fall

Those who are accustomed to meditate will know that at a certain point you can touch the great silence, the center, the source of all good... Would that men and women would seek silence more often, as we used to do in past ages. In our Indian days we who had the welfare of the people at heart would climb high into the mountains to meditate at the rising and the setting of the sun, and we would not leave our post until we had an answer to our prayer. We did not attempt to solve our problems amidst the noise of the camp fire, but repaired to the mountain top -- not only the physical mountain, but the mountain of high consciousness. We recognized the great power which lay in the silence.

O God, in this time of change and unrest, help us to sort living truths from dying customs. Help us to have both the courage to look beyond the expected and familiar ways and the humility to recognize the wisdom of them.

Prayer is not a way to get what we want to happen, like the remote control that comes with the television set. I think 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 form of 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. When we pray, we don't change the world, we change ourselves.

Prayers are not plea bargains. They are acts of adoration.

By our prayer we share the life of God. True prayer demands that we be more passive than active; it requires more silence than words, more adoration than study, more concentration than rushing about, more faith than reason. The highest state of prayer is to be children in the arms of Love: silent, loving, rejoicing.

There is a sense in which people must count the cost of honest prayer. The answer to prayer may be a demand for something we would much rather avoid doing. If it is truly the Divine Lover who is encountered, we may be very uncomfortable. Idols of our own making have a way of making us feel comfortable and at ease with things as they are. The God of justice/love is the One who calls us out of complacency so that we share divine discontent with a world which worships death. We are met and challenged to live as people of the light in a world that loves the darkness... This fear of what God may open our eyes to see may, in fact, lie behind our own resistance to God, our fear of prayer and silence.

Forgiveness is a miracle of grace whereby the offense no longer separates. ... It means that we will no longer use the offense to drive a wedge between us, hurting and injuring one another. Forgiveness means that the power of love that holds us together is greater than the power of the offense that separates us. That is forgiveness. In forgiveness we are releasing our offenders so that they are no longer bound to us ... freeing them to receive God's grace.

True forgiveness blesses all and begins in the heart of the individual. As we give ourselves and others truly righteous thoughts for all inharmonious ones, we are making ready the harvest of a great spiritual feast which is certain to follow the seedtime. Forgiveness has two-fold mission. It frees both the erring and loving one, for back of the application of forgiveness is a deep, radiant love, a love founded on principle, a love that desires to give for the joy of giving with no thought of reward.

Every time you forgive, you dissolve a condition you have placed on your own capacity to love. Every time you forgive, love is awakened in you more deeply and your capacity to extend love is increased. That is the nature of the journey.

Bless all you've been, bless who you are now, bless who you are becoming, and then, as after forgiveness, let go...

Forgiveness means that I am willing to forgive the other person for not being God -- for not fulfilling all my needs. I, too, must ask forgiveness for not being able to fulfill other people's needs. Our heart -- the center of our being -- is part of God. Thus our heart longs for satisfaction and total communion... But since we want so much and we get only a part of what we want, we have to keep on forgiving people for not giving us all we want. The interesting thing is that when you can forgive people for not being God, then you can celebrate that they are a reflection of God.