Excerpt-1955 Kailua Study Group

By Joel Goldsmith

Tape 114 Side 2

How To Pray

I know how to pray, and I know how to teach to pray.  How?  Well, close your eyes now and pray for anything that you want that is not of this world. I think that in that you will discover the secret of prayer. “My Kingdom,” the Christ Kingdom, “is not of this world.”  Now what do we want?  We want the Christ Kingdom; we want the Spiritual Kingdom; we want harmony.  We want peace not the peace the world can give but “My Peace,” the spiritual peace, the Kingdom of God.  Since “My Kingdom is not of this world,” and we are seeking “My Kingdom,” then let’s pray for “My Kingdom.”  Let us pray for anything that we want that is not of this world.  I think that you will find that as you take that attitude, you will be nearing that of the scripture that says, “we know not what we should pray for.”  We must let the Spirit bear witness with our spirit.  We know not what things we should pray for.

And so it is with meditation.  From the first time that you close your eyes, realize that I’m seeking the Grace of God; I’m seeking some word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.  I know not what to pray for, and so I’m not going to pray for anything of this world.  You see, a minute has already gone by, but that minute has already emptied us of our human thought about prayer.  So for the next half-minute, at least, we have nothing to say. That’s all.  That’s all there is to that period of meditation.  That alone repeated a dozen times a day would change one’s entire life inside of a month, or at least it would begin to show changes inside of a month.  Every time one turned inwardly that way, they would be declaring, “I can of my own self do nothing,” even if they didn’t think the statement.  They would be declaring, “I’m seeking the kingdom within,” even if they never thought of those words.  Their whole attitude will be, “Father, of my own self I can do nothing; come to my rescue.”  In other words, it would be humility.  It would be acknowledging the nothingness of human wisdom, human strength, human power.  It would be acknowledging that there must come something from the infinite invisible.  Something must come forth from the depths within if we are to be saved.  All of that is the true sense of humility and is the true sense of prayer.

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