I must say I feel better today than I had yesterday. But maybe just let us start, you know, getting a little, you know, make a little resume of yesterday's attempt. It was mostly negative. And then when the positive part came, it was too late. But I don't want to get in any kind of process like that again, you know, this morning. So just a... I wrote this down, you know, to give a little resume on yesterday's thing. As you remember, we started with the problem, you know, of prayer today, that if you take the meaning is the word prayer, or to pray, as in our times. Namely, the meaning of a petition addressed immediately to God.

[01:08]

You have a direct line, you know, one hears very often if people ask for prayers, you know, or to grant, it's a petition to grant a favor, to bring about an event which the petitioner desires. The underlying idea is, I am helpless but God is omnipotent. The attitude which expresses this kind of primary supposition is the attitude of kneeling. I am little, but you are great. Now that's... Then, of course, one asks oneself, how does this kind of thing fit into an evolutionary world in which God works, at best, through the law of evolution?

[02:10]

Then of course, you know, the prayer becomes a kind of appealing to a Deus Ex Machina. Instead of working oneself according to the inner law of things, meet reality as reality is, and cooperate with the inner, let us say, law of reality. And prayer on this background then appears as an escape from reality, as into a dream world. What is necessary then for the man today is the demythologizing. While prayer, you know, easily could be understood as a mythologizing of reality. Then the other big, let us say, objection against prayer, or obstacle to prayer, is the idea that prayer introduces a split, introduces a split, ora et labora, the famous Benedictine motto, ora et labora, work and pray.

[03:34]

And instead of which supposes that we are living in two worlds, and that this split between these two worlds goes even into our act of living, the work, if it's aura and labora, when it's kind of in working, is kind of either inclined to take a work which in itself takes so little of your attention and your concentration that it leaves you free to pray while you work as sitting on a tractor and plowing the fields I don't know how much attention that means but there is you know that's one way Or to say, while you are working, you have at the same time, you know, think of or put yourself into the presence of God.

[04:40]

That introduces this kind, again, this kind of split, prevents you, you know, to do your work with full application of mind and of body. And this is, say, the way it would be the natural way of glorifying God as the Creator. Therefore, one does not need any explicit good intention, which is understood as a special act with which one, for example, starts prayer. No prayer work is prayer. So these kind of, you know, special arrangements and managements, you know, are not necessary. And then one could say, therefore, don't be afraid of building the Tower of Babel.

[05:42]

Because there is no real split between our building and, for example, the Order of Redemption itself. Because the incarnation has healed the gap between flesh and spirit. Therefore, to a Christian, the very act of loving human beings and helping them puts you on the side of Christ. And it is not necessary to love explicitly for Christ's sake. In the famous parable, those on the right side were helping without knowing anything about Christ. That's the famous, I mean, I just quote that. And then there is another thing, another problem, which is very acute today, and that is the problem of formal prayer.

[06:48]

Because it seems that formal prayer again introduces a split between a preconceived pattern and the free creativity of the spirit. And this problem, of course, becomes especially acute in the whole question of communal prayer. Now, viewing and having these things in mind, my proposition is this, you know, that certainly Prayer is essentially a total act of a total person. It's not an escape from reality, but is sinking into reality, into the depth of reality. But in order to pray this way, it is necessary that prayer rises out of the heart of man that it really be adoration in spirit and in truth and this formula adoration in spirit and in truth which as you know occurs in the Gospel of Saint John

[08:16]

Of course itself can only be understood, you know, what is the spirit and the truth. Well, that is the eternal agape in spirit and in truth. The agape which is the reality, the basic reality of God who is true, is the agape, and of the creation who is the expression of God's agape. and not only in the world of creation but in the world of redemption. These two things do not constitute two different realms of being. But of course this kind of, how could one say, totality and inner personal character in spirit and in truth, this kind of prayer

[09:18]

has to rise, and I would say can only, is only capable to rise out of the heart through the realization of the fact that God is our Father. And if we use, I'm just referring to the things we read and we are listening to in the refectory about the still point, you know, the confrontation between Zen and Christianity or Zen and Christian mysticism. I think it's a very problematic approach. God is our father, but if you see this using, let us say, the father name in relation to God, thus of course in the context of the New Testament and in the Old Testament, does not mean that God is understood then as a father figure, but it simply means that God loves us first

[10:31]

Of course there is a big distinction between father figure and God loving us first. We are very much inclined in our days to put everything on a kind of a simple denominator, a one denominator. But that's not true. As the Agape too, and our belief in Agape is not flight into the womb, you see. Even I would say, why shouldn't we love the womb? Therefore, it means, you know, that we are the conviction, the essence of our inner faith, of the heart of our own personal reality as Christians is the conviction, the experience, I would say, that we are being love. And prayer is in this context not a desperate attempt to get something out of God.

[11:42]

I would say that is really kind of father figure. Nor is it a work in the sense of something I have to do in order to make myself acceptable to God. You know, is it an exercise which in last analysis is based on habit? I think that was a devastating category for us in the past. Get, you know, the children to do it in the hope that they will be automatically continuing all through their lives, you know, starting with putting a dime into the collection on Sundays, you know. down to learn to go to church, and so on. Go to church on Sundays, get the habit, you know. And then, now then, we hope for the best.

[12:44]

The quality of the Spirit and the truth in this connection is being lost sight of to a certain extent. So it does not mean either that prayer belongs into a sacred world, a temple world, which is different from the ordinary or secular world. A world as, for example, in Zen, a world of recollection, free from distractions, so that I have to develop first a technique how to, let us say, recollect my mind, or how to reach the still point, the quiet, the passionless indifference that is the Zen problem all of a sudden but that is of course a matter of a technique a world that in that way then would be free from all anger of all reactions of revenge free from all aggression how many atavisms we find in the Psalms if we would approach them with these categories

[14:00]

And if we look at the Psalms, the Psalms simply are not this kind of prayer that comes out of a quiet mind. The Psalms are filled with all kinds of passions. Hate, hate for the enemies of God. We sing on Sundays, you know, I mean, cut their heads off, you know, so that, you know, the whole valley is just, you know, covered with heads, you know. I have a kind of funny feeling on a Sunday. But, I mean, there it is. Now, it's interesting to get, and maybe we could, you know, get into some details about these things. You see, it's evident, you know. For some reason, you've got to repeat with that. You're having a semester, you know, a master up.

[15:05]

Oh, you need to speak, don't you, Edwin? A master's fixed. It's fixed, you know, what I'm saying, Ed. It's never, it's never, it never is. My soul can't contain it. I was born, I need to sacrifice. [...] I went up to the house and I said, I'm going up to the [...] house and I said, I'm going up to

[16:09]

Give me a minute, Tommy Edward. But what does Jawi mean? What is this word? It's of course a personal inner manifestation of the essential personal characteristic or depth, heart. We have this, you know, we have This is the way it is. Now I'll give you a step, and one should realize this step, where an acquaintance passes over into friendship. Of course in the German language it's better because in English it's all you, at least now. Unfortunately in the sacred language we have given up the thou. We have dropped it from our vocabulary. But in some way it's a pity, you know, in the German language we have a distinct difference between Sie, you, and thou, du.

[17:20]

And we say that the difference, you know, the transition from one to the other is what we call duzen. Duzen. Address you as you. One thing is that one cannot address somebody as you, as du, whom one doesn't know. So this kind of, at the first, you know, meeting, say right away, Jim or Jack or something like that, people who don't know, you know, is a questionable kind of question to my mind. Dudeson means to enter into a new relation. Our Lord says that. I don't call you servants anymore. That's the kind of ze, you, sphere, you know. In Austria, one says, Servus. Servus. When you greet somebody, Servus.

[18:26]

You're a servant, you know. But Christ says it was, and I don't call you servants anymore, I call you friends. That is the explicit transition from the you-sphere into the thou-sphere. That means from the generic you know, let us say abstract knowledge into the immediate and personal contact. The real encounter, I and thou. That's therefore Yahweh is not the same as Elohim. Elohim in Hebrew stands for the generic names, the family names. Let us say God's family name Elohim, so cruel. So it means in fact we would translate it with the neighbor word perhaps divinity.

[19:30]

We speak and move in the divinity sphere, you know. We move in the you sphere, not in the thou sphere. So here, therefore, as soon as the uniqueness, and that is what means, Israel, listen, your God is one. That means unique. He is your thou. That's what it means. Therefore, listen to him as your thou. And your thou means, of course, that you that you are related to him as father and son. Or, as in the Old Testaments always, as the bridegroom to his bride. And that's of course a thing which is not on the you-sphere, but that's in the thou-sphere. Because it becomes even more clear as soon as Christ, you know, then says, you know,

[20:35]

whatever you ask in my name. He equates himself with the name Javi. He is in that way the name of God. If we think upon it, you see already a proposition like this simply involves the divinity of Christ, otherwise it's just inconceivable. but not divinity even in a general way, of course, that would be then polytheism. And the personal way, that would be the Trinity. That's the whole difference. So in my name, in my name, of course, in that way is an eternal name. This Yahweh is the one who was, who is, and who shall be. That's expressed in the name spirit and truth. Truth is the, in the Old Testament, simply the everlasting character of the loyalty, the eternal loyalty of the one who loves us as a person from his heart.

[21:52]

That's truth. That's truth. Loyalty. So, you see, the Psalms in that way, in our prayers, address to God under his, in his proper personal name. And that, as I say, brings us out of the abstract, generic society sphere into the sphere of personal relations. And this, of course, this is possible only as far as this love, this personal love, this personal depth relation is established by Yahweh himself. Therefore we cannot simply, you know, that would be what the Old Testament says, taking the name of God in vain.

[22:55]

That is speaking of God as Jahweh without having any idea about this inner relation between the I and the Thou. That is speaking, taking the name of God in vain. That means just taking it, you know. That you have the kind of button, you see, that you press for additional power. Or in emergencies, you know. The emergency bell. But that is not, you see, that's taking the name of God in vain. But it is of course, this name has to be revealed, you know. I am, you see. I say my personal name to the one by whom I want to be called with my name. That's not a thing which is simply a matter of taking for granted and so on. No, this is a matter of receiving the other one free.

[24:02]

Love is always free. Therefore, love has to be freely given and love has to be declared. Otherwise, no marriage. The partners have to declare themselves. The man has to start with it. That's more of a western development. We should have been in Snuggs, not for nothing. It was so nice. I wish there were a few people I could see, but there weren't any. Me, it was just, [...] it was

[25:09]

One was pretty much in there, you'd get in, you know, and over there you'd say, yeah, of course, and you'd make it over there. So I had to go out and smoke it, and go out there, and I was pretty spilt. They didn't give me nothing. I didn't have anything. [...] I didn I had no idea what to do. [...] And he said to me, and I said to him, and he said to me, and I said to him, [...] and I

[26:33]

And he said, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, I believe you. Yeah, I'll stay. Oh, I still feel like a fish sitting in there. Oh, I just want to touch you. Oh, I love [...] you Needs to be more naive. Yeah, I'm so naive. If this is what I need, I'm so naive. [...]

[27:35]

I'm so naive. If this is what I need, I'm so naive. [...] I'm so naive. If this I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't [...] know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know Yerbste husbe sonn shesn hosn, bichn hosn enn hosn hosn. Yerbste husn shesn hosn, bichn hosn enn [...] hosn.

[28:36]

Yerbste husn shesn hosn, bichn hosn enn hosn. Yerbste husn shesn hosn, bichn hosn enn hosn. Yerbste husn shesn hosn, bichn hosn enn hosn. Yerbste husn shesn hosn, bichn h I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know [...] what I was doing much better on credit, they have more free loans than I did at the time. It's a problem, though, and I don't want to touch any of that kid. You see, they are so fine. It's a 42-year-old man for a time.

[29:38]

I've got men. I've got men. It's nice enough. They let me know I was in it. You cannot be touched by any desire. That's always what I think that this author we are listening to doesn't understand at all. That this is, of course, something completely different from what happens in Christianity, where God, as it were, says, you know, you are my son, I am your father, I am your bridegroom, I rejoice over you.

[30:40]

And therefore, just be yourself. Because this is the only way. You see, for example, if one would try, I think this may lead us again astray into something else. But it simply is this way, you know, that the And I think it's psychologically absolutely true, you see, that man in his relation to God, you know, the citizen of the city of God, absolutely has, let us say, and may express his first reactions. But he can express his first reactions because he knows distinctly that his first reactions are first reactions. And by bringing them before God what is expected. Now that all this kind, therefore it's so beautiful, you know, if we speak about prayer as incense, that means we have the glowing charcoal, you know, and we put some kind of, you know, perfume on it, you know, but this whole thing is being consumed and transformed in something that then rises as what they call the prayers of the saints.

[32:04]

But that's, of course, what belongs to this, is that whatever I tell God, I tell him in this absolute parrhesia, what I tell to him as father. And that means as the one who loves first. And therefore my speaking out, so to speak, you know, it's a thing that one puts so much attention to, you see, speak out. And it's right, you know. speak out, but in the realm of the Agape. Not speaking out, but putting a fist on the table and saying, this is the way I want it to be done. You know, put it before Jave. That means get your first reaction. Say, this is what I feel. But then, in addressing myself to you, I take another breath, a second breath. I kind of you know, enter into a different sphere.

[33:09]

Out of this, let's say, what one would call atavistic, if you want to use the word here, or primitive sphere of my, that's the way I think, into I take a second step. I enter into a different world. I take this deep breath. One cannot address God and say, Father, without taking a deep breath. It's impossible. And that is what I do. I put it into his hands. And by doing it already, you see, my entire kind of inner workings have changed, have been changed. And in that way, the hatred that was in me, by the very fact that I told it so, you see, and put it before God, is already, you know, in the process of being overcome by the Holy Spirit, you know. Do I open myself when I pray and say and invoke the name of God as my Father?

[34:14]

So that is what is done. For example, if you take, oh God, the bear is wrong. Always the same kind of calamity. But I took, you know, here, I took a psalm, which is the idea to me, and I think in just touching upon a concrete psalm, one might, you know, get out of the generalities into the concrete situation. This is the Psalm 3 and maybe you could take that for yourself and just read it. It starts in this English translation of the Grail Psalter. It starts this way, How many are my foes, O Lord? If you see the Hebrew text, you see immediately that Lord is not the last word of the sentence, but the first word of the sentence, you know. How many are my foes? How many are rising up against me? You realize that Jarvis is the object of Shemal, the listener of Yisrael.

[35:23]

Your God is one, unique. The unique is always in opposition to the generic thing, to the many. The whole generic world I would say the whole you world, so in German, Sie Welt, is in opposition, so to speak, to the one world, the unique. That means the person, David, the person. How many are my foes, O Lord? How many are rising up against me? How many are saying about me? There is no help for him, God. How many are my foes? How many? How many? How many? Three times. Three times. And that is I, you see, this psalm was always there for it got so into my own kind of inner workings because the Psalm 3 is the psalm which we used to open, you see, our prayer life at vigils, you know, in the night.

[36:35]

The night is always the ze world, you know, the you world, the alienation world, you know, night. Light is the you, the thou world, you know. That's what light means in that way. You can't see the other one's face. At night you can't. That's the decisive difference between the two things. That's why we rejoice in the light, not just to watch the birds, you know, or the green leaves, you know, but to see faces, well, see, that's the important thing. The best thing you can look at in this world, you know. So, but without light, you know, you always have an anonymous something before you and your instinctive reaction is, oh my God, what is this? Because by nature we live in an alienated world. Maybe that's one of the consequences of it. What is it called?

[37:38]

The sin? Original sin. Right. Mysterious original sin. It's right there, you know. But you Lord are a shield about me. You see the whole difference? You see, this is by the ve-ata, you know. You see, you have here the whole z thing, you know. And then, and then as different, indifference to that, rising out of it. Ve-ata, as in the Hebrew, and that means but, thou. See, there is this generic kind of anonymous fear, you know. is simply going up in smoke, but you, O Lord, thou, O Lord, Yahweh, you are a shield about me, for heaven's sake, not only to protect, you know, my left side where I'm, you know, sticking out with my right, you know, to be free,

[38:49]

But no, a shield about, you know. It's not only a one-sided thing. It's all around, all around. See, that's the Tao sphere. It's the sphere in which enmity is finished totally. Everybody who fights is split, you know. He has to protect himself with a shield on one side and gets his sword free on the other side, ready to kill. But this is different, you know. Thou is different. That is, anybody who has any idea about love, any experience about personal love, friendship, you know, bridal love, he absolutely knows this is a shield about me. My glory who lift up my head. You see? Only love can do that, you know. Power can never do that. Power as such never lifts up our heads. We make this way.

[39:50]

But lifting up the head, you know, that's only to see the face. And what face? The face of love, you know. That's what lifts us up. I cry aloud to Jahweh. And he answers me from his holy mountain, Zion. Zion, which is the place of his dwelling. You see? Where he said, my heart will be there. You see? My ears will be there. My eyes will be there. You see? It's this place of thee, thou, that makes his abode, you know, on Mount Zion. So he answers me from his holy mountain. That means, as thou, Dear friends, we have to finish this thing.

[40:38]

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