What if our religion was each other


If our practice was our life

If prayer, our words.

What if the temple was the earth

If forests were our church......

If holy water - the rivers, lakes, and oceans

What if meditation was our relationships

If the Teacher was life

If wisdom was self-knowledge

If love was the center of our being



~ Ganga White

Prayer for Dialouge with Greater Religions

I bow to the one who signs the cross.
I bow to the one who sits with the Buddha.
I bow to the one who wails at the wall.
I bow to the OM flowing in the Ganges.
I bow to the one who faces Mecca,
whose forehead touches holy ground.
I bow to dervishes whirling in mystical wind.
I bow to the north,
to the south,
to the east,
to the west.
I bow to the God within each heart.
I bow to epiphany,
to God’s face revealed.
I bow. I bow. I bow.

 

Prayer for Dialogue with Greater Religions
by Sister Mary Lou Kownacki

Swearing/Profanity

"In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer." ~Mark Twain

Open Heart

To Open Toward the Heart

Today, like every day,
we are ruined and lonely.

...Don't retreat,
fleeing your emptiness
through the doorway of thinking.

Try making some music instead.

There are hundreds of ways
to kneel in prayer —hundreds of ways to open
toward the heart of the Friend's beauty.

~Maulana Rumi

Translated by David and Sabrineh Fideler

Prayer

"Some people just don't realize that, when their moaning about not getting prayers answered, that NO is the answer."  Nelia White

Loneliness

Today, like every day,
we are ruined and lonely.

Don't retreat,
fleeing your emptiness
through the doorway
of thinking.

Try making some music instead.

There are hundreds of ways
to kneel in prayer —
hundreds of ways to open
toward the heart
of the Friend's beauty.

~Maulana Rumi

Prayer

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
~ Meister Eckhardt ♥ 

Compassion from Sufi

Sufi philosopher Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi, which I have found personally inspiring:

Do not attach yourself in an exclusive manner to any one creed, so that you disbelieve all the rest: if you do this, you will miss much good; nay, you will fail to realize the real truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed, for He says, "Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah" (Quran 2.109). Everyone praises what he believes; his god is his own creature, and in praising it he praises himself. Consequently he blames the beliefs of others, which he would not do if he were just but his dislike is based on ignorance.

Silence

"Silence is important because it provides direction.   What waits for you in silence is the insight and direction you need to determine the next step in your quest."  Christina Baldwin

My Hands

"May I tell you the intensity, the excruciating joy, of participating in your life and watching you grow?
You are my favorite song
On life's list of accomplishments...you are my finest.
Accompanying you to this place has been my sweetest journey
You have been the vast question for which all my endevours have been the answer
As you travel to this place which shall be your home
My hands meet in applause
And clasp in prayer
My hands wave you on, and remain open-
An invitation to return freely to this place
Where you learned to fly."

Mary Ann Radmacher

Love

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Kahlil Gibran

Prayer and Blessing

"Prayer is about our relationship to God; a blessing is about our relationship to the spark of God in one another."  Rachel Naomi Remen

Prayer

"Prayer is a movement from Mastery to Mystery."  Rachel Naomi Remen

Prayer

"At it's deepest, prayer is a statement about causality.   Turning toward prayer is a release from the arrogance and vulnerability of an isolated and individual causality.   When we pray; we stop trying to control life and remember that we belong to life.   It is an opportunity to experience humility and recognize grace."  Rachel Naomi Remen

Prayer

"When we pray, we don't change the world, we change ourselves.  We change our consciousness.  We move from an individual making-things-happen kind of consciousness to a connection on the deepest level with the largest possible reality."  Rachel Naomi Remen

Prayer

"Prayer is not a way to get what we want to happen, like a remote that comes with a television set.  Prayer may be less about asking for the things we are attached to than it is about relinquishing our attachments in some way.   It can take us beyond fear, which is an attachment, and beyond hope, which is another attachment.  It can help us remember the nature of the world and the nature of life, not on an intellectual level but in a deep and experiential way."   Rachel Naomi Remen

Morning Prayer

"Waking up this morning, I smile.
Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
and to look at all beings with the eyes of compassion."
                     Prayer by Thich Nhat Hanh

Courage and Equanimity

To recognize that nature has neither a preference for our species nor a
bias against it takes only a little courage [James Randi]

Service and Prayer

"The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray." Robert G.
Ingersoll

Reality

"Do not pray for life to turn out a certain way.  Instead learn from the way life already is.   Everyday events are messages about reality.   Trust in these messages.   They are an accurate description of what came before and what to do next.   Don't fight with reality.  Don't defend against it.  Rather read it like you would a newspaper.   Read everything that happens to you and to others as pertinent news and the reality of being human, of being you."   Chogyam  Trungpa  (Pema Chondron's Teacher)