Thursday, May 14, 2026

What happened to God Almighty?

In January 1968, a year before his death, Meher Baba had a circular distributed to his followers worldwide asking them to recite the Master's Prayer and the Prayer of Repentance, both prayers written by him, every day until further notice. Though I was only eight years old I was one of those followers that obeyed that order. My father gave me a board with the prayers pasted on it, and I recited them every day, eventually memorizing both of them. These recitations went on for six months, until we were finally told to cease in July of that year.
 
At that time the Master's Prayer ended with the words: 

You are Parabrahma; Paramatma; Allah; Elahi; Yezdan; Ahuramazda; God Almighty, and God the Beloved. You are named Ezad, the Only One Worthy of Worship.

I heard it countless times recited this way in the late 1960s and it is still written this way in the original 1986 print edition of Baba's biography Lord Meher, on p. 4209.

At some point the words "God Almighty" were dropped, and those two words no longer appear in any in-print version of the prayer or in the current revised Lord Meher Online on p. 5433.

Why is this? Who dropped it?

In early Christian theology, the phrase “God Almighty” carried several layers of meaning that became important in scripture, worship, and doctrinal debates. The key term behind it is the Greek word Pantokratōr (“Ruler of all” or “All-powerful One”), used frequently in the Greek Old Testament and especially in Book of Revelation. In Latin Christianity it became Omnipotens (“almighty”). The phrase was not just a generic title for God; it communicated specific theological claims.

The phrase "God Almighty" appears throughout the Bible, beginning in Genesis and ending in Revelation. It is most frequently used as a translation of the Hebrew name El Shaddai in the Old Testament and the Greek word Pantokrator.
__________________________

Update 

The Masters Prayer is in The God-Man. In the original 1964 London printing, the prayer includes "God Almighty." However, the words were removed in the 1971 Sheriar Foundation republication, as well as in all subsequent printings.










No comments:

Post a Comment

New Series No. 7

Chris Ott Hub