8. ON “WHAT CAN WE DO BUT PRAY”

8.1 For that reason it is more important then ever to fulfil our own individual karma, our mission in life. By, even though I use big words, committing our lives as true karma yogi’s. Which means, like so many already do, to act unselfishly-mercifully and wisely (9). Which brings us, not as we do so for own benefit but implicitly, to freedom, to enlightenment. Or, in more christian words: this, our lives dedicated to that, will sanctify us. Implicitly, without knowing it is the case. But, as said before, it can be, either for our circumstances, or because of our more contemplative nature, that to give concrete aid to our fellow beings is not our way. Nor campaigning for more awareness, for fund raising, etc. In those situations, and they do happen in great numbers, we could strive, now more explicitly, than implicitly, to live as devoted as possible. Maybe even more intensely than arjuna did, as shown in the bhagavad gita mentioned before. This, since we lack the possibility of begging krishna, or, if you prefer that: life, to reduce his manifestations to his exclusively human, friendly form. As arjuna was granted. Or, in biblical terms, we cannot hide our face or cover our eyes as moses could when becoming aware of god’s frightening appearance in the burning bush.

8.2. Although I am speaking now of an explicit striving, an emphasised striving, yet I do not mean a striving aimed at achieving one’s enlightenment, freedom, for one's own sake. No, the striving for own enlightenment, the wanting to grow in devotion and loving care that I refer to, is related to compassion-minded enlarging of our hearts. To be compared with the way, since long ago, bodhisattva’s go. Bodhisattva’s, devoted imaged-ones as avalokithesvara and tara, devoted ones as so many real human beings are, who give delay to their definite withdrawal from cyclic existence until, by their help, all other living beings also have achieved their liberation... For less we too should not go... This way we can help with enduring the pain of the world. This will motivate us to endure our witnessing-pain as well as our own pain. Dedicating these pains to the victims of the pain of the world. In doing so helping them mentally, virtually, to endure their pain.

8.3. This way we are also capable, instead of only judging, of looking also with compassion at the present criminals, as fellow men. As our fellow men we have to try to understand them and love them. In order to heal them. If possible and if not arrogant. Not only because love asks it but also because, if we do not, crude as it may sound, we will not really be legitimized to offer concrete help to - and to pray for - all those who in person have part in the pain of the world. If we do not, we ourselves as well are not legitimated to ask grace, to ask mercy for ourselves. For our own pains as well as for our selfishness. Although the miracle of grace, of mercy - as an antidote by which processes of karma, without patiently enduring pain and suffering, are shortened and sometimes even completely fulfilled – does not depend on that. The miracle of grace is far much bigger, much more generous, then our begging assumes.

8.4. It is from this kind of striving for a worldwide compassionate heart, we will be able to encounter the other side of life, the frightening cosmic form in which the transcendence, life, appears by means of the pain of the world. Then we can manage to look at our part in the underlying causes thereof. It is from this kind of a more ample, more courageous heart we will feel more and more capable to endure our witnessing-pain, and our own pain, and to dedicate it to the traumatised, the direct aid workers and their supporters. It is from there that we, without feeling hypocrites, may permit ourselves to pray for them. Hypocrite, as generally the traumatised and their helpers, by their suffering, by their great courage, are praying for us. Gaining the possibility for our mercy. Only when realizing this, the greatness of their gifts, only when grateful therefore, it is not obligatory, or hypocrite, to say: “what can we do but pray?” Because praying, next to all endeavours we spoke of before, that is what we have to do. If we cannot give immediate help by ourselves, we can pray. In fact: it is as simple as that. The prayer “lord have mercy” seems to me the most suitable prayer. The attachment to this essay, in fact the worldprayer website as a whole, is dedicated to that prayer as well as to praying in a more general sense.

8.5. Then too we don’t have to feel guilt or shame when enjoying the so endlessly many beautiful appearances of god in our world. Then we don’t have to be afraid any longer that we still would not accept that our world, our apparent lives, is full of contradictions. We don’t have to be afraid any longer we will still get stuck in childhood fantasies of a merely rosy world. Then we may, in wonder, admire the myriads of forms of beauty, love, tenderness, and invincible vitality by which the world, life, shows itself. Even when these miracles occur in the midst of horrible events. When those miracles touch our hearts, there will no longer be feeling of guilt or shame. Then we are able to accept them as signs of hope.

8.6. Then we are legitimated to pay tribute to our ancestors, our fellow brothers and sisters out of the past, as well as to the nowadays ones who did co-operate as far as the positive sides of large-scale karma are concerned. As manifested in science, in culture, in art, we did inherit from them. Then we no longer have to call our compassion superficial. Nor do we have to disqualify our prayers, as I did to myself at the outset of this essay. Compassion and prayer, and where possible giving a little concrete help, at least in our immediate environment, constitute just the one side where we would like to grow. Full of admiration, enjoying all those signs of hope, the other side. Both sides together expressing the spontaneous appearances, which constitute the heritage of our human birth, the heritage of our eternal soul, our unslayable atman.