Image by jenny185 from Pixabay
Today I am going to share with you a story which shows the power of right thinking, e.g., blessing.
When he was in his early twenties, my friend Mark decided to undertake a trip around the planet. At one moment, he ended up in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand. Each morning at 3 am one of the monks had to ring a very large gong on a nearby hill.
The Bell Tolls from Thee
Very soon after his arrival, the abbot of the monastery told my friend: “Mark, as of tomorrow, you will go and ring the bell.” At first Mark was very upset at having to get up at 2:15am to go and ring the gong and pestered all the way up the hill.
Then, he realized that he had the choice of his thoughts, and rather than making himself miserable, he could do it with joy. So, the next day, he got up singing, walked up the hill joyfully, and rang the gong sending peace and blessings to all the neighboring villages.
Such is the amazing power of right thinking. So, as you go through your days, ask yourself: “Am I having ‘gong thoughts’ just now?”
The Impact of Our Thoughts and Blessings
It is so important to understand – especially for one who practices blessing – the impact of our thoughts, blessings, meditations and prayers. They can (and will) change the world.
The following blessing is from the book "365 Blessings to Heal Myself and the World":
May we be blessed by the understanding that our every deeply felt, meaningful blessing is like a bird on wing, carrying its message of love far and wide, yea, to the end of the world.
May we really grasp that an ocean is made up of hundreds of billions of drops, just as the present and future of humanity is made up of the addition of billions of thoughts and intentions.
May we realize that every single minute we are, albeit minutely, impacting the level of consciousness of the whole planet, that every thought of love and light, every heartfelt blessing, is having an impact some place, helping meet a need, allay a fear, bring inspiration, awaken in someone, somewhere, that vision which will meet their need – just as every negative thought or feeling can delay our progress as a race to the wider horizons of grace awaiting us all.
May we understand that we are meshed with millions of silent spiritual seekers and carrying the world on our blessings and prayers.
May we trust in the impact of our blessings to heal worldwide, be it the immigrant family down my street or the native tribe in the Amazon fighting for its basic rights; the civil rights activist being tortured in the Middle East, or the desperate mother abandoned by her husband in a Third World shanty town and struggling for her young children’s survival.
May we humbly realize that a sincere blessing of ours can help a desperate mothert find the assistance that will save her sick child or uplift the prisoner who has been for 35 years in solitary confinement contemplating suicide – and that it will meet some need, somewhere, for such is the law of love.
We bless ourselves in our understanding that we are world healers, however unaware we have been of that fact until now.
May we truly feel deep gratitude for this powerful realization and joyfully buckle down to the task of incarnating it every day, in every way we can, in any place we are, in each mental space we inhabit.
And may we know that, beyond the needed healing brought about by our incessant blessings on the human plane, there is a realm of light and a space of Consciousness which cannot be invaded by any error, where no healing is even needed because all is always well.
©2024 by Pierre Pradervand. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission from the author's blog.
Book by this Author:
The Gentle Art of Spiritual Discernment
The Gentle Art of Spiritual Discernment: A Guide to Discovering Your Personal Path
by Pierre Pradervand.
For more info and/or to order this book, For more info and/or to order this book, click here. Also available as an Audiobook and as a Kindle edition.
About The Author
Pierre Pradervand is the author of The Gentle Art of Blessing. His recent book The Gentle Art of Spiritual Discernment is a Golden Award winner in the 2024 Nautilus Book Awards (Better Books for a Better World).
Pierre has worked, travelled and lived in over 40 countries on five continents, and has been leading workshops and teaching the art of blessing for many years, with remarkable responses and transformational results. For over 20 years Pierre has been practicing blessing and collecting testimonies of blessing as a tool for healing the heart, mind, body and soul.
Visit him at GentleArtOfBlessing.org and PierrePradervand.com