Maggie Oman - Prayers for Healing: 365 Blessings, Poems, & Meditations from Around the World (Meditations for Healing, for Readers of Earth Prayers or Praying Through It)

First Published in 1999 by Conari Press

an imprint of Red/Wheel Weiser, LLC

with offices at:

500 Third Street, Suite 230

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

1997 by Maggie Oman

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. Reviewers may quote brief passages. Acknowledgments of permission to reprint previously published materials are on page 281, which constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

Cover Photograph: Courtesy of Photonica.

Serpent Gourd by Masaaki Kazama

Cover and Interior Design: Suzanne Albertson

Interior Illustrations: Roger Montoya

ISBN:978-1-57324-522-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Prayers for healing: 365 blessings, poems, and meditations from around the world / edited by Maggie Oman: foreword by Larry Dossey: introduction by The Dalai Lama.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 1-57324-522-4 (pb)

ISBN 1-57324-089-3 (hc)

1. Spiritual healingPrayer-books and devotionsEnglish.

I. Oman, Maggie, 1958

BL65.M4P65 1997

291.433dc21 97-19158

CIP

Printed in the United States of America

RRD 10 9 8 7

www.redwheelweiser.com

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This book is dedicated with love

to my mother,

Mary Jane Burruss Oman,

and the memory of my father,

Frederick Paul Oman

THE ETERNAL QUEST OF HUMANKIND HAS BEEN to reach out to something greater and wiser than our limited selfwhether conceived as God, Goddess, Allah, Brahman, the Absolute. Today this impulse is deeply felt, and is perhaps more urgent than ever before.

As we enter a new millennium, most people realize that we are going to require more than intellectual knowledge and technical expertise to meet the great challenges that lie ahead. That is where prayer comes in.

Prayer helps us contact sources of inspiration and wisdom that transcend the rational, analytical side of the mind. Prayer provides a sense of hope and meaningthe certainty that we are part of a pattern that is purposeful and intelligent. Without this awareness, life is not just unsatisfying, it can be unendurable. That is one reason the former minister of culture of France, the late Andre Malraux, said that the twenty-first century will be spiritual or it will not be at all.

Prayers for Healing can help us deepen the spiritual dimension in our lives. It can help us connect with the Absolute, with the Earth that sustains us, and with each other.

What could be more important?

Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Prayer is Good Medicine and Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and The Practice of Medicine

WHEN PEOPLE ARE OVERWHELMED BY ILLNESS, we must give them physical relief, but it is equally important to encourage the spirit through a constant show of love and compassion. It is shameful how often we fail to see that what people desperately require is human affection. Deprived of human warmth and a sense of value, other forms of treatment prove less effective. Real care of the sick does not begin with costly procedures, but with the simple gift of affection and love.

In the practice of healing, a kind heart is as valuable as medical training, because it is the source of happiness for both oneself and others. Not only do other people respond to kindness even when medicine is ineffective, but cultivating a kind heart is a cause of our own good health. Similarly, inner peace can be found in prayer and meditation, but it is also profoundly important that we bring that inner peace to bear in practical ways in the generous service of others.

There is a connection here with the practice of nonviolence. Nonviolence is something more positive, more meaningful than the mere absence of violence. It means to respect the rights of others, to be concerned about their well-being, based on a sense of compassion. Today, there is a growing global awareness of what this implies, for the application of nonviolence is not restricted merely to other human beings. It also has to do with ecology, the environment and our relations with all the other living beings with whom we share the planet. Since human beings are basically gentle by nature, I feel that we should not only maintain gentle, peaceful relations with our fellow human beings, but that it is also very important to extend the same kind of attitude towards our environment and the creatures who naturally live in harmony with it.

This book contains a collection of prayers for healing from different traditions. I believe it is essential that we extend our understanding of each other's spiritual practices and prayers. This is not necessarily in order that we can adopt them ourselves, but because to do so increases our opportunities for mutual respect. Sometimes, too, we encounter something in another tradition that helps us better appreciate something in our own. Consequently, I hope that people of all faiths as well as those who do not believe in a religion will find inspiration and understanding here that in some way contributes to their own inner peace. And I pray that through that inner peace they too will become better human beings and help create a happier, more peaceful world.

May all who are sick and ill

Quickly be freed from their illness,

And may every disease in the world

Never occur again.

And as long as space endures,

As long as there are beings to be found,

May I continue likewise to remain

To soothe the sufferings of those who live.

The Dalai Lama

THE TIME SPENT WORKING ON Prayers for Healing has been a deeply healing and transformative period for me personally, and whether the book that you now hold is a cause of that, or the result of that, I do not know. What I do know is that it is impossible to read the words, in some cases centuries old, of fellow human beings entreating, praising, and questioning the Divine entity of their understanding without being movedand even profoundly changed.

I believe one reason for that, perhaps the reason for that, is because we are our most authentic, essential selves when communicating with a deity whose existence we can know, but not prove; for when we pray, truly and even desperately reach out to our God, we are stripped to our souls. When sincerely attempting to make a connection with Spirit, we in effect transcend our own humanity and become spiritsome would say, remind ourselves of our true identity as spiritacknowledging as we are when we pray that there is another, unseen realm of significance, and that it is the arena of ultimate meaning.

That said, there is a raw beauty in the myriad, and very human, modes of expressing prayersand it has been my desire to include a full range of voices, from the elegance of Sir Thomas More's plea for the forgiveness of his enemies to the directness of Marian Wright Edelman's dissection of pretense, from the simplicity of Basho's reflection on changing perceptions to the rousing rhythm of Martin Luther King's call for a collective vision of equality. Their voices are the reflections of our own struggles and dreams; their prayers are our prayers.