One major component of the practice of bringing oneself to account each day, of trying to apply a systematic method to personal spiritual growth, is prayer. Over the last few days I have become more aware of this, and of how far I have to go in my understanding of prayer.
A good friend provided me with a selection from the Star of the West (a magazine published in the early 1900s) containing some quotes from Abdu’l-Baha on prayer. This triggered further thinking and searching on the topic, eventually resulting in this post.
Click for 
a few quotes on the topic of Prayer, which also appear at the bottom of this post.
Some highlights from the quotes:
I’ll recount some of my own recent experience with prayer, perhaps it will be of interest to you.
I have been using prayer sessions as an alignment point, before a burst of action. It seems praying raises one’s awareness of reality, “engenders the susceptibilities of the higher intelligence”, thereby putting one on a state of clear thinking, resulting in guided action. One can also, in that state, tap into the great reservoirs of spiritual forces at our disposal. Confidence is increased, and courage granted.
So I try to attain such a state, think a little about what I should do in the next few hours, then go and do it without any further ado. After a while, I start to feel more distracted and realize I’m losing that state of spiritual clarity as my lower nature is exerting control and distractions are influencing me, and I feel the urge to re-focus and re-align. Detecting this change of state and it’s onset gets easier with practice, and the more I get used to being in a better state the more I can feel the difference of being out of it. I try to have prayers and quotations about prayer handy so I can take a few minutes and re-focus.
According to one of the quotes, prayer and supplication are meant to “inspire one’s heart for the whole day”. I hope to get to this stage one day, where a good prayer session in the morning is sufficient to get me through the day, but for now I need more frequent top-ups.
There are a few related topics that come to mind, but haven’t been discussed. Maybe I will post about them one day:
Today, I had the happiest lunch ever! I mean really happy, the true spiritual joy kind of happy.
I was with a friend and we were discussing how we have been using this worksheet on “Bring thyself to account each day” for the last few days, and the effect it has been having on the quality of our day. We have been going through the worksheet, reading the quote and looking through the questions and trying to answer them for ourselves, and have been having similar experiences in the effect it is having on our day. I’ll describe my experience here, so you can get an idea of what we were talking about.
The first day I started using the worksheet, I noticed a marked, surprising difference. I had had the worksheet for many months, and had been meaning to try it for a while but was only then getting around to trying it. I wasn’t expected any noticeable results, probably just a slow improvement over weeks and months, but the point was to follow the exhortation to bring ourselves to account.
The effect, instead, was impressive. Throughout that day I was reminded often of some of the points raised in the questions on the sheet, such as whether I had “refrained from every irregular inclination” or “subdued every rebellious passion”. Particularly in a meeting where we were discussing some touchy subjects, I kept thinking to say a comment, when I would realize that the comment really was coming from a rebellious passion within me and I would then strive to revise it before saying it. I hadn’t been used to such reminders in the self-regulation of my conduct, and it was a pleasant surprise to be confronted with them.
The general trend over the last few days has been quite positive, though it seems hard at times to self-assess in certain areas, such as if my belief is stronger or if my love has increased. However, I am much more aware of spiritual truths during the day, am much more in a state of communion with God, so to speak. Many times during the day, just after having done something (and sometimes before doing it) I suddenly realize that it’s not the right thing to do, and I’m immediately presented with a mental analysis of sorts about why it’s not the right thing, drawing from some of the points in the sheet, and if I had done something wrong I feel the imperative need to right the wrong there and then.
A story to illustrate the points of increased love and righting wrongs. A few days ago I was coming home from the Shrine of the Bab, at around 8:30pm. On the way home, I had to cross the road (Hatzionut Ave) at the traffic lights, and as I was approaching the lights I saw a young African man with a pilgrim badge looking around near the lights. I smiled and greeted him, but he didn’t really respond, just sort of grunted in a husky voice. I figured either he didn’t know the language to use, or for some reason he couldn’t speak. He motioned across the road and made some more sounds, and I smiled and replied, yes, this was how we would cross the road. He pressed the cross button and we waited for a while. The walk light went green, and we headed across. I was walking faster than him, so I sped up and ahead, then turned the corner and headed further down the hill, leaving him behind. As I was walking away, a thought suddenly came to me, that I should really practice manifesting love to humanity, and one way of doing that was to show love to this young man. By this time, I was too far around the corner to see the crossing, but I paused and reflected, should I go back and ask him what he was doing? At that time of the day the gate to the gardens is closed, and there was no pilgrim talk that night, so maybe he had crossed the road by mistake? He wasn’t coming down the direction I had taken, and there’s not much else up in the opposite direction. In indecision I hung for a few more seconds, then with some trepidation started heading back up to the crossing. I then saw someone else walking down the path from the crossing, and I stopped again thinking, maybe he’s left, maybe that person already talked to him, and even if I caught up to him, what would I say?
So I turned around and headed home, and figured I’d pray for forgiveness tomorrow morning as part of my bringing myself to account. The next day, I did that, and in response to the thought “what can you do to make amends” I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t really do much as I would likely not see him again. This was another entry to add to the list of wrongs I couldn’t right, and for which I would have to depend on God for His Mercy. Matter resolved, not entirely satisfactorily, but I would probably not have thought about it too much again.
A few days pass, and last night, I attended the pilgrim talk and was mingling with the pilgrims afterwards as they slowly headed out. I saw this young man again, and I immediately resolved to go and say hello to him. On the way another friend greeted me and I got caught up, and by the time our conversation was over he was nowhere to be seen. Later as we were walking home, I suddenly realized he was walking in front of us. So I caught up with him, greeted him and smiled as we walked along. He again didn’t respond with much speech, but seemed to warm up a little. So as we walked further I spoke a little more, asking him if he enjoyed the talk, and again not much speech. A little further on I had to part, and as I turned to wave and say good-bye to him, he waved back, and to my great joy had a big, beautiful smile! I was so happy, absolutely overjoyed that I had been given the chance to make amends; not so much for a wrongdoing but for a missed opportunity to serve humanity. I knew at some point, either later in life or in the next world, I would have thought back with great regret at a consciously missed opportunity to learn love for humanity.
This is just one example of the kinds of things that have started happening since I have been practicing with this worksheet. My lunch friend shared some experiences, and we got to talking about other related issues and stories, but the general theme was how happy we were and how this practice, although not the cause of our happiness, was instrumental in triggering the actions we took to get to this happy state. We are going to keep experimenting with it for a while, and see if the effect is sustainable. If it is, it would be a great method of systematic spiritual growth to share with the friends.
“Bring thyself to account each day”
Baha’u’llah, The Hidden Words
“Let each morn be better than its eve and each morrow richer than its yesterday”
Baha’u’llah, Tablet of Wisdom
We are exhorted to a systematic endeavor to improve ourselves, to grow spiritually, through a process of daily action and reflection. In fact, “to stop advancing is the means of going back”, so if we don’t make a conscious effort for each day to be better than the day before, it will actually be worse! The question is, how do we measure if today was better than yesterday?
I found a quote from Abdu’l-Baha that addresses just this issue, with a plan for bringing oneself to account each day. There were some questions that someone had supplied along with the quote, but I don’t know who came up with them. The questions help one reflect on the quote, and I added one question from another quote I have found.
See below for the full text, or click here to download it as a PDF file.
I will print this out and experiment with it personally for a few weeks, before the fast, but we’ll need to figure out how we can share this in a group setting.
Every year, from 2 to 20 March Baha’is fast – they refrain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset, and charge their spiritual batteries for the coming year.
The fasting experience at the Baha’i World Centre is unique in a few ways – being in a work environment where everyone else is also observing the fast means that you have fewer distractions and more understanding from your colleagues; you finish work half an hour earlier than usual, to allow time to prepare for breaking the fast; and you have a wonderful dinner prepared for you on weekdays. The environment adds greatly to the spiritualizing effect of the fast because of our great bounty to have access to the Shrines, and to be able to walk around the gardens and meditate. Having friends who are fasting who live close by is an added bonus because you can get together frequently to pray and meditate, and to prepare and have your meals.
The last few years I have been really enjoying the opportunity this provides for having a special fast:
In 2007 I had a project which was due shortly after the fast, and had to work hard through the fast to make the deadline. This proved a great source of motivation, and working with a friend on the project (Saba Moghbelpour) we would make the most of our time by working in the mornings and a little after dinner. I would get up at 3:30am, shower and shave, iron clothes and get ready, pray and meditate then head off to Saba’s house. We would prepare and have a quick breakfast and by 5:30 we’d be on the computer, coding. Most days we would head home after work and eat great food that Saba’s wife Sieni had prepared, and then do an hour or two of coding before rushing off to bed.
Thus passed a memorable fast, we added many features to our project by the deadline, and shall always remember what a productive fast we had and the potential of “early to bed, early to rise”.
The next year, I planned in advance for the fast. I prepared a list of friends whom I would like to have over for breakfast (as most people live close enough I had many to choose from), and sent invitations to them a good two months in advance. I live in a flat with one flatmate, and our dining area is pretty small so we restricted ourselves to having two to six people on our invite list. Then, a week before each day of the fast, I would send the guests a reminder email, and another email the day before.
We had good attendance, with maybe an 80% show-up rate, had a great time preparing breakfast every day and having it together, and sharing prayers and meditating on some quotes afterwards. A few times we had some group discussion too, on a random topic.
After the first day, the friends we had invited decided to take turns hosting such a breakfast at their place, which they proceeded to do and we joined them after our invite lists had run out.
Looking back at this social experience of the fast, I find it extremely rewarding and would love to continue in the same vein this year. However, I felt that there was too much of a focus on the food and too little on the spiritual aspect. So this year, I hope to plan more for the spiritual and maybe simplify the material aspect by putting less effort in preparing more than one type of food.
I’m also unsure whether we should host every day of the fast at our place and invite friends over, or to have it in a different house every day – the first option would imply more work on our part as hosts but spending time with a wider group of people, albeit only one day with each – while the second option means spending lots of time with one group but less work as a host. I think I still prefer the first option.
As for the main spiritual aspect, one idea has surfaced that I will be exploring in more detail – to see how we can, both individually and by helping each other, learn the habit of bringing ourselves to account each day. I feel this is something lacking in my life and it would greatly enhance my spiritual growth.
If you have any ideas for what to do during the fast or comments on bringing oneself to account each day please post them below!