The Lords Prayer in Aramaic ~ The Language of Jesus Christ

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The First Year of Grief: Help for the JourneyA Healing Journey with the Aramaic Lord’s Prayer: Reclaiming the Mysticism of Jesus through His Native Language
by Neil Douglas-Klotz and Elizabeth A. ReedThis 20-lesson online course, guides you on a journey of healing with the Aramaic Lord’s Prayer. Return to this ancient prayer and to Jesus’ original language and original style of prayer. Become a channel of Divine love, joy, delight, healing, and peace by embracing the prayer of Jesus, as if for the first time. See what new meanings await your life!   [Learn more]
Heaven and Earth Come Together
By Elizabeth Reed, Ph.D. with Neil Douglas-Klotz, Ph.D.
“In the beginning God created heaven and earth.”
~ Genesis 1:1 (King James Version)
Heaven and earth are one reality. This is a fundamental concept in a Native Middle Eastern world-view. This world-view would only know the interconnection of vision/vibration and form/manifestation.

Heaven and earth are not dualistic realms as thought by most Westerners, especially fundamentalist Christians. Some think of heaven as a place of future reward of eternal bliss, a place separate from this earthly existence, a place disconnected from the heavenly realm.

Heaven and earth are not separate realities; these two realities exist simultaneously at all times and places.

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
In Aramaic: Nehweh sebyanna aykanna d’bashmaya aph b’arha.

Today we examine the words for “heaven” and “earth” which are “shamaim” and “ha aretz” from Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created heaven/shamaim and earth/ha aretz. The Aramaic words for these two realities are “shemaya” and “arha.”

Heaven and Earth from a Hebrew and Aramaic Worldview

“The difficulty of translating shamaim as ‘heaven’ is that, to the Western mind, the word has historically connoted something separate from and specifically above ‘earth.’ Shamaim could unequivocally be translated as the ‘world of vibration,’ or life seen as the farthest extent of light, sound, name, atmosphere, time, and space — all of which are vibration or wave phenomena. To the Middle Eastern mystic, even the sound of our own name can link us to the source of all names, the sound of the universe heard as one sound.Ha-aretz can certainly be translated ‘earth,’ but in principle it includes all ideas of a power that is stable, defined by relative limits or boundaries, and yet continues to move. From the Middle Eastern mystical view, this defines life seen as discrete entities or particles. It is not exclusively female any more than shamaim is exclusively male.Translations influenced by a mechanistic, dualistic worldview artificially widen the gulf between ‘heaven’ and ‘earth.’ In the mystical sense of the Hebrew words, both realities exist simultaneously: one as vibration, one as form. Most people in modern culture have heard that scientists now view light as both wave and particle, that energy and matter are convertible.”

(Neil Douglas-Klotz, Desert Wisdom: Sacred Middle Eastern Writings from the Goddess to the Sufis, HarperCollins, 1995, p.6-7. Used by permission.)

Honoring The Lords Prayer ~ A Guided Meditation
In your minds eye, or better yet – in person, take a break and go outside. You could alternatively open a window or door and breathe in some fresh air.

Look at the earth around you. Take in its colors, shapes, textures, and sounds. Be aware of your body as part of earth, focus awareness on your bones and ligaments, connected within your body, giving you support and allowing you to walk upon the earth.

Look at the sky. Breathe the air and feel any wind or breeze. Be aware of the light from the sun. Feel the air enter your body with each natural breath. Experience warmth within and without from the sun. Just as you are earth, you are also vibration, light, and atmosphere.

Give thanks that earth and heaven, form and vibration, come together within you.

Excerpted from A Healing Journey with the Aramaic Lord’s Prayer: Reclaiming the Mysticism of Jesus through His Native Language by Elizabeth A. Reed, co-created with Neil Douglas-Klotz. Learn more about this course now.