In a recent post, Hazrat Inayat Khan answered a question about a teaching from the New Testament.  Here, from the same meeting, are his answers to two questions about the Lord’s Prayer.  In the first answer, Hazrat Inayat’s dating of Saint Paul is not historically accurate, but it does not affect the sense of his reply.

Q : Can you give us the signification of this part of the Christ-prayer: “Lead us not into temptation”?  Does God ever lead into temptation?

A : It is only a matter of interpretation.  You can quite see that the words of the Lord, given three hundred years before Saint Paul and then brought to him, and then different versions and interpretations in different languages, all these things we must take into consideration. If I were to give an interpretation of this, I should say: “Let us not be led into temptation.”

Q. : How must we explain: ” Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed  against us”?  And if we do not forgive?

A. : This is a suggestion, that “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those”; it only means that we are trying to forgive others for their trespasses, and so we expect that You will forgive us also.  It does not mean  that we have done it, it only means that we are trying to do it. We must remember that we cannot expect the forgiveness of God if forgiveness is not awakened in our heart.  The psychology is that the forgiveness of God is attracted by the spirit of forgiveness awakened in our heart.  For instance, the relation between God and man apart, a person who has practiced forgiveness in his life, if he happens to do something wrong, you will feel ready to forgive.  Because what he has practiced, you will gladly do the same.  Another person who has not practiced this, with all your desire, you will feel a kind of difficulty, because this person does not make it easy for you to forgive.  Does it not explain that we help God to forgive us by being ourselves forgiving?