In the first chapter of this small book, I wrote of the secret contained in the Fourth Room of our inner temple. Many such secrets are revealed in the airy tales that we read as small children. One of these secrets is given in the story of The Shoemaker and the Elves.

If you recall this tale, you will remember that the old shoemaker had a very large problem. He had to produce a great many pairs of shoes in order to save his family and business from loss and ruin and he had only two hands and a limited amount of time to perform the tasks.

He was a nice man, honest and kind to children and he wondered why he was taxed beyond his ability to produce, One day, he spent the entire time cutting the leather for several pairs of shoes but by nightfall he was so exhausted that he could do none of the sewing, so he retired for the night.

Now a group of elves living nearby heard of the plight of this nice man and they decided that they would not let him fail. So, as you recall, they went to that shop that evening and set to work sewing the shoes. When the shoemaker entered the shop the next morning, he found that the shoes were all finished.

Day after day the same events happened; the shoemaker cut the leather and the elves sewed the leather together. In this way the old man was enabled to solve the problem and avert disaster.

That is, in symbolic form, a true and vital story.

I would ask you to recall a common experience, one that is seldom dealt with in psychology classes and certainly one that is avoided or not even considered as important in classes about theology. Yet, it is related to this essential secret.

All of us have had this experience: we are scheduled to catch a flight to some place that we need to visit. The flight is an early morning flight that leaves at an hour that is our usual time of rising. We must then arise an hour or two earlier in this morning and, to make the matter worse, we haven't got our alarm clock!

It seems to be a human quality that is there for us all to use and that is simply to tell ourselves, "All right, I must get up at five o'clock to catch that flight," and at that hour we awake!!

If we examine that phenomenon, it seems irrational. What is it in us that rouses us? Who is the time keeper that notices the hour, and is usually not a minute too soon or too late? The fairy tale writers would have answered that the Elves in us were the helpers that got us up in time to catch that flight. Well, I do not know about that explanation. Nevertheless, what ever the cause of it, the result is a common experience.

This result is useful to us in other ways also; it speaks of an inner wisdom that can be more valuable than just an inner alarm clock. The result can offer a solution to our problems in our everyday lives and in our spiritual development as well.

The Shoemaker did not need answers to problems; he needed physical helpers, but the process he went through is what enabled the outcome to be positive. He prepared the leather for the elves. He did what he could, arranged things the best he could arrange them, and then allowed the outcome to happen. So it is that we can use this inner wisdom that we all possess for things other than awakening us at a particular hour. But, first, we must prepare the work.

The way to prepare the work is to examine the options of a problem as carefully as we can, looking at every possibility that occurs to us. When it is obvious that we can not solve the problem with the information we have, then we can turn it over to the inner process and request that the answer be presented to us as soon as it is worked out. I have generally been presented with an answer upon awakening in the morning, but it has also occurred as a flash of insight during the day.

It is important that you realize the necessity of three things in order for this to work for you.

The first is the part done by you in preparing the question, or the problem that needs solving. Information from outer sources must be gathered and a certain amount of effort on your part must be done prior to submitting the problem to the inner world.

The second is that you need to define your time limits, just as in the alarm clock example, the time when the answer is required must be included in the information.

Finally, you must ask for the solution consciously and with the expectation that it will be done. Consider once more, the alarm clock example. There is a certain urgency involved here and if you do not expect to be awakened at the appointed hour, you may not be awakened! This expectation is an important ingredient in our mix.

I can hear some readers now asking, "What on earth has any of this to do with Contemplative Prayer?" It has very much to do with it, indeed.

If you are not aware that within you is this inner wisdom, then with whom will you communicate when you turn inward to pray? You see, there is a reality here. We are not writing about "talking to yourself," as some persons experience prayer. We are not writing of some pretended communion with the Spiritual world where we imagine this or that voice, or this or that vision.

You must come to realize the reality of this "inner process." It is not enough to understand the words that I have typed on this paper, it is not enough to believe that what I have written is true. What is required is the realization that you can present a problem to this "inner process" and it will be solved for you.

Nearly every inventor or creator in the world knows that it is necessary to do a certain amount of research first, and then it may be in the middle of the night that he or she will get a hunch and a new idea or invention is born.

My mother used to tell me to "sleep on it," whenever I had a difficult decision to make and that is what we are doing here. We are learning, once again "to sleep on it," in a conscious and deliberate attempt to reach out toward our innermost self through the "inner process."

Once we are convinced that there really is "someone home," then we can expect to meet that someone in the Fourth Room of our Temple. If we never experience that or realize that, then we aren't likely to find a convincing experience to that end.
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