Spiritual Solutions

It seems that people are constantly searching for something to fill whatever seems to be missing in their lives, whether it be relationships, education, experience, thrills, pleasures, food and drink, or the acquisition of all manner of things.

The basic ingredient that we are really looking for in life is the understanding that we are spiritual beings; that we come into life with the dynamic to unfold, power to release, love to express, a veritable Kingdom of Heaven to outpicture.

On occasion a prophet has appeared telling of the world within, but instead of following him into the deeper experience, man invariably has made a god of the prophet, worshipped him, built monuments to him. Thus he has been trapped in religious practice that contains no within. The missing link in traditional religion has been inner prayer.

Man has built shrines and temples, has orchestrated lavish ceremonies employing ornate accoutrements for worship; however, this has but fulfilled the human longing for pageantry and his prayer has merely satisfied a sense of duty to pray which seems without life and ineffective in healing life’s problems.

Prayer must be an effort to harness the depth potential in man in meeting life’s experiences at the circumference. Prayer should not be simply a formal act that requires a sacred place or a special sacrament.

How free is the person when he realizes that at any time he can get still and find an inner place of quiet and oneness. Charles Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity movement, used to say, “There is a place within us where there is a church service going on all the time; we need but to enter in and listen.” In this place, the still, small voice within comes forth easily.

True prayer is inner power, the true man is the inner man; thus, the true way of prayer is inner prayer. Listen to what Jesus says of this: “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” This is Jesus’ ideal of inner prayer. It is not so much words as it is realization. It might be described as communion, stillness, oneness.

Man can live out his life second-handed, leaning on others for inspiration and creativity, at the mercy of the continuous stream of outer problems, or he can live from within out. He can thereby find his own inner guide, having a first-hand and immediate experience of God. We are told that there is a spirit of man. There is that within you that knows, because there is that in you which knows itself to be the very individualization of the Infinite.

Man must start to realize that spirituality is not something to be acquired by outer search or worship, but something to be released by quiet meditation and soul reflection and self-realization.

Prayer is not an attempt to locate God, to find God; God cannot be found because God is not lost, never has been lost. Prayer is rather an effort on our part to find ourselves consciously in spiritual unity with the allness which God is. This can never be severed because we can never have existence outside of God.

Prayer is the key to realizing and releasing our inner potential; it is the key to finding inner peace and spiritual security. It is a means fo perceiving ourselves as we really are. Thus it may be said to be the key to embarking on the role of acting the part of our divinity. Prayer is listening. Any speaking of words is simply a prelude to prayer.

If we speak words but fail to listen then we are like a student arriving in the classroom, telling the teacher a thing or two, and then departing before the instruction begins. This does not mean that God tells us to do this or to do that; the voice of God is a wordless voice. We receive it through feeling and then we interpret the feeling in the words and thoughts and images of our own consciousness.

Man may have hopes and aspirations; he may have hunches or flashes of insight, but when he knows the dynamics of inner prayer he realizes that these showings reveal the inner power to produce them. The key to inner prayer is that we are not trying to change things or to do anything; we are simply trying to release, to let things be done. So we meditate on the truth, realizing that which is changeless and beyond appearance.

Reflect on your depth potential, on your spiritual reality. Then, use the great formula of divine creation - Let there be! Not there must be, or there shall be, or make there be, dear God, please – but only, Let There Be. No suggestion of effort, no strain, no hurry or force, no anxiety or doubt. Just simply, “Let there be light,” and there was light. “Let the dry land appear,” and it appeared. This is inner prayer in its most effective use.

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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