Thankfulness

I wonder on the nature of being thankful...

One of the most important prayers that I urge others to recite is one dealing with thanking God for all that we have. Nothing that we have in our lives would exist if not for the mercy and kindness of the Big Guy. There are many reasons that thankfulness is encouraged, it emphasizes humility, spiritual growth, understanding of the self and a host of other positives. Through being thankful for what one has, one truly appreciates what one does have and can look past what one does not have. In this way, being thankful is a way in which the trap of the material world can be overcome.

So, for all of these reasons, I personally give thanks and encourage others to give thanks. There are many things that we can appreciate in our lives, our health, wealth, bodies, homes, families, friends, communities, the fact that we are alive in a beautiful vibrant world. That new toy or material object that brings us so much joy.

But one aspect of thankfulness that exists in my own life is one I seem to constantly overlook. Thankfulness towards those around me, my family, friends and loved ones.

By saying this, I do not mean to say that being thankful to God for all that He has given is lessened in any way, however, over the course of our everyday lives, there are so many people that give so much to help us out. Be it intentionally or unintentionally, the impact of others around us is immense. We are social beings, so social contact moulds who we are. Be it a brother who sacrifices time, money and energy in small or large ways, be it another sibling who acts simply as an example of what we can be or wish to be. Be it a father or a mother who give so much time and energy towards raising us and keeping us fed and entertained. Be it a friend or significant other who gives of their time to help you. People around us deserve to be thanked. Even for those who do not appreciate significantly what others around them do, there are lessons to be learned from what others have done or have not done, and for these lessons, if not anything else, we should give our thanks.

Giving thanks to others in our lives can take many forms, the obvious way to thank another person would be to tell them, however, if that individual has given you something intangible, it is difficult to thank them. As logical beings, we need to have reasons for events, we do not appreciate intangibles and coincidences. So, another way to thank those around you would be to include them in your prayers.

When giving a prayer of thanks to the Almighty, add a word of thanks for those who have touched you. They may never hear it, but when you say those words of thanks, you gain so much benefit. This ritual of thanking others will also result in truly realizing and appreciating some of the things that are done for you without you even realizing.

Words have great power, God taught mankind with words, we pass on knowledge using them, but we can also use these same words to strengthen our own faith and our relationships with others around us. For by growing as physical creatures, we also grow spiritually.

Thank you.

Prayer

I have trouble praying sometimes... actually a lot of the time!

It's an odd admission coming from someone who spends a considerable amount of his free time thinking about religious and spiritual matters, but to be honest, a lot of the time I simply cannot concentrate. When I close my eyes, I think about my day, I think about work, I think about the new gadget or car that has caught my fancy, and the train of thoughts just goes from there.

This led me to examine what specifically I want to get out of my personal prayers. I found that I was becoming a veritable master at reciting a string of prayers perfectly while thinking about my day at work, but was this what I wanted out of my prayers? For that matter, what exactly was I supposed to "get" from my daily prayers anyways? Would prayer on a daily basis somehow connect me with the Almighty? Would these prayers inculcate a sense of peace within me? Was the purpose of recitation of daily prayers one that I did not fully understand yet?

So, I began to analyze the process - physically, the act of praying involves a few things for me, I close my eyes, I recite prayers silently or out loud and I repeat the same words again and again a set number of times.

It's so easy to get lost doing something like that. Ideal conditions for daydreaming! Especially living in a world where we have such little time to just sit and think... is it any wonder that the temptation to let one's mind wander is so strong?

However, I was missing a part of the equation... Sure the physical action of praying may be conducive to producing daydreams, but it also produces a stillness, a calmness in the body. The counterpoint must be the stillness of the mind! But how to achieve this stillness?

I began to experiment with the concept of intention. Intention in prayer, during prayer. I know the meanings of my prayers, but what if the meaning is not enough? So, at the expense of focusing on the meaning of what I was saying, I began to try to focus on the intention behind the prayer.

Maybe when we are silently offering a prayer of thanks, the important aspect of the prayer does not lie solely within the actions or words that are said, but rather in the feeling of thanks being foremost in the mind of the supplicant? When I began to offer up prayers, I began to experiment with expressing my intention in as vivid a manner as I could. When offering thanks, I actively began to think of things I was thankful for. When asking for forgiveness I began to think of things I had done that may be wrong.

Although it isn't a perfect solution, I can say that it works to some extent... Although I now believe that a prayer should be an action that captures all the aspects of human life, the mind, the body and the soul, in a state of stillness and peace. That isn't to say that any prayer, even one recited completely by rote, is not relevant. Far from it, all prayers bring peace, but peace of the body and mind can be easier to achieve than peace of the soul but as Albus Dumbledore once said, "we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy."

Time

Time is such a strange thing.

It has been entirely created by human beings, yet all things are subject to it (well, unless if you really get into the whole relativity thing). We live by clocks and hours and days. We measure our lives out in small increments that for all intents and purposes, we have created ourselves... Why?

I believe that the reason why time is so important to us is that it is a measure of change. Without time, we wouldn't be able to measure the rate at which things change... in fact, without a discrete measurement of time we would never be able to gauge any change at all. I believe time is the primary indicator of change that we have as human beings.
The thing that strikes me as odd is this - if we did not "invent" time as human beings, would the concept exist? That may not make sense at first, but this is what I mean.

Although things would still move and have velocity (therefore time would exist), without humanity, there would be no one to measure the velocity, as such the velocity would have no relevance. So, wouldn't time be a subjective construct? Without someone watching a clock, time wouldn't really exist - at least not in a practical sense... time would still pass, but it wouldn't hold any relevance or importance.

So, does this not mean that time depends on us for it's very survival? When looked at in this light, perhaps we are not as defenseless against the ravages of time as we may believe, perhaps the human intellect, the human thought, the idea is something that is even more powerful than time.

Another aspect of time that strikes me as unusual lies in the relationship that time has with God. Time being a human concept lies purely within our domain of existence... however, God would (possibly) be exempt from any effects of time... logically speaking this means that God does not care about time, and why would He? God lies above and far beyond the notion of time... so, how would this affect our prayers? If I ask for something next year that I want today, do my prayers "still count" towards my goal? It is a facetious question of course, but an interesting thought experiment nonetheless. Our primary interaction for many of us lies in prayers. Whenever we ask for something in our prayers, it can often be limited in time (eg, "please help me with my exams," "help so-and-so person get better," etc...). This means that when I ask for things, oftentimes I want those things to occur shortly after I ask for them... but if God is not limited in time, if God is omniscient and omnipotent, and if God is not bound by the constraints of time, then what does it matter when I ask? If I was to pray for something today that I wanted a year ago, will these prayers be heard?

I don't know the true limits and boundaries of time, I don't know the effects of these limits and boundaries, however the one thing I do know is that, although we define time, it governs us. So enjoy every moment, and live every day.