The Mystery of Prayer...

Friends,

Due to the nature of all of our individual schedules and commitments, our Ruhi 1 class has been on nearly a month’s adjournment.  Provided Amir is back in tip-top shape I presume we are back on for our normal Thursday meeting time.??  As an aside …to keep the cobwebs from forming, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to add a little…and then some.  Getting back on track I thought it would be somewhat helpful to review where we left off.

Back in our last class Amir shared with us the following prayer during our break for refreshments.  At the time, I believe the physical food was front and center over the spiritual food so the prayer may be a little foggy.  Lol   For Amir…only the best for his guests! 

Anyway, the following is the prayer Amir shared with us:

Intone, O My servant, the verses of God that have been received by thee, as intoned by them who have drawn nigh unto Him, that the sweetness of thy melody may kindle thine own soul, and attract the hearts of all men. Whoso reciteth, in the privacy of his chamber, the verses revealed by God, the scattering angels of the Almighty shall scatter abroad the fragrance of the words uttered by his mouth, and shall cause the heart of every righteous man to throb. Though he may, at first, remain unaware of its effect, yet the virtue of the grace vouchsafed unto him must needs sooner or later exercise its influence upon his soul. Thus have the mysteries of the Revelation of God been decreed by virtue of the Will of Him Who is the Source of power and wisdom.

(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 295)

For me personally, I find myself once again drawn to the equation residing within His words.  That is, though at first we may not be aware that 2+ 2 = 4 (insert …“Though he may, at first, remain unaware of its effect)  yet ….”sooner or later exercise its influence upon his soul”.    And so we have it…  “the mysteries of the Revelation of God been decreed by virtue of the Will of Him Who is the Source of power and wisdom.

Also of interest, to me at least, is how He tells us to intone (which can be interpreted as to sing/chant or say in a slow and reverent way) in the privacy of his chamber, the result of which will …” kindle thine own soul, and attract the hearts of all men. "  Apparently, there is once again, something mysterious going on here.  Why?  Because here we are in our own chamber, yet we are attracting the hearts of all men.   This seems similar to the dream state, where all barriers of time and space along with any others of this physical realm are removed; your chamber being your very own Back to the Future time machine.  Lol  Only this “machine” i.e. prayer, takes you to the Spiritual Realm.  OM 

If you are at all like me…sometimes it seems as though this machine is a “lemon” of sorts.  You get in it…follow the directions…seems like it’s not running?  You get out…kick it…look under the hood…pretend to be doing something mechanical in case somebody is watching (you forgot you’re in your private chamber  lol)  and still nothing.??  This is where I think I go wrong, and maybe others as well.  We expect this machine to work/run in a manner we have imagined, which is confined to the limitations of our own vain imaginings.  

Have you ever been in an electric car?  By all observations, it would appear it is not working.  No sound...no vibrations…nothing?  Hmmm….must be broken…must not work.  Our perception is limited by the veils of our current understanding and experiences.  If we can come to such a conclusion about something as simple as a car, is it not possible that we might not fully understand the power of prayer and everything related to it? 

So…once again, we come back to square one,

“Though he may, at first, remain unaware of its effect, yet the virtue of the grace vouchsafed unto him must needs sooner or later exercise its influence upon his soul.”

I don’t know about you, but for me…I’m going with this.

Peace…