Lord’s Prayer as Integral Yoga

Christianity in the light of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother’s Integral Yoga, as well as Veda in Christianity, are two engrossing topics for me. I am a lifelong Christian, first acquainted with Sri Aurobindo during college over fifty years ago. I became serious about Integral Yoga on the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo in 2022. Below is my interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer as Integral Yoga.

Our Father 

Creator God, The Supreme, The Divine 

Who art in heaven 

Whose consciousness is far above our own 

Hallowed be Thy name 

Your name is sacred, hence japa is our practice

Thy kingdom come 

We aspire to see your consciousness here on earth 

Thy will be done 

We surrender 

On earth as it is in heaven 

The Supramental Manifestation here on earth 

Give us this day our daily bread 

Feed us spiritually with your Grace 

And forgive us our trespasses 

Help us to remember and offer 

As we forgive those who trespass against us 

Help us achieve equality 

And lead us not into temptation 

Help us reject what leads away from yoga 

But deliver us from evil 

Lead us on the Sunlit Path

- Selby Beebe-Lawson (USA) 

Comments

  1. Anuradha28 August 2025 at 09:34

    Thanks Selby.... found it speaking to my depths.... I have often thought about the reference to Lord's Kingdom upon Earth towards the end of the Bible and the Supramental Manifestation as having some common strands.... Your interpretation of the Lords Prayer adds to that reflection. The Integral Yoga prayer as written out by you, also stands well on its own : )

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  2. words of virtue28 August 2025 at 12:24

    Wonderful Selby.. Everything we read has its inner core and all depends on the pure mind to take it to depths ,merge blend with another aspect with deeper insight is to be realised that Religion with understanding leads to great Spiritual heights . Realised that faith strengthens.With prayers for a lovely ideas to stream in more and more.
    Nandini Yogeesh love You Maa

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  3. words of virtue28 August 2025 at 12:24

    Wonderful Selby.. Everything we read has its inner core and all depends on the pure mind to take it to depths ,merge blend with another aspect with deeper insight is to be realised that Religion with understanding leads to great Spiritual heights . Realised that faith strengthens.With prayers for a lovely ideas to stream in more and more.
    Nandini Yogeesh love You Maa

    ReplyDelete
  4. words of virtue28 August 2025 at 12:29

    Selby please delete 'a' after lovely .error

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous28 August 2025 at 19:00

    Simple and insightful. Thank you, Selby, for sharing. Particularly striking is the futuristic vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven'

    ReplyDelete
  6. Don28 August 2025 at 19:12

    This is beautiful, thank you.

    This reminds me of an amazing contemplative encounter with the Lord's prayer. I grew up in the 1950s when the Lord's Prayer was routinely - and rather mindlessly - repeated in public schools. It had long lost any numinous, spiritual quality when I re-encountered it some years later.

    I was the music director for "Our Lady of Guadalupe," a Spanish Catholic church in NY City, throughout the 1980s. My favorite priest there, Father Alphege, was deeply contemplative, and I learned much from him about Christian contemplative prayer (he told me once he never walked up to the altar to preach without taking at least a half hour to immerse himself in Mary's Presence).

    Knowing of my interest in Christian contemplative practice, he invited me along to what turned out to be the first Christian contemplative mass. I believe it was 1982, but I'm not sure. Father Basil Pennington, who had studied contemplative prayer with Thomas Merton, was leading the mass.

    After the traditional opening prayers and remarks, he was set to begin the sermon. The "sermon" consisted of 20 minutes of silence, after a beautiful call for us to open our minds and hearts to the Infinite Reality of God.

    And then......

    in the midst of such utter, profound, palpable Silence in the beautiful small church near the southernmost tip of Manhattan, I heard these words as if for the first time - echoing in the Silence:

    Our Father.....



    who are in Heaven



    Hallowed by Thy Name.


    ........

    It was as if I had never before HEARD the prayer.

    Selby has given us a similar gift, to help us "hear" the words of the Lord's Prayer in the light of Integral yoga.

    Father Pennington gave us an important gift as well. When our ears are open to the Divine in all, we could hear, "Don't forget to dry off the dish before putting it back on the shelf," as an equally powerful mantric invocation for the descent of the Supramental Shakti.

    The words of the Mother that always come back to me are 'Live always in the Presence of the Divine, and feel that EVERYTHING you do is done by that Presence" (I'm quoting from memory; this is from the 1929-1931 Conversations)

    Overt the 49 years since I first read those mantric words, this has consistently been among the greatest supports for sadhana; and I heard it equally in Selby's reconfiguration of the Lord's Prayer and in the words below this comment "This site is protected by reCAPTCHA.... etc"!

    All is in the Divine, the Divine is in all, and all IS the Divine" (from The Synthesis of Yoga)

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  7. words of virtue28 August 2025 at 21:32

    This is the most beautiful analysis and what Donji perceives is adds more light to Selby's prayers integrated with the Biblical version.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous28 August 2025 at 23:35

    Very beautifully portrayed- shows admirably how all religion at its core is deeply spiritual, one and beautiful, unless spoiled by the dogmatic interpretations of man. And how all dogmas disappear when man connects to the pure light of the spirit, which open man's mind to a vast horizon of the oneness of the spirit. Hope to see more of these beautiful insights of the spirit in the future.

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  9. Don29 August 2025 at 00:48

    I wonder if folks are aware of Neil Douglas-Klotz' original (meaning, according to some scholars, taking significant liberties) translation of the Aramaic Lord's Prayer. To me (not a scholar) the spirit of his translation is so beautiful, i don't care if the real translation is similar to a nursery rhyme!:>)) It's quite beautiful, I think, and a nice addition to Selby's own original mantric version:


    Abwoon d’bwashmaya

    O Father-Mother of the Cosmos/
    you create all that moves in light.

    Nethqadash shmakh

    Focus your light within us–make it useful:
    as the rays of a beacon show the way.

    Teytey malkuthakh

    Create your reign of unity now
    –through our firey hearts and willing hands.

    Nehwey sebyanach aykanna d’bwashmaya aph b’arha.

    Your one desire then acts with ours,
    as in all light, so in all forms.

    Habwlan lachma d’sunqanan yaomana.

    Grant what we need each day in bread and insight:
    subsistence for the call of growing life.

    Washboqlan khaubayn (wakhtahayn)
    aykana daph khnan shbwoqan l’khayyabayn.

    Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
    as we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt.

    VWela tahlan l’nesyuna

    Don’t let us enter forgetfulness

    Ela patzan min bisha.

    But free us from unripeness

    Metol dilakhie malkutha wahayla wateshbukhta l’ahlam almin.

    From you is born all ruling will, the power and the life to do,
    the song that beautifies all, from age to age it renews.

    Ameyn.

    Truly–power to these statements–
    may they be the source from which all my actions grow.

    Sealed in trust & faith. Amen.

    ReplyDelete

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