but the question.
~ Eugene Ionesco
Tuesday evening as our group met on Zoom, physically located all over the globe, we were fully present with one anothers’ questions. “How do you know if you are awake?”
“I can feel that still center. I can tell when I am not there as well.”
“How do you know you are receiving guidance or listening to your higher self?”
“I am less impatient. I am more able to sit in the unknowing.”
I mentioned an experience I had a few years ago when Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within, a book written by Janet Conner, appeared on my co-author’s Kindle.
My co-author did not purchase the book, and although I share access to his Kindle, nor did I. That this book just ‘appeared’ caught my attention. When I synced his Kindle, my attention was held as I read Conner’s words: “After all, it is no accident that this book has come to you. In the big scheme of things there are no accidents, only divine appointments.”
Conner’s outer life had fallen apart. Her husband abused alcohol, threatened suicide, and put their son in harm’s way. Her dog dragged a copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way down the hallway from her bedroom to where she was seated in a stupor of sadness and despair. Picking up a pen and paper and opening to the power of writing in a journal changed her life. Along the way, she wrote out her covenant:
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Janet’s Covenant
7. Pray always
6. Seek Truth
5. Surrender, there is no path but God’s
4. Come from Love
3. Honor Myself
2. Live in Partnership
1. Unite to create Good
A few minutes ago when my son-in-law came home to take an important phone call. My daughter said, “Do we need to pray about it?”
Without even thinking, I replied, “Are we not already praying?”
My soul seems to have integrated these high hopes written so succinctly in Janet’s Covenant because I do not use prayer as something I “do.” Prayer is truly a wonderful sense of being continually in the Presence of the Divine.
When others ask me for prayer, and I say, “Praying,” my experience is that I am moving my attention into a stream of well-being that is already flowing toward that person or situation. My prayer is not a request for an intervention so much as it is an acknowledgment of an omnipresence of grace and love available to all at all times.
“And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24)
Buddhist “prayer” activities, such as the recitation of sutras or mantras, are about connecting with our own inner capacity to develop constructive emotions such as compassion, enthusiasm, patience.
The motivation to prayer is to engage in constructive actions of helping … for the benefit of all.
May your heart soar as you read the Great Spirit Prayer translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887:
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Great Spirit Prayer
Oh, Great Spirit,
Whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world.
Hear me! I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes
ever hold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.
Help me remain calm and strong in the
face of all that comes towards me.
Help me find compassion without
empathy overwhelming me.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy: myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit may come to you without shame.
Whatever your questions, be willing to ask them. The very asking is an expression of your soul’s willingness to be one who knows.
Questions enlighten….
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