1. You must qualify as a potent prayer by sincerely and courageously facing the problems of universe reality. You must possess cosmic stamina.
2. You must have honestly exhausted the human capacity for human adjustment. You must have been industrious.
3. You must surrender every wish of mind and every craving of soul to the transforming embrace of spiritual growth. You must have experienced an enhancement of meanings and an elevation of values.
4. You must make a wholehearted choice of the divine will. You must obliterate the dead center of indecision.
5. You not only recognize the Father's will and choose to do it, but you have effected an unqualified consecration, and a dynamic dedication, to the actual doing of the Father's will.
6. Your prayer will be directed exclusively for divine wisdom to solve the specific human problems encountered in the Paradise ascension--the attainment of divine perfection.
7. And you must have faith--living faith.
(from The Urantia Book, (91:9, 1002)
"Words are irrelevant to prayer; they are merely the intellectual channel in which the river of spiritual supplication may chance to flow. The word value of a prayer is purely autosuggestive in private devotions and sociosuggestive in group devotions. God answers the soul's attitude, not the words." (91:8, 1002)
Prayer can be a very simple expression.
Prayer can express many different things.
"Jesus never prayed as a religious duty. To him prayer was a sincere expression of spiritual attitude, a declaration of soul loyalty, a recital of personal devotion, an expression of thanksgiving, an avoidance of emotional tension, a prevention of conflict, an exaltation of intellection, an ennoblement of desire, a vindication of moral decision, an enrichment of thought, an invigoration of higher inclinations, a consecration of impulse, a clarification of viewpoint, a declaration of faith, a transcendental surrender of will, a sublime assertion of confidence, a revelation of courage, the proclamation of discovery, a confession of supreme devotion, the validation of consecration, a technique for the adjustment of difficulties, and the mighty mobilization of the combined soul powers to withstand all human tendencies toward selfishness, evil, and sin. He lived just such a life of prayerful consecration to the doing of his Father's will and ended his life triumphantly with just such a prayer. The secret of his unparalleled religious life was this consciousness of the presence of God; and he attained it by intelligent prayer and sincere worship--unbroken communion with God--and not by leadings, voices, visions, or extraordinary religious practices." (196:0, 2089)
In other words, not all prayer has to work consciously with these principles. There will be some times when you crave a more thorough prayer process. Working with these principles will be helpful also in those spontaneous, momentary, and simple prayers.
You must have faith--living faith!
Faith that God cares about you and your particular situation!
Faith that you can discern the divine response to prayer!
Faith that you can carry out--live--our Father's will!
Faith in the supreme human desire to do the will of God, to be like God!
Your prayer will be directed exclusively for divine wisdom to solve the specific human problems encountered in the the Paradise ascension--the attainment of divine perfection.
This teaching establishes an orientation, a framework for the prayer. Often we pray in a sense of near panic as we look anxiously at the immediate situation about us. Our focus is more on the situation than on God. This teaching redirects us. We turn first and foremost to God. We say: I'm coming. I have chosen the Paradise adventure. I have heard the divine call, "Be you perfect as I am perfect," and I am embarked on the path to perfection. But I'm having some human difficulties along this path. Please help.
You must sincerely and courageously face the problems of universe reality. You must possess cosmic stamina.
See the study on mobilizing progressive attitudes to unfold the meaning of this teaching.
You must have been industrious
Do what you can now to solve the problem. Try to summarize all these inputs into a decision. You may want to state what you regard as the main reason in support of your human solution.
My human solution is
The main reason supporting this solution is
You must surrender every wish of mind and every craving of soul to the transforming embrace of spiritual growth. You must have experienced an enhancement of meanings and an elevation of values.
Surrender . . .
Not a surrender of will, not a surrender of personality,
but a surrender of every
wish of mindcraving of soul
What does my mind wish?
What does my soul crave? What are the highest values that I hope to have realized in the outworking of this situation?It is my will that Your will be done.
The transforming embrace of spiritual growth--
an enhancement of meanings and an elevation of values
"God answers man's prayer by giving him an increased revelation of truth, an enhanced appreciation of beauty, and an augmented concept of goodness." (1002)
Q. Does any new input that comes when I surrender necessarily a revelation of the will of God?
A. No.Q. What if I get nothing?
A1. PersistQ. How shall I interpret what comes to mind when I am in surrender mode?A2. Return to do a more complete job on one or more previous steps.
A3. Consider that God might be wanting to answer on a different level than the question you are posing.
"It is hazardous to attempt the differentiation of the Adjusters' concept registry from the more or less continuous and conscious reception of the dictations of mortal conscience. These are problems which will have to be solved through individual discrimination and personal decision. But a human being would do better to err in rejecting an Adjuster's expression through believing it to be a purely human experience than to blunder into exalting a reaction of the mortal mind to the sphere of divine dignity. Remember, the influence of a Thought Adjuster is for the most part, though not wholly, a superconscious experience.
"In varying degrees and increasingly as you ascend the psychic circles, sometimes directly, but more often indirectly, you do communicate with your Adjusters. But it is dangerous to entertain the idea that every new concept originating in the human mind is the dictation of the Adjuster. More often, in beings of your order, that which you accept as the Adjuster's voice is in reality the emanation of your own intellect. This is dangerous ground, and every human being must settle these problems for himself in accordance with his natural human wisdom and superhuman insight." (110:5, 1208)
You must make a wholehearted choice of the divine will. You must obliterate the dead center of indecision.
The Thought Adjusters are "interested in making the mortal career easy; rather are they concerned in making your life reasonably difficult and rugged, so that decisions will be stimulated and multiplied." (108:5, 1192)
"There exists a vast gulf between the human and the divine, between man and God. The Urantia races are so largely electrically and chemically controlled, so highly animallike in their common behavior, so emotional in their ordinary reactions, that it becomes exceedingly difficult for the Monitors to guide and direct them. You are so devoid of courageous decisions and consecrated co-operation that your indwelling Adjusters find it next to impossible to communicate directly with the human mind." (110:4, 1207)
You not only recognize the Father's will and choose to do it, but you have effected an unqualified consecration, and a dynamic dedication, to the actual doing of the Father's will.
A tennis stroke is impotent without follow through. Getting the job done, finished, is essential.
"You as a personal creature have mind and will. The Adjuster as a prepersonal creature has premind and prewill. If you so fully conform to the Adjuster's mind that you see eye to eye, then your minds become one, and you receive the reinforcement of the Adjuster's mind. Subsequently, if your will orders and enforces the execution of the decisions of this new or combined mind, the Adjuster's prepersonal will attains to personality expression through your decision, and as far as that particular project is concerned, you and the Adjuster are one. Your mind has attained to divinity attunement, and the Adjuster's will has achieved personality expression." (110:2, 1205)
"When man decides, and when he consummates this decision in action, man experiences, and the meanings and the values of this experience are forever a part of his eternal character on all levels, from the finite to the final. Cosmically moral and divinely spiritual character represents the creature's capital accumulation of personal decisions which have been illuminated by sincere worship, glorified by intelligent love, and consummated in brotherly service." (117:5, 1287)