-Prayers-

Any Prayer may be heard by the Higher Powers and a corresponding answer obtained if it is uttered thrice:
        Firstly- for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one's parents.
        Secondly- for the welfare of one's neighbor.
        And only thirdly- for oneself personally.  - Gurdjieff

1. Pray, and think what you will, your thoughts will be purified by prayer.
     2. Pray, and do what you will. Your acts will be pleasing to God and useful and salutory to yourself.
     3. Pray, and do not labour much to conquer your passions by your own strength. Prayer will destroy them in you.
     4.  Pray, and fear nothing. Fear no misfortunes, fear no disasters.  Prayer will protect you and ward them off.
     5.  Pray somehow or other, only pray always and be disturbed by nothing.
      6.  It is to be noted, finally, that if the time of your vigilence in prayer is prolonged, then naturally no time will be left not only for doing sinful actions but even for thinking of them. -anonymous, from 'The Way of the Pilgrim'

" Prayer is only another name for good, clean, direct thinking." - Mr Gruffydd, How Green Was My Valley


Lord, grant me
     Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
     Courage to change the things I can, and
     Wisdom to know the difference.


Father…
Guide me that I might see clearly.
Bless me that I might understand.
Strengthen me that I might live my understanding.  - Robert Cergol


May we have the clarity to see what is required of us,
 the courage to accept it,
and the capacity to discharge it.  - Robert Fripp


Our one father,
Please remove the cloak of faulty beliefs
About what you and what we are,
Which prevents us from acknowledging
What you and we really are.   - Art Ticknor


St. Denis' Prayer -
You are wisdom, uncreated and eternal,
the supreme First Cause, above all being,
sovereign Godhead, soveneign goodness,
watching unseen the God-inspired wisdom of Christian people.
Raise us, we pray, that we may totally respond
to the supreme, unknown, ultimate, and splendid height
of your words, mysterious and inspired.
There all God's secret matters lie covered and hidden
under darkness both profound and brilliant, silent and wise.
You make what is ultimate and beyond brightness
secretly to shine in all that is most dark.
In your way, ever unseen and intangible,
You fill to the full with most beautiful splendor
those souls who close their eyes that they may see,
And I, please, with love that goes beyond mind
to all that is beyond mind,
seek to gain such for myself through this prayer.


O great and holy God, I pray thee, set open my inwardness to me; that I may rightly know what I am; and open in me what was shut up in Adam. - Jacob Boehme

O sweet nature of the unborn light,
      purify my mind and
      enlighten my understanding
      so that I may be conscious of you!

      If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice. - Meister Eckhart


Reflect that many are called but few are chosen and that, if you are not careful, your perdition is more certain than your salvation, especially since the path to eternal life is so constricted. -  

Eternal One! Thou self-existent Cause
Of all existence, source of love and light;
Thou universal uncreated God,
In whom all things exist and have their being,
Who lives in all things and all things in Him;
Infinite art Thou, inconceivable
Beyond the grasp of finite intellect;
Unknowable to all except thyself.
Nothing exists but Thou, and there is nothing
In which no Good exists; Thou art, but we
Appear to be; for forms are empty nothings,
If not inhabited by Thee; they are
Thyself made manifest. - Franz Hartmann

Bless me in this life with but peace of my Conscience,
command of my affections, the love of Thy self and my dearest
friends, and I shall be happy enough to pity Ceasar. These are,
O LORD, the humble desires of my most reasonable ambition,
and all I dare call happiness on earth; wherein I set no rule
or limit to Thy Hand or Providence. Dispose of me according
to the wisdom of Thy pleasure: Thy will be done, though in
my own undoing. - Boethius


Your prayer should be, " Break the legs
      of what I want to happen. Humilate
      my desire. Eat me like candy.
      It's spring, and finally
      I have no will." - Rumi


God,
unto whom all hearts are open,
unto whom all wills do speak,
from whom no secret thing is hidden,
I beseech thee
so to cleanse the purpose of my heart
with the unutterable gift of thy grace
that I may perfectly love thee,
and worthily praise thee.
    Amen

Heaven above,
Heaven below.
Stars above,
Stars below.
All that is above,
All that is below.
Grasp this
and rejoice.

May I recognize whatever visions appear, as the reflections of mine own consciousness;
May I know them to be of the nature of apparitions in the Bardo: When at this all-important moment of opportunity of achieving a great end.
May I not fear the bands of Peaceful and Wrathful Deities, mine own thought-forms. - Bardo Thodol

O God, the Giver of Life, Remover of pains and sorrows, Bestower of happiness, and Creator of the Universe;
Thou art luminous, pure, and adorable; We meditate on Thee;
May Thou inspire and guide our intellect in the right direction.
- Gayatri Mantra


Hymn to Almighty God  "In Charleston graveyard upon Release"

     Hail moon! Hail sun!
               Hail sacred tree.
     The center now shall hold!
      Almighty God, who healeth me,
               All praise to Thee

     For Thou art One!
               I know! I know!
          As Thou art There above.
             But Many in us Here below.
               O yes, I know!
               I know it's so!

     I'll give my best
     I'll give my all.
        In Faith, I am assured.
          That from this World we cannot fall.
               No!  Not at all.
               We cannot fall!

     So let me live.
               So let me die.
     A moth unto Thy Flame.
          Light unto Light! To Thee I fly.
               Nor question why.
               To Thee I fly.

     My burden great.
          My spirit free.
        A goal I dimly see.
          Almighty God, who healeth me.
               All praise to Thee!
               All praise to Thee!

          John E. Davis II


Lord, I am broken and have no hope, Thou art my first, my last, and only Refuge.

There is only God, there is no reality but God.

I take refuge with the Lord of the Dawn,  
    from the mischief of created things,
    from the mischief of those who practice secret arts, and
    from the mischief of the Envious One as he practices envy.

O my Lord! bestow wisdom on me, and join me with the righteous; Grant me honorable mention on the tongue of truth among the latest (generations); Make me one of the inheritors of the Garden of Bliss.

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name.
    Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven.
    And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
    And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:  for thine is the
    kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.  Amen.


An interpretation of the Lord's Prayer :

MY CREATOR Who dwells in Nature,
Sacred be Thy Law....
THY WILL be obeyed in the animal
as in the Spiritual Kingdom.
GIVE US this day our daily duties.
FORGIVE US our faults and short-comings
in the same measure as we
forgive those of our enemies.
AWAKEN OUR realization, that we
may not be led into the Shadow
of Oblivion, but be delivered
from the temptation of the
sensual....
FOR THINE is the Law, the reward
of our effort, and the consummation
of the Holy Word from the
beginning.... and as it will be
in this World Without End.
AMEN.
 - Joseph Sadony


Oh Soul, thou fair lady of my perfect dream, how can I bring thee peace?
 Forgive my inconstant love, and the needless filling of your bountiful breast with tribulation.
Rest your fair head on the One who gives Peace,
Understanding of our trials, and the
Grace that delivers us from ourselves.

Make every act an offering to me (God); regard me as your only protector. Relying on interior discipline, meditate on me always. Remembering me, you shall overcome all difficulties through my grace. But if you will not heed me in your self-will, nothing will avail you. -Bhagavad Gita 18:57-58

"I am convinced that intense self-introspection does not require large amounts of time. It requires only short meditations which regardless of the form they take, in essence, amount to a prayer -- a plea to the higher self for help and guidance. This sets in motion a direction so that amidst busy-ness and hard work -- that higher self will manifest and the inner man will get through to communicate -- which you will experience as insight or mini-realizations -- that translate into a change of being."          - Bob Cergol

Douglas Harding on Prayer : Well, we have to distinguish between two kinds of prayer. There is one kind of prayer which is petitionary - asking for my tummy-ache to get better or for the weather to improve, or someone to stop behaving nastily to me. That kind of petitionary prayer is not of interest to me, and I don't think it is effective. I suppose it may be for some people. It could act as a kind of magic if you put faith in some providence out there who will work this magic for you. But it's not for me.   
The other kind of prayer, which is very different, is like this: Say I desire the health of someone I love very much, or my own health, or my own ability to do my job, that kind of thing - which are really very deserving requests - but adding always at the end 'Thy will be done'. I would like this, but not my will but Thy will be done. Then the question is who is praying to who? and of course in the last absolute resort it is who you really are having a conversation with who you really are. It's a kind of internal process within your true identity, and not only important, but indispensable.