“I want to give myself a prayer for the future, so that I can be sure to find happiness” (from the song Remedy by Maaya Sakamoto, a light-filled song I have praised before.)

Warning: This entry is about religion. Feel free to skip if you are not a transdimensional Raccoon. Excess sanity points recommended for entry.

I wrote in my previous entry about the book Prayer fashions man, by Frithjof Schuon, and how I could not in good conscience recommend it because it scatters so many automatic beliefs that are necessary for most people to function normally. You don’t want to end up with your ego crushed like a fallen egg, where all the kings horses and all the king’s men can’t put back together the carefully created bubble of delusion that was your former “self”.

There are however scattered parts of the book that are harmless and even helpful even to us who are not certified saints and advanced mystics. I would not be surprised if different people came away with different jewels that seem to have fallen from the crystal mountains and boulders that make up most of Schuon’s writing. So I want to dedicate this entry to a few small things I learned.

One was the importance of divine names and ritual prayer, and the connection between them. In the past I considered names simply pointers, to be conveniently ignored once one knew what they pointed to. That may indeed be true for ordinary nouns and even the names of lesser beings, but Schuon is convinced – based on ancient Scripture, the practice of the great world religions, and his own direct intuition of metaphysical Truth – that the Divine Name has immense power on a plane that intersects with the soul. It may be said to be a kind of magic, although of course Schuon does not consider that for a moment. He was a spiritual scientists of high rank, and just as “sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, we can conversely say that “sufficient understanding of magic is indistinguishable from science.” Or more precisely, one man’s magic is another’s science.

Indeed, I see Schuon as a sort of spiritual equivalent to a professor teaching students of engineering. For the ordinary user, a cursory understanding of electricity is enough, as he just needs to flip the switches and things work as if by magic. Indeed, religions as we know them today may be compared to large houses equipped with various devices powered by an energy as poorly understood by the religious as electricity is poorly understood by the unqualified user. The founders of the world’s great religions, and their disciples again, understood quite well what they did. But over time there were engineers of religion who harnessed the “wild power” that had ingressed into the world through the breach of the world’s walls from above. Like engineers here in Norway put some beautiful waterfalls in pipes to power the country with electricity, it may be said that there were great theologians who harnessed the spiritual power through devices such as ritual prayer, sacrament and necessary dogma. In each religion, there are parts that are meant to fit together. Picking and mixing from different religions is a dangerous thing to do unless you have the necessary religious engineering education.

Even in the dry periods of a religion when there are no great mystics, the “devices” of the religion continue to function as long as left undisturbed, at least sufficiently to save the souls of those who use them faithfully. This is not to gainsay the quote attributed to Krishna, that the priesthood is like those digging wells in a land flooded by water. If there was in such a “dry age” a soul whose eyes was opened to the overwhelming presence of the Divine, they would find it everywhere. But for the most part, people cannot taste the Living Water until it is “pulled up” through the devices built into the particular religion. And it is good that they can get to it that way.

By my light, I have largely considered ritual prayers to be for others, for those who rarely if ever felt the Divine presence, for those who simply flipped the switch and had no interest in knowing how it worked. It can be said in truth that I pitied them, and in this there is an element of looking down on the other. I was privileged, and I knew that this was by grace alone, not something I had earned. But there was still a feeling similar to a genius surrounded by idiots. Even if you know that you inherited your genius by genes before you even had a single brain cell, the fact remains that the people around you are still idiots.

But perhaps not. Given the power and the usefulness of sacraments and common prayers, perhaps I could gain something from them that I do not currently have. And also, perhaps others could gain something from me using them.

There is, according to Schuon and also some Orthodox literature which resonated with me, a certain community formed by those who partake in a particular tradition. As one Orthodox teacher so vividly explained, when the congregation is gathered for mass, there is also present a great number of souls who have lived before and gathered in the same way for the same purpose; and even those yet unborn, who will after our time gather likewise: They are all present together and united. We pray for them, and they pray for us, when we pray the same prayer together.

I had my own revelation of this years ago, which I briefly mentioned on these pages. As for the Lord’s Prayer, there is a line that says: “Give us this day our bread for the day” (or “Give us today our daily bread”). As I mentioned for God that I did not really need anymore bread for this day, God replied: “Us.” Meaning that I pray not simply for myself, but also for those who still don’t have bread for the day. (Of course, this revelation should probably be followed by at least a visit to The Hungersite, if not more.)

It is not accident, says Schuon, that the Lord’s Prayer (OUR Father, who art in Heaven…) is using collective pronouns. Ritual prayer is by its very nature collective, and it for the same reason somewhat mandatory. It fulfills a different function than the free-form individual prayer. It is our obligation to pray with those whose need we may not have, and likewise they pray for us in our need.

***

And then there is the power of the Holy Name. Actually, each religion usually has several Holy Names, any one of which can save. Saint Paul says that there is no other Name in Heaven or on Earth by which we can be saved than Jesus’ name, and this is generally thought to be simply the name “Jesus” or some similar spelling. Yet one may notice that Jesus makes a big deal out of this, at the time of his Last Supper, that he had revealed to them the name of the Father and preserved them in it. Yet there is some disagreement among Christians about the name of the Father. Jehovah’s Witnesses obviously think Jesus meant the name “Jehovah”; to them this is blindingly obvious, since this is the only name God personally gives to one of his trusted servants who asks him earnestly what Name to use. Some other Christians however believe that the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost is Jesus. Yes, all of them are Jesus. However, when Jesus is quoted as referring to God, he almost always refers to him simply as Father or The Father.

To summarize, in Christianity we could in good faith claim that Jesus, Jehovah (or Yahweh), God, or The Father, are all Holy Names, Divine Names. Schuon also refers to the Divine Name as a Revealed Name. Any of these names then are used in the revealed Scripture. In addition there may be later revelations after the Scripture was completed, and Schuon argues that the name of Mary is acceptable for Catholics at least, although he cautions that it should not be used exclusively but together with the name of Jesus. Well, obviously not all of us are Catholics, and as such we may not simply be permitted to walk into their tradition and abscond with their holy names, unless we are Raccoons I suppose. But the Gospel was meant to be preached to all nations, so the gospel should be OK.

After considering this earnestly, I have realized that the Lord’s Prayer does indeed start with a Divine name: “Father”. It is probably for this reason that Jesus cautions his disciples to not call anyone on Earth “Father” (something the Catholic Church, among others, seems to have a problem with). Ever since I was a teen, I have also tried to make sure to refer to my earthly father with a qualifier, not as a sign of disrespect, but so as to not take God’s Name in vain.

In light of this, I have decided to follow Schuon’s advice to try to solemnly present a formal prayer three times a day: In the morning, during the height of the day, and before going to rest. For this purpose I have taken the advice of Christ and chosen the Lord’s Prayer, or Pater Noster. While I seek to present this solemnly and soberly, without undue distraction, and with mindfulness, I also take Schuon’s advice to not seek to imbue the prayer with personal soul energy. This is unnecessary and unseemly, because the Holy Name has more than sufficient power. There is no need to engage emotionally and tire oneself as if we were carrying the Name rather than it carrying us. If we believe in the power of the Name to save and transform us, that is sufficient. It does not require our power, it requires our presence. As the voice in my heart explains: “It is not the energy you put into eating that nourishes you, but the food. Eating is still necessary, but it does not feed you; the food does. Grace is like that.”

Until this month, I could not have done this because it would to me be a step back, to a more primitive and magical thinking about religion. That would indeed have been true. But now that I have been explained in great detail how and why it works, it is different. Even if you are an engineering students, you are still allowed to sometimes just flip the switch! ^_^

(PS: After uploading this entry, I found a reference to the Didache, the 1st-2nd century summary of the teachings of the Apostles, recommends citing the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. Small world!)

“I am not as nice as you think I am.” I guess all over the world we have times when we don’t want to look people in the eyes. Christianity teaches that this can be a good thing.

Jesus Christ once told a symbolic story about a pharisee and a taxman who went up to the temple to pray. The pharisee thanked God that he was not like common people, who were various kinds of sinners, but that he fasted more than the Law required and was very careful about paying the dues required by his religion. The taxman, on the other hand, dared not approach too close to the holy place or lift his eyes, but prayed: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” According to Jesus, the taxman went home justified – righteous before God – but the other not.

People these days have a somewhat inaccurate idea about pharisees. It is used as a general synonym for hypocrite. Indeed, Jesus did call them hypocrites. But the hypocrisy he talked about is not the crude form where people lie about good things they don’t actually do, or exaggerate the good deeds they do and hide some deep dark secret. I suppose you could call that hypocrisy too, and a bad case of it! But there is no hint that the pharisee was lying before God, at least not intentionally. He really was a man who went to great lengths to fulfill the rules of his religion, and he probably did not do anything hideous behind closed doors. The pharisees were the cream of the Jewish religion at the time.

Likewise the taxman, or publican, was probably not someone you’d like to be seen with. Even today, when the taxes are collected for the benefit of the poor among us, there are many who would dearly like to push a taxman down the stairs. But these guys back then were collecting taxes for the occupying Roman administration, to maintain the continued occupation and generally keep the Jews under the thumb. So not only was he a taxman, but a traitor as well. This was generally not a job that attracted idealists, as you can imagine.

So the thing here is not that the pharisee was actually evil and the taxman was actually good. They both were able to assess themselves as seen from outside, rather than conveniently forgetting their weaknesses and exaggerating their good points, as we naturally tend to do. There is no reason to doubt that the pharisee was a certified Good Guy by human standards, and the taxman not so much.

You may want to ask God about this, but I believe the big deal here is that one of them saw the huge distance between himself and God, while the other did not. I think so because these things happen to me from time to time. Something happens that reminds me that God is in Heaven and I am on Earth, and bragging and preening is a bad idea, particularly in the sight of God or Heaven.

***

For the ease of talking about it, let us divide people into three groups. It is really more like a seamless spectrum, I think, but this makes it easier to look at it. On one end, you have the hardened criminal. Even though he does disturbing things, he does not feel bad about it. He is adept at blaming other, and is keenly aware of his own rights and needs. If those cause trouble for others, they got what was coming to them, for not taking care.

In the middle, we have all the common people who try to be good but sometimes fail. When these failures are revealed to cause suffering, we feel bad about it. We did not mean to hurt anyone, we did not think it would end up like this. When we see the consequences of our mistakes, not just to ourselves but also to others, we can easily say with the taxman: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” We are aware of our sinner status … for a while. But when we don’t see any obvious mistakes, or there don’t seem to be any consequences, this feeling fades and we start feeling pretty good about not being like that creep over there.

And then we have the saints. They hardly have any vices at all, and although they have temptations, they don’t usually fall in them. But the very fact that they feel something very different from what God would feel, that distance bothers them greatly. The fact that they don’t have divine nature in every aspect of their life and thought makes them feel keenly their lack of holiness, and they feel unworthy before God. Even though they live good lives and try to bless people in their hearts, they still feel the need to pray: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

***

Despite my talking at length about these things, I am not actually one of the saints. Unless something amazing happens, I am unlikely to be in that number, when the saints come marching in. I can join the pharisee in thanking God that I have not actually killed anyone (so far, long may it last) – but I don’t really feel like “Oh my God I’m seriously a sinner!” except when the poisoned fangs of evil sink deep into my soul and horrible thoughts feel disturbingly natural. As long as I am not led into temptation but delivered from evil, I feel pretty good about myself.

So that is why failure is not optional for people like me, who talk about things that are too big for our breeches, above our pray grade etc. But sometimes it can’t be helped. Sometimes we must say all the words that should be spoken, before they are lost forever.

And as a bonus, I can enjoy feeling like a certified sinner for a little while, instead of the usual pharisee…

“But I am a failure as a human being.”  But I did not really know that until I was put to the test.

I was not really surprised to be tried. You see, I may be foolish, but I am not entirely ignorant. Having lived and learned and even occasionally listened for decades now, I know that there are consequences to things on the spiritual plane. Teaching others, for instance, leads to certain backlash from the Satanic Force, a subset of the General Law that keeps most of us in place. I have explained this already, which is part of the irony.

For a materialist, life is very simple. It is also very random. For the spiritually curious, this combination of simplicity and randomness dissolves and forms a new and different pattern: Horizontal causes and vertical causes.

People tend to think vaguely, which is why we have the gray zone of cause, reason and purpose, words often used interchangeably even though two of them mean very different things. For instance, we may say: “There is a reason for everything that happens . For instance a large lump of ice fell from a roof, hit a woman in the head and killed her. The reason for this was gravity.” That is certainly true, but not really what people mean when they say “There is a reason for everything that happens.” Usually those who say this mean purpose, not cause, although both of these can go under the name reason at different times.

Instead, today I will use the concepts of “horizontal cause” which is what we usually mean by cause – in the example above, gravity. The other concept is “vertical cause”, which is what the materialist perceives as randomness. So a person happens to be at a certain place at a certain time, entirely by chance, and something bad – or something good – happens. Most marriages these days happen in this fashion, for instance. Whether they later turn out to be a good or a bad thing is primarily a matter of vertical forces, that is to say, the forces that work between Heaven and people, or Hell and people. (Obviously I am not talking about Heaven and Hell as actual locations that you can reach by traveling, but as spiritual attractors. Any other meanings are outside the scope of this text.)

If we live remote from all spiritual thought, vertical causes are hard to register. Things seem to happen randomly. Occasionally common sense can point out that something happens because of our choices: We choose not to pay our bills, and they are collected. To some people even this causation is too vague, and they remain mystified when unpleasant things happen to them: The bills are collected, friends stop being friends, others are promoted instead of them etc. They lack the capacity for self-reflection, so even basic karma is lost to them.

Conversely, people who live in a steady state of self-reflection and see things in the light of Heaven: They notice karma that seems straight out supernatural. To their materialist friends, these synchronicities are just coincidences. Indeed, the definition of synchronicity is meaningful coincidence; but it is not meaningful to everyone. The materialist will say: “You read too much into it, it is just a coincidence.” The challenge about this is that there are indeed coincidences that are just coincidences, and people who read too much into them. That way lies madness. Indeed, it is a classical symptom of some of the most troublesome psychoses, so it is not without reason that people are wary when you start talking about how everything is a Sign filled with profound meaning. Crazy people do this as well, and it is not easy for the bystander to tell the two apart.

There are however certain laws in vertical causation. And one of these is that when you rock the boat, you will be tested. When you start revealing the hidden rules, the forces that stabilize the human world will act to silence you. In religious context this is the Satanic force, and it works on different levels. The most personal of these is inside us. When we try to be good, we experience a surge of temptations. (Those who try to be evil will experience a surge of temptation to good, but this is obviously rather rare.) If we try to be spiritual, we are tempted to coarse sensuality. (Which does not translate simply as sexuality – food works great too, binding out thoughts to the material plane, and so do various other comforts.)

The Satanic force also attacks from the outside, whipping up people against you in various ways. They do not necessarily attack you at first: They may express their concern, explain that acting the way you do could hurt your career, the way others see you, your romantic opportunities where that is relevant, or hurt the feelings of your loved one. This will often be enough to make people fall in line. But if not, outright aggression can also happen. The history of the saints and prophets is a bloody one.

***

But I am not a saint or prophet. I am just a curious person who has picked up things that are really too big and strange for me. I don’t live in a world where the passing of a cloud has a deep spiritual significance. So all the Dark One has to do to bring me down is stress me a bit, like for instance have my Ingress alarm go off while I am surrounded by beggars and pickpockets, and immediately I will start planning the Next Great Genocide. That is just the kind of person I am.

So I am not surprised that I am put to the test, and I am not surprised that I fail it. Talking about things that are above my pray grade will naturally cause such things to happen, through the laws of vertical causation. It is unfortunate, sure, but all is not lost.

You see, when you scrape the varnish, you see what’s hiding beneath. And there is some good in this as well. Even one of the robbers who was crucified along with Jesus realized his mistakes in the end. There are exits to Heaven even from the gates of Hell. You don’t actually need to be a hardened criminal to pray “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” – in fact, most criminals don’t – but sometimes getting a glimpse of the abyss within is a good thing. If you can get that without actually ripping the beating heart from the chest of your fallen enemies, so much the better. Light send it stays that way.