Blessed be!

Amusingly, I was going to write about other people and the fact they are most use when they challenge our ideas. Then along came a person last evening who shared something in a group last night which confirmed some of my ideas. Having our ideas confirmed is always dangerous. Of course, our ego loves having our ideas confirmed - what a boost to our self-esteem. But this confirmation is little use in any real sense. If our ideas are wrong, we stay trapped in not seeing the truth; even when our ideas are right, we run the risk of being a servant to pride. Worse still, when our spiritual ideas are confirmed we run the risk of being spiritually proud, probably the most difficult place of being I have experienced, where my sense of obvious well-ness gave the lie to the spiritual sickness that still had me in my grasp.


For that reason, I commend the advice Buddha gave his disciples. He told them never to accept what he told them as the truth but to test it for themselves. Then when you confirm my ideas I am best advised to test what you are saying rather than let my pride run off with the idea that I must be right.


So, I am in a position where I need to test the ideas that were presented yesterday evening. Yet they have such merit I thought to pass them on untested. The talk was based on the book, The Gentle Art of Blessing, where the central idea is that we can gain spiritual strength and well being and rid ourselves of the curse of resentment by blessing those who have wronged us. The writer, Pierre Pradervand, started practising blessing when trying to overcome the hurt that dogged him from having to quit his job. And it worked, so much so, that it has become a spiritual practice for him, to the extent that he blesses all the passengers on any bus he travels on and all those he passes. 


His blessing is defined this way: 


To bless means to wish, unconditional, total, unrestricted good for others and events from the deepest wellspring in the innermost chamber of your heart.


I was struck by this, because of its similarity to a technique of prayer that I was taught and have successfully used for  quite some time. The practice involves saying a prayer for anyone you have a resentment about or who annoys you - for them to receive their heart's desire and be happy and fulfilled. It is recommended that the prayer is said for 30 days. Of course, it's impossible to be angry or resentful at somebody when you've prayed for their happiness continually for a month. 


I like though the additional dimension of asking for blessings on people; and how much more personal it can be to bless people as I pass them, rather than consigning them to one prayer at the start or end of the day. How much better it is to have prayer as a constant thread in our waking day.