“Through prayer.”

“Then why have I not found it yet?”

“Because you haven't prayed in the right place.”

“Where is that?”

“In the heart of God.”

“And how do I get there?”

“Understand that anyone who sins does not know what he is doing and deserves to be forgiven.”

This is from The Song of The Bird, a book of spiritual stories by Anthony de Mello

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The man was saying, “Let me come close to you my God. my Lord, and I promise that I will clean your body when it is dirty. Even if lice are there, I will take them away…. And I am a good shoe-maker, I will make you perfect shoes. You are moving in such ancient shoes — dirty, gone completely dirty…. And nobody looks after you, my Lord. I will look after you. When you are ill, I will serve and give you medicine. And I am a good cook also!”

This type of prayer he was doing! So Moses said, “Stop! Stop your nonsense! What are you saying? To whom are. you talking — to God? And He has lice on His body? And His clothes are dirty and you will clean them? And nobody is there to look after Him, and you will be His cook? From whom have you learned this prayer?”

The man said, “I have not learned it from anywhere. I am a very poor and uneducated man, and I don’t know how to pray. I have made it up myself and these are the things that I know. Lice trouble me very much, so He must be in trouble. And sometimes the food is not good — my wife is not a good cook — and my stomach aches. He must be also suffering. This is just my own experience that has become my prayer. But if you know the right prayer, you teach me.”

So Moses taught him the right prayer. The man bowed down to Moses, thanked him, tears of deep gratitude flowing, and he went away. Moses was very happy. He thought that he had done a good deed. He looked at the sky to see what God thought about it.

And God was very angry! He said, “I have sent you there to bring people closer to me, but you have thrown away one of my greatest lovers. Now he will be doing the right prayer, but it won’t be a prayer at all — because prayer has nothing to do with the law. It is LOVE. Love is a law unto itself; it needs no other law.”

But Moses is the lawgiver. He founded the society: he brought the Ten Commandments. Those Ten Commandments have remained the foundation of the whole Western world: Judaic, Christian, Mohammedan — all three religions depend on the law of Moses.

So the whole world has known only two lawgivers: the East knows Manu and the West knows Moses. Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, they have been supplied the law by Manu, the law has been given by Manu, and Moses has given to Mohammedans, Christians, Jews.

These two lawgivers have created the whole world. And there must be something — both are `M’: Manu and Moses. Then comes Marx who is the third `M’. China, Russia — he has given the law to them. These are the three great `M’s’ — lawgivers.

Osho – “Come Follow To You”

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The Seer of Lublin was one of the most famous and formidable of the Hassidic Rabbis at the end of the 18th century. His greatest disciple (who had exactly the same name as his master) was called the Yehudi in Lublin, and the Holy Yehudi everywhere else. The two Rabbis loved each other very much, although they suffered many heartaches due to rivalries among their own disciples, especially those in Lublin. The Seer, as his appellation indicates, was a visionary who was interested in large movements and long term developments. The Holy Yehudi was a humble saint, famous for the power of his worship of God, who developed a reputation (which he always denied) as a healer of souls.

The Seer's wife Beile, often overheard the gossip and slanders of the Seer's disciples and began to believe what she had heard. When her young child fell ill she feared it was an evil eye from the Yehudi. Beile begged her husband to pray for the child's recovery. He replied, “You know to whom you must turn.” meaning God. But perhaps because she felt guilty about the slanders she overheard and, like her husband, had failed to rebuke, Beile decided to go to Pshysha, where the Holy Yehudi held his court. She begged him to forgive her sins against him and to pray for her son's recovery. The Holy Yehudi was struck dumb that the Seer's wife could think he would wish her or her child ill; and he sobbed for a few minuets. Finally he told her, “I will pray without ceasing.” Being generally naive, he neglected to tell her that he forgave her. When Beile returned home her son was dying.

What the Seer and his wife concluded from all this no one knows. But some weeks later, the Yehudi's son, who was almost 12, now fell ill. At first, it did not seem serious, but then it got worse. His mother Schoendel, cried hysterically for days. Once the told her husband, “This is their vengeance!” The Yehudi replied, “Don't go to pieces!” She gave all that she had to charity, but the boy only got worse. Then something extraordinary happened.

Rabbi Yissachar Baer come to visit. The Yehudi took him by the hand to the bed where Asher his son lay moaning. The Holy Yehudi said, “I am at the end of my strength. I can pray no more. Take him upon yourself and you will surely give him back to me healed.” With that he took his sobbing wife and left the room.

Rabbi Yissachar Baer was dismayed. He had never practiced healing; and he was sure he was not a holy man. But Rabbi Baer was a man of peace; and he knew that one of his teachers, the Maggid of Kosnitz, had on several occasions tried, with some success, to reduce the Seer's suspicions and tensions with the Yehudi. He thought Asher would be old enough to understand the nature of his illness.

“I am just an ordinary Rabbi; I am not a holy man like your father, or a great mystic like the Seer, or even a wise sage like the Maggid of Kosnitz. Every year I visit each of them for a few weeks, to learn and be inspired. Each of them is different, and their disciples are different. Their Torah is one Torah, but they teach it differently. Their Shabbat is on the same day, but they celebrate it in different ways. Each congregation says the Sh'ma but they sing it with different melodies. They do not even eat the same food. Some of the Seer's disciples like Rabbi Meir, who is a leader of those who oppose everything your father does, are narrow minded and resistant to change. Other disciples are fearful of competition, and resent those who have come to your father instead of their own Rabbi, the Seer. But I tell you that I learn from each one of them, and each of them speak the words of the living God. No one anywhere wishes you ill. A Jew, no matter how pious, learned or Kosher he is, who slanders another Jew, is a Jew hater and not a real Jew. ”

Asher harkened to the words of Rabbi Baer and he began to feel better. Neither of them ever spoke about what had happened that day in that room. Rabbi Baer suggested to the Yehudi that Asher should live for a few months with the Maggid of Kosnitz until he fully recovered; and he did. Rabbi Baer also talked to the Seer and the Seer instructed Rabbi Meir to say a prayer every day for the long life of the Yehudi. And Rabbi Baer, much to his surprise, found that the story of his miracle cure spread, and many people with wounded souls came to him. Thank God he was able to help many of them.

Every year when he visited the three great Rabbis, he always told the disciples of the Seer, the Maggid and the Holy Yehudi, that self-righteousness, gossip, and slander cause an illness of the soul that can lead to death.

From: FOR THE SAKE OF HEAVEN by Martin Buber pp. 205-210

Rabbi Maller's web site is: rabbimaller.com

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No amount of desperation that played itself in the form of our once everyday activities was enough to bring her back to the world we once knew together. A time when I was her and she were me. A love shared by no other. To have my child taken from me that day played over and over in my mind.

I made excuses for her inability to react as she once did to friends and family members. Too afraid to believe the inevitable truth that lay behind what I would have to accept eventually. I felt paranoid and fearful of the questions they asked, and asked each other when I was gone. I tried hard not to expose her and myself to their questions, and my questions about what had happened to my precious child. I made excuses to family or friends who wanted to visit, prepared with reasons why we couldn't get together in the joys of what had eventually been robbed from me. My child was gone, and I was desperate. I made excuses hoping, praying that one day she would return to me as she was before.

I became angry and detached from the world I once knew. I resented what had happened to me, and somehow blamed her for what was lacking in a world I had perfectly crafted and imagined. Our bond was broken and I knew it would never return. The agony stayed with me in breath and being. The loss became me, and bore me.

It was my husband's constant mental battering that something was very wrong with our child that woke me up from the fog that day. The evidence was a brutal awakening from a long anesthetized existence. I had to face what my life was realistically and practically, and the realization was transforming. That was when my real journey began.

I remember crying night and day for almost a week, releasing a pressure that almost left me deflated and lifeless. The pretense and aftershock was gone, and in its place the emptiness was replaced with hopeful inquisition. A need, and desire to do whatever I had to do to help my child recover from this world that had taken her. Our life's one true mission was to bring her back to us. I stopped mourning the child I had been expecting to have and embraced the child we did have. Both my husband and I were ready to do what we had to do to save her.

My story with God started that day as a stranger. I was never really exposed to him as I should have been as a child. No relationship established, no relationship missed. He was extinct in a world I had created for myself and my family. He only existed when there were weddings, and funerals, to pay respect in momentary madness, but never involved in the journey that had taken me this far in my life.

With the pain that unfolded I realized how selfish I had been, how ungrateful and expectant I had become. There was real desire emerging to fulfill my relationship with God, and be grateful for what I had been given. Not how robbed I had been that my child had been taken from me, but what I had taken for granted in the past and had lost.

We educated ourselves absorbing books by the dozen, conventional and holistic appointments, as many as our schedule would allow, until we came up with some hopeful resolve. We changed her diet, and dramatically maximized her therapy schedule to keep her engaged at every opportunity. She was pushed to the limit as much as our financial and mental capability would allow.

My husband left us for one year to work overseas for a contractor to make enough money to keep her in full time therapy. The sacrifice was immense, and all encompassing. The fear I lived with hoping my husband wouldn't be taken by explosives, to the fear my child would be 18 and never know her name took its toll on me at times.

This pain was restored early by glimpses of hope I saw in my child when she made great steps forward. and continued to soar into recovery. My child is four now and well on her way to starting regular kindergarten next year. The pain and suffering was worth everyday to be able to rejoice in what we have, and what we have found and realized.

I remember lying next to my child at night when she fell asleep, feeling my warm breath on her skin, being grateful for the smiles and love she had given me since we had met. Praying for forgiveness to God for taking her love and life for granted in the past, and praying, for a miracle every night for my child's body to be restored. I can say now that I believe in the power of prayer. I believe God has walked with us throughout our journey. Protected my husband and restored my child and our life. My relationship with him is one I live with through my family in thanks and gratitude.

This spiritual story was written by M Giyton.

The post Recovering from Autism – A Spiritual Story by M Giyton appeared first on Spiritual Growth Events.

Have the children keep quiet! he shouted.

His startled wife obeyed. Thereafter, whenever the priest came home, they all maintained silence during prayers. But he realized that God was no longer listening.

One night, during his prayers, he asked the Lord: What is going on? I have the necessary peace, and I cannot pray!

An angel replied: He hears words, but no longer hears the laughter. He notices the devotion, but can no longer see the joy.

The priest stood and shouted once again to his wife: Have the children play! They are part of prayer!

And his words were heard by God once again.

Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian author who has sold more than 100 million books, which include 14 short story collections and the novel “The Alchemist.”

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Some glanced her way as they passed the bench she was sitting on, but they never spared her a thought. No one noticed the unshed tears in her eyes as she sat there watching and feeling.

So much pain in the world, so much happiness and so much loneliness.

So many people doing so many things, so involved in their own moments. There just wasn't space for thoughts of others.

And as she watched, her mind drifted to another place, another time. A time when she was like them — wrapped up in her own life her own misery. Sometimes she wished she could return to those days, and yet…

Just then her attention was caught by a face she hadn't noticed in a long time. A face which reflected contentment, joy, peace and love. Wiping away the remnants of the tears, she stood up and with a final glance into the pond next to the bench, she headed toward the fallen child, helped him up, wiped his tears, returned his smile and offered to help the old man home with his shopping.

No, she didn't want to return to the old days. Those were the days when loneliness was unbearable. Now, although still lonely for human company, she had love in her heart and comfort was just a prayer away.

This story was written by Glenys Cunningham.

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