Prayer

The early Christians prayed in the orant posture.

Praying Hands by Albrecht Dürer (c. 1508)

Adoration of the Magi

Prayer (from Medieval Latin: precaria; Vulgate Latin oratio; Greek: προσευχή proseukhḗ; Hebrew: תפילה tfiˈla) is a supplicatory, but not egoistic, turning to God or other higher spiritual beings, speaking only inwardly or also outwardly, and at the same time a preliminary stage of mystical immersion, in which the I-consciousness is not extinguished but strengthened.

In worship or adoration (Latin: adoratio), the request as such recedes and the pure adoration and praise of God comes to the fore. However, the boundaries between prayer and worship are fluid and every genuine prayer must be carried by the mood of genuine worship.

The early Christians still prayed primarily in the orant posture adopted from the Orient, standing confidently before God with arms outstretched at shoulder height, their gaze raised to heaven in supplication or also humbly lowered. More rarely, people prayed with their hands crossed in front of their chest. The folding of the hands with open palms placed together (Gothic prayer posture), as was also customary when paying homage to the feudal lord in the medieval feudal system, became widespread around the 11th century. It was not until the Reformation that people prayed with their fingers intertwined. The touching of the two hands together promotes selfconfidence (Lit.:GA 158, p. 113ff).

Rudolf Steiner points to two basic moods that are the prerequisite for real prayer, namely a warming devotion and Godliness that arises from the feeling of inadequacy and failure in the past, and secondly the enlightening surrender to the future, arising from overcoming fear and anxiety (Lit.:GA 59, p. 103f).

Moods of the soul express themselves in colours. When the soul is devoutly absorbed in prayer in the right way, it lives in a violet colour mood (Lit.:GA 282, p. 290f).

In the ancient languages, which still had a much stronger mantric character, the prayers had a stronger effect. Through translation into modern languages they lose their power. The Christian original prayer, the Lord's Prayer, had its greatest power in the Aramaic language (Lit.:GA 97, p. 99).

„When one speaks of prayer in the Christian sense, one must realise above all that the form of prayer is hardly anything other than contemplation, devotion to the divine. In those great religions which seek to achieve this devotion more in mental contemplation, one speaks of meditation; in those religions where devotion proceeds more from the heart than from the head, proceeds more from the personality, this devotion is called prayer. In the Christian religion this devotion has acquired a personal character; in the old religions it was much more unconscious, impersonal. Thousands of years ago, man already knew that there was an eternal, a divine. Example of the slave who says to himself: One life among many. - That is why hope for life, courage, strength and security lived in people at that time. It was a kind of looking out from the temporal into the eternal. But an age had to come for humanity when man would personally look up to his God. Exoteric Christianity says: "An immense amount depends on the personality that goes from birth to death. That is why meditation took on the personal character of prayer. But we must not forget that in Christianity there is a primordial prayer: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will, but thine be done."

If you create this mood, then you have a Christian prayer. That prayer which prays for his personality, for his affairs, is not a Christian prayer. For example, there are two armies prepared for battle, both praying for victory. - Two farmers, one prays for rain, the other for sunshine. What should the God do? True Christian prayer has nothing to do with such personal wishes and desires. Personal prayer, true prayer, can be there even when there is personal petition, but the supreme principle must be: "Not my will, but yours be done!" Thus, out of the original Christian prayer of Christ Jesus the Lord, the mood that the prayer should have is indicated. There are many Christian prayers, but the Lord's Prayer, the original Christian prayer, is the one of which it can be said that there is hardly anything in the world which contains so much and so important as this Lord's Prayer. And then we remember how the Christ Jesus uses this prayer. "When you pray, go into your closet," he says.

Everywhere, in all religions you find meditation formulas, incantations. These incantations even have the same meaning meditatively. Man has wanted to devote himself meditatively to his God with them, he has also wanted to devote himself to his God by practising magic. But the Christ Jesus admonishes: "You should not pray about what happens on the street, you should go deep, deep into your inner being when you pray." Something of the divine essence lives in man, a drop of the divine essence lives in man, which is of the same substance as the divinity. - The whole sea and the drop of water are also of the same substance.“ (Lit.:GA 97, p. 118f)

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner: Ausgewählte Gebete, Meditationen und mantrische Sprüche, BOD, Norderstedt 2012
• Rudolf Steiner: Metamorphosen des Seelenlebens – Pfade der Seelenerlebnisse. Zweiter Teil, GA 59 (1984) English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Das christliche Mysterium, GA 97 (1998) English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Der Zusammenhang des Menschen mit der elementarischen Welt, GA 158 (1993) English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Sprachgestaltung und Dramatische Kunst, GA 282 (1981) English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated. Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com. Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English. Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA) Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.