Meditations on the Pater Noster
By Papus
OUR FATHER
Father
The Father evokes the idea of the Creator, the idea of the Active Creator. At the same time this term implies the idea of the love of the Creator for all of His creatures. Active Creative Power and Supreme benevolence, such are the two principles evoked by the term: Our Father.
From a purely intellectual point of view, the term Pater makes it possible to understand how the adepts of all religions could be in intellectual and moral communion with regard to the same idea of a Creative Power, and of Supreme Benevolence.
In this connection, Brahmanism sees the action of the Active Creative Power: namely, Brahma, as balancing the preserving power of Vishnu and the transforming power of Shiva. But the Initiates go further. The Father is the point of ya, opposed to the point of ma. It is the mystical Yod of the Qabbalists and the first element of the sacred name. It is linked to Yod Pater (Youpiter: Jovis, of the ancient sanctuaries). It evokes the Pitris or creative powers of the Father. For the Buddhist, this term is linked to the teachings of Yoga, of the Active Creative Principles and their mysterious mantras. For Islam, it is the culmination of the Name of which “al” is the pronoun: Gabriel said to Mohamed: I am the “al” of “lah”, the pronoun whose mystical name is formidable. “Lah” is one of the keys to the name of the Creative Father of Abraham and of his Church. Allah is Allah and Mohamed is His Prophet… Sufism provides the active keys to this revelation.
WHO ART IN HEAVEN
Heaven
Any created being has its heaven, its earth and its horizon, and its central or infernal core, its inferior or lower places.
Above the earth shines the Heavens, with its Stars and Planets, with its immense fluidic Sea, in which the stars, true ships, plunge into and emerge from the floods; where the paths of the zodiac indicate the path of the celestial arches and where the divine powers inscribe their periods in letters of fire. In the same way man has his heaven, mind (spirit), which illumines his path, the astral life, which maintains his forces, and the infernal instinctive centers which darken his horizon.
However, any Heaven, to whatever plane it belongs, is the abode of the father. If it is a being of sin like man, who voluntarily dressed himself in the skin of the brute (animal, beast) then that celestial spark of the Father is in the center of the Spirit (mind) and shines at the deepest of the most obscure external layers. If it is a planet, this divine spark manifests itself in the ray of light, which links the planet to its sun. It is necessary, therefore, to determine the heaven of a being in order to discover the true center of action of the Father. If Christ, the Word (verb) made flesh, is truly the envoy of the Father, it is necessary that on December 25, the day of His arrival, one should see in the heavens the stereotypes of this incarnation. However, on this date, the Celestial Virgin, the Ox, and the Ass surround the stable in the heavens where the Magi and the shepherds come to adore the Announced. Our Father which art in Heaven, O profound Mystery worthy of occupying an entire human existence for the one who wishes to understand the union of the Father and the cycles of astral eternity.
HALLOWED BE THY NAME
The Divine Name
A rabbinical legend claims that the one who knows how to pronounce the true Divine Name can accomplish all miracles, and raise the dead. The enemies of Christ even said that it is by having overheard the secrets of this pronunciation that Our Savior was able to accomplish His miraculous works.
All these legends hide, as usual, a profound truth: namely that to know the Divine Name is to possess the key to all human sciences, and ancient Initiation was based uniquely upon the study of the Divine Name and its adaptations.
According to the Hebraic Qabbalah, Divinity is exteriorized by way of ten names of which the only esoteric one is the fourth, formed of four letters and so powerful that it is forbidden to spell it. This name, for the profane, is pronounced: Adonai (the Lord), and for Initiates it is: IEVE, according to the four letters of which it is constituted: Iod, Heh, Vau, Heh.
This name of the Heavenly Father is constituted in such a way as to reveal the key to all human knowledge. Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, in his mission of the Jews, shows, in effect, that the second Heh of this distinguished name corresponds to Natural Science and to the study of Nature Naturee or Nature in its passive, receptive state. The Vau corresponds to the human Life Sciences, to the Biology of Humanity. For its part the first Heh corresponds to Sciences of Nature Naturante or Nature in its active state, as the cause of phenomena, and finally the Iod corresponds to the Sciences of Divine Nature itself. Therefore, the one who knows the name of the Father can no longer profane it without himself or herself denying all creation and its raison d’être.
By evoking at the beginning of his prayer this Divine Name, Our Lord thus links his apostolic mission to all of the ancient mysteries, just as the attribution to each of the evangelists, later in the form of the Sphinx, would indicate even more this linkage, symbolized by the worship of the Magi during the birth of the Savior.
Now, what is indicated by the expression: Hallowed be thy name?
The one who knows the secret of the name of the Father can no longer pronounce this name without trembling and praying. Even more importantly, by the effect of the evocation of this name, the mouth, which enunciates it, the brain, which creates the stereotypes of each sound which the larynx pronounces, the air, which vibrates under the enunciation of the Word, all become a sanctuary and receive a ray of Divine Light. It is, therefore, only in a sanctuary that this name, which sanctifies all, can be evoked, and man must endeavor to create within himself such a center of divine evolution.
This creation can be effected by way of a triple effort:
Finally, Prayer and the Appeal to Divine Assistance create the spiritual Sanctuary within us. Forgiveness and detachment from all that is terrestrial naturally supplement this impulse. It is then, and then only, that the Creator finds in His creature the dwelling place appointed for his efforts and for all the power of Divine Creativity.
THY KINGDOM COME
The Father left to man his freedom, and the human being organizes, according to its own human will, social bodies and collective groupings. The Kingdom has, therefore, been voluntarily shared by the Creator.
Man is free in his social sphere like a passenger is free in his/her cabin. The passenger, once in his or her cabin, and throughout the duration of the voyage, can decorate it in his or her own way, can furnish it even according to his or her taste. And, just like American billionaires, he or she can even commit suicide in it. But all that does not in any way influence the general course of the ship or the life of the other passengers. However, the general progress of the ship of the Universe is reserved to the Creator, the only master of all the only master of all, but He has a little kingdom to the human being who often abuses it. If man understands, he adapts his personal laws to those of the Father, and then the Reign of the Father is realized. It is to this realization that all the efforts of the true children of Heaven must tend. Knowledge of the Reign of the Father implies the study of all the laws of Harmony on all planes.
THY WILL BE DONE
Man, in order to leave the state of darkness into which his revolt plunged him when he constituted Adam Kadmon, or collective Humanity, must develop a series of faculties, which will later enable him to fight effectively against the old stereotypes which will return. To develop these faculties, the Will plays a great role. But man is so proud of his possession of this Will, that he makes of himself the center, and endeavors to fight against any other incentive, even against the Will of the Father. To know how to place all power in the hand of the Divine, to know how to obey and incline oneself, the more one is powerful and believes oneself capable of everything; to know how to drive dreadful doubt from one’s spirit (mind) and to follow the right path of the middle, all that is the work demanded of all those who prefer the Will of the Father to their own volition.
There exists on all planes of matter an intelligent force of inversion, which comes from the realm of the Great Celestial Revolt, the ancient Seraphim, Lucifer. That the skeptics and ignoramuses of holy things laugh here, it matters little. This opposing force exists, just as the cone of the shadow that the earth trails behind it in the Heavens exists, just as the shadow of all materialized beings also exists. The mystics call this force when it acts here: the Prince of this world. At the end of the Pater, Christ will describe its means of action, as well as the domain of this force of inversion.
Let us say here only that the struggle of the feeble Will of Man against the Will of the Father-a struggle that is permissible because he has been granted his Freedom-is the great vehicle of action for this power of inversion.
This force of inversion ties Man to all that is of this world, to all that one leaves here at death: material goods, purely earthly affections, the egotism of a comfortable life while others are dying of hunger on our doorstep.
Then comes war, that great crisis of social fever. All that one believed to have been built on everlasting rock collapses. Money no longer serves to buy objects, which suddenly have become scarce; the house in which one was sure to finish one’s days, in a few minutes collapses under the rush of shells; it is necessary to flee by road, abandoning everything. And the rich farmer of yesterday, is today a poor emigrant who craves shelter for his wife and his children, who are still quite happy that the man, the father, is there, and that the poor woman no longer has to leave alone. Then the Will of the Father is accomplished in spite of human heroism. One understands, one kneels and prays: Father, may your will be done.
ON EARTH, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
Each object or each human being has its shadow and its light. Each being of the universe is constituted of various planes: thus the earth has a core, a nucleus, a vegetable coating with rivers and mountains, an atmosphere in which bathe the solar rays, constituting the day, and the soft light of the stars and the moon, constituting the night.
For our Sun, the Heavens is the entire zodiacal route with its millions of suns similar to itself.
For the human being, as for any materialized being, the Heavens is not in the terrestrial clouds, it is within Man himself, in his Spirit (mind), since man, according to Saint Paul, is: Corpus, Anima and Spiritus.
Heaven and Earth are thus the universal and non-specific terms, which designate all that is inferior.
The Heaven of Man is his Spirit (mind), his Earth is his body. Father, let your Will be done in my body as it is done in my Spirit (mind), says the one who knows.
Harmony in all the Earth, Harmony in all the Heavens is the adaptation to a single will: that of the Father. To know how to recognize what is Earth, and what is Heaven and to know how to adapt all to divine harmony: it is there that one finds the secrets of true Science, namely that of Life on all planes.
GIVE US EACH DAY OUR DAILY BREAD
Here begins, in the Pater, what relates directly to man. The sinner asks for the assistance of the father to support the trials of the day, which begins. The thirst to possess, and the fear of not having, exists in all material Nature. The marine plants, to which the tide has brought food, are distressed by fear of want during the entire ebb tide. It is the same with human nature.
Material life during the period of incarnation is intended to generate within us faculties of which our Spirit (mind) will have great need in its future struggles. To withstand the tests and trials, one needs a sort of graduated training, and the tests and trials are also graduated according to our power of resistance. By requesting of the Father our daily bread, we are not only asking for bread for the body, which He will do the utmost in order to grant us, but we are also asking for the bread of the soul and for that of the spirit (mind).
The daily Bread of the soul, is the force of creation, which resides in the good astral stereotypes around us, and the daily Bread of the Spirit (mind), these are our challenges.
There are no trees, which produce beautiful flowers on this Earth without having below, its roots, which grow in the shadows by pushing aside, with difficulty, hard stones and by penetrating the unyielding earth. However, in order to grow, any human faculty-the flower-also requires the hard work of tests and trials-Challenges-confronted by the roots. The Father will never abandon His creature, and it is He himself who comes to suffer with us at the time of our pain.
He appears and comes to say: “Child of the dream, be courageous…If the terrible power of Death appears around your relatives and friends…do not despair entirely…I will be there…close to your broken heart…at the very depth of your pain, call on me…and you will see then that I am really the Savior and you will fell my presence in the most profound depths of your being…Pray fervently and say with me…Pater da nobis panem nostrum quotidianum…”
FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US.
After the support of the physical plane, after the triple bread of the material, here is the key to the evolution of the soul on all planes. Here it is necessary to compare the Latin text with the French commentary: Dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Which one can translate as: remit to us (forgive) our debts as we remit (forgive) the debts of those who are our debtors.
Forgive always, and always, always remit debts, and your assets will become increasingly large; stars will be added to stars in your invisible sphere, more especially so if you are perceived on Earth as a simpleton and as a being too stupidly good.
It is difficult to remain a defendant before the courts, to lose lawsuits and never wanting to be a petitioner. But there is, on all planes, a path of evolution so sure and so precise that the one who knows it will never abandon it.
Another consequence of this word is that it is always necessary to render unto the light that which has been done in the dark. Evil lives in darkness; it fears the light. Therefore, if you have to reprove your brother, do so in his presence and in light.
If, on the contrary, you have to do good to your brother, do so without the knowledge of all in the dark. Thus you pay the debts against all the slandered, the disinherited and the unfortunate of all kind.
It is necessary that the soul breathes a pure astral atmosphere and forgiveness is the great key to the evolution of the soul, just as prayer is the key to the evolution of the Spirit (mind).
To know how to forbear, how to suffer, how to pray, and how to forgive is one of the most active paths for the practical mystic. All religions, truly linked to a divine center, have put into practice the teachings given by the Savior in this admirable part of his prayer.
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION
The Latin says more clearly: Ne nos inducas in tentattionem. Do not lead us in the path of Temptation.
Man can progress each day only by way of a more intensive training. To resist the allurements, which will assail us on the spiritual plane, we must, know how to drive out these seductive stereotypes, which each present themselves three times to the center of all our sensations.
Initially a stereotype produces only a slight, faint impulse. If we resist, the stereotype returns a second time, but this time a little stronger. This time, we cannot resist only with our strength; it is necessary to seek assistance from above. If we ask, we are given a being of light, who comes to us like a friend and who fights at our side.
Then the stereotype returns for the last time, even stronger, and again it is necessary to ask for aid, but this time not only in our thoughts, but more so by way of our deeds. We must surround ourselves with an aureole of light, if this time we wish to gain a final victory. If we win, the stereotype is broken. It will no longer present itself. If we succumb, it will be necessary for Heaven to descend within us in order to erase the shadow, which we placed within our spiritual atmosphere. This will be the object of the next verse.
This teaching on the triple coming of each temptation will be understood only by those who know the conduct, the manner of proceeding of the stereotypes from which result the majority of our deeds.
What it is especially important to know, is that we cannot do anything alone. It is necessary to ask the Father to graduate the pressure in accordance with our strength of resistance according to the formula “Astra inclinant non necessitant”. Destiny inclines us toward a path, it does not force us.
Any passion is, in sum, a cerebral incitement towards a higher or lower path depending upon the stereotype. The purpose of the training of the will is to curb this impulsive movement. If we seek assistance for this action, then we are very likely to overcome destiny. The square of evil, 5, or 25, is balanced by the Square of the number of God, 3, or 9, and the square of the number of man, 4, or 16, (9+16=25). It was the Chinese who taught this system to Pythagoras, and the Academics of Europe made of it a bridge to assess the Baccalaureate, without understanding it any more than school children do. Heavenly Father, receive our prayer, and lead us far from the path of the stereotypes of tempters.
BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL
Sedl libera nos a malo, says the Latin.
The human being is weak on earth and often draws a curtain between his/her will and the beneficial influence of the Father. It is necessary that divine pity traverse the thickness of this veil in order that it may come to save the blinded or deluded creature.
Evil has invaded all, and the poor creature no longer has any energy to dominate temptations. At this point in time the role of the Savior manifests with more splendor, if ever that is possible. It descends into hell once again, celestial purity is overcome by the splashes of the wicked and wretched stereotypes and, like the diamond, which passes through mud without internal stains, this Christ force burns the bark without being injured, impaired, or sullied. For that to occur, what is required? A dash, a rush, a flight, an enthusiasm of the creature towards its Creator. Like the injured in the ditch, who gently groans and attracts succor, so too the sinner who expresses the slightest enthusiasm towards the Creator is at once hearkened unto.
And the release from evil may be physical, as in the healings by Christ. It may be on the level of the soul, as in profound despairs when the Savior comes to manifest his presence and his peace. Or it may also be spiritual, when unquestionable Faith comes to liberate the Spirit (mind) from its doubts and its insidious questions.
And let us note that evil is not personified. There are powers or inversions, but of the invisible we know but very few things. Some have made of the ancient God Pan, an actual horned and twisted devil. The ancient Typhon of Egypt long ago made little children tremble. But the Savior does not wish to personalize evil. He asks the Father to erase it in its effects in the three centers of the human being, and that is all. For here, it is a matter of an immediate question in which philosophical sophisms could not take hold.
First, let us save the sinner who appeals for relief and let us discuss afterwards.
Heavenly Father, if I have poorly understood my brother of the other realms of your Kingdom, if I believe myself to be the only sage or the only possessor of Truth, manifest your strength, show me that, as the Verb Incarnate has said, “In my Father’s House are many Mansions”, and return to me charity and humility, those generators of all positive virtue. Father, deliver us from evil.
FOR TO YOU ALONE BELONG ROYALTY, AND JUSTICE, AND POWER IN THE CYCLES OF ALL ETERNITY.
The Latin Church concludes the Pater according to the last verse, which we have just cited. But the Greek Church preserved the so-called “Esoteric” verse, which is the response of the creature to the kindness of the Creator.
“On the plane of the Spirit, all true direction, all spiritual Royalty comes from you, Oh Heavenly Father.”
“On the plane of Soul, all social and moral harmony, all true justice comes from you and only from you, Oh Heavenly Father.”
“On the material plane, all active force, all motive power in a world with its suns, its planets and its continents, or in a small cell with its solar nucleus, its planetary plasma and its zodiacal envelope, all come from you and only from you.”
And in the cycles of the Eons of Eternity, all created beings, or all existing things crying in their triple planes of manifestation:
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, the divine Father whose life circulates in all Eternity, whose Verb (Word) determines all existence, and whose spirit (mind) of light illuminates all material beings.
Vita, Verbum, et Lux, Basileia, Doxa, Dunamis, profound mystery that the soul perceives in Prayer and which gives to the one who possesses it the greatest gift that one can hope for on Earth: The Peace of the Heart-Peace of Mind! Amen.
Used with permission of L’Initiation. Volume 3-#2, Winter 2003. English Edition.
OUR FATHER
Father
The Father evokes the idea of the Creator, the idea of the Active Creator. At the same time this term implies the idea of the love of the Creator for all of His creatures. Active Creative Power and Supreme benevolence, such are the two principles evoked by the term: Our Father.
From a purely intellectual point of view, the term Pater makes it possible to understand how the adepts of all religions could be in intellectual and moral communion with regard to the same idea of a Creative Power, and of Supreme Benevolence.
In this connection, Brahmanism sees the action of the Active Creative Power: namely, Brahma, as balancing the preserving power of Vishnu and the transforming power of Shiva. But the Initiates go further. The Father is the point of ya, opposed to the point of ma. It is the mystical Yod of the Qabbalists and the first element of the sacred name. It is linked to Yod Pater (Youpiter: Jovis, of the ancient sanctuaries). It evokes the Pitris or creative powers of the Father. For the Buddhist, this term is linked to the teachings of Yoga, of the Active Creative Principles and their mysterious mantras. For Islam, it is the culmination of the Name of which “al” is the pronoun: Gabriel said to Mohamed: I am the “al” of “lah”, the pronoun whose mystical name is formidable. “Lah” is one of the keys to the name of the Creative Father of Abraham and of his Church. Allah is Allah and Mohamed is His Prophet… Sufism provides the active keys to this revelation.
WHO ART IN HEAVEN
Heaven
Any created being has its heaven, its earth and its horizon, and its central or infernal core, its inferior or lower places.
Above the earth shines the Heavens, with its Stars and Planets, with its immense fluidic Sea, in which the stars, true ships, plunge into and emerge from the floods; where the paths of the zodiac indicate the path of the celestial arches and where the divine powers inscribe their periods in letters of fire. In the same way man has his heaven, mind (spirit), which illumines his path, the astral life, which maintains his forces, and the infernal instinctive centers which darken his horizon.
However, any Heaven, to whatever plane it belongs, is the abode of the father. If it is a being of sin like man, who voluntarily dressed himself in the skin of the brute (animal, beast) then that celestial spark of the Father is in the center of the Spirit (mind) and shines at the deepest of the most obscure external layers. If it is a planet, this divine spark manifests itself in the ray of light, which links the planet to its sun. It is necessary, therefore, to determine the heaven of a being in order to discover the true center of action of the Father. If Christ, the Word (verb) made flesh, is truly the envoy of the Father, it is necessary that on December 25, the day of His arrival, one should see in the heavens the stereotypes of this incarnation. However, on this date, the Celestial Virgin, the Ox, and the Ass surround the stable in the heavens where the Magi and the shepherds come to adore the Announced. Our Father which art in Heaven, O profound Mystery worthy of occupying an entire human existence for the one who wishes to understand the union of the Father and the cycles of astral eternity.
HALLOWED BE THY NAME
The Divine Name
A rabbinical legend claims that the one who knows how to pronounce the true Divine Name can accomplish all miracles, and raise the dead. The enemies of Christ even said that it is by having overheard the secrets of this pronunciation that Our Savior was able to accomplish His miraculous works.
All these legends hide, as usual, a profound truth: namely that to know the Divine Name is to possess the key to all human sciences, and ancient Initiation was based uniquely upon the study of the Divine Name and its adaptations.
According to the Hebraic Qabbalah, Divinity is exteriorized by way of ten names of which the only esoteric one is the fourth, formed of four letters and so powerful that it is forbidden to spell it. This name, for the profane, is pronounced: Adonai (the Lord), and for Initiates it is: IEVE, according to the four letters of which it is constituted: Iod, Heh, Vau, Heh.
This name of the Heavenly Father is constituted in such a way as to reveal the key to all human knowledge. Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, in his mission of the Jews, shows, in effect, that the second Heh of this distinguished name corresponds to Natural Science and to the study of Nature Naturee or Nature in its passive, receptive state. The Vau corresponds to the human Life Sciences, to the Biology of Humanity. For its part the first Heh corresponds to Sciences of Nature Naturante or Nature in its active state, as the cause of phenomena, and finally the Iod corresponds to the Sciences of Divine Nature itself. Therefore, the one who knows the name of the Father can no longer profane it without himself or herself denying all creation and its raison d’être.
By evoking at the beginning of his prayer this Divine Name, Our Lord thus links his apostolic mission to all of the ancient mysteries, just as the attribution to each of the evangelists, later in the form of the Sphinx, would indicate even more this linkage, symbolized by the worship of the Magi during the birth of the Savior.
Now, what is indicated by the expression: Hallowed be thy name?
The one who knows the secret of the name of the Father can no longer pronounce this name without trembling and praying. Even more importantly, by the effect of the evocation of this name, the mouth, which enunciates it, the brain, which creates the stereotypes of each sound which the larynx pronounces, the air, which vibrates under the enunciation of the Word, all become a sanctuary and receive a ray of Divine Light. It is, therefore, only in a sanctuary that this name, which sanctifies all, can be evoked, and man must endeavor to create within himself such a center of divine evolution.
This creation can be effected by way of a triple effort:
- Sanctification of the physical body by fasting, vegetarianism and an entirely mystical training;
- Creation of a living (animated) or astral Sanctuary by way of the Domination of the passion stereotypes on all planes;
- Creation of the mental Sanctuary by Silence and the observation of not thinking ill of anyone.
Finally, Prayer and the Appeal to Divine Assistance create the spiritual Sanctuary within us. Forgiveness and detachment from all that is terrestrial naturally supplement this impulse. It is then, and then only, that the Creator finds in His creature the dwelling place appointed for his efforts and for all the power of Divine Creativity.
THY KINGDOM COME
The Father left to man his freedom, and the human being organizes, according to its own human will, social bodies and collective groupings. The Kingdom has, therefore, been voluntarily shared by the Creator.
Man is free in his social sphere like a passenger is free in his/her cabin. The passenger, once in his or her cabin, and throughout the duration of the voyage, can decorate it in his or her own way, can furnish it even according to his or her taste. And, just like American billionaires, he or she can even commit suicide in it. But all that does not in any way influence the general course of the ship or the life of the other passengers. However, the general progress of the ship of the Universe is reserved to the Creator, the only master of all the only master of all, but He has a little kingdom to the human being who often abuses it. If man understands, he adapts his personal laws to those of the Father, and then the Reign of the Father is realized. It is to this realization that all the efforts of the true children of Heaven must tend. Knowledge of the Reign of the Father implies the study of all the laws of Harmony on all planes.
THY WILL BE DONE
Man, in order to leave the state of darkness into which his revolt plunged him when he constituted Adam Kadmon, or collective Humanity, must develop a series of faculties, which will later enable him to fight effectively against the old stereotypes which will return. To develop these faculties, the Will plays a great role. But man is so proud of his possession of this Will, that he makes of himself the center, and endeavors to fight against any other incentive, even against the Will of the Father. To know how to place all power in the hand of the Divine, to know how to obey and incline oneself, the more one is powerful and believes oneself capable of everything; to know how to drive dreadful doubt from one’s spirit (mind) and to follow the right path of the middle, all that is the work demanded of all those who prefer the Will of the Father to their own volition.
There exists on all planes of matter an intelligent force of inversion, which comes from the realm of the Great Celestial Revolt, the ancient Seraphim, Lucifer. That the skeptics and ignoramuses of holy things laugh here, it matters little. This opposing force exists, just as the cone of the shadow that the earth trails behind it in the Heavens exists, just as the shadow of all materialized beings also exists. The mystics call this force when it acts here: the Prince of this world. At the end of the Pater, Christ will describe its means of action, as well as the domain of this force of inversion.
Let us say here only that the struggle of the feeble Will of Man against the Will of the Father-a struggle that is permissible because he has been granted his Freedom-is the great vehicle of action for this power of inversion.
This force of inversion ties Man to all that is of this world, to all that one leaves here at death: material goods, purely earthly affections, the egotism of a comfortable life while others are dying of hunger on our doorstep.
Then comes war, that great crisis of social fever. All that one believed to have been built on everlasting rock collapses. Money no longer serves to buy objects, which suddenly have become scarce; the house in which one was sure to finish one’s days, in a few minutes collapses under the rush of shells; it is necessary to flee by road, abandoning everything. And the rich farmer of yesterday, is today a poor emigrant who craves shelter for his wife and his children, who are still quite happy that the man, the father, is there, and that the poor woman no longer has to leave alone. Then the Will of the Father is accomplished in spite of human heroism. One understands, one kneels and prays: Father, may your will be done.
ON EARTH, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
Each object or each human being has its shadow and its light. Each being of the universe is constituted of various planes: thus the earth has a core, a nucleus, a vegetable coating with rivers and mountains, an atmosphere in which bathe the solar rays, constituting the day, and the soft light of the stars and the moon, constituting the night.
For our Sun, the Heavens is the entire zodiacal route with its millions of suns similar to itself.
For the human being, as for any materialized being, the Heavens is not in the terrestrial clouds, it is within Man himself, in his Spirit (mind), since man, according to Saint Paul, is: Corpus, Anima and Spiritus.
Heaven and Earth are thus the universal and non-specific terms, which designate all that is inferior.
The Heaven of Man is his Spirit (mind), his Earth is his body. Father, let your Will be done in my body as it is done in my Spirit (mind), says the one who knows.
Harmony in all the Earth, Harmony in all the Heavens is the adaptation to a single will: that of the Father. To know how to recognize what is Earth, and what is Heaven and to know how to adapt all to divine harmony: it is there that one finds the secrets of true Science, namely that of Life on all planes.
GIVE US EACH DAY OUR DAILY BREAD
Here begins, in the Pater, what relates directly to man. The sinner asks for the assistance of the father to support the trials of the day, which begins. The thirst to possess, and the fear of not having, exists in all material Nature. The marine plants, to which the tide has brought food, are distressed by fear of want during the entire ebb tide. It is the same with human nature.
Material life during the period of incarnation is intended to generate within us faculties of which our Spirit (mind) will have great need in its future struggles. To withstand the tests and trials, one needs a sort of graduated training, and the tests and trials are also graduated according to our power of resistance. By requesting of the Father our daily bread, we are not only asking for bread for the body, which He will do the utmost in order to grant us, but we are also asking for the bread of the soul and for that of the spirit (mind).
The daily Bread of the soul, is the force of creation, which resides in the good astral stereotypes around us, and the daily Bread of the Spirit (mind), these are our challenges.
There are no trees, which produce beautiful flowers on this Earth without having below, its roots, which grow in the shadows by pushing aside, with difficulty, hard stones and by penetrating the unyielding earth. However, in order to grow, any human faculty-the flower-also requires the hard work of tests and trials-Challenges-confronted by the roots. The Father will never abandon His creature, and it is He himself who comes to suffer with us at the time of our pain.
He appears and comes to say: “Child of the dream, be courageous…If the terrible power of Death appears around your relatives and friends…do not despair entirely…I will be there…close to your broken heart…at the very depth of your pain, call on me…and you will see then that I am really the Savior and you will fell my presence in the most profound depths of your being…Pray fervently and say with me…Pater da nobis panem nostrum quotidianum…”
FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US.
After the support of the physical plane, after the triple bread of the material, here is the key to the evolution of the soul on all planes. Here it is necessary to compare the Latin text with the French commentary: Dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Which one can translate as: remit to us (forgive) our debts as we remit (forgive) the debts of those who are our debtors.
Forgive always, and always, always remit debts, and your assets will become increasingly large; stars will be added to stars in your invisible sphere, more especially so if you are perceived on Earth as a simpleton and as a being too stupidly good.
It is difficult to remain a defendant before the courts, to lose lawsuits and never wanting to be a petitioner. But there is, on all planes, a path of evolution so sure and so precise that the one who knows it will never abandon it.
Another consequence of this word is that it is always necessary to render unto the light that which has been done in the dark. Evil lives in darkness; it fears the light. Therefore, if you have to reprove your brother, do so in his presence and in light.
If, on the contrary, you have to do good to your brother, do so without the knowledge of all in the dark. Thus you pay the debts against all the slandered, the disinherited and the unfortunate of all kind.
It is necessary that the soul breathes a pure astral atmosphere and forgiveness is the great key to the evolution of the soul, just as prayer is the key to the evolution of the Spirit (mind).
To know how to forbear, how to suffer, how to pray, and how to forgive is one of the most active paths for the practical mystic. All religions, truly linked to a divine center, have put into practice the teachings given by the Savior in this admirable part of his prayer.
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION
The Latin says more clearly: Ne nos inducas in tentattionem. Do not lead us in the path of Temptation.
Man can progress each day only by way of a more intensive training. To resist the allurements, which will assail us on the spiritual plane, we must, know how to drive out these seductive stereotypes, which each present themselves three times to the center of all our sensations.
Initially a stereotype produces only a slight, faint impulse. If we resist, the stereotype returns a second time, but this time a little stronger. This time, we cannot resist only with our strength; it is necessary to seek assistance from above. If we ask, we are given a being of light, who comes to us like a friend and who fights at our side.
Then the stereotype returns for the last time, even stronger, and again it is necessary to ask for aid, but this time not only in our thoughts, but more so by way of our deeds. We must surround ourselves with an aureole of light, if this time we wish to gain a final victory. If we win, the stereotype is broken. It will no longer present itself. If we succumb, it will be necessary for Heaven to descend within us in order to erase the shadow, which we placed within our spiritual atmosphere. This will be the object of the next verse.
This teaching on the triple coming of each temptation will be understood only by those who know the conduct, the manner of proceeding of the stereotypes from which result the majority of our deeds.
What it is especially important to know, is that we cannot do anything alone. It is necessary to ask the Father to graduate the pressure in accordance with our strength of resistance according to the formula “Astra inclinant non necessitant”. Destiny inclines us toward a path, it does not force us.
Any passion is, in sum, a cerebral incitement towards a higher or lower path depending upon the stereotype. The purpose of the training of the will is to curb this impulsive movement. If we seek assistance for this action, then we are very likely to overcome destiny. The square of evil, 5, or 25, is balanced by the Square of the number of God, 3, or 9, and the square of the number of man, 4, or 16, (9+16=25). It was the Chinese who taught this system to Pythagoras, and the Academics of Europe made of it a bridge to assess the Baccalaureate, without understanding it any more than school children do. Heavenly Father, receive our prayer, and lead us far from the path of the stereotypes of tempters.
BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL
Sedl libera nos a malo, says the Latin.
The human being is weak on earth and often draws a curtain between his/her will and the beneficial influence of the Father. It is necessary that divine pity traverse the thickness of this veil in order that it may come to save the blinded or deluded creature.
Evil has invaded all, and the poor creature no longer has any energy to dominate temptations. At this point in time the role of the Savior manifests with more splendor, if ever that is possible. It descends into hell once again, celestial purity is overcome by the splashes of the wicked and wretched stereotypes and, like the diamond, which passes through mud without internal stains, this Christ force burns the bark without being injured, impaired, or sullied. For that to occur, what is required? A dash, a rush, a flight, an enthusiasm of the creature towards its Creator. Like the injured in the ditch, who gently groans and attracts succor, so too the sinner who expresses the slightest enthusiasm towards the Creator is at once hearkened unto.
And the release from evil may be physical, as in the healings by Christ. It may be on the level of the soul, as in profound despairs when the Savior comes to manifest his presence and his peace. Or it may also be spiritual, when unquestionable Faith comes to liberate the Spirit (mind) from its doubts and its insidious questions.
And let us note that evil is not personified. There are powers or inversions, but of the invisible we know but very few things. Some have made of the ancient God Pan, an actual horned and twisted devil. The ancient Typhon of Egypt long ago made little children tremble. But the Savior does not wish to personalize evil. He asks the Father to erase it in its effects in the three centers of the human being, and that is all. For here, it is a matter of an immediate question in which philosophical sophisms could not take hold.
First, let us save the sinner who appeals for relief and let us discuss afterwards.
Heavenly Father, if I have poorly understood my brother of the other realms of your Kingdom, if I believe myself to be the only sage or the only possessor of Truth, manifest your strength, show me that, as the Verb Incarnate has said, “In my Father’s House are many Mansions”, and return to me charity and humility, those generators of all positive virtue. Father, deliver us from evil.
FOR TO YOU ALONE BELONG ROYALTY, AND JUSTICE, AND POWER IN THE CYCLES OF ALL ETERNITY.
The Latin Church concludes the Pater according to the last verse, which we have just cited. But the Greek Church preserved the so-called “Esoteric” verse, which is the response of the creature to the kindness of the Creator.
“On the plane of the Spirit, all true direction, all spiritual Royalty comes from you, Oh Heavenly Father.”
“On the plane of Soul, all social and moral harmony, all true justice comes from you and only from you, Oh Heavenly Father.”
“On the material plane, all active force, all motive power in a world with its suns, its planets and its continents, or in a small cell with its solar nucleus, its planetary plasma and its zodiacal envelope, all come from you and only from you.”
And in the cycles of the Eons of Eternity, all created beings, or all existing things crying in their triple planes of manifestation:
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, the divine Father whose life circulates in all Eternity, whose Verb (Word) determines all existence, and whose spirit (mind) of light illuminates all material beings.
Vita, Verbum, et Lux, Basileia, Doxa, Dunamis, profound mystery that the soul perceives in Prayer and which gives to the one who possesses it the greatest gift that one can hope for on Earth: The Peace of the Heart-Peace of Mind! Amen.
Used with permission of L’Initiation. Volume 3-#2, Winter 2003. English Edition.