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Word Gems exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Prayer The Golden Key
"As for the actual method of working, like all fundamental things, [true prayer] is simplicity itself. All that you have to do is this: Stop thinking about the difficulty, whatever it is, and think about God instead. "This is the complete rule, and if only you will do this, the trouble, whatever it is, will presently disappear." Emmet Fox
LISTEN - audio (7 minutes), 'The Golden Key' (voice of A. Goforth) READ - essay, 'The Golden Key' READ - related essay, 'The Great Adventure'
Editor’s summary comments: this is not ‘the secret’ The first thing we should understand about Fox’s philosophy of prayer is, this is not “The Secret.” “The Secret” is a self-help ideology embracing "mind over matter," "law of attraction," thoughts are things" views of reality. The dvd espousing this concept features, as brief example, a young boy wishing and hoping very hard for a shiny new bicycle. He then is thrilled to discover his prize on the front porch. More than ten years ago I wrote a lengthy report explaining the fallacy of this teaching. There’s a very small grain of truth to it, but it’s been exploited and merchandized by hucksters. Read the article HERE. banging our pots and pans For hundreds of thousands of years, since the dawn of human prehistoric times, reaching to the present day, people have been trying to convince the gods to give us what we want. let's make a deal We’ve tried everything: self-flagellation, mutilation, ascetic living, human sacrifices, fasting, communal festivals with orgies suggesting to deity a fecundity… Editor’s note: Or how about this one. Will Durant wryly speaks of a superstitious peasant girl gaming the gods for a baby. She makes a doll, pretends to suckle it, then, with a wink, announces to the village that she is pregnant; "only a very obstinate reality could refuse to emulate this imagination." ... rain dances, killing one's first-born, round-the-clock prayer sessions, constructing huge temples, slaughtering bulls and lambs, paying large sums to the priests, pilgrimages, vows, holding hands and chanting -- all in all, every sort of "pot banging" ritual to get the attention of deities who, we fear, aren't really that interested in us. So, all this placating and appeasing, cajoling and propitiation, manipulating and wheedling favors out of the gods, has been going on for a very long time. In the New Testament, Jesus spurned this sort of Machiavellian gamesmanship: peddling techniques "The world is filled with so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They're full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don't fall for that nonsense. [God] knows better than you what you need." (Matt. 6:7,8, The Message) However, what is a hapless denizen of planet Earth to do? The guy needs to get his girl, and so he enters “late-night hard-bargaining” with God; the girl wants her guy for her married life and family, and so she becomes very interested in religion. A child is ill, a father loses his job, someone becomes your enemy for no good reason – what are we to do? Almost instinctively – as we’ve done for hundreds of thousands of years – we implore whatever God there may be to save us from the sufferings and injustices of this world. And this is not a bad thing. But how to go about this in the right way? Emmet Fox and The Golden Key Can I whole-heartedly recommend “The Golden Key”? I think Mr. Fox has provided a valuable service by pointing us toward an Omnipotent God who is able to provide all that we need. This acknowledged, there are two or three points in his writings which do not conform to reality. Let’s briefly talk about this. this is not ‘the secret’ - but it gets a little too close at times Sometimes in Fox’s essays he pushes the idea a little too hard that, if you do such-and-such, you’ll get what you want in fairly short order. Now it’s the “health and wealth gospel.” Now it's like Job, accused by (the mythical) Satan for being paid to be righteous. However, seemingly realizing that he’s gone too far, Fox will backtrack a bit and concede that delivery of the goods could take some time. This is the better view, and we’ll discuss why. God's blessings - reduced to a formula, tagged and flagged now, pinned down, all figured out? Fox says, if you do such-and-such and not give up, maybe do it several times a day, if you’re diligent and try very hard, then God will give you what you want. There are many things wrong with this “huffing and puffing” diligence. The error here is discussed on a few hundred pages: see “the Krishnamurti lectures” and “surrender and acceptance” pages. We cannot "bottle and sell" a path to God for $29.95. God, reality, the truth – the Cosmic Immensity of all that is – is a "pathless land," cannot be reduced to a neat and tidy formula: do this, then the God of the entire universe will be duty bound to rubber-stamp your request. Would God ever surrender sovereignty this way? - in effect, a new power behind the throne? Why is this a problem? Yes, God knows that we need things on planet Earth, but also on this list of needs is our preparation for the next world. We have no idea what to ask for, no idea what we really need to prepare for eternity. Therefore, the best prayer is "thy will be done." Again, there are so many things wrong with the formulaic view one hardly knows where to object. chantings Fox encourages us to mentally repeat a phrase “God is good” or some such. This will direct and settle our minds, he says. Surely, this would not be a problem, would it? There is much discussion elsewhere, but Krishnamurti points out that repeating anything, over and over, will calm the mind: even, he said, to repeat the term “Coca-Cola”. However, by the process of chanting – any phrase – we dull the mind and make it harder to apprehend the creativity-moment by which God communicates with us. What do I like about ‘The Golden Key’? Fox frames it as the “great adventure.” This is wonderful. God will reveal his/her will to us – piecemeal, in tiny flashes of insight – unendingly. stop obsessing about the problem Fox is quite correct: "As for the actual method of working, like all fundamental things, [true prayer] is simplicity itself. All that you have to do is this: Stop thinking about the difficulty, whatever it is, and think about God instead. "This is the complete rule, and if only you will do this, the trouble, whatever it is, will presently disappear." Emmet Fox Better stated: even if the trouble does not disappear -- because, after all, they did kill Jesus, and we ourselves have no guarantees in this world -- our perception of the trouble can change immediately. What this means is, if we focus on the inner "God-life," suddenly the outer problems don't seem so bad, it's now easier to wait for the things we want -- strange, but it does work this way, and it can come to you one second from now, the results can be immediate -- no requirement now to try very hard several times a day -- if you access the inner life. And now, "magically," we can face whatever we're called on to face. (This is real, radical, substantive, revolutionary, utterly transformative personal change, the kind of human evolution that's been dreamed of for thousands of years.) The insane ego, if untethered, will run us ragged by fixating on the problem. To stop this tyranny, far better than chanting, focus on one’s inner energies. It's not so much thinking about God, as Fox says - which, in fact, we cannot do -- because the word 'God' is not God, just a thought-form in the head, and chanting about God brings us no closer to the real God -- but, instead, we are to sense the living energy of God, deep within: two entirely different things, reality versus symbol. It’s an art to do this, but it can be learned. See on the “surrender and acceptance” pages. ‘embrace this God-life, really embrace it’ The good aspect in Fox’s teaching is not new but very ancient. It’s in the New Testament, albeit cloaked in archaic language. Many years ago I wrote an article on Mark 11, wherein Jesus puts it all together for us: When we’re mature enough to handle it, God will reveal to us the great blessing of what our work is in the Family Of God. Eugene Peterson so masterfully translates Jesus’ words as “embrace this God-life, really embrace it.” When we do, a vista of the future, and our place in it, will gradually present itself to us. How do we "embrace this God-life"? - by "going within." We've had this God-life all along, part of our factory-installed "made in the image" capacities, but we haven't accessed it. To do so is our awakening, our enlightenment. ‘Alignment Is All’ This is August Goforth’s statement. It’s absolutely correct. This is what we need to focus on. When we align our spirits with Source, we will be given insight into what we are to do and what to ask for. No longer will the needy ego be leading our prayers. Now, prayer becomes something entirely new: not 'prayer as asking' so much -- for we suddenly sense a universe of abundance -- but 'prayer as alignment' with the Great Spirit. And this is what the apostle Paul meant by "praying always" - constant communication, and oneness, with Source.
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