The Gentle Art of Blessing
by Pierre Pradervand
On awakening, bless this day, for it is already full of unseen good
which your blessings will call forth; for to bless is to acknowledge
the unlimited good that is embedded in the very texture of the universe
and awaiting each and all.
On passing people in the street, on the bus, in places of work and
play, bless them. The peace of your blessing will accompany them on
their way and the aura of its gentle fragrance will be a light to their
path.
On meeting and talking to people, bless them in their health, their
work, their joy, their relationships to God, themselves, and others.
Bless them in their abundance, their finances...bless them in every
conceivable way, for such blessings not only sow seeds of healing but
one day will spring forth as flowers of joy in the waste places of your
own life.
As you walk, bless the city in which you live, its government and teachers,
its nurses and streetsweepers, its children and bankers, its priests
and prostitutes. The minute anyone expresses the least aggression or
unkindness to you, respond with a blessing: bless them totally, sincerely,
joyfully, for such blessings are a shield which protects them from the
ignorance of their misdeed, and deflects the arrow that was aimed at
you.
To bless means to wish, unconditionally, total, unrestricted good for
others and events from the deepest wellspring in the innermost chamber
of your heart: it means to hallow, to hold in reverence, to behold with
utter awe that which is always a gift from the Creator. He who is hallowed
by your blessing is set aside, consecrated, holy, whole. To bless is
yet to invoke divine care upon, to think or speak gratefully for, to
confer happiness upon - although we ourselves are never the bestower,
but simply the joyfull witnesses of Life's abundance.
To bless all without discrimination of any sort is the ultimate form
of giving, because those you bless will never kmow from whence came
the sudden ray of sun that burst through the clouds of their skies,
and you will rarely be a witness to the sunlight in their lives.
When something goes completely askew in your day, some unexpected event
knocks down your plans and you too also, burst into blessing: for life
is teaching you a lesson, and the very event you believe to be unwanted,
you yourself called forth, so as to learn the lesson you might balk
against were you not to bless it. Trials are blessings in disguise,
and hosts of angels follow in their path.
To bless is to acknowledge the omnipresent, universal beauty hidden
to material eyes; it is to activate that law of attraction which, from
the furthest reaches of the universe, will bring into your life exactly
what you need to experience and enjoy.
When you pass a prison, mentally bless its inmates in their innocence
and freedom, their gentleness, pure essence and unconditional forgiveness;
for one can only be prisoner of one's self-image, and a free man can
walk unshackled in the courtyard of a jail, just as citizens of countries
where freedom reigns can be prisoners when fear lurks in their thoughts.
When you pass a hospital, bless its patients in their present wholeness,
for even in their suffering, this wholeness awaits in them to be discovered.
When your eyes behold a man in tears, or seemingly broken by life, bless
him in his vitality and joy: for the material senses present but the
inverted image of the ultimate splendor and perfection which only the
inner eye beholds.
It is impossible to bless and to judge at the same time. So hold constantly
as a deep, hallowed, intoned thought that desire to bless, for truly
then shall you become a peacemaker, and one day you shall, everywhere,
behold the very face of God.
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