9. The First Prayer

Lord, I do not know whether You are or not, but I truly want You to be, and to be in me, I truly want, I thirst for Your Divine Grace, Your Strength, Your Love, Your Will and Fortitude in me, Your All-Conquering Spirit in me – the Spirit of Strength, Love, Truth, Unity and Wholeness! I want to live not as my old self, but as Myself New, my Highest Potential, as You, Who are God in me! I want, I thirst for this, reveal Yourself in me, Lord, God the Father, God the Mother, God the Holy Spirit! And if You are, Lord, if You are, the One of Whom all the saints speak, who devoted themselves entirely to the One Love and Truth and Strength, and to the Spirit as the treasure-house of Man's Highest Potential, and who carried You as the Son of Man by their faith, their desires and aspirations, if You are, Lord, fill me with Your Presence, reveal to me the Truth, which is Life, and the Meaning of Life, so that I have a reason to LIVE!

Otherwise all is void, Lord, without You everything is meaningless! Without You, without You in us, we are merely born, suffer and die, giving birth to children, delivering them to this factory of suffering as new victims with that same doom to an inglorious end and vegetating in the swamp of daily routine, of the struggle for survival that invariably ends in defeat, without You, Lord, everything is meaningless, it seems to them that it exists – in

money, power, and success – that just a little more, a slightly bigger apartment, a slightly better car, cooler clothes, a more prestigious vacation and education for the children – and they will find happiness – but it is not so! They, all of us, are unhappy, Lord, without Your Love, without Delighting in Your Spirit within us, without True Strength and Freedom and Joy, Which depends on nothing external! We are beggars without Your Presence within us, without Your Divine Gift within us, we are beggars, though we boast of our petty, vainglorious achievements, but all this is only from the deep shame of our insignificance, to cover our nakedness and for a time lose ourselves in petty pleasures that ultimately always turn into suffering and misfortune!

I do not know, Lord, whether You are or not, but even if You are not, Lord, even if You were not before me, until this very moment, I WANT You to be! I lay down my life and my faith and all my desires and all my thoughts and all my feelings so that You may be, and reveal Yourself to me, to all of us, and enter into us as Our Highest Potential, the One for Whose sake alone it was worth living, living and dying a vast number of meaningless lives in fruitless attempts to find this Meaning and this Happiness.

I want, Lord, God, my Father and my Mother, for You to be, and You Are and You Will Be! Reveal Yourself to me, Lord! Name Your radiant Name, so that I may know how to address You! Be Truth in me, Love in me, Strength in me,

Joy in me, Mind and Wisdom in me, so that I may feel the Grace of Your Presence and of Our Unity with You in me – eternally! Because only thus is it possible to live forever! Only thus can death be conquered – through Truth, Love, the Power of Life, and the Grace of the Divine Timeless Presence of the Spirit in me, in all of us – through Our Divine Unity, in Which all shame, all human insignificance, all dullness, all fears, and all deaths have finally united with Our Highest Potential – borne by them – of Greatness, Freedom, Strength, Joy, Mind, Wisdom, and Love! The Unity in Which the victim and the creature have united with the Creator and God borne by it in the act of Creation!

Not for myself alone do I ask, Lord, but for all of us and on behalf of all of us I ask, Lord, BE!

Let it be so, for I am Man, the Crown of Your Creation, Lord! And my will and my faith and my desires are the law for my world! And therefore – it is done.

I Am That Who I Am. We Are That Who We Are. And We Are One. We Are Love. And Truth, and Life. And the Path That has been walked. And the Path That is eternal.

And now I fall silent, Lord, so that in the silence of my heart and mind, I may hear YOUR ANSWER, YOUR NAME AND

THE TRUTH. For this alone do I desire with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind, Lord. Answer me!

Because if You are, I Am too. I, the Real.