Blessings

On waking, bless this day. It is full of unseen good that your blessings will call forth, for to bless is to acknowledge the unlimited good that is inherent in the very texture of the universe and awaiting each and all.

On meeting and talking to people, bless them in their health, their work, their joy, their relation to God, to themselves, and to others. Bless them in every conceivable way, for such blessings not only sow seeds of healing, but one day will spring forth as flowers of joy in the waste places of your own life.

As you walk, bless the city in which you live, its government and teachers, its nurses and street sweepers, its children and bankers, its priests and prostitutes. The minute anyone expresses the least aggression or unkindness to you, respond with a blessing. Bless them totally, sincerely, joyfully, for such blessings are a shield that protects them from the ignorance of their misdeed, and deflects the arrow that was aimed at you.

To bless means to wish, unconditionally, for total, unrestricted good for others, from the deepest well-spring in the innermost chamber of your heart. To bless all without discrimination of any sort is the ultimate form of giving, because those whom you bless will never know from whence came the ray of sun that burst through the clouds of their skies. You will rarely be a witness to the sunlight in their lives.

To bless is to acknowledge the omnipresent, universal beauty hidden to material eyes. It is to apply that law of attraction which, from the furthest reaches of the universe, will bring into your life exactly what you need to experience and enjoy.

When you pass a prison, mentally bless its inmates in their true innocence, their gentleness, pure essence, and unconditional forgiveness. One can be prisoner only of one's self-image, so a free man can walk unshackled in the courtyard of a jail, just as citizens of free countries can be prisoners when fear lurks in their thoughts.

When you pass a hospital, bless its patients in their present wholeness, for even in their suffering, this wholeness waits in them to be discovered.

It is impossible to bless and to judge at the same time. So hold constantly as a deep, hallowed, intoned thought that desire to bless, for truly then shall you become a peacemaker, and one day you shall, everywhere, behold the very face of God.

P.S. And of course, don't forget to bless the utterly beautiful person you are.

(This is an edited excerpt translated from Vivre sa spiritualité au quotidien [Editions Jouvence] forthcoming in English.)