I’m in love with this book called “Way of the Piligrim”. I have read it recently and then realized that I’ve probably read it too soon and so went back to reading it again. This book has become my, read at 3 am book, on days where I wake up suddenly in the middle of the night. Earlier, I would go and check my phone or switch on TV, but now, I’m enjoying reading through this book, slowly one page at a time. There is some magic in reading this book slowly. The book warns you to avoid, “Spiritual avarice” and to stop thinking far too ahead, so its probably a timely suggestion.
The initial theme that caught my attention in the book is called, “Prayer of the heart”. The piligrim wonders (much like me right now) on what the prayer of the heart is and is taught on how to achieve it in the first chapter. A lot of us find waiting boring and our mind wanders when there is nothing to do. We seek stimulation and attention every single minute and we instinctively reach out to our phone to get that stimulation. But, these stimulations are like a shot of caffeine that don’t guarantee a long term calmness within us. But, we are not arrived to a point, where we can start meditating or enjoying the moment. This is where prayer comes in!
The piligrim is in a similar situation, except that it was 1850’s and the piligrim was finding the church services boring and dreary. He is worried about the future as his entire life was contained in a small knapsack and a piece of bread. The priest teaches him about prayer of the heart and how to get there. Initially, the piligrim starts by saying a prayer without any goals and finds it hard. Then, the priest instructs him to say it loud three thousand times a day. He also gives him a rosary to count them. This is important. Our mind cannot be expected to be tamed without repetion and we need a mechanical aid to help us the mind to be in line. So, saying the prayer out loud and counting the rosary beads help the piligrim to achieve the goal. Once the repetition happened for a fortnight, the priest increased the number of times to say the prayer out loud to 6000 and eventually to twelve thousand! Along with saying the prayer out loud, the piligrim also started doing the prayer mentally and then eventually he was able to say it with the heart.
I enjoyed reading about the piligrim. I’m also slowly starting to bring the practice of chanting into my prayer, particularly at times of boredom and idleness so that I’m not always looking for the phone or something else to do.
