Living Prayerfully

Soul Café

Living Prayerfully

“Prayer in action is love, love in action is service.” – Baha’I Writings

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. – Gandhi

O Thou kind Lord! Unite all. Let the religions agree and make the nations one, so that they may see each other as one family and the whole earth as one home. May they all live together in perfect harmony. – Baha’I Writings

“Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.”  - Chronicles 16:11

Briefly, all effort and exertion put forth by man from the fullness of his heart is worship, if it is prompted by the highest motives and the will to do service to humanity. This is worship: to serve mankind and to minister to the needs of the people. Service is prayer.  - Bahá'í Writings

Dear God, Please send to me the spirit of Your peace. Then send, dear Lord, the spirit of peace from me to all the world. Amen. - Marianne Williamson

Pride not yourselves on much reading of the verses or on a multitude of pious acts by night and day; for were a man to read a single verse with joy and radiance it would be better for him than to read with lassitude all the Holy Books of God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. - Bahá'í Writings

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer. - Gandhi

The most acceptable prayer is the one offered with the utmost spirituality and radiance. - Bahá'í Writings

"Action without prayer is arrogance, prayer without action is hypocrisy." Jose Zayas

 Prayer need not be in words, but rather in thought and action. But if this love and this desire are lacking, it is useless to try to force them. Words without love mean nothing. If a person talks to you as an unpleasant duty, finding neither love nor enjoyment in the meeting, do you wish to converse with him? - Bahá'í Writings

Reveal then Thyself, O Lord, by Thy merciful utterance and the mystery of Thy divine being, that the holy ecstasy of prayer may fill our souls—a prayer that shall rise above words and letters and transcend the murmur of syllables and sounds—that all things may be merged into nothingness before the revelation of Thy splendor. - Bahá'í Writings

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door
will be opened to you.”  - Matthew 7:7

“A truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if they behave negatively or hurt you.”
 ― Dalai Lama

Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action. - Gandhi

It's not prayer versus action. It's prayer AND action. – Marianne Williamson

So when we rise from prayer and begin to act, we are still engaged in prayer if the spirit that motivates us is right. Our actions become "a prayer that shall rise above words and letters and transcend the murmur of syllables and sounds". Life itself becomes a prayer, and we are then in "the best of conditions." - Bahá'í Writings

“True spirituality is a mental attitude you can practice at any time.”
-Dalai Lama

 “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have
received it, and it will be yours.”  - Mark 11:24

O my Lord! Make Thy beauty to be my food, and Thy presence my drink, and Thy pleasure my hope, and praise of Thee my action, and remembrance of Thee my companion,… - Bahá'í Writings

 “We are but visitors on this planet. We are here for ninety or one hundred years at the very most. During that period, we must try to do something good, something useful with our lives. If you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life.”
― Dalai Lama

"Prayer is conversation with God. The greatest attainment or the sweetest state is none other than conversation with God. It creates spirituality, creates mindfulness and celestial feelings, begets new attractions of the Kingdom and engenders the susceptibilities of the higher intelligence."

Bahá'í Writings

“All major religious traditions carry basically the same message that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives." Dalai Lama

He should consume every wayward thought with the flame of His loving mention. ..." - Bahá'í Writings

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them."
This is my simple religion. - Dalai Lama

Intone, O My servant, the verses of God that have been received by thee, ... that the sweetness of thy melody may kindle thine own soul, and attract the hearts of all men. -Bahá'í Writings

Always pray to have eyes that see the best, a heart that forgives the worst, a mind that forgets the bad, and a soul that never loses faith. “ - unknown

“The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.”
― Dalai Lama

Our spiritual perception, our inward sight must be opened, so that we can see the signs and traces of God's spirit in everything. Everything can reflect to us the light of the Spirit. - Bahá'í Writings

“Prayer appears in history in an astonishing multiplicity of forms; as the calm collectedness of a devout individual soul, and as the ceremonial liturgy of a great congregation; as an original creation of a religious genius, and as an imitation on the part of a simple, average religious person; as the spontaneous expression of upspringing religious experience, and as the mechanical recitation of an incomprehensible formula; as bliss and ecstasy of heart, and as painful fulfillment of the law; as the involuntary discharge of an overwhelming emotion, and as the voluntary concentration on a religious object; as loud shouting and crying, and as still, silent absorption; as artistic poetry, and a stammering speech; as the flight of the spirit to the supreme Light, and as a cry out of the deep distress of the heart; as joyous thanksgiving and ecstatic praise, and as humble supplication for forgiveness and compassion…” – Friedrich Heiler

“One hour’s reflection is preferable to seventy years of pious worship” – Baha’i Writings

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?

And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.

And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.

When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.

Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.

For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:

And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:

Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.

It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.

I cannot teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.

And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.

But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,

And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,

"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.

It is thy desire in us that desireth.

It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.

We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."

- Gibran