True Prayer Is Mental Utterance in Secret

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, William Quan Judge · Higher Ethics and Devotion Series · 14 pages

A fourteen-page compilation from Blavatsky and Judge, opened by an abstract and train of thoughts. The running head states the conclusion in advance: prayer is unselfish love of humanity. Its version number, 70.23, marks it as one of the most heavily revised files in the section.

The redefinition comes first and everything follows from it: true prayer is unselfish love of humanity, and it is an act of will and a command rather than a request. Four consequences are then drawn in quick succession — that unless enacted, prayers are useless; that loud prayers are disastrous; that prayers should be for blessings on all that lives; and that we shall be able to pray properly only when we approach, by ourselves alone, to the Alone. The central argument holds that prayers and supplications are vain unless potent acts are added to potential words, the purpose being to make the aura surrounding each of us so pure that the God within may act outwardly and become, as it were, an extraneous potency. A warning follows for anyone invoking the Sacred Trinity for personal advancement or pronouncing it after some far-reaching sin. The condition for a prayer to produce beneficial effects is then given exactly, and it returns to the definition: it must be uttered by one who knows how to make himself heard in silence — at which point, the text says, it is no longer a prayer but a command. A practical note adds that a clear conscience and a firm desire of benefiting humanity afford the best protection from the air elementals that throng public places, and the closing section turns to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's devotional practice.

Read the full text (PDF, 1.4 MB, 14 pages)