The Prayer

Berardino Nardella

Cover: "Hands", Myriam

Translated by Barbara Barozzi

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index

  … EVER SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME

  OUR EVOLUTION

  WE ASK

  OUR RESPONSIBILITY

  WHICH DIRECTION

  WE WERE UNABLE TO EXPEL

  EVERYTHING IS DUE

  RULES

  IMAGINATION

  UP THERE SOMEONE LISTENS TO ME

  ATONEMENT

  DROP

  VIBRATION

  CLARITY OF PURPOSE

  MANTRA AND REPETITIONS

  … ONLY ONE THING

  WHERE THERE IS JOY

  RIGHT NOW

  STORAGE

… EVER SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME

I live in a very small house, but my windows look out on a very large world.

Confucius

The purpose of this book is simple, it illustrates a means, the most powerful and effective, to change in any area of own life, to change any situation and to achieve whatever goal which we have set ourselves.

This is in the context of human relations, as well as in the family, at work and economic and social life, in all the fields of action of our human being.

This means is something that everyone knows, and it is a patrimony of the whole of humanity, no one excluded, but, strangely enough, almost all people do not use it.

That most powerful instrument at our disposal is the prayer, which is that kind of communion between us mortal beings and the Kingdom of the Divine, and this has been since the dawn of time.

We, poor human beings, abandoned to external forces which we are afraid and which we cannot tame.

We, tiny creatures in the immensity of space, or universe, infinite, tiny grains of sand at the mercy of the whim of fate.

Who of us, looking at a starry sky in a clear nigh, hasn’t felt this sense of absolute tiny size and weakness in front of such a vast cosmos?

Who of us, hearing about the numbers that form the created universe, should not be dismayed by the immense vastness that surrounds him?

In front of such magnificence, we look for a place that gives us reassurance, that brings us serenity and that protects us from our cruelest enemy: time.

Time: this cage that encloses our existence, which limits our being; all this, in front of a vastness of space which is a considered infinite, and a vastness of time which is also unlimited, eternal.

All this, compared to our limited and tiny earthly existence, creates and has created for thousands of years, a very specific feeling: fear.

Fear is composed by a set of feelings, such as feeling completely powerless in front of what happens to us in life, feeling completely lost, being born and come to the world and in this universe without knowing anything in the most absolute way and can only do hypotheses.

Fear, because of the limited nature of our existence, coincides with a beginning and a frightening end.

And so, it is that the whole of humanity, faced with so much inner pains, has closed in on itself and has begun a mad race towards nothing.

In fact, it is not important the goal of this race, but the speed undertaken which does not allow us to lose ourselves in our thoughts and abandon ourselves to our fears.

That is why we do not basically want to stop and think, so that we do not be fear.

Not surprisingly, anxiety is one of the most widespread diseases in today’s world.

But, and here there is a positive report, there is a reason for this happening and there is a remedy.

The reason is to have lost a sense of the divine part of ourselves, to have forgotten to be made in the image and likeness of God.

That is what religions teach us, but we have not well understood this concept.

Rather, we have done the opposite, since we are not able to well understand all of this, we have created an opposite figure: an elderly and bearded God with a severe face which we have made in our image.

This is the reason.

The remedy consists in returning to the divine part of ourselves, which is the only real recipe for not feeling alone in the immensity that surrounds us, but to take part in it.

Don’t feel alone and frightened, but safe and loved, protected and well wished by divinity.

Don’t live painful lives anymore, but rich and happy lives.

Exit from the logic of time and space because we are eternal and infinite human beings.

But, how can we accomplish this?

How can we be connected again to the divine part of ourselves and to the Kingdom of Heaven, to God and to all celestial creatures?

Through prayer.

Prayer is the most effective means of reaching the divine.

Prayer is the most effective means of changing our lives and ourselves too.

But, how do we pray?

The purpose of this book is to understand what prayer is and how to carry it out, in orderto achieve all the changes that we want, as well as happiness and serenity within, love and health.

No force or earthly thing can give you the certainties, peace and safety that Heaven can give you.

And, if you don’t even believe in a divinity, how much more frightening should your lives be?

Of course, since we are in an earthly world, it is right that we can live in it in peace, living joyous and happy lives.

It is right that we should be able to live in dignity and, in order to do so, we certainly need money.

Money is not a demonic thing, but indeed it is the use we can make of it.

But, this is true for everything, I can use a knife to peel an apple or to hurt a person, I can use a poison to cure or to kill and so on.

These are the premises, this is what awaits you and I hope with all my soul to be able to cheer, with the words that flow from Heaven within me, your heart.

I hope that you will not only read this book, but that you will apply it.

And I hope, indeed, in this case I am sure, that you will get what you want thanks to practice.

I want to make a last point, to finish and be able to leave you to the rest of the book.

First of all, I’m not a master, nor a guru, nor do I aspire to be so, and in the most absolute way, I don’t want there to be one among all of you who has thought in these ways.

I am nothing more than a person like all of you, who decided to write this book by putting inside what is my life experience, the things I learnt, the things I feel inside my heart and, why not, also with my creative imagination.

What I say in this book can be echoed in you or can be considered a series of useless words.

But above all, what I say are things that all of you, in the depths of yourselves, already know, without there being a need for someone to teach you, in case, there is only the need to remember it.

I write what my heart has understood and, if you read with your heart, you will surely understand.

So let yourself be accompanied by the rediscovery of an exceptional power, able to completely transform your lives.

OUR EVOLUTION

Many things have happened in my life for which I had intense longing,

but which I could never have achieved myself.

And I have always said to my co-workers it was in answer to my prayer.

Mahatma Gandhi

The prayer is something that most probably comes into being at the moment when man is born.

The history of humanity can be compared to the existence of a single person, therefore the evolution that accompanies the human race, we can compare it to the existence of a person that grows up, that from childhood becomes adult.

And, at the dawn of man’s existence, we can compare him to a newborn, completely at the mercy of everything, defenseless and not self-sufficient.

The newborn needs security and love, he needs to be supported, followed, has no skills and needs to be guided.

And the newborn humanity had such needs, it was unprotected compared to a hostile and mysterious world, whose forces were frightening and uncontrollable.

The world around was seen as dangerous and deity or deities were powers to be afraid.

The prayers, in that stage of development of religion, what are the animist religions that still survive in certain primitive tribes, the few that still exist, were aimed at appeasing their wrath.

The gods were powerful and capricious, and prayer was a hope to avoid their destructive fury.

Man was a toy in the hands of powers that dominated the entire universe and, as such, completely at the mercy of the humor of divinities, like a child that, without reason, destroys what he had previously created.

Later on humanity, continuing to evolve as a child who gradually acquires new abilities and greater independence, finds itself facing a new step of religious development, the one born with the Sumerians, the mother religion of Judaism and the Old Testament, as shown by the fact that Abraham, founder of the Jewish race, was form Ur, a city first Sumerian and the Babylonian.

Let’s leave aside the Eastern religions that followed a different course, all of them developed from Hinduism which, in full probability, predated the Sumerian religion and was the only religion, after which there was he split between Hinduism, more marker towards the spiritual world where earthly existence was seen as illusory, and Sumerian existence which was instead based on the material world and how to act on the world.

So, what changes do we see the advent of this new religion, which has then diversified itself among the various cults, including Judaism?

The idea of divinity changes.

The deity is still seen as powerful and often capricious, unpredictable and irascible, but man tries, through prayer, to ingratiate himself in its favors.

If before the divinity was a blind fury, a dispenser of life and death at her own pleasure, she has now turned into a God who, if treated in the right way, can also help the individual man and the various human races.

This is the birth of behavioral ethics, whereby through righteousness we become friendly to the divine eyes and therefore worthy.

The same as the child who realizes that, with certain behaviors, he is evaded, punished or even beaten, while with others he makes satisfied his parents.

By chance, from Sumerians the story begins and the prehistory ends, and this is established because of the first written document, which was nothing but a code of behavior, the famous law of the eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

If you wired an eye to someone, yours will be taken away, a simple and very common law in children’s minds and, alas, even in a lot of adults.

The child thinks in this way, if he is given a kick, it’s right for him to return it, if a toy is stolen, he feels in the right to steal to counterbalance the bad at once.

So, the prayer is still dominated by fear of a dangerous divinity, by it is permeated by the hope of being able to ingratiate it.

God himself follows the same human evolution, transforming himself from being capricious to ethical, if he is treated with the proper ways.

The last true religious development, what should represent the transition from a childish humanity to a teenage humanity, which is on its way to the adult stage, is Christianity, the advent of Christ.

From this point of view, Christ completely overthrows all of mankind because it is still powerful and therefore capable of working miracles, but which allows itself to be killed without manifesting its strength.

The Doctrine of Christ focuses on unconditional love, it teaches us to abandon the law of the retribution, to stop reacting, to stop making a bread for cakes by virtue of a higher love.

He teaches us to stop looking for causes on the outside, in other people but to look inside each one of us, to stop judging others but to judge oneself.

Bu this teaching requires that the mankind take responsibility and move from the stage of the child, that needs its parents, to that of a self-sufficient adult.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth’. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coats as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5:38-42).

Why does Christ teach all this?

It is out of all logic, what benefit could we ever gain from such behavior?

But there is one reason, and it is very important: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”. “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:36-38).

What does all this mean?

It means that what happens to us does not depend on external circumstances, but it is created by us, by what we are within ourselves.

If we are irascible, for example, we will continue to experience situations where such irascibility will continue to come out and to surround ourselves as a series of events throughout our existence.

In other words, our irascibility will attract further irascibility, this in order to be able to manifest itself, since it is what we choose to be.

If we are poor, but more than being poor, we believe that we are poor, we will only attract more poverty around us.

If we hate our neighbor, we will continue to live this hatred towards us because it is what we have chosen to live, vice versa if we live in love, love is what will be refunded to us, and in abundance.

This is the promise of Christ, who brings us closer to the divinity as his children and not as dancers in his hands.

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), this is the encouragement, becoming the image and likeness of the divinity, becoming co-creators of existence.

The life is manifested around us in the exact way in which we believe it is, the predominant thoughts in us will be those that will prevalently form what surrounds us, according to the ancient axiom “as above, so below”.

And how does prayer evolve when this point is reached?

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be give to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Luke 11:9-11).

This is therefore the true role of prayer, that of being connected with heaven and to be able to obtain, to be able to change one’s own lives, to be able to desire what one wants.

WE ASK

No one gets tired of being.

The aid is an act in accordance with nature.

Do not tire of receiving or sending it.

Marcus Aurelius

We people act rather strangely in the field of prayer, or simpler in asking.

We would like to live different lives, we have desires, dreams, hopes, objectives, goals or purposes, the desire to have more or better, but, despite all this, we do not ask, neither to God, nor to ourselves.

It seems that what concerns improving our existence makes us feel ashamed, ashamed of having more than others, ashamed of succeeding where others fail, ashamed of flaunting riches in the face of a world full of poverty.

On the one hand, we want to show to our neighbors that we can afford the latest version of smartphones, the latest generation of expensive TV or expensive vacations, that we often use various forms of financial support to obtain them; on the other hand, however, we feel uncomfortable as soon as we are in front of ourselves, instead of our neighbor or those who like us, display such affections, have the poor, the beggar, the wanderer on turn.

In front of our neighbor we are in competition not to make us be labelled as poor, in the depths of ourselves, but we feel guilty for having more than others.

We are always wearing these our blame and shame, although not always in the sunlight; but always as our companion of life who always tries to judge and degrade us, especially whenever we desire more for ourselves.

So it happens that we are just content; instead of wanting, for example, to earn millions of euros, we just have to get rid of the payouts that suffice to pay mortgage, eat, some fun and sparing some money; instead of aspiring to high peaks, we are just content to be just above sea level.

And, instead of looking at the summit of the mountain that we see in front of us as a spur to conquer it, to want to explore it, to see what treasure can hide us, we look down towards those who are at the foot of the mountain and who do not have the ability to climb.

On the one hand we believe we have a kind of compassion towards them, on the other hand, we actually have the insane fear of being like them, of rolling back down the mountain again and not being able to get back.

Do not be able to climb it again, because by now we are not as young as when we climbed it the first time, now we cannot any longer to make those sacrifices served to get to where we have arrived; we cannot any longer do it because full of people who aspire to climb and that we will therefore not have enough space to emerge, to pass further, or, even simpler, not able because we are already there without doing anything, to be born more fortunate than others.

The crisis that has been created in the industrialized Countries is the tangible and evident proof of this fear; the suicides of those, who have found themselves from having so much to have nothing, show all the fears that I mentioned, the failure to manage to see opportunities.

We live in a world where since childhood we are being taught the message of avoiding selfishness in favor of others; for example, to share our toy with someone even if we did not want, to avoid shouting and certain types of behavior in favor of a common style or respect, to see us denied something because we cannot have everything from life.

But who decided that you can't have everything from life?

Let's not say that sharing with one's neighbor is not right, it would be lacking, but that must be a spontaneous evolutionary step for the child.

The child must want to do so because he understands by himself that it is right and it must not be imposed on him.

But this must necessarily first come from one's own selfishness.

Egoism is not wrong, on the contrary, it is the springboard for launching into altruism, it is necessary for the formation of self-love, an indispensable element of every person.

Selfishness is healthy, only its surplus is perverse.

First of all we need selfishness for survival, we are unique human beings and we have the right to live like any other person and any other living human being; and who will never do this work to keep us alive?

At the beginning of our life, when we are little and vulnerable, they are our parents who take on this duty, they are also happy because it is beautiful to have care of another life, especially if it has been generated by us.

This is altruism, but this happens not when we are children, but as adults.

As long as one does not become an adult, they are the parents who take care of survival, but gradually that the child grows, he begins more and more to have independence and, therefore, also full of responsibility towards himself and his own safeguard.

And, as adults, the burden of responsibility is completely in the hands of the person who, if he has followed a harmonious development of self-love, of healthy selfishness mentioned above, is fully developed.

But our society, on the other hand, shows and inexorably demonstrates that this is not the case for almost the entire population.

If, on the one hand, the survival instinct works at the level of impending danger, that is, soon pay attention to everything that could kill me quickly, then, for example, cross the road carefully to avoid being hit by a car, o avoid risky behaviors such as protruding from a terrace or eating visibly damaged food, on the other hand we have a whole series of behaviors of self-destruction of our body and ourselves on the social level.

This is an example of all of us, in order not to go into too much detail with so many examples, the habit of smoking or alcohol.

Perfect behavior completely against nature, because any creature in nature goes against its own instinct to preserve its own individuality or species.

Anyone, even children in primary schools, can understand that if such habits do not bring any benefit, but rather only more or less serious and invalidating diseases, up to death, they must be absolutely avoided. All this is perfectly understood by smokers or alcoholics, even though they are looking for excuses to avoid such an argument, such responsibility towards themselves, such as "I will have to die of something", or "even so much air is full of poisons".

But the self-evident truth is that it is better to avoid anything that approaches death, whatever makes me grow older, whatever makes me invalid in any way.

This is because nobody is happy when he finds himself unable to do something because he no longer has the strength or ability, nobody lives well if he is sick and anyone, however hard the hard, outlawed model of the old Western films, is terrified by the approaching death.

Yet this, like many other self-harm behaviors, is the norm in our society.

Why?

Because we fail to love our self, we have not been able to develop that healthy selfishness which was necessary and vital when we were children.

We did not succeed because everything around us helped to make sure that we lacked such of our self love, even our parents, our first and essential models, lacked such an amor of their own, because, like us, they underwent the same treatment, at the time of their childhood. And, the lack of self-love was the basis for all the rest of our problems that we have had since then, which then diversified from one person to another.