Intro: PRAYER, as a agency of religon evolved from previous non-religous monologue and dialogue expressions.With the attainment of self-consciousness by primitive man there occurred the inevitable corollary of other self consciousness, the dual potential of social response and God recognition.
The earliest forms of prayers were not addressed to a Diety. These expressions were much like what you would say to a friend as you entered upon some important undertaking, "Wish Me Luck". Primitive man was enslaved by magic; luck, good and bad, entered into all affairs of life. At first, these luck petitions were monologues-just thinking out loud by the magic server. Next, these believers in luck would enlist the support of family and friends, and presently some form of ceremony would be performed which included the whole clan or tribe.
When the concept of Ghosts and Spirits evolved, these petitions became Superhuman in address, and with the consciousness of the gods, such expressions attained to the levels of Genuine Prayer. As illustration of this, among certain Australian tribes primitive religous prayers antedated their belief in spirits and superhuman personalities.
The Toda tribe of India now observes this practice of praying to no one in particular, just as the early peoples before the times of religous consciousness. Only, among the Todas, this represents a regression of their degenerating religon to the primitive level. The present day ritual of the dairyman priests of the Todas do not represent a religous ceremony since the impersonal prayers do not contribute anything to the conservation or enhancement of any social, moral, or spiritual values.
Pre-religous praying was a part of the mana practices of the Melanesasians, the oudah beliefs of the African Pygmies, and the manitou superstitions of the North American Indians. The Banganda tribes of Africa have only recently emerged from the mana level of prayer.In this early evolutionary confusion men pray to gods-local and national-to fetishs, amulets, ghosts, rulers, and to ordinary people
1]. Primitive Prayer
The function of the early evolutionary religon is to conserve and augment the essential social, moral, and spiritual values which are slowly taking form.This mission of religon is not consciously observed by mankind, but is chiefly effected by the function of prayer. The practice of prayer represents the unintened, but nonetheless personal collective, effort of any group to secure (to actualize) this conservation of higher values.But for safe guarding prayer, all holy days would speedily revert to the status of mere holidays.
Religon and it's agencies, the chief of which is prayer, are allied only with those values which have a social recognition, group approval.Therefore, when primitive man attempted to gratify his baser emotions or to achieve unmitigated selfish ambitions, he was deprived of the consolation of religon and the assistance of prayer.If the individual sought to accomplish anything anti-social, he was obliged to seek the aid of non-religous magic, resort to sorcerors, and thus be deprived of the assistance of prayer. Prayer, therefore, very early became a mighty promoter of social evolution, moral progress, and spiritual attainment.
But the primitive mind was neither logical or consistent. Early men did not perceive that material things were not the province of prayer.These simple-minded souls reasoned that food, shelter, rain, game, and other material goods enhanced social welfare, and therefore they began to pray for physical blessings. While this constituted a perversion of prayer, it encouraged the effort to realize these material objectives by social and ethical actions. Such a prostitution of prayer, while debasing the spiritual values of a people, nevertheless directly elevated their economic, social and moral mores.
Prayer is a monologuous in the most primitive type of mind.It early becomes a dialogue and rapidly expands to the level of group worship. Prayer signifies that the premagical incantations of primitive religon have evolved to that level where the human mind reconizes the reality of beneficent powers or beings who are able to enhance social values and to augment moral ideals, and further, that these influences are superhuman and distinct from the ego of the self-conscious human and his fellow mortals. True prayer does not, therfore appear until the agency of religous ministry is viualized as Personal.
Prayer is little associated with animism, but such beliefs may exist alongside emerging religous sentiments. Many times, religon and animism have had entirely seperate origins.
With mortals who have been delivered from the primitive bondage of Fear, there is a real danger that all prayer may lead to a morbid sense of sin, unjustified convictions of guilt, real or fancified. But in modern times it is not likely that many will spend sufficient time in prayer to lead to the harmful brooding over their unworthiness or sinfulness. The dangers atendant upon the distortion and perverion of prayer consist in ignorance, supersttion, crystallization, devitalization, materialism and fanaticism.
Bruiex's note: I wanted to start posting excerpts straight from the Urantia Book and did not know where to start.I asked whatever being that could hear my prayer to guide me where to start.I stopped a moment, put the book to my forhead and held it there. Then slowly lowered it and opened it quickly to wherever it falls. It landed on Prayer.This is part one of five.
Hope the reader can grasp the subject.
You can join Unsolved Mysteries and post your own mysteries or
interesting stories for the world to read and respond to Click hereScroll all the way down to read replies.Show all stories by Author:  51876 ( Click here )
Halloween is Right around the corner.. .
|
