Finley Lost Secrets of Prayer

Practices for Self-Awakening
1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-1-62095-811-7
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 210 Seiten

We human beings are born with the natural wish to love, to be creative, to enjoy success, to find lasting contentment. The fact that this longing was placed inside of us means that its natural fulfillment exists. Our deepest wishes -- prayers of the heart -- are made to be fulfilled... once you know how to ask for them. You just need to learn the secret to making prayers that work!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Finley, Guy

Leseproben

one
When you sincerely enter into prayer, you will come forth with all your prayers answered; but a hundred prayers that lack sincerity will leave you still the bungler that you are, your work a failure; prayers said from habit are like the dust that scatters in the wind. The prayers that reach God’s court are uttered by the soul. —HAKIM SANAI The Root of Real Prayer Revealed
Spiritual stories reach us and teach us in ways beyond the words used to tell them, and reading them with a receptive mind and open heart allows us to take part in each tale in such a way that its story becomes our own. When this happens the special spiritual lessons that each character learns reaches the place within us it’s intended to. The truth of it strikes home. And we know it. Please listen to me. Don’t be afraid to let the truth strike you. What does this mean? Whether in a simple truth tale like the one you’re about to read, or in a moment of great personal crisis, don’t fear what life is trying to show you about itself and about you. Welcome it! Yes! Don’t resist anything that threatens to pull the rug out from under our feet. Welcome it! Why? Try to see the wisdom in this. We should be thankful to find out that we are standing in the wrong place! One example of standing in the “wrong place” is depending upon the undependable within ourselves or others. Then, when the reality of our shaky situation suddenly springs up before our disbelieving eyes and we start to take the fall we get angry, blame-filled, or depressed—which is yet another wrong place to stand, guaranteed to lead to another fall. The point is that we live in a constant struggle to keep everything that doesn’t fit into what we think life is supposed to be about at arm’s length. That’s why I say you mustn’t be afraid to let the truth strike you. It is not dealing the blow that you think it is dealing. Truth always heals, even though it may hurt at first. Truth always heals, even though it may hurt at first. Once there was a very talented young girl who began displaying great artistic promise by the time she reached age seven. Her parents, naturally wanting to help their child develop this special gift, decided to enroll her in an art school for exceptional children. When the fateful first day of school arrived, after going through the necessary goodbyes, Celeste walked into the classroom where her new studies would begin. Once she had found a place to sit and had started collecting herself from the shock of being in an unknown environment, she looked around the room. About a dozen other boys and girls roughly her own age were seated in a kind of elongated semi-circle facing the front of the room where the teacher was standing. After exchanging a few smiles and expressing some encouraging words of welcome to the children, the teacher began handing each child his or her own unusual looking easel, along with some colored marking pens. Celeste was excited and scared at the same time, but before she could figure out how she really felt, the teacher finished handing out supplies and began instructing the class. It was less than a minute or two before Celeste’s attention wandered out of the room. She felt as though she didn’t need to pay attention. After all, in her mind she already knew everything that the teacher was saying. So she found something to look at just outside the window that was more interesting. The teacher would say, “Celeste, Celeste, pay attention.” But Celeste had more important things to think about. Finally, after about an hour of verbal instruction and a few demonstrations of some elementary techniques, the teacher said, “All right, children, you may now draw any subject you wish, but here’s what I would like you to do based on the principles that we have discussed. Draw a natural scene of some kind that should include trees, perhaps a rock, and maybe some flowers in the sunlight.” About an hour later, the teacher walked around to view Celeste’s work, and she wasn’t drawing at all what the children had been instructed to draw. Making a mental note to herself, the teacher walked around a few more times; gave a few more general instructions to the class; and asked a few children a helpful question about their artwork, continuing to encourage them. After a while, Celeste, like all children, was busy drawing on her easel, but increasingly she was looking over to see what everybody else was doing. She could see that one girl has painted a beautiful tree crowned with a simple sun and set off by one simple flower. Celeste was struck by its simplicity, its beauty. So she looked around some more to see more of her fellow students’ works. Then she looked back at her easel and began feeling uneasy. She was troubled by what she saw on her canvas. So she started to put more color on it. She worked a little harder at her assignment. Now, from time to time the teacher says to the class, “Would any of you like to ask any questions?” A few children do raise their hands and she goes over and helps them. But Celeste asked nothing. She was just working harder and harder at getting more and more color onto her easel. And the more Celeste worked, the more she looked at her easel and the less what she saw pleased her. Finally Celeste stepped back from her easel and dropped herself, heavy-hearted, into her desk chair. Meanwhile, the rest of the children were talking amongst themselves, laughing, enjoying the creative moment, and busily looking at each other’s easels with obvious excitement. The good teacher, watching all of this take place, and having waited patiently for the right moment, walked over to Celeste and said, “How are you doing?” Celeste looked down at the ground. The teacher, attempting to draw her out, asked again. “Celeste, I’m talking to you. How is your painting coming along?” After a moment, Celeste looked up at her and in a half-apologetic, half-defiant tone said to her, “Well … I don’t like what I made.” The teacher smiled at her and said, “Yes, of course,” and she waited there for a moment as if anticipating something more from Celeste. But nothing else happened and she started to turn away. Then Celeste, catching her mid-stride, says, “But teacher….” The teacher turned around and smiled again as Celeste finished her sentence, “What can I do?” Pausing for the desired moment of effect, the teacher says, “Well, Celeste, there’s really nothing you can do.” Somewhat taken aback by her teacher’s surprising answer, Celeste looked down. The teacher was still standing there, and the other children can see that she’s clearly waiting for something. But a moment later, when she again started to walk away, Celeste shot her hand into the air as if to ask a question and stop her at the same time. “Teacher, please!” The teacher turned around, knowing that the moment she was hoping for has come. “Yes, what is it dear?” Celeste looked up and said, sincerely, “I don’t know what’s wrong. Won’t you please help me?” The teacher smiled gently and responded in openly encouraging tones, “Yes, Celeste, of course I will. I’d be happy to.” And reaching into one of the many folds in her large apron, the teacher pulled out a special eraser made just for that kind of easel, and in less than three seconds she wiped Celeste’s whole slate clean. You see, Celeste did not understand that her easel was fully erasable. It was the first time she had ever worked on one like it. There was no way for her to know that everything she’d drawn wasn’t indelibly done. At her young age, she couldn’t understand the exciting possibility of being able to start over with a clean slate, because she didn’t understand the dynamics that could allow for such a fresh start. As powerful a lesson as this one hints to us, it isn’t our key one. Here it is: The part of the story where Celeste said, “I don’t like what I’ve made,” then, “What can I do?” and then finally turned and said, “Can you help me?” reveals in one pure and simple instant the real root of prayer. Now, to complete the lesson, allow me to ask you: What do you see when you look out on the world you’ve made? What do you see when you look out on the world you’ve made? Are you like Celeste in her first hours, when over and over again, you look around and you can see there’s beauty; you can see that there’s such a thing as unconditional love, as true compassion; you know these wondrous things exist all around you, and then you look at the world you’ve made—what do you see there? You must not turn away from the canvas that is your consciousness, although that’s what we want to do. The first thing we want to do is convince ourselves that there is some missing color, something else that we’re going to do to that ugliness before us that’s going to somehow transform it so that when we look at it we won’t feel pain, emptiness, or loneliness. You must not turn away from the canvas that is your consciousness. Every man, woman, and even child, at a certain age, looks out and says, “I don’t like the world I’ve made for myself. Look at me. I’m so many years old, I’ve got this many things,...