May 2

“A sincere prayer can work wonders.”

–Gandhi (Young India, 3-24-1920, p. 1)

Let us be clear: there will be times when we seem to come to the end of our capacity for love, for forgiveness, for service, for nonviolence. There will be days when we want to lose our temper, strike back and cause suffering to others. It is at these times that prayer can be a steady aid in unlocking our higher potential.

Praying does not mean supplicating some outside force to make our problems go away.  It is more natural. In prayer, we turn inward through practice of deep concentration, and share the problem we are facing with ourself. And just as the body has amazing ways of healing itself naturally, the mind and spirit can work wonders together to bring up stores of energy that they reserve specifically for tough times. Such deeply hidden creative energy actually belongs to us, and we can claim it as ours as soon as we learn to draw from it more consciously. Of course, as Gandhi elsewhere points out (see our Daily Metta for January 5), for prayer to work this miracle it requires three conditions: concentration (as mentioned), selflessness, and some awareness that what or whom we are praying to is within us.

In Sanskrit, God is sometimes called kshamasagara, a great ocean of compassion, and mystics of all stripes will maintain that is the one ocean which will never run dry: we can draw from it, over and over again. We are capable of so much more than we realize.

Experiment in Nonviolence:

Take a moment  (or more!) to draw upon your locked up stores of creative energy to resolve some standing conflict in your life or environment.

Daily Metta 2015, a service of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, is a daily reflection on the strategic and spiritual insights of Mahatma Gandhi in thought, word and deed. As Gandhi called his life an “experiment in truth,” we have included an experiment in nonviolence to accompany each Daily Metta. Check in every day for new inspiration. Each year will be dedicated to another wisdom teacher.