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