December 2013
By Punya Srivastava
The power of blessings cannot be computed; but there can be little doubt that it is the blessings of God and our elders that keep us steady on our path. Punya Srivastava explores what a blessing is, and how we can earn it
Whenever I hear someone say ‘Bless you’, I am always reminded of a particular friend of mine. I had met her at my uncle’s foster care agency in the UK, while interning there as part of my field work. She worked there as an admin officer and we hit it off from the very first day. She sprinkled every second sentence with ‘Bless ya’. It intrigued me that someone could actually be so thoughtful as to keep blessing whoever she happened to meet. And the beauty was that her words didn’t appear shallow despite their frequency. Those words were a part of her personality, rather than her vocabulary, and without my realising it, they became a habit with me too. So much so that I started signing off my personal mails with ‘May all lives be blessed’ for that word had become a favourite with me. It made me feel good.
What is a blessing ?
“Blessings are the most beautiful words/thoughts, with great inherent power because blessings originate in selfless unconditional love, which carries the highest vibration,” says writer and facilitator Chitra Jha. “I believe in the power of blessing because I believe in the power of thoughts/words. Every thought that we think and every word that we speak has power to create,” she adds.
The Japanese energy scholar, Masaru Emoto’s experiments with water bear out Chitra’s words. He photographed the molecular structure of a water crystal frozen from severely polluted water. The crystal was a formless, vague shape. He then blessed the same water and again took a microscopic photograph of the refrozen crystal which showed a beautiful snowflake formation. This proves the impact of spoken blessings, which consists of sound and thought energy, backed by unconditional love.
“Blessings work because of the two most powerful energies of the universe – thought and sound,” says Dr. Seema Anand, an energy healer based in Delhi. “We all are energy beings living in a world made of energy. Hence, when we speak words of benevolence to someone with unconditional love in our hearts, that person is bound to get positively affected by them,” she says.
Chitra adds, “While blessing others, we connect with the deep divine love within us, and wish for something well from that space. However, the recipient of that blessing has his/her own issues to work with. Our words are very powerful, but to be empowered by them remains an individual choice.”
She continues, “The energy behind words empowers them. So, the higher the energy imbued in the words, higher their impact. People with expanded energy fields instil more power in their words/blessings. However, just because someone is chronologically old, doesn’t necessarily mean that their energy field is expanded, and their words have more power.”
Quite truly, all the great sages, saints, yogis and spiritual masters have an expanded energy field and their blessings work in the most miraculous ways. Even when they are gone from this planet, their energy diffuses to the entire world, and manifests itself before their devotees. Sai Baba of Shirdi is one such celebrated saint whose blessings have the power to heal the lives of people. Sandhya Jain, an accountancy student from Jaipur, is an ardent Sai devotee who has felt the power of his benign blessings. She recalls how she used to pass a Sai temple on her way to the exam centre only to find it closed every time she walked by. “I was taking my company secretary exams and just before the second exam, I fell ill. My preparation for the upcoming exam was not satisfactory. On the day of the exam, I passed by the temple only to see a man dressed just like Baba tending to a calf. When the results came out, to my utter surprise, I had passed even my second exam. And I knew that Baba had come to bless me, and give me the confidence to do my best,” she shares.
Dr. Anand also points out that bending makes us more receptive to blessings, which explains why Indian culture advocates touching the feet of elders and sages. “This helps open up the aura of the person, and makes him/her an ideal receptor of blessings. That is why the inner sanctum, or garbh griha, in most of the temples are constructed with doors at much lower height, so that people bend their heads while entering, and enable themselves to receive the divine blessings,” she adds.
How to garner blessings
Chitra Jha rightly points out that even though blessings may be coming our way, we may not receive them unless we make ourselves eligible for them. One of the surest ways of becoming receptive to blessings is to awaken to the millions of blessings that come to us from the Almighty, unasked and unsought. The blooming flowers in spring, the golden-hued leaves of the fall, the multitude of rioting colours in a rainbow, the exuberance of a bright sunny day, the calm of a snow-capped mountain, the use of our faculties, the health bestowed upon us, the family we are born into, the roof over our heads, food on our table. Once we recognise how deeply we are already blessed, gratitude fills us, and this gratitude will attract more blessings our way.
Kshama Singh, an HR manager, believes that the blessings of her parents have been instrumental in her success. Despite being a master degree holder, she started her professional life in a foreign country selling newspapers in a general store. It only took her seven to eight years to reach the position of an HR head in the county department of the NHS. “Whatever I have achieved today is because of my parents’ blessings, who expired decades back. Whenever in a dilemma, I seek their help and feel my spirit lift; I can feel their blessings tangibly. I am always thankful for the things I have got in life, and acknowledge the blessings bestowed upon me by my parents as the biggest gift of my life,” she says.
Another way to attract blessings is to clean up our act. To heal our conditioning, to free ourselves of negative baggage, and to enhance our positivity. To think, speak and do good. The higher our vibrations, the more blessings we attract. Since like attracts like, it is also advisable to copiously bless all who come your way. Bless your family, friends and colleagues. Pray for the benefit of the strangers you pass on the road, or in a bus. Bless abundantly, and it will be returned to you in the same measure.
Thirdly, abide by spiritual principles. For instance in The Secret, we are told to practice a three-pronged procedure. One is to state clearly what you want. The second is to believe that you are going to get it. And the third is to receive it. This means to experience the joy that you would have experienced had you actually got it.
Finally, pray. Our fervent prayers are our plea applications which are posted out to the universe. The universe responds with blessings, depending upon the sincerity of our prayers, and our karma.
Manifestations of blessings
Anupam Srivastava, a follower of Raj Yoga meditation, believes in the principle of ‘energy flows where attention goes’. He says, “I was an average 25-year-old in the early ‘80s. I had got a job with some struggle while some of my fellow batchmates had already gone to the UK on a work permit. They were coercing me to go over, but I neither had the ambition nor the resources to do that. But friends as well as family members started wishing for me to get a job in the UK. And within a year from applying for the visiting visa, I had my work permit in hand for the same country. This, I believe, is the biggest instance of the power of collective prayers and blessings in my life.”
Ankita Singh, an instructional designer in a Gurgaon MNC, experienced the miracle of blessings three years back when her brother met with a terrible accident that required a brain surgery, after which he was on a ventilator in the ICU. “The doctors did not say that he would live or give us any hope of that. My parents and I are avid believers of Sahaj Yog. The founder of Sahaj Yog, HH Mataji Sri Nirmala Deviji, was in Delhi at that time. So when even after six days there was no improvement in my brother’s condition, we decided to take blessings from Mataji. I got a kalava that Mataji had worn on her wrist, and that kalava was tied on my brother’s wrist. Within half an hour of tying the kalava, my brother opened his eyes. The doctors could not believe the response that my brother started showing. Apart from this, our families, friends, colleagues and all others who knew about my brother’s condition prayed for him and blessed him. After staying in the ICU for a month, we brought him home. After a year and a half of care, he completely recovered and is now back at work. We have started believing in the power of blessings and prayers even more, the biggest proof being his opening his eyes just after an hour of getting Mataji’s blessings,” she says.
Bhumika Thakkar, an entrepreneur from Pune, shares how blessings helped her father completely recover from a major accident. His right femur was broken into 54 countable pieces; two of his ribs were fractured, and his lungs were punctured. “I remember doctors telling us that at 65, it would be extremely difficult for my father to recover; and it would take two years for him to stand up and walk normally. Exactly 11 months later, my father drove to the nearest temple, fit and fine, comfortably walking without any support and help.” She attributes the recovery to his firm faith in God and the grace of God. She also gratefully recalls the number of strangers who donated blood for her father, the physiotherapist’s efforts despite being paid little or nothing, and her doctor, Manish Shah, who determinedly pulled her father back from death. “All these are blessings!” she said. She adds, “My maid servant back in Bangalore would light a lamp every Saturday in the temple for my father, for she felt he’d done a lot for her kids when she worked for us in Bangalore. I am sure her prayers influenced his healing. And she did not even know about the accident. She had dreamt about something going wrong to our family.”
Bhumika recalls another incident when God’s blessing manifested itself. “After my father’s accident in 2006, we had exhausted our savings. I began tutoring three neighbouring kids, and my mother took on catering assignments to take care of the finances. Once, towards the month-end, my mother needed some essential provision to complete an order. She handed me her last hundred rupee note marked with the number 786. Considered an auspicious number, she had kept the note with her for the last 12 years, and it was a sad day for us when she parted with it. But within two hours of my spending the money, we witnessed a miracle. The father of the kids that I tutored came to pay the fees, and we were shocked to find that same marked currency note! He had gone to the same store to get change. That same note bearing the number 786 brought 1,300 rupees more along with it and that too coming from a Muslim family. We considered it a blessing and set it aside that moment. And that was the last time we ever saw such a day when we were left with no money. The note is still treasured,” she shares.
The blessing of a dying elder can also be a powerful benediction. My mother often reminisces how the blessings of my dying paternal grandfather, my Baba, has held her through the ups and downs of her life. I was only eight when he died, but I still recall my mother tending to him before and after coming back from work. He would have tears rolling down his eyes while she supported him, and fed him with her own hands. “You’ll always stay blessed, beta, for you know service. You’ll always find the strength to face whatever life has to throw at you,” my mother recalls him saying. And true to his words, my mother stood like the Rock of Gibraltar in the most trying times of our lives, when we were beset with financial problems. Miraculously, she always found monetary support from sources incomprehensible at the time of need, without having to fret too much about it.
Parental blessings can indeed create miracles, for they truly spring from unconditional love. Homemaker Julie Kealy from New Zealand shares on her blog how her seven-year-old boy, Samuel, had developed a miserable countenance, drooping shoulders, and downward curling lips. It was around this time that she and her husband came across the audiotapes by one Bill Ligon, called, How to Impart Blessings and the Redemptive Power of the Blessing. “Through these materials, the Lord opened our understanding of the power of the spoken word, either as a blessing or a curse. I asked God to bless Samuel with a radiant countenance, joy in his heart, and a beautiful smile that ministered to the lives of others. As I was speaking, his little face lit up, his chest puffed out, and he just kept smiling! I spoke that same blessing to him once more that week. Today, he keeps smiling and has a radiant joy about him!” she writes in her testimony.
So, let us all revel in the blessings of the Supreme Being; let us bless lives around us and seek blessings to enrich our lives; and let us pray together that ‘all lives may be blessed!’
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