VIOLINIO GERMAIN:  PRAYER AND MISCONCEPTION

Almost every prayer which carries with it a request also carries with it the inference that God is overlooking something in the management of his universe and needs a reminder that things are not running smoothly enough to suit the petitioner. Also, they carry the inference that requests are asked as personal favors from reverent and devout believers who believe that such favors will be granted if enough devout and reverent people join the weight of their petitions together to be heard by God and His interest in their personal requests is sufficiently aroused. God is not hard of hearing and He is right there within, so what are you actually doing? Such prayers carry an inference of intercession in someone’s interest—as though intercession is necessary with God—or would have any effect whatsoever upon Him. They also carry an inference that God is a personal being, like a king on a throne, to whom petitions are submitted and favors asked upon a personal basis.

To those we say that God does His part always and needs no reminder. His part of Creation is Perfect. His law is perfect. His LAW ALWAYS WORKS.

You need not ask God to make his law of gravitation work. Neither will He set it aside if you ask Him to do so. If you fall off a cliff, the law of gravitation will cause your death whether you are saint or sinner and no prayer will set that aside. God will tell you not to fall. He has told you that in your very seed but if you disobey, you will perish just alike anyone else. CAN GOD OVERRIDE THOSE LAWS? YES. WOULD HE! NO, NOT VERY OFTEN—BUT HE MIGHT WELL OVERRIDE SOME OF YOUR ANTICS AND IN THOSE CASES THEY WOULD APPEAR TO BE MIRACLES.

God’s whole universe is in perfect balance. He keeps it so. You may depend upon it always. If you want good crops, God’s law is there to give them to you IF YOU WORK WITH HIS LAW. But if you ask God to do your part of the word as well as His, you will harvest nothing no matter how great is your faith.

A farmer does not ask God to cure a potato blight. He searches for the cause of it, which may be his own lack of knowledge of the particular soil. When, however, a blight strikes men’s own bodies, they vigorously condemn anyone who suggest that they do what the farmer does who works knowingly with God, doing his part of the work together with God’s part of it.

What was the cause of the potato blight? Was it too much moisture?

What was the cause of the human body blight? Was it tight lacings generations ago? Wrong diet? Unbalanced emotional disturbances? Frustrations? Infection from a rusty nail? Distorted seed pattern of ancestor’s unbalanced actions?

No matter what the cause of any disintegrating or depolarizing effect, the remedy for it is to restore balance. The restoration of balance in any machine can be accomplished through action. It is just as reasonable for one to expect God to repair his typewriter because of his faith and belief as it is to expect Him to repair a human machine which man has damaged.

The restoration of balance through any mental unbalanced condition is purely mental. A change of thought from negative to positive will cure any mental ailment. A physically unbalanced  body condition requires a physical action to restore its balance and this can actually only be truly accomplished through first balancing the Mind.

Mind-healing has no relation to faith and belief, in actuality. It is purely CAUSE and EFFECT working in accordance with God’s established law. It is desire for a right condition followed by intelligent action to restore that condition. Purely physical abnormalities, whether a broken bone, a cancer, a cut upon the head, a gunshot wound, paralysis from blood clots on the brain, misshapen bodies or other deformities can be “cured” only by physical action. One might just as well ask God in all faith and belief to mend a broken spoke in an automobile wheel as to ask Him to cure a deformed foot without intelligent action.

Can God do it? Yes! However, if it be your foot and it is malformed—why would He override your input? If you wish it healed (if in fact you perceive it in need of “healing”) you will do it yourself through the proper physical attention (although the physical action may very well be totally mental in projection). For instance, if one has indigestion from drinking martinis—would it not be wise to stop the martinis? If you have so little care as to healing of self then is assumed that the misery is enjoyed for some unrecognized reason and when the person is ready to release the illness—he will do so.

CAUSE AND EFFECT

Creation is a play of CAUSE and EFFECT. The CAUSE  is undivided. CAUSE is always balanced. It is always ONE.

EFFECT is divided. Instead of one balanced condition, it is a division into two unbalanced conditions.

The play of life is to keep the two unbalanced conditions of EFFECT in balance with each other. When CAUSE  and EFFECT are in balance with each other, the spiritual and physical manifestations of either man or nature manifest harmony, unity, growth and normalcy in all parts. It is impossible to keep one’s body in perfect balance always. To say that God made man’s body perfect, as well as man, does not mean that man can keep his body from being damaged. He must go to a dentist when his teeth wear out, or to an occultist when his eyes grow old—or put up with the inconveniences for the avoidance.

God’s law of CAUSE and EFFECT always works. When anything goes wrong with you, or with civilization, it is you who are at fault, not God. If men steal from each other for ages, they harvest hate and fear which culminate in wars. The seeds of fear, hate and greed will not yield harvests of love, prosperity, happiness and peace.

Men pray to ask God to protect them from their enemies, instead of praying to ask God to so enlighten them that men can practice the love principle in their human relations and, thereby, not make enemies. As long as man continues to violate God’s law, he will hurt himself. All the faith and belief in the world will not alter the effect of any cause whatsoever. Try it. Try putting your finger on a red hot stove while praying reverently with full faith and belief that God will cancel the law as a favor to you—and see what happens. Your finger will burn!

Can you override that result? Yes, but it requires preparation of the body responses in direct effect of orders from the Mind to make those changes—I see almost none who can successfully do this. To walk across a bed of coals, say, is not proving much of anything but is fooling the people around you as well as yourself. If mentally prepared properly, the Mind can cause the body to react in directed conditioning—but this takes a lot of attention and work.

Therefore, we again say to you that when you ask God for anything, never ask Him to fulfill His part, for He has already done that, but ask Him, rather, to show you what you should do to fulfill your portion.

Everything that is wrong with you is of your own making; therefore, ask that you be enlightened. Perhaps it will be as simple as putting an asbestos finger mitten on before touching the hot stove! The answer will always be quite simple and always most reasonable.

Let us say, for example, you want a roof for your church or perhaps, as with Little Crow, the gathering office needs paint—and your people pray in full faith and belief that God will give it to you and you then rely soley upon your prayer, your church will not get a roof and the walls will not be covered with new paint. If, however, you ask God to give you knowledge to guide your actions in giving service for regiving of money for the roof and/or the paint and to have someone splash the paint on the walls, your knowledge will find the way to accomplish both. In Little Crow’s instance, he simply asks his gathering for contributions. If that does not do it then he will have to decide how badly he needs new paint—and leave it alone or do it himself—do you get the point? This is the law and you will as surely have your desire fulfilled as the farmer’s desire is fulfilled when he does his part by tilling the soil and planting seed.

That is what I meant by the prayers of men who tell God what they wish Him to do instead of asking God to tell them what they should do. How many times do you think of something only to put it aside and later say, “I thought of that but didn’t do it. “ You have to listen when God tells you for it will always be through IDEA.

This is the great misconception of the power of prayer. The cause of that misconception lies in the fact that people who ask God for fulfillment of their desires forget that requests for material things are created only through two-way action. Material things are not created by rubbing an Aladdin lamp or through wishful thinking. They are created through balanced action and reaction.

Let us put a hard example on this. Say now that certain guns and rifles need registration and you have one but have not registered it. It lays atop the gun case. Now you can pray until you drop dead to have God remove that gun and place it in security and you are going to become arrested at some point for having the gun. You know what to do with that weapon and if you want something done with it you better get at it. God will allow you to be incarcerated if that is the penalty to allow you to know the difference. He will warn you in time if you have asked for guidance—but YOU WILL DO IT. This is a good lesson for today for many of you are going to be caught in this plight as gun controls come down on your nation. If you are one with one of these banned guns—here is your warning—GET IT TENDED! GO WITHIN AND ASK FOR GUIDANCE AS TO WHAT TO DO AND LISTEN FOR THE ANSWERS—THEN ACT. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO GET RID OF THE EQUIPMENT THEN YOU HAD BETTER TEND OF IT SOMEWAY. SURPRISE SEARCH AND SEIZURES ARE GOING TO BEGIN AT ANY MOMENT! THEREFORE, IF YOU ARE NAGGED BY MALCONTENT OVER THE TENDING OF IT—DON’T  TEASE AND QUIP ABOUT IT—TEND IT!

When a mechanic fixes your broken car through KNOWLEDGE of its workings, or a surgeon fixes your broken body through KNOWLEDGE of its workings, those operations are as much Mind healings as the elimination of toxic poisons from your body by thoughts of love is a Mind-healing.

ALL CREATIONS ARE MIND CREATIONS.

ALL MIND CREATIONS HAVE BODIES FORMED IN THE IMAGES OF MIND-THOUGHTS.

ALL BODIES ARE CREATED PERFECT BY CONFORMITY WITH LAW AND MADE ILL BY BREACH OF LAW AT SOME POINT IN YOUR LIFE-STREAM.

WHAT MAN FORGETS WHEN HE PRAYS

When man fervently asks God to fulfill desires, he forgets that he is asking God to do what he, himself, should do. God’s part has already been done.

Man asks God to stop wars, forgetting that wars are man-made, not God-made. They are a breach of God’s law. Wars are effects of the disunity, greed and selfishness of man. Man has free will to manifest the spirit in him, or his senses, as he wills. It is all a part of the Play of Cause and Effect. The play must go on until man learns by experience that he must some day manifest the love principle upon which the universe is founded.

http://www.fourwinds10.com/journals/pdf/J036.pdf

Chap. 14, pp 171-176