"The Gentle Art of Blessing"

How many people give out an automatic exclamation when someone sneezes: "Bless you!" But do they realize this response, rescued from the automatic, can become a powerful spiritual practice?

A gentleman named Pierre Pradervand has written a book entitled The Gentle Art of Blessing (Hillsboro, OR: Beyond Words & New York, NY: Atria Paperback, c 2009). In it, he defines "blessing" as follows: "To bless means to wish, unconditionally and from the deepest chamber of your heart, unrestricted good for others and events; it means to hallow, to hold in reverence, to behold with awe that which is always a gift from the Creator. . . . To bless is to invoke divine care upon, to speak or think gratefully for, to confer happiness upon, although we ourselves are never the bestower but simply the joyful witnesses of life's abundance."

Pradervand explains that this practice can and should be used at every moment -- to bless the day at its beginning, to bless the details of your life, to bless those with whom you interact as well as the strangers you pass on the street.

Blessing might be seen as a combination of gratitude, loving, and praiseful wonder. Pradervand notes that "Many of us have been told of the benefits of gratitude, but the art of blessing is something more: extending sincere, benevolent wishes from the bottom of our heart to another person."

The practice of blessing is also a way to develop awareness and to avoid the all-too-common habit of judging. And, Pradervand emphasizes, it is equally important to bless ourselves (often the targets of our own harshest judgments), thus acknowledging the truth that we are the beloved, treasured "children" of the ineffable, universal Love.

Pradervand spends a good bit of his book outlining the universal laws that the practice of blessing brings into play. As these laws are activated, so are the blessee and the blessor both blessed. These laws, such as the Golden Rule and the Law of Universal Harmony, are not limited to any one religious faith.

Blessing is not a mental practice so much as an attitude of the heart which enriches all and often changes circumstances -- as well as other people and ourselves -- for the better. The book is filled with examples and testimonies regarding the amazing power of blessing.

My own experience of beginning to practice the art of blessing is that I find chattering thoughts quieted and a feeling of warmth, joy and happiness welling up.

The Hindus have a Sanskrit blessing that has now become known in the West as well: "Namaste" -- "I acknowledge the divine in you."

Namaste!