the universe, let alone take care of anything on earth, if said minister did not proceed to tell God just exactly what to do and how to do it, exactly what was wrong, virtually giving orders to God, begging for things and telling God what to do. Now, that was supposed to be prayer, but it was not. Prayer to God. If it could be classified as prayer it would have to be called, “prayer to false gods.”
So the Master's opening statement here is extremely significant. “But thou, when thou prayest.” Now, until we actually get around to praying, in fact, the rest of what He said means nothing. We need to begin to realize that most people do not pray to God. Their words may supposedly address the prayer to God, and they may close their so-called prayer with, “In Jesus’ Name we ask it,” or some expression, but it still is not prayer to God, because they do not know what prayer is. And the false concept with respect to prayer is so widely prevalent that it is seldom that any human being truly prays, it is seldom that any Christian prays to God.
And the Master said, “When thou prayest, do something.” When you get to the point where you are ready to truly pray, where you are ready to let something work out in your life, where you are ready to let the secrets of power have meaning in you so that something is actually done, then we will do thus and so, but first we must reach the point of praying. And it is not so much the words we speak, although the words are important and it is well to use words in prayer, but it is the feeling we have that counts, the attitude we have. And so, begging God for something does not bring us into attunement with God, it does not establish for us a communion with God. Telling God what to do, as if He were a great, all-powerful servant and we were the boss, is of no value. God is not our servant. We should be His servants, but if we are controlled by spirits that are not of Him we are not His servants in actual fact, although we should be.
Therefore, we must remember that the Spirit of thanksgiving must be in our hearts, in actual fact, not just a process of saying, “Well now, there are quite a number of things I could thank God for. Let's see. I could thank God for that. Of course, this is a bad situation over here. I don't like that. But He said I must be thankful to God, so what could I …? Oh, I could thank God for that. Oh, I do not like this over here at all.” Where is the feeling? In the words that are supposed to be thanksgiving? Oh no. They are trapped in the realms of that which the individual does not like, the things about which he is complaining within himself, the thing he is objecting to.
If there is to be a true prayer of thanksgiving, there must be the Spirit of Thanksgiving, not just words. “Heavenly Father, I thank Thee for this and that and the other thing, but now I need this, oh, so badly,” and on, finally getting over into the realm where you really feel something. What do you feel? Whatever is in your heart. That, you feel. As the Master put it, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” And we remember our two recent meditations on the subject, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” So, once we begin to actually yield to God in love response and to feel the Spirit of Thanksgiving, we will have a connecting link with God, not a connecting link that binds us to things that ought not to be.
The way you feel determines your connecting links. Hate is a connecting link which connects you with what you hate and identifies you with what you hate. Resentment is a connecting link which connects you with what you resent and makes you a part of it. Complaining, the spirit of complaining, is a connecting link which binds you to that about which you complain. And so, through hate, or resentment, or complaining, you are actually praying, not to God, but to that which you hate or fear, you are praying to that which you resent, you are praying to that about which you complain, for that is where your connecting links are. And if there is no real feeling of the Spirit of gratitude to God, you do not have a connecting link with God insofar as your consciousness is concerned. You are connected with God or you would not have any life, yes. But your consciousness of relatedness, of being connected, of attunement with God, that is important. And until you reach a point where you can begin to express the reality of gratitude in a true Spirit of Thanksgiving, you have no basis on which to pray to God.
Now, “when we pray” to God—that is, after we have reached a point of having a consciousness of a basis of relatedness, of attunement, a connecting link from our hearts to the heart of God—then we can begin to pray. Now here is a peculiar thing. Most everyone who has read these words has taken it as meaning, “If you intend to pray, if you think you are going to pray, then enter into the closet.” But did you notice that is not what the Master said at all? He did not say that. He did not say, “If you intend to pray, if you think you are going to pray, if you want to pray, then go and enter into the closet and pray.” He did not say that. He said, “But thou, when thou prayest”; in other words one has to be praying already before he can enter into the closet, not merely an intention, an expectation. The actuality of being in a state of prayer already. “And when thou hast shut thy door,” continue to pray. Pray to thy Father in secret. But the statement begins, “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.” But the clear indication is, that we need to be praying in order to enter into the closet.
Now what is the closet? If we have a little room, a little place where we have an altar, that is well. It is good to have a sanctified spot. You should have—in your home, or in your bedroom, or somewhere—a little altar of your own, a sanctified spot where you can go for a few moments or a longer period, for this process of communion. A physical place is good and really very important. And if you do not have a little sanctified spot somewhere, you had better start finding one. It might be under an apple tree, it might be anywhere, but you need to have one spot that is particularly sacred to you. And you do not need to talk about it, about where it is, or tell people about it, particularly. There needs to be a sanctified spot for you in the physical sense, but is that room, or moving to that place, wherever it may be, entering into the closet? Not necessarily so. It can be, but it is not necessarily entering into the closet.
If you have a sanctified spot, some place that is sacred and holy to you, and you go to that place, it should be easier in that place for you to enter into the closet, but you cannot enter into the closet without praying first. Prayer is the gateway, the door, into the closet, the passageway. Now, let us consider something of these significant words, “But thou, when thou prayest,” after you have started to pray, and there has to be a deep feeling inside of you of that attunement with the Divine Source, of thanksgiving, of some yearning or longing, something, a feeling of relatedness, a connecting link, and when you begin to pray, you can begin to enter into the closet, and you can enter into the closet wherever you are. You can do it on a busy street, you can do it anywhere, at any time, when you learn how. But the closet is the Secret Place of God inside yourself, in your own heart.
When you have entered in to that closet, the Sacred Place, the place you keep sacred for God within yourself, and “when thou hast shut the door”—shut the door? Why shut the door? What does it mean? It means to shut out the feeling of attunement, connecting links, with all that would distract, with all that should not be controlling. It means to let go of attunement with false gods. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” We can have a sacred, sanctified spot outside of ourselves, but do you have a sacred sanctified spot within yourself, a place kept holy and sacred for God alone, for the Spirit of God, a place that you would not allow any feeling, any attitude, any situation to desecrate? It is so holy, so sacred to you, so sanctified, that no pressure from outside of yourself could cause you to desecrate it. That Holy Place is the closet, and if you have not found that Holy Place within yourself, in your own heart and consciousness, then you cannot enter into the closet, no matter what you do, until you begin to find it. “But thou, when thou prayest.” We have to start actually praying to God first, not by much speaking, not by repetitions which are so vain, so useless, so unnecessary, but “when thou prayest,” then “enter into the closet.” You can pray without being in the closet, but there is a transferring of the realm of one's being.
Can you, when there is noise and confusion around you, when vibrational patterns are disturbed, when things are going wrong and pressures are being heaped upon you, can you withdraw to a Secret Place within yourself, in your own heart, to a point where you do not even hear what is going on around you? Some people say, “Well, it has to be just so for me to meditate. I can't think; I can't meditate; I can't do this unless everything is just so. The radio has to be off, the people have to stop talking, or I have to be all by myself.” It is all right to be all by yourself sometimes and commune with God. I am not objecting to that. But can the noises around you keep you from having communion with God? If they can, then under that circumstance you are not subject to God, you are subject to the noise, you are subject to the pressure. And you worship that to which you are subject, always. You worship, whether you like it or not—you are in actual fact worshipping that to which you are subject.
Now, if that to which you are responding is not of God, do you say, “Well, I can't commune with God under this circumstance, the pressure is too great. I can't commune with God, the noise is too much. Things are not the way I want them to be so I cannot commune with God. If everyone would just shut up, the noise would stop. If everyone would do just what I want them to, or get out, then I could commune with God. Then I could let that which is of God come into my heart”? Suppose I took the attitude that, before I would enter into communion with God, enter into prayer in the Secret Place and begin to express to you the things of the Spirit, you would first have to be perfect, you would have to bring me a perfectly clear vibrational pattern, everything just right, and if you would all be just right then I will do something. No. I have received you into this room, regardless of whether you are right or not, regardless of your degree of attunement with God. Did that stop me from entering into the Secret Place, and communing with God, and expressing to you the words of the Lord? No.
How do I present that which is given to you in a Service or in a class? Something out of my mind, as such? O No. If it were, you would be wasting your time here. I use this principle every time I come before you—to enter into the closet and shut the door and pray. And what is the word here? “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door”—shut thy door—pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” And the word of the Father is offered to you. This is the secret here. This is the Way by which you can begin to let the Father do the works, to give you the open reward.
But, “when thou hast shut thy door”—if I did not shut my door when I come before you there would be distraction, and my consciousness, my heart as a man, would not allow that which is of God to come forth. But this is the process which I use, every Service, every class. And that which is given, the open reward, the reward that is given openly, those are the words you hear, the Spirit you feel. They are given openly from the Father to you, that you may heed them and respond and let them have meaning. Here is the Central Secret of Being which the Master revealed on earth. There is no Truth which He presented more important this. Here is the secret of my Ministry, and you are invited to share it, to share the ability to let this process take place in yourself so that the Power of God may actually work through you. In the process, as far as I am concerned, I have to do two things: first, enter into the closet and shut my door so that there is a pattern of attunement with God at work in me; but then I have to establish a pattern of attunement with you, individually and collectively, and as that pattern is built up you begin to share the open reward. “Pray to the Father which is in secret.”
Now I did not use a Devotional period tonight, in a specific sense, in opening this Service, for a very particular reason. It is good to have a Devotional period which has a specific aspect of prayer, but I wish you to begin to realize that the whole Service is prayer. We do not begin and close with a prayer, ever, in one of my Services. We may begin and close with a Devotional period, but the whole period is prayer; and if it is not, then it is of no value to you. Man has assumed that he had to be saying something to God, if there was to be prayer. Did it ever occur to you that it is real prayer when that which is of God is coming out through your lips? That the word of Truth is expressing through you? That the Spirit of God's Love and Life are flowing through you? That is prayer. “But thou, when thou prayest.” We have to be praying first, letting the Spirit of God control.
Prayer is letting the Spirit of God control so that you are subject to God.
Then you become a living prayer,
then your actions are a part of prayer,
then your thoughts are part of prayer,
then your words are a part of prayer.
The expression of the Spirit of God through you to man,
that is prayer.
That is prayer! Not you trying to somehow make God listen to you. But when you reach a point of being still, when you stop talking, stop forming words with your lips to try to tell God what to do, when you become still and begin to know the Reality of God, when you answer the Divine Command with a true response and a true listening, “Be still and know that I am God,” then when you are still, when you stop talking the words your human minds dictates, when you stop feeling the things that are in the circumstance round about you, when you stop being subject to that which is not of God, then you are beginning to pray because you are becoming silent in a true Spirit of thanksgiving, you have drawn near to the Throne of God, you have begun to find that secret, sacred, hallowed spot within yourself—your closet, the closet within your own being—and you shut the door so that that which is external to you cannot control you. You are letting God control, and you respond in love to the Father in the Secret Place, and immediately—oh, some things may not manifest for a time, but—in that instant—"and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
Every Service you have ever heard me give has been a proof of the reality and the Truth of those words the Master spoke, for it is the reward of the Father. As I have pointed out over and over again, that “the words which I speak unto you I speak not of myself.” If they were my words as a man you would be wasting your time here. If you think they are the words of a man, merely from me as a human being, then you are wasting your time, unless you begin to perceive that the words are the words of the Father—the open reward, “and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” And He has given me so many open rewards. What, just to me? Oh, no. It is what flows through me to you and to anyone else to whom I minister. That is the open reward, because it is open to anyone who will receive it. “He will reward thee openly.” That which is in expression then, that which takes form, that which is made manifest to you, or to anyone, through me, that is the proof of the word, “and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
Human beings have been lost in the idea that the Father's reward was going to be something just to them, that they would get—whether it was some money or something, they did not know quite what that reward would be from the Father, but—"when I get that reward that is one thing I will sure keep secret. I will keep that inside of me or I will hide it. The Father is going to give me a reward. Isn't that wonderful? I am going to get it.” Are you? Not the Father's reward, on that basis—you will get a reward, though, and you will not like it; but it will not be from the Father. He is not going to just give it to you. He is going to give it through you to all who will receive—not just to you—when you stop trying to get the reward but you let the Father begin to use you as a means by which He can give the reward to others. Now those who try to get it will not. But those who receive it, and let it manifest in the living of life, in blessing to others, they are the ones who will receive it, because they share in the giving of it.
Once you begin to actually dwell in the Secret Place of the Most High—where is that Secret Place? In some far-off sky? Oh, no. It is the closet the Master spoke of. The Secret Place of the Most High is that closet within your own being, that secret, sacred, hallowed spot in your own heart, the place which you would not desecrate for anyone, anywhere, at any time. But you have to find it first and let it be sanctified. And once it is there and sanctified, truly, it is always in harmony with God and the things of God, wherever they may appear.
Blessed Ones, here is the Secret of Power. We learned this morning that we must not go about blowing the trumpet, but when the Father begins to reveal the expression of His Being through you, let it appear, let it flow. If I did not participate in giving these words of Truth to you, I, in the outer sense, would not have them. I share them because I am an instrument in their giving, in the actuality of giving them to you and through you to others; for what you try to get you lose, and what you give you have. If you give happiness, you have it. If you try to get happiness, you never do. There is nothing more futile than trying to get happiness. But if you give happiness you begin to have it. And so with all the things of God.
Blessed Ones, remember the Master's word, “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.” That is where the Father is. That is what the Master said, and you find it true. The Father is in secret, in the Secret Place of the Most High, available to you. “And thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
“Shall reward thee.” A reward straight from heaven? No, not in the sense that human beings think. It is a reward of the Divine Expression through you, straight from Heaven, yes. But after that God gives through you, something begins to come from others back to you. But you have to let it be given through you first, in actual fact, not just a dream, not just an idea, not trying to do something, but the reality of your giving to others produces a response in them and they begin to give back to God through you. They received from God through you, and if that which they received from God through you is going to have any meaning they must give something back to God through you. If they say, “But I received this from God through you all right, but now I am going to give to God this way and that. I will not give back to God through you,” they will not have it. They are throwing it away.
If you receive something from God through me you must give back to God through me if that Blessing is to be yours. If I am capable of letting a Blessing of God come into manifestation to you, I am capable of letting that which you give back to God flow through me to God. It is not a one-way deal. There must be the giving, and there must be the returning cycle. And that is just as true of you as it is of me. If God gives through you, then those who receive must give back to God through you or that which they think to receive will not remain in them. And this is a part of the Secret of Power. Let it be a living thing in you and first begin to pray truly, and then find that secret, sacred place and begin to live in it, begin to know it, and begin to let God give something through you into the world, and so shall you share the Victory.
