Sacred texts contain holy, enchanted writings that illuminate the reader and provide guideposts during the process of self-discovery. Sacred writings teach and inspire us to meditate on higher ideals existing outside the material world. Their authors show that enlightenment is attainable for all people and that psychological wholeness and spiritual transformation are important for both individual and collective harmony. Sacred texts often honor Mother Earth and promote humankind's responsibility to be stewards of all living creatures.
Found within sacred books worldwide, heard whispered around campfires under the stars, and sang joyously from the mouths of jubliation, prayer is the most universal method of establishing a personal relationship with the Divine. The multitude, variation and beauty of global prayer teach that the path to God has many different branches- all leading from and returning to the same source.
Through contemplative prayer we are able to focus on something higher and other than ourselves. Prayer provides spiritual and psychological benefits helping to relieve stress, sadness, anxiety and anger. Praying changes the energy, the atoms and the direction of our lives by raising our consciousness and healing our souls. Prayer affects the cosmos and both the temporal and physical planes.
I have seen the power of prayer. I have watched people lay hands on one another and through their intent, sincerity and love heal another person. I have witnessed miracles. So take heart when you speak to God. Your prayers may not be answered in the time and manner that you seek, but listen in the stillness and watch with your soul and you will know that God hears us. Most importantly, there is no right way to pray- just pray.
House of Breathings Receive faith, in mind and body, Receive silence, to make your soul Receive strength, to cultivate relationships The Lord's Prayer
O Breathing Life
O God unto whom all hearts lie open
The "I Am" Alone Exists
You may fool yourselves with But you will find me there too. You will live with me until you learn.
From the center wher the Will of God is known From the center which we call the human race Let Light and Love and Power
Invocation
Native Blessing
Excerpt from, The Pollen Path Teach us, and show us the Way. Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon the mountains, the Cascades and the Olympics, the high
green Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon, Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon the land which grows our food, the nurturing soil, the fertile
fields Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon the forests, the great trees reaching strongly Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon the creatures of the fields and forests and the seas, Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon all those who have lived on this earth, Teach us, and show us the Way.
And lastly, we call upon all that we hold most sacred, Teach us, and show us the Way.
May you be at peace, May your heart remain open.
Celtic
Thanks
Thanks to thee O God
That I have
risen today
To the rising of this life itself.
May it be to thine own
glory,
O God of every gift,
And to the glory of my soul likewise.
- Carmina Gadelica- Celtic Book of Prayers
May you who read
these words
receive
three blessings from the Spirit.
to nurture a sense of infinite love.
vast and spacious home for the Most
high.
filled with justice, mercy
and peacemaking.
- House of Breathings
A Simple Prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of
your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is
injury, let me sow pardon.
Where there is doubt, let me sow faith.
Where
there is despair, let me sow hope.
Where there is sadness, let me sow
joy.
O Divine Master, grant that
I may not so much seek
To be
consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved
as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that
we are pardoned.
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
- St. Francis of Assisi
"But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly...For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. In this manner, therefore, we pray:
Our Father who art in
heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Your kingdom come, thy will be done,
On
Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day, our daily bread.
And forgive
us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory, forever.
Amen.
- The Bible, Matthew 6:6-13
O Breathing Life, your Name shines
everywhere!
Release a space to plant your Presence here.
Envision your
"I can" now.
Embody your desire in every light and form.
Grow through us
this moment's bread and wisdom.
Untie the knots of failure binding
us,
Help us not forget
our Source,
yet free us from not being in the Present,
From you arises every
Vision, Power and Song
from gathering to gathering.
Amen-
May your future actions grow from
here!
- Aramaic version of the Lord's Prayer found in the Peshitta
version of the Gospels
unto whom desire is eloquent
and
from whom no secret thing is hidden;
purify the thoughts of my heart
by
the outpouring of your Spirit
that I may love you with a perfect
love
and praise you as you deserve.
Amen.
- The Cloud of Unknowing, Author Unknown
Listen, then, those who who can
hear.
Also you angels and those who
appear in visions or deliver
messages,
you disembodied spirits still around.
The "I Am" of all these
sayings alone exists.
I have no one who judges me:
I embrace all
opposites.
contrary
thoughts,
imaginations,
traditions,
theologies,
commentaries,
and
legal precedents
by which you break contact with me.
It may be
forgetfulness,
a passion to acquire, or
a temporary intoxication,
to
all of which human beings
become addicted,
until they sober up, lie
down, and die.
The way you have treated me is
the
way you have treated your own soul.
And this time you will not die.
- Thunder, Perfect Mind, Gnostic text
O my mother Nut,
stretch your wings over me.
Let me become
like the imperishable stars,
like the indefatigable stars.
May Nut
extend her arms over me and her name of
"She who extends her arms"
chases away the shadows
and makes the light shine everywhere.
O Great Being who is in the world
of the Dead,
At whose feet is Eternity,
In whose hand is the
always,
Come to me,
O great divine beloved Soul,
who is in the
mysterious abyss,
Come to me.
- Ancient Egyptian prayer The Great Invocation
From the point of Light
within the mind of God
Let Light stream forthinto the minds of all.
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let Love stream forth into the hearts of all.
May Christ return to Earth.
Let purpose guide our little wills -
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
Restore the Plan on Earth.
- Alice Bailey
God within me, God without,
How shall I ever
be in doubt?
There is no place where I may go
And not there see God's
face, not know
I am God's vision and God's ears.
So through the harvest
of my years
I am the Sower and the Sown,
God's Self unfolding and God's
own.
- Anonymous
Remember, remember the sacredness of things
running streams and
dwellings
the young within the nest
a hearth for sacred fire
the holy
flame of the fire
- Pawnee, Osage, Omaha song
Bless these, our
circumstances.
Bless the hardship and the pain.
Bless the hunger and the
thirst.
Bless the locusts and the drought.
Bless the things which do not
turn out right.
Bless those who take all and give not.
In these
circumstances, find growth.
In growth, discover clarity.
In clarity, an
inner vision.
- Nancy Wood, from Spirit Walker
This covers it all,
The
Earth and the Most High Power Whose Ways Are Beautiful.
All is beautiful
before me,
All is beautiful behind me,
All is beautiful below
me,
All is beautiful around me.
This covers it all,
The Skies and the Most High Power Whose Ways are
Beautiful.
All is beautiful.
- Navajo prayer and chant
We call upon the earth, our
planet home, with its beautiful depths and soaring
heights, its vitality
and abundance of life, and together we ask that it
valleys and meadows filled with wild flowers, the snows that never
melt,
the summits of intense silence, and we ask that they
that
flow in our rivers and streams, that fall upon our gardens and fields
and
we ask that they
the abundant gardens and orchards, and we ask that they
to the sky
with the earth in their roots and the heavens in their branches,
the fir
and the pine and the cedar, and we ask them to
our
brothers and sisters the wolves and deer, the eagle and dove,
the great
whales and dolphin,
the beautiful Orca and salmon who share our Northwest
home,
and we ask them to
our ancestors and
our friends,
who dreamed the best for future generations, and upon whose
lives our lives are built,
and with thanksgiving, we call upon them to
the presence and
power of the Great Spirit of love and truth
which flows through all the
Universe, to be with us to
- Chinook blessing litany
This prayer is part of the Metta meditation of lovingkindness. This
prayer can be said in the first person when you feel fear or loneliness in
order to remind you that the Divine is with you always.
May you awaken
to the light of your own true nature.
May you be healed, May you be a
source of healing for all beings.
Resources for further thought