The other day I was attending ACIM, for the first time, the Episcopal Church around the corner from where I live and we began to recite the Lord’s Prayer. And as I was reciting this famous, holy prayer, thoughts about the non-dualistic aspect of it began to race through my head; however, I had no time to actually reflect on each word but to take it in as a gestalt, to be latter reflected upon. So here it is. Is this the right interpretation? Of course not. It is just another perspective of how one reaches Awareness of God, or All That Is, or Whatever you want to call That which is the Source and Administrator of Creation and is beyond and unaffected by Its Creation. The God I speak of is beyond all words or attempts of the created mind to define the Indefinable.
Our Father, Who art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name,
Thy Kingdom come
Thy Will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation
And deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever Amen
Our Father, Who art in Heaven
The use of Father dates back to the post matriarchal time, where the male impulse on the planet held sway, for whatever evolutionary needs humanity needed at the time. Today, there is the need for the male and female impulse to be equally honored and thus utilized, in both humanity as a whole and with each individual. I prefer, instead of the appellation Father, Mother/Father God in honor of Unity. Regardless, using a paternal name is in recognition that all of us are created by the Creator. In the Hindu tradition there are many aspects of the Divine that one can focus on: some will focus on the Mother, some on the Father, others on the Friend, the Child, the King or Lord.
Yet by keeping the Father aspect as the Point of Reference, there is an important reason why it is wise to do so. The masculine aspect has the propensity to be able to be emotionally uninvolved or become one-step-backward in a situation. Just go to a playground and you will see a different reaction by parents when their child becomes hurt. In a generalization, the mother races over and holds the child to her bosom, while the father looks dispassionately to see if the child is really hurt or not. To reach Heaven there is a dispassion that is needed. If one takes everything personally one is simply entertaining the egoic mind, which is the little mind of separation. He did this to me and made me unhappy. This happened to me and now I am happy. Both of these attitudes are the same, for both have outside circumstances affecting how one feels. Now traditionally, worshippers of God the Father have seen Him as a deity in some faraway place called Heaven. However, from a non-dualistic perspective Heaven is a state of Unity Consciousness.
It is not anywhere “out there” but “in here”; and since it is found inwardly, then, consequently, it is found out there. You have to go inside to the place of happiness that is untouched by any external circumstance. When that happens then everything is Heavenly because God is everywhere. If you look for God somewhere first, then God cannot be found, because God cannot be confined by anything corruptible, by anything that is being altered by time. “Seek thee first the Kingdom and everything will be added onto you,” the Master said.
