Tag Archives: prayer.

Even a Leaf: Another Chapter

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Namaste Friends

A little note to begin with

Last January I published a post inspired by a favourite verse from the Bhagavad Gita:

If anyone with love and devotion offers me a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or water, I will accept it.                                                        Bhagavad Gita 9:26

If you like you can read the post here, but I will be including the poem that made up that post in this one which shares the same topic,

Today’s post was in fact written during my more recent hospital stay as a record of a very nice encounter with my Bhagavad Gita and a nurse. I’ll only make changes to tidy it up a bit and to make it clearer for you, the reader.

A ministering angel, in the guise of a nurse happened to notice my beloved little Bhagavad Gita sitting on my bed-side cupboard as she went about her healing duties. Picking it up, pausing to gaze at the image of the Lord on the cover, she then exclaimed excitedly:

‘You love Krishna!’ She was already opening and closing my book at random, with a rapt expression on her face.

‘I do love Krishna,’ I replied, happy to connect with a fellow devotee.

‘O my God,’ she cried even more excitedly, ‘you even have leaf. She held up one of the small leaves I’d slipped between the pages. It was as if she was making of it an offering, just as I had when first putting it there, in remembrance of that verse I love.

I think there are at least half a dozen such leaves offered at various times over the years.

Gently, reverently, she put the leaf back in its pages, closed the book carefully, and replaced it in the exact same position on the bed-side table.

‘I am very glad you love Krishna,’ she smiled as she tuned to leave and headed to serve the next one in need of healing.

love and peace

Paul the Hermit

PS

The poem from last January’s post:

Pray & Work

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One of the topics I like to explore on YouTube (my ‘break’ is over and I don’t think I’m scrolling quite do much as I was before I took that break) is the lives of hermits; the monastic life as lived by nuns, monks and priests of any and all religious traditions or none.

That’s more than one topic isn’t it? Well, you get the drift. In any case, last night I rediscovered a nice documentary on a monastery in the United States I had already seen but decided to watch it again. Here’s the link.

Courtesy Wikipedia

A monk on the doco talks about The Rule of Benedict. Just as the name suggests this is the rule (of life) written by Saint Benedict of Nursia in the 6th Century to help guide monks and nuns living in monastic communities in all aspects of a shared life dedcated to God.

Benedict had a good insight into such a life (and human nature) and the ‘Rule” is in fact a text containg many instructions and a great deal of advice on monastic life centred around what he termed Ora et Labora  –  the very essence of the contemplative life in his view.

It’s Latin of course and translates to Pray and Work and is followed by many monasteries in the Christian traditon. Of course, monastic communities in most traditions have similar sts of guidelines or ‘Rules’.

The primary focus and function of monastics is to pray. That’s what they are there for. But Benidict figured that some kind of balance was needed; not only so the monasteries could support themselves but so monks and nuns actually got some physical activity. Hence the equal emphasis on work.

So, the two ideals work together in a way supports a balanced, ordered, harmonious and peaceful community (in theory). Pray and work are intertwined. Even the Latin for pray, Ora is embedded in Labora, the word for work.

We don’t do rules here at the hermitage, not into them at all actually, but I do like this Pray and Work idea very much. It is, after all, what we do too, and why we are here. In fact, I try to approach everything I do as a prayer. It doesn’t always work in the sense that, while prayer and work may be one and the same, I tend to sometimes forget that fact. So having this pray and work principle as a central tenet of my life reminds me to remember that I am actually doing both.

I pray – quite a lot actually. Chanting mantra, reciting set prayers I’ve gathered into my practice over the years or that I’ve written myself. Then there is the prayer that comes from within silence, the contemplation of the texts I study, the things I see, hear, or talk about.

There is the cultivation of ‘good thoughts’ and feelings of compassion. Just sitting, being still and quiet with an open mind. Simply stopping to look at a flower, a tree or another person and sense the beauty. All these and more are prayer.

Which leads us to the ‘Work’ side of the equation. What exactly is my work? First thing to say is, I am a hermit and a monk and my primary job is to pray. If  It sounds like a closed system, that’s because it is.

My work includes my studies and practices which are aimed at cultivating those good thoughts and open mind we talked about, and that attempt to ‘create good vibes in the world’. (Which, as I’ve written many times, is best achieved when I am secluded at least a little from the busyness of the world.

Lest you imagine that I am missing out on the physical activity seen by Benedict as essential to balance, let me assure you I do get quite a lot of exercise – more all the time as I recover.  It’s my yoga practice, an integral aspect of my prayer and work life.

This blog is a part of my work. Though, to be honest, publishing this blog and engaging with our little community, gives me so much pleasure, joy, and ‘good vibes’, that I really can’t call it ‘work’. Writing and posting does me good!

When it comes to work, it’s not so much about what you do (we gotta do what we gotta do), but more about how you approach that work.

What transforms work into prayer is doing it for the right reasons. But who’s to say what are ‘right reasons’? Well that’s easy: you. Or me. Or any other individual deciding for themselves and for themselves alone.

As I said my work – and prayer – is to try to create good vibes in the world. I don’t always succeed but I think it really is the effort and intention that is most important. And not being attached to the outcomes. As in: ‘Aren’t I so holy and virtuous praying for the world all the time’. Hardly.

No. Create the vibe, let it go, and let it do its thing.

Cries of the Winged Ones

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CRIES OF THE WINGED ONES

Just let go
cries the winged messenger
perched in the fence-corner tree.
Let go. Just surrender.
Surrender to what?
The river of life,
its flow, its vibe

Lord here I am,
I cry in reply.
Two beings, one Self.

The winged messenger cries

because she longs for us to listen

Note To Self: Keep Chanting

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What I want to talk about today, what I’d like to share, isn’t new. By that I mean the ideas are well known in the world – and they’ve even occured to me from time to time.

But, today, the thought seems new. Clearer and more obvious somehow. Perhaps when a little bit of knowledge finally ‘sinks in’, and is fully realised for what it is, then maybe that’s the beginnings of wisdom. Or an enlightenment. Perhaps we can say simply that a profound insight was had.

The thoughts I’m talking about concern prayer. More specifically the thoughts were prompted by my experience this morning chanting mantra – in this case, the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra, my mainstay you might call it; My main focus of devotion and meditation.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna

Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama

Rama Rama Hare Hare

As so often happens, as I chanted today, I found myself thinking other thoughts, following mental stories invented as they went. I carried on chanting, but I was thinking other stuff at the same time.

I stopped the mental recitation of the mantra so I could focus on the emerging thoughts.

Yes, it’s true I was, chanting but it was merely at ‘lip level’ as I’ve heard it described. My intention may well have been to focus my full attention on the words of the mantra, on my means of devotion, and the repeating of God’s names. But clearly my mind had other plans as it wandered and skipped around on other paths.

I guess it’s a problem for anyone who prays in whatever form the prayer takes; it’s very easy to be distracted my experience tells me. I’ve read that people may have chanted a mantra for decades – twenty or more years – and feel that they still can’t ‘get it’, that while the intention is there and strong, they just can’t seem to fully immerse themselves in the mantra. Nothing of it reaches the heart. It’s a lonely feeling, I know.

They, like me quite often, will feel frustrated, empty, and as if their devotion is not devotion at all but simply a mouthing of supposedly holy words. Just an exercise, another spiritual practice to simply get through. Some, give up.

That’s why I stopped chanting this morning: I felt the insight coming on. That new revelation that’s hardly new at all.

Here it is then, the insight. If I become aware that my mind is straying and the mantra is being recited rote fashion, then so long as I gently bring my attention back to the words of the mantra, then in fact, all is well.

Swami Tadatmanda Resident teacher at Arsha Bodha Centre

My teacher, Swami Tadatmananda has said when speaking about meditation, that the very act of bringing the mind, our attention back to the object of meditation when we notice it’s wanderings, is in itself an integral component of the meditation itself.

So, if I’m chanting and my mind begins to jump about, and I notice those mental antics and bring my focus back to the words of the mantra, then in truth, in the reality of the thing, I’ve actually not ceased my chanting at all. There hasn’t been any interruption.

As I said, it’s not a new idea; it’s not my own idea. But it feels new, it feels as if it’s an idea meant for me.

Intention, effort, resolve, persistence (or is it perseverance?) – and love. The only other necessity is that I continue chanting, both in that moment of supposed interruption and generally in my life.

In other words, if it feels like I’m only mouthing words that aren’t reaching my heart, don’t worry.

Just keep chanting

Hare Krishna!

We All Get to Stay

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Sharing our prayers this morning, the hermits each reciting a prayer to the other so each can pray, and talking about the oneness of life (prompted by one of the shared prayers), the dependence of one species upon another.

As we reflected on that idea – of interdependence – it occured to me that perhaps, there might be a problem in how we as humans, interpret its meaning. We can maybe call it a kind of paradox, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Our dependence – as humans beings – on so many other species is actually a well known, and I hope increasingly accepted, reality. For food, for shelter, for water, air to breathe. Everything.

In any case, an aspect of this interdendcence idea that struck me as perhaps missing, that I’ve not really heard before (I haven’t researched this; just winging it thought and contemplation wise) is this; If, say, bees disappeared, or all trees were cut down, would humans survive? Definitely not.

On the other hand, let’s say that in an instant or even over time, all humans on Earth disappeared. What would happen to all the other living beings? All the bugs, the fishes, the animals of all kinds, trees, grasses – all the living beings?

It seems to me that all those other species, all those beings of all kinds, would not only survive, they would most likely thrive.

Actually, now I think about it, I remember during the COVID lockdowns, people in various places around the world were amazed at the return of birds to usually busy polluted cities, and how the air seemed fresher in some places when in ‘normal times’ it was getting hard to breathe. And beaches and rivers looked a bit cleaner than usual.

Fewer people commuting; fewer planes flying; less goods being transported on congested roads; less waste going into rivers and the oceans. Seems life on Earth was doing better when we (humans) were out of the picture, even for a short while.

Which is to say, humans may not be necessary for the survival of planet Earth and the other life that lives here. Putting it very simply: We go, they thrive; They go, we go too.

But, my thought train races along its newly discovered track here, what if I’m wrong? What if I’m looking at the whole issue on just a superficial level? What if all I am seeing is the gross material level of the whole question? What if I’m missing the real point of it all?

Well it seems to me that on that purely physical, surface level, my theory (borrowed as it may be perhaps) might be right, the irony true: we go, they thrive; they go, we all go; they stay, we all get to stay.

But who are ‘they‘? Who are ‘we‘? For me it’s clear that we are not all simply and only our physical bodies and our minds living here in the material world; that’s all temporary and comes and goes. No, there has to be more to it than that.

Which is what I end up coming back to so very often: there is only one. No separation; no you and me; them or us. Just one. Without a second. Only Consciousness.

I think the best thing to do, just to be on the safe side is to look after each other – regardless of the particular body we happen to be inhabiting at the moment.

That way, we all get to stay, and we’ll all thrive

All I Can Afford is a Loving Heart

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Our post today is closely related to our last one. In fact, so close is the relationship, we can call them sibling posts, even twins.

Anyway to begin, I’d like to share one verse from a song I’ve loved and not loved for years. The song’s called You’re Just a Country Boy by Alison Krauss:

Never could afford a store bought ring
with a sparklin’ diamond stone.
All you can afford is a loving heart,
the only thing you own.

It’s easy to start disliking this song right from reading the title: ‘Just‘? As in only? As in ‘Is that all you are?’. And ‘country boy’? What’s wrong with people – of whatever age or gender – who come from rural areas?

But, there is some to love as well: The lyrics are clever (cleverer than I’d thought, as you will see soon); the singer has a lovely and skilled voice that I like a lot; and there is a generally relaxed, easy listening kind of vibe to the whole tune.

Still, there is more to dislike: The song is addressed to said country boy, perhaps as well meant advice from a friend who is trying to let the country boy down easy as they say. ‘Get real my friend,’ she seems to be saying. ‘You have nothing that anyone wants. You’re poor, you’re from the country, and no way will anyone ever want you.’

The lyrics are like an affirmation or confirmation of what we know already: the world turns on material objects and money, and you aren’t anyone or going anywhere if you don’t have that stuff.

But, then on the other hand, there is much more to love. And this verse kind of sums it up. For the first time today, rereading the lyrics as I ate my lunch, I finally got it: it’s IRONY!

‘What?’ the lyrics seem to say. ‘You mean to say that the only thing you own is a loving heart? What use is that for goodness sake? Nobody wants that. Everyone wants money, jewels, and other material things’.

Well, I think I’d actually gotten it already; it’s just (there’s that troublesome little word again) that today is the first time the word itself came to mind. How ironic to come to the realisation of the irony of this song after all this time?

I like the use of the word afford. Clearly our country boy is broke, has no money, little material worth, and being a ‘country boy’ he obviously has limited prospects.

The irony is, of course, obvious: if one has a loving heart (or an awakened heart as we reflected on in our last post), what else do they need to be able to afford?

Our friend has most likely earned his loving heart over and over again anyway as he’s lived his life with its inevitable trials, tribulations, joys and sorrows. Riches galore right there. Afford? Of what value are material riches when one already possesses the most valuable asset to which a human being can aspire – a loving heart?

Just thought I’d look up the lyrics to another song I also quote from quite often. It’s also about that ‘all I have’ idea. The song is Words by the Bee Gees. These two lines I like:

It’s only words and words are all I have
to take away your heart

Or, as I might reinterpret it: ‘I know these are only words, but they’re all I’ve got to try to speak to your heart from my heart’.

If I’m to dig deep, be honest, and all that, I would have to say that this idea has been a major guiding force in and for my life in one way or another – whether I’ve been conscious of it or not. As has been aspiring to a loving heart, though that aspiration has at times been bogged down in the mire of the mess of life.

Words are good and sacred, and I’ve always seemed to have a lot of them (it’s not the words that are at fault, it’s the one who uses or abuses them). Really, as I think about it now, all I want is to continue using them – words – to express what’s in this (aspirational) loving heart.

All I can afford is a loving heart.

PS Now I’ve actually truly and really seen the irony in the lyrics, maybe I don’t have to dislike this song quite so much

In the Dream The Word Was Written

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I dreamed I was drawing an OM symbol. Nothing else, no memory of a dream setting or situation, no other dream characters; only the view – as from my own eyes – of my hand making that sacred mark.

It is quiet during morning prayers today. At one point, after completing one prayer, I turned the page, and began praying the prayer there. Attentively and prayerfully, which is a really nice thing for me to notice because oftentimes I can be a lip level prayer sayer.

As I prayed, I was drawn to the part of that page labelled ‘blank space’. It was at that moment the memory of that dream began to arise.

Instinctively, without thought, I reached for my pen – this pen I now use to make these notes – and inscribed (as that dream memory seemed to demand) the sacred OM in that formerly blank space.

This all transpired as the memory unfolded; really only a matter of a just a few seconds of clock time. But, of course, what meaning is there to ‘clock time’?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God. And the Word is God. No beginning. No end.

Om Om Om

PS Thank you John for allowing me to use your words. I know I have paraphrased and modified them a little with my own words, but somehow I don’t think you’d mind.

Flee, Be Silent, Pray Always: A Revisit

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Courtesy Wikipedia

Recently I came across the story of Abba Arsenius – one of the early Christian desert fathers. I’d originally written about him a year ago in what became a short series of posts.

Coming across him and his story again prompted me to revisit those posts – the first of which you can read here – and I reread them again, though as if for the first time. Anyway, here’s a short recap before we move on.

Arsenius was a high ranking official for the Roman Empire, working for many years as a tutor to the sons of the Emperor.

Over time he grew tired of the glamour lifestyle, the politics, corruption and court intrigues, and looked for a way to free himself from the whole material trap he was in.

So he prayed, ceaselessly, the story goes. He prayed for salvation, for freedom.

And, in time the answer, according to the story came in just a few words:

Flee, be silent, and pray always.

And he did. Flee I mean. He headed for the Egyptian deserts which is where he found that silence, and the space, peace, and calm to fulfil  his desire to be praying constantly. And, with some comings and goings, ups and downs, he stayed for the rest of his life.

Now, while Arsenius and his story are fascinating (in fact now I’ve rediscovered him, I’m going to look around  for a biography or something  so I can learn more), what I want to think about here is something I wrote in the first of those previous posts, and how it ties in with our decision (almost a year ago now) to stay in this one place for the present.

For these Hermit Pilgrims ‘fleeing from the world’  has meant a nomadic lifestyle, few possessions and material needs, a hermit life where our engagement or entanglement with the world is kept to a minimum, and in which we feel less of a pressure to conform, to ‘be shaped’ by the world around us.

The notion of staying in this one place – as fully now and in the present as we can be – is actually  paradoxically a fleeing of its own kind. The world of Samsara, the material world ‘out there’ continues to become less and less appealing to these Hermit Pilgrims.

Alongside this growing detachment to the world (as well as the loss of desire to move about in the world geographically speaking), is the deepening realisation that the real and true pilgrimage is within, through and to our own mind and heart.

Complimenting all this, is the growing contentment we are experiencing in this actual place, this hermitage of ours that we are creating on a daily basis. More and more it feels to be the exact place in which that inner pilgrimage is to continue.

Does this mean we have given up on that ‘nomadic lifestyle’? No, not at all. Or, more accurately, we are not niether giving up or not giving up. The present is all there is and we don’t – can’t – know anything beyond that. As the saying goes, What can we say about tomorrow?

We are here, and it is now.

with love
Paul the Hermit

Moment of Catharsis?

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One morning recently I was reciting my prayers when I began to notice the welling of tears in the corners of my eyes. Soon the wellings became a slow stream down each cheek. And, before long, I was more or less sobbing. For a little while.

Where did the tears come from? Why was I crying? Well, to be honest, it’s a mystery.

No mystery, you might be thinking: Sounds like your tears were brought on for some reason by reading the prayers.

I’m not so sure. I used the words ‘reciting my prayers’ deliberately: Not only was I not paying attention to, or even seeing the words on the paper, I was not engaged in the least in the words themselves and their meaning.

Rather than ‘praying’ I was reciting from memory, rote fashion, as if chanting my times tables in primary school. Merely mouthing the words; my mind was blank, as in not there, distant, off doing what my mind does, without awareness from me, when I’m trying to pay attention.

So, was this some sort of moment of catharsis? Possibly, or so it seems to me.

Sometimes – often spontaneously, other times with some forewarning – there is a release: a shedding of tears, as in my story above; a heavy inner or outer sigh of relief; sometimes simply a sense of something let go, something gone, or at least on the way to being gone.

When such moments of catharsis take place, often what causes them, the catalyst, appears obvious. On the other hand – as in my recent sobbing session – that catalyst is a mystery, unrelated in any obvious way to anything happening at that moment, or at least to anything taking place on the surface of that moment.

Equally the cause for the tears, sighs, relief, and so on – the object of any potential catharsis – may also be a mystery. I had no idea at the time, nor do I know now, what caused my tears.

The prayer being recited at the time was about silence. But, as I’ve already mentioned, no way was I actually praying, what with my total lack of attention, obliviousness to the words, my mental blankness. My unconsciousness come to think of it. Nothing to suggest a catalyst or catharsis.

In any case, when such miraculous happenings occur, one thing I try (I hope) to remind myself to not do: Do not ask why. Let catharsis – or whatever process is underway – be as it is.

And to put aside my habitual tendency to analyse and categorise; resist the temptation to want to know and label everything that happens to me. Let the catharsis – if that’s what it is – carry on as it does and not dismiss it as: ‘Oh that’s just me getting emotional.’ Or ‘I must be a bit overtired today.’

To – wildly and freely – paraphrase a few words from an iconic movie character:

Catharsis is as catharsis does.

Taking it Slowly, Taking it Mindfully

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A small irony revealed itself to me just now as I prayed my way through the prayers inserted in the front of my Bhagavad Gita.

I’d completed one prayer and turned the page to the next. Then, without a pause or thought, I quickly turned the page again. I stopped, thought better of it, and turned back to attend to the prayer I’d skipped over.

Now, here’s the irony: The prayer on the first side of that carelessly and mindlessly leafed past page read simply:

Go slowly and mindfully in everything.

Well, that’s not the ironey itself. But, given that this was the page I had simply passed over without a thought, with no pause, the words written there obviously were a lesson for me.

A message to contemplate, to actually stop and pause with, mull over, meditate on, and perhaps make resolutions over. Advice to me to stop, to slow down.

Couldn’t be clearer really.

There’s no telling why I skimmed past that page, that prayer, without a pause. Could be a simple case of absent-mindedness, or a rush to see what was on the next page; a grass is greener type of thing.

Why I was rushing through the pages isn’t the point. What is to the point is here I am, doing morning prayers, praying some, then skipping others. The other point is that in this instance, for some reason I stopped, went back, and prayed the skipped prayers.

So, moving to the resolution.

It’s extraordinary to me when that kind of thing happens. (It does happen quite a lot, but unfortunately I only notice it occasionally) We will have an intuition, or receive a message from ourself that helps to us get back on track when we mess up.

In any case, it’s obvious that I’ve found what I might call the prayer of the day, the mission statement, so to speak, informing whatever activities I undertake today.

Slow and mindful in everything I do, say, and think. For now, for the present, that will the guide on the path of today that I will follow. Keeping in mind the adage that practise makes perfect, for when I falter.

Oh, another irony wrapped up with this one. The prayer on the facing page was also skipped, and in itself sheds another light on the message from that first one. That second prayer actually puts forward one, important, way in which I can actually set about achieving  that first one:

In other words: place more focus on, pay more attention to, the Divine in whatever form, and by whatever name, I encounter it today.

Works both ways I think: Making the effort to go slowly, to be mindful, puts us in the present moment. And, the present moment is the only place we’re going to be able to become aware of the Divine.

Then, as we become aware of the presence of the Divine, we are right where we need to be, when we need to be there in order to actually slow down and be more mindful.

PS These notes were made a few hours ago. Since then, I have on the whole practised being slow and mindful. Not perfectly, mind you, but then as I say, practise makes perfect. Even now as I type this – very attentively – my mind wanders, so there is a way to go for me. The day is not over yet!