Prayer is Timeless....

(Photograph: Steve McCurry, Kuchi Nomads, Evening Prayer, Kandahar, Afghanistan, 1992)

In prayer, we come nearest to making a real clearance in the thicket of thought. Prayer takes thought to a place of stillness. Prayer slows the flow of the mind until we can begin to see with a new tranquility. In this kind of thought, we become conscious of our divine belonging. We begin to sense the serenity of this clearing. We learn that regardless of the fragmentation and turbulence in so many regions of our lives, there is a place in the soul where the voices and prodding of the world never reach. It is almost like the image of the tree. The branches can sway and quiver in the wind, the center of the tree, there pertains the stillness of its anchorage. In prayer, thought returns to its origin in the infinite. Attuned to its origin, thought reaches below its own netting. In this way prayer liberates thought from the small rooms where fear and need confine it. Despite all the negative talk about God, the Divine still remains the one space where thought can become free. There we will be liberated from the repetitive echoes of our own smallness and blindness… Prayer is the path to the secret belonging at the heart of our other lives.

—John O’Donohue from Eternal Echoes

(Source: http://parabola-magazine.tumblr.com)

    This is one of the most beautiful representations on prayer I have ever read. Prayer is not so common a word used among modern western spiritual thinkers. My perspective is that many people in our day have become disenchanted with orthodox religion  and tend to associate prayer with dogma. This could not be further from the truth in my opinion. For me, prayer is as essential as meditation to connecting and merging with the Divine. Prayer is talking to God/Goddess/Universe to convey some desire hoped for or expressing gratification for desires met. Spoken affirmations can also be considered a kind of prayer. Meditation, on the other hand, involves no action other than listening and just being. Unfortunately due to narrow-minded thinking prayer has been branded as religious and meditation as irreligious yet spiritual. In truth, prayer and meditation when used together, create a harmonious song of Oneness in the soul.

Jai Mata Di,

Nirvani

Divine Prayer....

Prayer is a way to be with the Divine—from the prayer born from need, where we tell God our needs, to the deeper prayer which takes us beyond any words into the oneness and silence within the heart. This video is about the simplicity of the Prayer of the Heart.

Audio excerpt taken from "Prayer": talks given by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, June 2011 at the Omega Institute. To listen to complete talks please visit: goldensufi.org/​audio.html#Omega_2011

~What is most important for the mystic is that this prayer takes place in the heart. Mystical prayer is really the prayer of the heart. This has to do with the esoteric tradition of the mystery of the heart as a spiritual organ of divine consciousness. If you want to learn how to pray, you pray with feeling, you pray in the heart~   Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

   
I came across this video today from a man that I have come to just adore, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, he is of the Sufi Mystic tradition and his words here ring true for me. I have always been a lover of the words of the Sufi Masters, such as Rumi and Hafiz. There is such power behind their words, lyrical prose for many, but a true testament to the personal 'inner work' of these great men for those who's hearts are open. When one is attuned to the spiritual heart, their words resonate as divine prayer of Oneness with the Beloved and all of Creation.

Today has been an especially emotional day for me, my heart is tender and full...to feel even a tiny measure of this Oneness is almost more than my tender heart can bare.


Om Shanti Shanti Shanti,
Nirvani

Turning Inward Tuesday...

  Each morning I try to devote a measure of time to my spiritual practice of meditation and japa...It is not an easy discipline for me as I have a terrible habit of procrastination and most often just plain laziness:) This is something I am working on though and when I am unable to formally practice I frequently keep my mind on Spirit. I love to read the words of the great Masters and Acharyas of the past and present...I have grown to deeply love and appreciate the Beloved Paramhansa Yogananda...I love to read his prayers and they resonate so deeply within me a feeling of devotion and love for this vast Universe and all that is in it...I am in awe of Creation and how I am literally part of it...That we are all One...
   Each morning after performing japa and meditating I like to read a prayer from Yogananda's book called 'Whispers from Eternity'...This morning's prayer struck me most profoundly that I felt a need to share it here on my blog...I hope that you will appreciate His words as deeply as I have.

   ~I tell my prayers on the beads of love, strung with my devotion. I direct them beyond all names-God, Spirit, Brahma, Christ, Shankara, Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed-for all names are Thine. And I shun no name, for I know Thou dwellest in all forms.

   In Thy cosmic dramas on the stage of time, and in Thy myriad acting roles, Thou hast assumed innumerable names. Behind them all, too, I know Thy one, changeless name: Eternal, Conscious, Self-existent Bliss.

   Many times have I played with Thee. Many songs of Thine have I sung. On the ocean-bosom of Thy eternal life I've been nurtured by Thee as a tiny drop of life. I remember Thy warm touch through the centuries whenever, feeling the chill of separation, I turned homeward to Thee. Again, in this daylight of remembrance, let me play with Thee. Let me sing Thy songs.~

Om Shanti,

Nirvani