By Jo Leonard

At the twice-yearly seminars I eagerly attend, I often watch Freda in amazement, as do others. Throughout the weekend, she volunteers to empty the wastebaskets in the event office, break-out rooms and other special purpose rooms. She has her routine organized and performs the work meticulously. She goes beyond the obvious task by also bringing food and uplifting tidbits of seminar happenings to those working behind the scenes. There is such an aura of pure joy around her that some people give way to jealousy as they wonder how she was so fortunate as to procure the trash detail. Why couldn’t they have had that honor?

Watching Freda isn’t about seeing someone doing one thing well for I suspect that she does everything well—no task too small or too large. She uncovers every aspect of the job at hand and does it in full consciousness with an attitude of true service.

Have you ever observed people who seem to live lives that are somehow grander than other people’s lives? Blowing their noses becomes an elevated event. Adventures of the best kind seem to occur on a hourly basis for them. These people are not any better than anyone else, not smarter, or blessed in some special way. They are more present at each moment, more fully engaged in every task. When they touch the surface of a table, they are actually feeling it.

Through some complicated circumstance that has nothing to do with this moment in time, I once met a man like that. He was a friend of Einstein’s. He was a mathematical genius in his own right. But that’s not what made him so special, at least not in my eyes. After thirty years I still vividly remember the one encounter I had with him because he was so magnificently engaged in the mundane tasks of life.

I watched in wonderment that evening as he cut up and served a vanilla cream pie to a small group of like-minded people. Old and slightly bent, he had a twinkle in his eye and an easy sort of giggle that escaped from time to time. In that moment, there was nothing more important to this genius than seeing that we each received our fair share of pie even if it meant taking a shaving of pie already on one plate and fingering it off onto another plate. It filled him with unspeakable joy to chase after escaped crumbs with a moistened finger. For once in my life, I didn’t mind that someone touched my food. I knew I was about to be given the nectar of the gods! A task well done with such presence and love is most certainly the stuff of the Divine. God is often found in the little things if a person takes the time to truly look at life and to do everything with care.

We sat around a weather-worn table on the porch and watched an ocean vessel make its way down the Hudson River to the freedom of the open sea.

What a day it was! All the surrounding land was a spring green. The sky was a cloudless, cerulean blue. The air was warm and moist as it blew from across the wide expanse of the river toward us. We ate steamed and buttered cabbage and small, young potatoes. No finer meal was ever served!

Fear, loneliness, anger, unrest, sense of loss…all states of mind that disturb our well-being. The list can be long indeed. Actually, I gave you the short list here…why dwell on our misery? We all know what makes us unhappy.

I would imagine that from the title of this blog you already surmised that my suggested cure-all for most anything that ails you is adopting an attitude of gratitude.

For example, I used to come home on cold and rainy nights after a hard day at work and bemoan the fact that I had to fix supper and face a myriad of other chores. I’ve stopped this make-yourself-feel-bad habit (complaining is a habit) by adopting another habit. I now take a minute before entering the house to express my gratitude for having a garage, for being able to enter a warm house, for having food in the cupboards, for having a husband who always helps with chores. In those few moments of time, I become filled with a sense of well-being. Gratitude has this way of jump-starting a flow of love.

That’s not so hard, is it? But what about those really BIG life-altering moments? Somewhere today, someone was told that a 20-year marriage partner wanted a divorce. Someone else learned that their son was killed in Afghanistan. A doctor told yet another that their cancer had returned. Let’s get real here. Saying that one should feel grateful in the face of these events may be more than a bit out of line.

I will say this, however…by making a habit of feeling grateful for the little happenings of your daily life, you’ll have a source of healing when the big things come along. You’ll be able to find little moments of gratitude to ease your way through those truly tough times and perhaps even begin to restore a shattered heart.

You may never have a tragedy of any proportion in your life, just little bumps and bruises. Be grateful for that. Be grateful for everything. Start this very moment by repeating after me, “I am grateful for…”

P.S. Please share your journey by writing to me on my web site at www.jeleonard.com

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Contemplations Seed:

Fill yourself with love by thinking on all the things you have to be grateful for including life itself.

My husband and I were vacationing with some friends in Florida. One overcast morning we decided to take a sightseeing tour in their car for the sake of something to do to. Leaving the raw, magnificent ocean that fronted the property of their gated community behind, we ventured forth to the second largest fresh water lake in the United States: Lake Okeechobee. Once the site and cause of numerous storm disasters, Lake Okeechobee had been tamed over the years by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who built 20′ high dike around its perimeter along with channels, locks and levees.

For a time, only the four of us walked on the fenced-in cement walls near the East lock. A family of four joined us in time. While nodding politely at one another, we learned that they were from Brazil. Their son, a six, perhaps seven year old, took to me like a fly to fly paper and began pointing out one cocodilo after another. They were, in actuality, alligators. Lake Okeechobee is a fresh water lake, the preferred habitat of alligators. Crocodiles tend toward salty waters. That much I knew.

Side by side, could I tell a croc from a gator? Not hardly. But a who’s who in the world of amphibians didn’t matter to me much as I figured that either one of them could bite my leg off in a single chomp. That bit of certainty made me keep my distance from their slimy-looking pools at the water’s edge in spite of the boy urging me toward a closer view. I finally smiled a warm smile and moved away from the young crocodile hunter and his obsession with the beasts.

Leaving my husband, friends, and the Brazilian family behind to tend to themselves, I walked out onto a dock or deck or whatever you wish to call it. I was contented to stare out over the flat plain of the water and sigh a sigh of total relaxation. In all honesty, I didn’t consider the lake or surrounding area to be very pretty. But then I suppose one woman’s not-so-pretty is another’s flower garden or some such thing. I know enough to appreciate the fact that we perceive things differently and can acknowledge that my point of view is not the only viable one. I did find great beauty in a moment of not having to do anything, of just being nothing, having no opinions, no needs, nothing to prove to anyone. That was sweet.

Self-absorbed, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed before I felt a presence. The Brazilian family’s ten year old or so daughter stood beside me. We nodded at one another before turning back to stare at the water. Later, my husband noted that from the back, we looked like family. We were two dark-headed females, one tall with a womanly figure and one shorter, barely shoulder height to me, with a slightly plump shape. Perhaps in some other lifetime, we were family—mother and daughter, sisters, cousins—not important to know, merely an observation.

Pointing at the birds overhead, while slipping her other hand into mine, the young girl spoke with a rhythmic softness. Unfortunately, my wee bit of high school French was useless; none of her Portuguese words held any meaning for me. I offered an apologetic shrug of my shoulders and she stopped trying to get me to understand. We stood still and listened for a time to the bird sound above our heads.

Then it happened. The child spoke to me, not in her native language, but in telepathic images. She said that she could get out of her body, her soul could that is, and fly in the sky with the birds. Did I believe her? Could I do that as well? Yes and yes, I nodded at her, my eyes misting. She smiled at my confirmation and the world stood still. It was one of those moments in eternity that happen when all conditions are just so and we are present as a witness, as a willing participant, as one who is connected to life in the most profound of ways.

It takes a precise alignment of time and matter, movement and stillness, births and deaths to create such moments. Will we miss all that colossal orchestration because we are too shy, too disbelieving, too unaware, too shut down, too preoccupied with desiring a moment other than the one we are in? I suspect that most often we do miss out, leaving the moment behind with only a glimmer of the possibility we foolishly let slip by us.

I have a favorite book: The Magus.¹ Author John Fowles’ main character observed a decided madman communing with God. Of this madman, he wrote, “He was not waiting to meet God. He was meeting God….” I gasped when I first read that. I gasp even now. How do we become that which we seek? How do we move from the point of living in anticipation of something grand (or being completely blind to it) to the point of living in it? Must we become madmen?

Let’s suppose that we decide to have at least one gloriously, outrageously beautiful brain-dissolving moment each day. What would we have to do to surpass the mundane and experience the profound? Perhaps we would be required to…

     Stop being afraid all the time and welcome the surprises in life.

     Stop meaningless talk and embrace the revelations that rise up out of silence.

     Stop relying on a mechanical way of acting in order to get by and just be here now.

     Stop and listen with more than our ears and listen with an awakened heart.

Our tender sensibilities conjure up all sorts of unnecessary self-protection devices and thereby stifle the possibilities. We need to stop that. A child from another continent and I touched one another’s very souls that glorious day of days. We had both let go of the seemingly impossible outer appearances and entered into an arena of other possibilities. That’s what we need to do.

I still think about her from time to time when I watch sea birds circling in a clear sky. I wonder if she ever thinks of me. Maybe, if I become very still, I can hear her.

In gratitude,

P.S. Please share your journey by writing to me on my web site at www.jeleonard.com  or making a comment at the bottom of this page.

1. The Magus by John Fowles (Triad/Granada 1977) page 308

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Quote of the moment:

He has concealed the Wind and shown you the dust.

-Rumi, Mathnawi, V, 1026-27¹

1. Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence, (Penquin Putnam, Inc. 1992)

Contemplation Seed: Look for the sea beneath the foam, and the wind beneath the dust.

There was a point in my lifetime where prayer had become distasteful. I was turned off by the idea of myself and others begging God to do something about the mundane. “Oh God, help the Redskins win this game and I’ll never be bad again.” And what about the Giants fans who are pleading for their team to win. Which team does God help? The one who has the most prayers said on its behalf? C’mon, listen up. Is God a football fan? I don’t think so. Pleading is not praying.

Another aspect that turned me sour on the concept of prayer had to do with people praying for others without their permission. “Dear God, make my son stop seeing that awful girl.” Is that God’s job, really? What of personal space, freedom, and self responsibility? It became personal when I chose to study a spiritual teaching other than the one I grew up with. Family members began to pray for their prodigal daughter, me, to return to their church of choice. I was horrified. Is it right to plead with God to make someone do something that you think is in their best interests? Again, what of personal choice?

Later in life, I got over my general prissiness about prayer when I realized how much I actually loved the idea of prayer. I am deeply touched, for example, whenever I see a family take the time in a restaurant to bow their heads in thanksgiving. They are doing it in a public place whether anyone else thinks it to be cool or not. I think it is very cool. There is nothing so beautiful as a man, woman or child communing with God.

Here’s another thing that touches me deeply: When you pray to God, you are not a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a B’hai or an ECKist; you are not of any one religion. You are simply you, a child of God, the same as everyone else. God is, the same God no matter what belief system you choose to follow.

What form should prayer take? Whatever form you want it to take. Perhaps the greatest prayer is: Thy will be done. (See www.jeleonard.com for a dream lesson about God’s will.) Or maybe the greatest form of prayer is the repetition of one of the many names of God: Allah, HU, Bhagwan, Jehovah, I AM THAT I AM, and on and on. Perhaps we are praying any time we remember God.

Author Paul Twitchell spoke of praying, not in words, but by impressions.* He was in the throws of a God experience when it occurred, a place where language no longer existed as we know it. I’ve experimented with praying with impressions; looking perhaps for a reverse route to God. It’s hard; words keep creeping in. But here and there, in a few brief moments, I felt it, that wordless state, when a spiritual power coursed through my limbs. Love was abundant. I felt expanded.

How to you pray?

In gratitude,

P.S. Please share your journey by writing to me on my web site at www.jeleonard.com

* The Tiger’s Fang (ECKANKAR 1963, 2003)

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Quote of the moment:

and think you are praying.

That’s parrot’s work.

If a cat comes, what does a parrot say?

“Help! A cat approaches?” No,

it will squawk and screech, completely

forgetting its prayer-performance!

Yearning for God in every thought,

directing every breath toward the One,

intending no harm,

that is prayer.¹

1. Early version of the written Quran c. Eighth-Ninth Century as it appears in

Coleman Barks and Michael Green, The Illuminated Prayer (Ballantine Wellspring 2000)

I recently read the following quote in a book entitled The Tiger’s Fang by Paul Twitchell:  “To love me [God] most is to understand and feel the need never to harm or hurt any of my beings anywhere in the worlds of my body.”*  I wanted to love God most, but I must admit, I thought that it was a pretty tall order. We may be well-intentioned, but still inadvertently harm people through selfishness, lack of self control, a perceived need for self protection and a thousand other states of the human condition.  To harm no one would require a great deal of self awareness and love for all life. Well, I reasoned, you won’t know if it is possible until you try.  As I don’t believe that things generally come about without some kind of process, I set my fingers on the keyboard and waited for a plan to emerge.

Here are the words that appeared on my computer screen:

 •   take a minute each new day to fill yourself with love
 •   be aware of yourself and what you are about at all times during the day
 •   set aside your ego’s own need for love (recognition)
 •   set aside any need for being right
 •   love everyone who crosses your path (without anyone knowing)
 •   look at everyone equally and as a child of God
 •   each night ask for forgiveness for those you have unknowingly harmed through carelessness

The very first day after I developed my plan, I forgot all about it.  For the most part, I sleep-walked through the day.  Who can say if I really harmed anyone or not on that day?  I’m generally a kind person but when you are asleep in a state of consciousness, you are clueless as to what is really going on.

The next day, I remembered my plan and put it into action.  I soon discovered that it was possible to love all life and harm no one if one makes a conscious effort.  I felt like I was walking on holy ground that day.  Life was sweet and reciprocal.

In the weeks that followed, not every day was a winner.  Some days I just couldn’t get with the program for whatever reason.  An irritable boss, a pesky customer, a sick cat, a reckless driver—all players in my life who seemed to be conspiring against my desire not to want to harm anyone.  There were times when I actually wanted to verbally scathe someone, to have my revenge for a bruised ego.  I learned from these days as well as from the so-called successful days.  Sometimes, as I walk my spiritual path, I wonder how I’m suppose to do all the things I’m suppose to do:  Be surrendered, do everything in the name of God, stay awake, watch your ego, love all life, be here now, and on and on.  I finally concluded that you just pick something, or maybe life picks it for you, and your practice that attribute until it takes hold in you, it becomes a way of life, a way of loving God.

When I worked at harming no one, some amazing things begin to unfold within me, the greatest of which was that I began to see the face of God in everyone I met.  I’d been wanting to know God and found that God was everywhere I looked.  How lovely is that?

You can write me through my web site at www.jeleonard.com if you like and let me know how your practice is going.  I’d love to hear about your failed attempts at harming no one, your successes, and the “amazing things” you discovered when you became, if only for a moment, a lover of all life.

In gratitude, 

* Paul Twitchell, The Tiger’s Fang, ECKANKAR 1967, 1988

P.S. Please share your journey by writing to me on my web site at www.jeleonard.com

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Quote of the moment: “The power of attention is the measure of the inner force.  Concentrated attention to one thing shuts out all other things and causes them to disappear.  The great secret of being spiritual-minded is to focus the attention on the feeling of spirituality without permitting any distraction.  All progress depends upon the increase in the attention span.  The ideas which impel you to action are those which dominate the consciousness, those which possess the attention.”

-Paul Twitchell, The Key to ECKANKAR, (ECKANKAR 1968, 1985) page 17

So, what is the purpose of my blog? It is hoped that as I chronicle my attempts to reach for greater degrees of spiritual unfoldment, others will be inspired to reinvigorate their journeys and perhaps share their discoveries about the many roads, the shortcuts and the pitfalls, that lead home to God.

Below is an excerpt from the prologue to The Would Be Saint. It tells of an early attempt of mine to have an up close and personal relationship with God. Upon reading it, you may find it a bit desperate and silly, but, hey, I was only twelve at the time. As with most journeys, it began from what I thought I knew. That day was a marker in my life, a point at which I defined, if only to a degree, my desire for God.

My search has provided me with past life recalls, out of body experiences, and larger-than-life dreams. It has led me into benign desert places and into seemingly endless dark nights of Soul. My spiritual sojourn has gifted me with many teachers and put me in the company of wondrous fellow travelers. It has given me the unspeakable joy of knowing my true nature, and sublime albeit fleeting glimpses of the One I seek above all others.

What more lies ahead? Perhaps time, effort, and this blog will tell.

In gratitude,

Excerpt from The Would Be Saint available at amazon.com

At an early age, my life dream was to become a saint. Admittedly, I was under the influence of my Catholic school upbringing with its gold-edged holy cards picturing the saints, tales of miracles, and the mysterious, cloistered life of my teachers. Not that the nuns encouraged me to make sainthood a goal. Quite the opposite, they encouraged humility and reverence toward the saints, those chosen few who were special in God’s eyes.

But I too wanted to be special in God’s eyes.

It wasn’t that I thought myself to be apart from anyone else, particularly worthy or holy. I just knew what I wanted: an up close and personal relationship with God.

Growing up, there were two girls in my neighborhood who shared my interest in sainthood by tacit agreement. Even though they were a year older than I, and a grade ahead, we spent many summers together.

I remember so clearly how on one sweltering August day, we knelt, the other two would-be saints and I, in front of a rose bush in Rene’s back yard. Heads bowed, hands wrapped in rosary beads, we prayed for a miracle. Nothing specific, just some sign that would signify the presence of God.

One of my friends had the idea of pricking our fingers with the thorns from the rose bush as a sacrifice. Although we weren’t really too clear on this point, it seemed that the stories we read about the saints always included pain and sacrifice of some sort. We were willing to go the distance in hopes of acquiring our goal.

We’d been told in our religious classes that a certain number of miracles were required in order to be declared a saint. We were in search of those miracles.

Many decades later, I was able to better formulate my early need for sainthood after reading these words from Paul Twitchell, “A saint, master, or spiritual traveler, whatever you wish to call him, exists not because he has devised to become a saint, but because his heart has discovered that he is a master.” *  Simply put, we wake up to the master, saint, savant, pundit that is already present within. It is terribly important to me that you notice the word, we. We awaken. And when we do, miracles abound and the power to create heaven here on earth is ours.

* Paul Twitchell, The Key to ECKANKAR, (ECKANKAR 2000)

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Contemplation Seed: God is in the deeds and doings of everyday life.

Quote of the moment: “If we do not strive for inner perfection, we will remain what we are now—talking animals.” —Konya Sheikh Suleyman Loras, The Whirling Dervishes, Ira Freidlander, (Collier books, 1975)

Finally, after many months of debating whether or not to start a blog, I’ve decided this is perhaps the best forum for sharing spiritual stories and concepts with the genuine God-seeker.

I hope this blog will help to inspire you and I invite you to share your spiritual dreams and stories with me. 

WELCOME!