From lecture 9, PRAYER AND MEDITATION — THE LORD’S PRAYER:
Human beings have difficulty concentrating. Time and again my friends have experienced that, at first, their thoughts wander, that something mundane gets in the way. Then they become so dismayed that they cannot pick up the thread. As I have often said, it is important not to let these interruptions bother you and not to get confused and bewildered. Do not ask too much of yourselves right away, but resume your practice in a quiet and relaxed manner. After some time you will succeed in achieving a certain continuity and concentration. This is prayer. Do not forget, as humans often do, to ask God again and again for help. You do not know how much this will serve you. Why don’t you say: “Help me to learn real prayer, or real meditation.” At any moment, when you are confused, ask for help. Here, too, the word holds true: “Knock and it shall be opened.”
Concentration in prayer is beneficial not only as a training but also because each thought builds a form. With the thoughts of prayer you build harmonious forms, so that the “thought-prayer” activates favorable energies even before you have learned the “feeling-prayer” or meditation. Yet thought forms, though they may not have the power of feeling forms, can nevertheless manifest their own greatness when coming from a full heart, without self-deception, rooted in sincere willpower.
This is the first step on this particular segment of the path: the pure power of thought through concentration in prayer, and the liberation of the feeling currents, which brings about some loosening of the spirit. This then is meditation.
Once you have learned concentration in prayer to some degree, practicing regular self-discipline for this purpose, you may encounter the problem of becoming too mechanical. Now that you have progressed so far, you find yourself struggling not to fall into the opposite extreme of overdiscipline where prayer becomes a fetter. Then the time has come for you to learn to bring prayer into the deeper layers of the soul.
To my teacher Marieke Mars who taught me self-honesty. To my courageous and loving pathwork helper Dottie Titus.