2002-11-21-Prayer, Part 1

Session

Opening

Greetings. This is your friend and teacher, Welmek. How pleased I am to be with you once again this evening, and to share our camaraderie, and to enjoy being together, under the watchcare of Michael and our Mother.

Lesson

Over the past several months I have been leading you in exercises for you to be able to distinguish in your mind those times when you are in more spirit communication and communion as opposed to being in your own space of thought. And I have watched your growth and heard your responses as we have moved through numerous exercises of sensing the Father's presence within, of feeling Michael's consciousness and his mind blend with yours, and how you have begun to be aware of the presence of the Divine Mind, our Universal Mother Spirit.

It is important for you to have some sense within you of what this feels like as a living, viable spiritual experience. Your mind is a largely untrained and untapped reservoir of information. And these exercises are helping you to harness some of that mental energy so you are a better conductor of the thought streams and patterns that infuse your thoughts.

We have spent time on the idea of 'fullness', and most recently 'mind-fullness'. And here again, I wish to add another layer upon this idea, as we move now more in the realm of communication at the spiritual level; as we go into a deeper exploration of the power of prayer and how to use this most wonderful of communication tools for the spiritual uplift of your planet.

Before I begin with this more in-depth instruction, I would like you to spend a moment or two in stillness. Gather your thoughts about the concept of prayer; and when you are ready please share with me, in one or two sentences, what you believe prayer is. And I will add my thoughts to yours. (pause)

Dialogue

Student: Welmek, prayer for me now has become calling upon Michael's presence into a situation, so that his will may be more fully activated within that person whether for healing, spiritual healing or physical healing. This is what prayer has become for me at this point in my life.

Welmek: Thank you.

Student: For me, before I read the textbook, I had no clear distinction between worship and prayer. I've accepted the text, feeling that worship is just a joyful feeling of thanks to God for life; and prayer is actually asking for help - that the whole spirit world is in some way surrounding us with help - that we actually have to ask for it. I don't actually understand how this works. That seems to be the thrust of yours and Michael's teaching lately; we have to request and focus for this help to be available.

Welmek: Thank you.

Student: For me, Welmek, prayer is an experience of the infiniteness within me communicating with the infiniteness all around on a particular topic.

Welmek: Thank you.

Student: Prayer for me is just simply conversing with God, communing with my Father.

Welmek: Thank you. R., do you have any comments on prayer?

Student: I don't really know what prayer is. I think it's something I haven't understood yet. There is petitionary prayer, which is asking God for things. But prayer involves a certain element of faith and it can't be concerned with time. But I have a lot to learn about prayer. I don't what it really is.

Welmek: Thank you. Prayer, in its simplest form, is the craving to become like the divine - that there is a supplication in the yearning that speaks to a need for help, that you cannot become God-like on your own. We will use this simple definition to begin. Are there any questions about this definition?

Student: Welmek, could that be repeated again? A summary of that, at least?

Welmek: Let me ask you, R., to summarize this, if you would.

Student: The best I can do at the moment, I think, is that prayer is a uniting with the Father's vibration, merging with it, to accomplish a goal that could not otherwise be accomplished alone.

Welmek: Yes, this is an excellent summarization. It is the yearning, the desire, to achieve that which is of the divine. Does this clarify this in your mind?

Student: So prayer then is a yearning to achieve a unity with the divine. (Yes.) OK.

Welmek: The potentials for perfection are woven throughout your being. Your evolutionary nature contains these potentials. Your capacity for truth recognition ignites your search to manifest these potentials; and it is your prayers that fuel the yearning to continue to grow.

For in this yearning is the request for assistance to be given to you in order for these potentials to be achieved. We live in a universe that is dominated by the ideas of teamwork and service. And always are there helpers and assists reaching to you to move you into those areas where you can grow. Your spiritual communication for this to occur is through prayer. But, prayer has been relegated to the repetition of rote pleas for help.

You who are becoming awakened to the vast spiritual friendliness of the universe are primed to learn more efficacious forms of communication. You are not just communicating with other humans, but you are now participating in something much greater than mere long distance communication around the country or your planet. You are now embarked upon the capacity to communicate throughout the universe.

I want you to think about this idea for a moment, and appreciate the implications of what this means. You are connected to an enormous spiritual circuitry that far exceeds anything that your telephone companies could have imagined. But it works in a very similar fashion. And it is much more efficient and much faster.

Tonight I would like to present some of the first and fundamental components of prayer, and then as we continue the discussion and practice I will add more ideas. The first I wish to enjoin within you is the idea of being in this spiritual encircuitment of communication with the universe. I ask you to take this idea into the stillness for a moment. Ask your Thought Adjusters to help you assimilate this idea. And then when you have felt an inspiring thought, please share with me your leadings on this. (pause)

Student: Welmek, the first thing that occurs to me is the announcement recently that our whole planet has come out of a kind of 200,000 years of spiritual quarantine. It is now being reconnected to all kinds of circuits throughout the local universe, in which the teaching mission is part of - this new renaissance.

Welmek: How do you perceive this idea of being in universal communication then as something you can participate as you pray?

Student: I'm not sure, Welmek, because it says the Thought Adjusters have never been affected by anything of the Lucifer Rebellion, nor Michael, nor Mother Spirit. I think of it in terms of all other kinds of agencies, maybe still unimaginable at my stage.

Welmek: What I am referring to is your capacity to participate in a universal communication program, by directing your conscious thoughts into this circuitry. Think about this for a moment, and we will return if you feel so inclined to share. (Thank you)

Student: For me, Welmek, this is a fascinating topic. I'm recalling, on the one hand, the recent empowerment of Michael coming around in a circle. And when he came to me, one of the things he said - and really about the only thing I truly remember consciously - is that I am no longer a global citizen but a universal citizen.

And that point I am relating to the awareness more recently that the global type ministry, of whatever sort that I sense I have something to do with as a mission, is one that is infused with universal principles.

And so the prayer, as a yearning to be united with Father in accomplishing something, I see that that's the linkage between just being designated as a universal citizen and being able to draw on that universal-ness very specifically for the will that is in my destiny.

Welmek: Prayer is an effective tool for you to craft for yourself a larger composite framework of your reality perception. It is also used to help others, for them to craft this larger framework for themselves, and to move aggregate patterns of human thinking and institutions into those realms where they become infused and enlivened with the facts and the meanings and the values of God's plan for this planet.

This is a fundamental departure from the way that most humans think. It is an active, cooperative team effort that you are bringing your conscious participatory thoughts in the making - in the actual creation - of Heaven on Earth. There is no other human thought form more important than prayer.

For this is how you actually blend yourself into the universal fabric that you are a part of. I do not expect you to appreciate the full meaning of these words yet, for this is a much deeper use of the idea of prayer than has been previously presented. But these ideas will sink in, and they will take root, and they will combine with your thoughts, and they will yield new awarenesses and desires to participate in prayer more consciously and consistently throughout the day. Is there anyone else who would like to share?

Student: Welmek, I am very fascinated by this new concept of prayer that you are presenting here this evening. It is not just a form of communication to our Father, but also a form of communication to the universal circuits - to the universal mind, I guess I would say. Is this, in a sense, what I am hearing you say? Welmek: My dear brother, it is that and much more. It is hard for me to convey in words what this exquisite interlacing of connections and communication relay points looks like or even feels like. It is quite beautiful. It is highly complex and highly efficient.

And these are spiritual workings that you have little knowledge of because your planet has been so isolated and so disconnected. But this is the point of the exercise: to stimulate not only your awareness of what prayer is, but your desire to be in prayerful thoughts throughout the day. For this will actually be a better use of your mental energy. And, as you know, harnessing your thoughts into a spiritual counterpart is what facilitates your Adjuster awareness.

And so, in choosing to be in this prayerful mode during the day is what will stimulate the connection that you have with your Thought Adjuster and keep you motivated and desirous of even deeper and more meaningful communion. Does this answer your question?

Student: It certainly adds to the picture that you are painting. I guess I would like to ask for a procedure to tap more fully into the circuitry that you are presenting to us this evening - a type of prayer that perhaps would help me perform this exercise during the day.

Welmek: We will be spending many sessions now on prayer as this is one component of the Correcting Time that needs further embellishment and education as part of the spiritual reclamation and rehabilitation of this world. So, my friend, rest assured. You will have plenty of time and opportunity to learn how to pray effectively.

Student: Does our text speak of this form of prayer, if I was to go back and read it, and the different things it talks about prayer. I don't recall ever having it explained this way in the text, or maybe I just didn't understand it.

Welmek: Spend some time communing with the Father about this. Reread those portions in your text that discourse about the nature and efficacy of prayer. Read it with a meditative eye, and enjoy what you are assimilating. See if it reaches new meaning, and deeper pockets of awareness within you. There is so much depth within your Urantia text. The more you learn, the more you will see just how rich this information is. But you always must experience some of what you read in your inner religious life to appreciate the fullness of what is revealed through its words. Do you understand?

Student: Yes, thank you very much for that explanation.

Student: Welmek, when you mention an activity that goes throughout the whole day, rather than just a formal session, would this be similar to an attitude which the text describes as the whole relationship of the living being to its environment - a kind of an open-mindedness, just a general receptivity?

Welmek: You must first be receptive to the idea of prayer in order to engage in it. So, first and foremost, must you be in a prayerful attitude. Then, once you feel the desire to pray, then engage your mind in the supplication for those situations and individuals that you, in your own inner spirit longing, wish to help and facilitate their spiritual growth.

This is a different state of mind than asking for help on your own. This is adding to the spiritual dynamism of your planet. And the spiritual dynamism of your planet is composed of individuals and situations that affect individuals within them. Engaging your direct conscious thoughts into those areas where you can add your requests for help will greatly impact your planet's ability to restore its spiritual equilibrium as part of this overall Correcting Times. Does this answer your question?

Student: Yes, yes, it points at something much more conscious and willful, and so the other oriented than just being open-minded and generally receptive. Thank you.

Welmek: You are welcome.

Student: Welmek, there are a couple of points that I heard at the beginning of your fuller description of prayer that I would like to respond to, if I may. And that is the reference to events - large scale consciousness transformation on the planet - that occur from prayer. And it sounded, when that was said, to be even an individual's prayer that would actually transform large-scale events.

Which leads to the other part that I wanted to respond to that seems now a reinforcement of the value and the power of an individual's prayer: that is multiplied synergistically by whoever else is involved at the same time - but that the individual truly has the capacity to effect this large-scale change. And, to me, that sounds like a practical manifestation of the individual being more in alignment with the godliness within, the Thought Adjuster. And it's an even more practical and poignant way of understanding this term that I have been noticing certain groups of people using these days - called 'co-creator' - that we are co-creators of what is happening on the planet.

And, finally, the last aspect of that is that this power comes from the fact that we are now authorized, in our prayers, to be drawing on the energies and the resources and the power of the universe as a whole. That's pretty astounding. I'm very pleased to hear all of that.

Welmek: It takes a certain spiritual maturity to receive these words. That which you are receiving is an expanded ideation of how the universe works, how it functions, how it is always creating new meanings as God works through each of us and through all of us cooperatively and simultaneously. No longer are you to be downcast by your lowly human estate, for within you are the divine endowments that ennoble and dignify human life.

Therefore, when you are awakened to this nobility, you are awakened to the creative potentials that live within you. And you become more of a conscious participant in the unfolding of the universe. And you become, as you say, co-creating with the very essence that gave you life.

Do you understand what a privilege this is, my brother, to be able to participate in universal life in this fashion? And through your thoughts - the very words in your mind - to direct this co-operative venture through prayer to help others and your world grow? This is a high privilege, indeed. And I hope that this evening's discussion will stimulate your desire to serve as a prayer respondent in this Correcting Time of our Father. Are there any more questions before we actually move into prayer this evening?

Student: This is not a question. It's more what I have been feeling as we have been talking about this: just how vast and expansive our consciousness is and how we can tap into the universal intelligence and mind that created and orchestrated all of this. That the same power and intelligence that keeps the planets in their paths, keeps this planet upon its path, can direct us on our own individual plan, path. That we tap into this, it's our lives. We are co-creators of our own little universes amidst this huge universe.

And I mentioned to Michael on Monday that I think the greatest prayer that we could state is: "I and my Father are One".

That if we fully understand that, our lives change dramatically. We are divine, and that when we do pray, we are affirming our divine truth of who we are as expressions of God, living, loving, creating, breathing expressions of the Divine. And that's what prayer is all about: living it, breathing it, that I am the heart of God, the mind of God, the body of God; and that we are all of this greater body, this greater heart, this greater being, this greater spirit. It's just so overwhelming and so beautiful! Why would one want anything else?

Welmek: My dear brother, there are those who still linger in spiritual darkness, and know not the truth of the words you say. This is why your prayers for them to come into the light can be so compelling and so satisfying to you. For what greater service can you render to someone than to pray that the Light of the Father's love open within them, and illuminate all the darkness and shadows within them?

Truly, there is no greater service or joy than that of leading a lost soul into the light of our Father's love. Each of you are more fully established on your own paths of Light. God knows your needs, my friends. In your stillness, commune with the Father, and reflect on that which is in your heart to grow and to learn.

But, truly, in your other times of wakeful thoughts, spend these moments in prayer for your less fortunate brethren who know not, and feel not, and understand not the ways and the love of our Father. Bring this more into your conscious forefront of your daily thoughts, and you will find so much refreshment and upliftment in this. And it will take you from your struggles and your tasks, and empower you with that thrilling sense of service. What is more satisfying than this?

You each have experienced the heights of joy when you can help one of your less fortunate brothers and sisters. And so you have the potential now to make more of your day. Be service-dominated through your prayers.

You need not have a direct experience with one of your fellows to achieve this high degree of satisfaction. The more you experience true prayerful thoughts, the more you will become comfortable with being in prayer; and the greater will your satisfaction grow, because you will be more consciously aware of the service that you provide. Are there any other comments before we continue?

Student: Just 'Wow!'

Welmek: Yes, "Wow!" indeed. (pause) Let us move into prayer, my friends.

I am very privileged to lead you now in this fashion, and ask that you merge now with me, in thought, as we pray for your planet and for the institution of Michael's correcting plans on this world. Envision with me now, if you will, in the center of the room, your actual sphere, the planet known as Urantia.

Tonight, let us focus on that area of this planet that has been so focalized in your world's attention: on the Middle East. Join with me now, as we ask Mother Spirit to harmonize our thoughts. (pause)

Mother, we call upon your harmonization power to anchor us in your unity of intention. We now make our appeals to the angels who are ministering to this part of the planet, through the angels who are here tonight gathering our petitions and executing the requests. We pray that Michael's plan of peace, tolerance, and compassion be directed to this area. (pause)

We pray for the stabilizing energy of tolerance, spiritual unity, understanding and forgiveness, to pervade those existing historical patterns that are pervasive through this region.

Michael and Mother, we call upon your legions of angels to draw close to the hearts and minds of the men and women of this region, as we ask for your Will to prevail. (long pause)

Mother Spirit, we call upon your tenderness to soften the scars of brutality that have reeked havoc on the psyches and souls of the inhabitants of this region.

We ask for your legions of angels to draw close to all the individuals who have been so horribly disfigured by this brutality and to soften all of those areas, and fill it with compassion, and mercy, and forgiveness. (pause)

Creator Father, we ask that your very presence of peace, and brotherhood take seed in these tender environments. And that Mother, in her opening these hardened roots of brutality to mercy and understanding, be planted in your brotherhood and peace and spark new potentials of growth and a peace awareness in the minds and hearts of all of the inhabitants of this region.

We ask that your angels pour out their loving ministry, and reach closely within the lives of all these people - helping them to step out of the centuries of enmity and find new meaning in your being. (long pause)

Closing

And, in conclusion, we ask that the continued awareness of the need for peace to prevail in this region continue to grow within the hearts and minds of the inhabitants of this planet: Become a stimulus for real and lasting change in the Father's Plan as it takes root in the lives and the minds of the inhabitants of this world.

Overwhelm this planet with your peace, Father. Stabilize it in your family of beloved worlds. This we pray to you.

Students: Amen.

Welmek: My friends, when you pray, go into the feeling of the peace and the spiritual restitution that is the component of your prayer. Let the immensity of these feelings anchor you in the desire to lovingly assist your brothers and sisters and this planet into a state of health.

Think not that this task is too big or too burdensome for you to try on your own. All you are doing is directing your thoughts, and asking that the power of Michael and Mother enter into the situation, and into the lives. This is all you need to do. Our parents will heal this world. But you are the ones who bring on the healing through your thoughts, and through your desires.

Your assignment this week is to begin to align your thoughts more in conscious prayer during your day. I will ask for your comments about your week's experience when we next meet.

My dear friends, you are in my prayers; and the celestial friends who gather close to you hold you in prayerful thoughts, so that your growth is shaped and accelerated by those who lovingly watch over you.

We see things in you that you cannot see. So we can pray for those potentials in you to be actualized. You are our dear brothers and sisters, and we cherish you so dearly, that it is our delight and our privilege to help you grow in this fashion and to see how we can cooperatively bring about Light and Life on this beloved Urantia. Good evening.