About Blessing

Praising

When I was a youngster my parents would take me to a Reform Temple in Baltimore for the high holiday services, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Head of the Year and the Day of Atonement). Near the end of the service there was always a memorial prayer for people observing the passing in the recent months of someone they were close to, often a family member.

    I watched as various people stood to recite that memorial prayer – in Hebrew. As they worshiped, I looked down in the prayer book at the English translation of what they were saying or chanting. It surprised me that the prayers were filled mostly with praises of God, and I wondered— why they would be praising God after someone they loved had died? And I wondered too when I might have to stand to recite this very prayer.

Dad

   Many, many years later I was somewhat active in a Jewish renewal group at which during worship we’d often play guitars and drums and even dance about sometimes, and draw on teachings of past Hassidic masters. During that period my dad passed away. I went to the next Saturday morning Sabbath service and near the end of the service I stood, covered my head with a tallit or prayer shawl and began to recite the same memorial prayer I’d heard in my youth.

  As soon as I began to recite these words of praise in my beloved father’s memory -- lo and behold, there he was, it seemed, standing right next to me. I could almost reach over and hug him, and we were apparently singing this same song together side by side. Though my father had a very sweet and devotional heart, when I was growing up I don’t remember him doing anything like this; we were not religiously observant.

Uplifting

   Well, when I realized that the people I was saying memorial prayers for would seem to appear -- their presence would be quite perceivable right next to me --  I began to look forward to that memorial prayer. Henceforth, every time I went to a service of some kind I would make sure I stood and thought of somebody I loved who’d passed recently or many years before.  And sure enough, almost every time their presence was perceivable and uplifting.

Together

Some years later when my guru, the late swami Satchidananda passed away, I hurried to a Sabbath service a few days later, covered my head with a white prayer shawl, then during the memorial prayers I kept looking around. I had a good feeling that’s I’d see him like I had seen everybody else during these prayers of praises to God. But as I looked about everywhere, it was very strange, no sight of him. I didn't know which way to turn.

   Then I heard a voice, it seemed, from somewhere, saying: “I’m right here, Prahaladan.”

    His voice, “Where?” I asked

   “I’m here inside you now.”

Be That

   “You can't be inside me,” I thought or said aloud. “I’m not together enough.”

   At my level of development and my stage of evolution, I didn't feel that I could house the presence of Satchidananda (pure being, vast consciousness and bliss). But he seemed to say, “I don't care. Be That anyway – even in the midst of your strengths and weaknesses.”

Blessings

  More years passed. I stayed active in the chavurah, the Jewish renewal fellowship. Once in awhile I was invited to help guide a Sabbath service. There's a place in that morning service where some people come up to the altar and there's a reading from scripture they are exposed to. This is a sensitive time and important. Then right after the scriptural reading the person who's coordinating that part of the service gives a blessing to the people that came forward.

   Sometimes I found myself in that role and I’d ask God to bless those of us standing here for this and that. I felt somewhat self-consciousness about doing this and mentioned this over the phone one day when I was speaking to one of my teachers, Rabbi Shefa Gold. I told her I felt a little hesitant calling blessings down on us. “Who am I to be giving blessings to anyone?” I asked.

  She said, “You’re not up there to receive a blessing at those times. And you’re not giving the blessings. “You’re channeling blessings from the Source, from God. You’re in the role of kohan, of priest at such times. Just be a pure channel.”

Insight

So, if we are channeling God’s blessings is there an appropriate ways to do so? I remembered I got the message that even with our less than noble stuff that's not yet resolved, even with our imperfections, we can put all that those aside for little while and when were in such a role be a clear channel of blessings from the Source. That was an important wisdom insight.

Contentment

Now, sitting outside in the grass as the sun comes down in the late afternoon- early evening, I’m looking at the trees all beautifully colored by the sun's gold rays, and I’m feeling grateful to be here and to have this experience. What I'm trying to learn nowadays is the practice of santoshi, which is Sanskrit for  Contentment, one of the 10 Yoga virtues we’re invited to take on -- the practice of Contentment.

Practice

Contentment, it is said, is being comfortable with what comes and with what goes, not being tossed about mentally or emotionally by the waves in life – keeping our equanimity in all conditions. Though I’ve often heard of the Yamas and Niyamas, the ten Yoga Virtues, I’ve never really focused in on this one – Contentment, completely accepting what comes and completely accepting what goes, the practice of Contentment. I'm going to take it on and see if I can learn something.

Om

   We get better with practice. Anything we practice, even in the late hours of our lives, we get better at it.