Not long ago it was considered impossible for a human being to run a mile in less than four minutes. The “four-minute mile” was a built-in physiological limitation, a kind of invisible wall that one could approach but never break through. And while everybody believed this, it was true. People resigned themselves to watching the record creep up by hundredths of a second, harder and harder to beat as the magic wall got closer.
And then somebody who didn’t believe in invisible walls – a young English physician, Roger Bannister – ran faster. It was humanly possible! Belief in a four-minute barrier collapsed. It took just six weeks for another runner to break Bannister’s record, and today, mothers and students go out on weekends and run at speeds that experts once decreed beyond human reach. Today some say the real limit is a three-minute mile. But most people are unwilling to set limits at all, and records are broken regularly.
Unquestioned beliefs are constantly shaping how we live. Some, like the superstition of a four-minute mile, don’t matter much in daily life. But others can be crippling when we impose them on ourselves. “I can’t do this,” we say. “That’s not human nature.” Or, more generally, “That’s not the way life is.” Or – perhaps most damaging of all – “Peace just isn’t possible in the real world.” The underlying text is always the same: “There is nothing to be done.” In other words, we still believe in magic walls.
Yet no one knows the extent of our inherent capacities. No one can set limits to what we can accomplish with the immense power, wisdom, imaginative action, and compassion hidden in us all.
A higher image of the human being
To convince ourselves of this, we need a personal example: a man or woman who has broken personal barriers to realize our full human potential. I can think of no one better than the “poor little man of Assisi,” St. Francis, who transformed himself from an ordinary human being like you and me into a beacon for all times – and, in the process, demolished every barrier one might set around our potential as human beings.
Francis Bernardone was born into a prosperous family in the last part of the twelfth century, an age as turbulent as our own. He was much like any bright, popular boy today. His main ambition was to be a singer with his own band so he could stand under some balcony and sing ballads in French to the girl above. That was the extent of his horizons. He had no direction, no noble impulses beyond the moment.
Then one day he walked into a little church called San Damiano – just as any of us might walk into church, without direction, without any higher call – and suddenly he heard the walls echo with the voice of God: “Francis, my church is falling into ruin. Repair my church.” It happened in the twinkling of an eye, in the space of an Ave Maria. The words went like arrows of light deep into his unconscious, demolishing the foundations of his superficial life – which actually had no foundation – and built such strong, unshakable foundations that Western civilization will never be the same. This cannot be said of even the great scientist or the great statesman, but it can be said of this poor little man of Assisi. His conquest still spreads; he still calls unto the depths in millions of hearts.
The soul-force of a saint
It has been said that a great book is the lifeblood of its author. I would say a great prayer is the soul-force of a saint. The few lines known as the Prayer of St. Francis give us the key to his transformation and a new vision of what a human being can become.
As you can see, this is a call to reverse tendencies we take for granted in human nature. When the Buddha says the spiritual life means going against the current of conditioning, he is putting forward the very same principles. St. Francis is giving us a total way of life. Each line points to a higher way of living – and as I comment on these precious verses, you can see for yourself how precisely modern civilization is heading in just the opposite direction.
Peace begins in the heart
In this prayer, Francis is not addressing a remote personality in another galaxy. He is referring to a presence deep within the heart. As we go through the words, it is important to remember that we are not appealing to someone else, but to an inner presence inseparable from our real Self. We are calling to the best in us, deep within. In the truest sense, we are calling to ourselves.
So Francis begins, “Lord, make me” – not rich, not famous, not powerful, but “an instrument of peace.” Peace here, in my presentation, means first the capacity to live at peace with others – other people, other races, other religions, other nations. That is the hallmark of the man or woman of God.
Then, second, it means peace with the environment. Nothing in the world belongs to us, neither the earth, nor the air, nor the forests, nor the rivers, nor the seas. Every human being is a trustee with the divine responsibility to protect the earth for our children and our children’s children.
Third, and most important, peace means being at peace with ourselves. This is the source from which peace in the world flows. If we do not have peace in our hearts, how can we ever find fulfillment? We may make billions, win the Nobel Prize, become ruler of a country, but unless we have peace in our minds and love in our hearts, it is not possible for any human being to feel complete – which means that we cannot help manipulating people and things around us to try to make up for what we lack within. This is the root of all discord, and that is why peace in the world begins with peace in the hearts of people like you and me.
Crib notes for learning to love
Line for line, St. Francis is giving us ways to learn how to achieve this lofty goal. “Learn” is the key word here. We can look on the St. Francis Prayer as crib notes for a comprehensive curriculum intended to teach this higher mode of living. The only way to be an instrument of peace, Francis is telling us, is by sowing love wherever we find hatred, beginning with ourselves. That means learning to forgive, and that in turn requires faith – in oneself, in others, in the power of goodness. Lack of faith in human nature brings despair, but faith brings hope – and anyone who brings hope into a dark world is welcomed as a source of light. Lifting the burden of despair like this is the only way the world can be transformed, because only an unburdened heart can have the strength and courage to love when circumstances seem hopeless.
Forgiveness heals
First, of course, we need to sow love where we find hatred in our own hearts. How else can we hope to spread love and peace of mind to others?
We are used to thinking of hatred as the absence of love, but spiritual psychology goes deeper. Hatred is what covers love. A large part of learning to love is unlearning the negative conditioning of hatred, anger, resentment, and ill will that hides the qualities that make us human – love, compassion, forgiveness, trust.
In other words, to be an instrument of peace, the first step is not to be an instrument of discord. If we can’t be peacemakers immediately, we can at least not add to the anger, hatred, and hostility around us.
And Francis goes to the heart of the matter in the very next line. Anyone can love those who return love, he implies. To love in the teeth of hatred requires learning to forgive – learning to overlook injuries, real and imagined, for the good of all.
St. Francis once said that anyone who doesn’t know how to forgive has lost the greatest source of joy in life. Today we are practically encouraged to do just the opposite: to be resentful, to be hostile, to retaliate and nurse our grievances and never forget past wrongs. Books, movies, newspapers, and magazines go on repeating messages whose impact is to make the human being incapable of forgiveness. Even if we say “Let’s shake hands and be quits,” the embers of resentment and revenge are burning deep inside, where they can lead to disease in mind and body as surely as a bacillus. Resentments eat away our vitality; hostility undermines our immune system.
“Resentment is human nature,” we may say. Yet this is no more a barrier than the four-minute mile. Nothing in nature requires us to be vengeful; that is the most important thing we can learn from St. Francis’s life. Even if this is the way we are now, we can change.
Transforming anger
Whenever you feel angry or revengeful and want to take it out on others, I would say, don’t act on the impulse or dwell on it. Go out for a fast walk repeating your mantram. St. Francis repeated “My God and my all” (in Latin, Deus meus et omnia), an example followed by Franciscans around the world today. Other mantrams I recommend are: Jesus, Jesus; Ave Maria; Barukh attah Adonai; Allahu akbar; Om mani padme hum; or Mahatma Gandhi’s mantram, Rama, Rama. Whichever mantram you have chosen, it will act like an eraser: as soon as thoughts of revenge appear in your mind, the mantram will erase them. Finally the day will come when all your thoughts of revenge will turn to thoughts of reconciliation. That is the magic of the mantram.
Long ago one of my students realized that he had a knack for making enemies. He asked me, “Will it help them if I pray for them?” I said, “I don’t know if it will help your enemies, but I know it will help you.” Everyone prays for friends, but you too will receive the benefit when you pray for those who dislike you. That is why Jesus says, “Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you.” It can seem impossible, but the mantram brings it within reach.
This is a very important point, because the sheer impossibility of these challenges can overwhelm us. We may doubt our capacity to face them, let alone to conquer them. So Francis says, “Where there is doubt, let me sow faith” – beginning, again, in one’s own heart.
The power of faith
I sometimes think our civilization is engaged in a conspiracy of doubt. The main effect of most books and movies seems to be to fill us with doubt: about the world, about other people and their motives, about ourselves.
Even in my academic days, it was considered a mark of a good scholar to be a pessimist. If you were optimistic about anything, there had to be something wrong with your scholarship. I’m not against scholarship; I received an excellent education from some of the best teachers I can imagine. But intellectual training is not much preparation for daily living. Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize for literature, used to call our educational system a kind of hall with holes through which we put our heads. The head gets educated; the rest of the person goes untouched. It is important to educate the head, but vital to educate the heart.
A robust optimism in the face of challenges is necessary even for good health. Years ago a penetrating researcher, Suzanne Kobasa, broke new ground by showing how helplessness and hopelessness are linked with physical illness. To overcome them, we need faith: not necessarily faith in the conventional religious sense, but faith in ourselves and others and the enduring power of goodness. Doubt is another invisible barrier; we need to have faith that it can be overcome.
Few today are born with this precious capacity, but all of us can cultivate it. I did not have much faith in my early days, and what little I had was lost when I went to college. That is where I lost my faith in faith also. So don’t blame yourself if you have no faith. You can reclaim your faith in others and in yourself by practicing it, never giving in to negativity, hopelessness, or despair. This kind of faith can not only move mountains; as Gandhi would say, it can change the face of the world.
“The movement of love is in light”
These precious qualities throw light on life. They help us see more clearly when choices seem confusing or unclear. As Paul says, human beings can see only “through a glass darkly.” We see only a tiny corner of life. What guides our steps is “what abides: these three, faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.”
A famous Catholic writer, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, explains this in words so precious that they are etched on my heart. Love, he says, “means pardoning the unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faith means believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all.”
These are the heights we can attain when we drive the St. Francis Prayer into the depths of consciousness through years of meditation. We will be able to forgive anybody and everybody, and in our forgiveness educate them. We will be able to love everybody and anybody, and in that love we will educate them. Unconditional love may act slowly, but it overcomes all obstacles. This is the only force for change that endures, because it brings a lasting change of heart.
So Francis concludes, “Where there is darkness, let me sow light.” One of India’s modern mystics, Swami Ramdas, says, “The movement of the mind” – of ordinary conditioned thinking – “is in darkness. The movement of love is in light.” That’s why I say not to go on thinking things like “this is what he said to me” and “what did I say to her” and “here’s what I am going to say to him if I ever see him alone.” When you have some serious quarrel or differences, the very best thing you can do is repeat the mantram. Don’t let the mind dwell on it. Don’t let the mind brood on it and blow it up into a big balloon until you can’t think about anything else. This is how it becomes worse.
People who get caught in this kind of negative thinking are sowing sadness, not only in their own life but all around them – at home, at work, on the bus, at the gym, everywhere. St. Francis is quietly bringing home to us the tremendous responsibility of being human. We cannot say, “I live alone in an attic off Fourth Street. What does it matter what I think? Francis would say, “Yes, but you go to the store, you go to the restaurant, you go to work or school; you affect everybody you meet.”
It is the responsibility of every one of us to sow gladness – those little acts of kindness that the world is slowly forgetting. When you show generosity, you are provoking generosity. When you show love, you are provoking love. We are inclined to use this word “provoke” as something negative: “She provokes me.” I say, “Very good. Let her provoke love.”
Love beyond limits
The Bhagavad Gita, India’s best-known scripture, describes the lowest stage of human evolution as living in darkness: selfishness, self-will, ignorance of the needs of others, preoccupation with one’s own private prepossessions and prejudices whatever the cost to others. Being angry, being greedy, being afraid is living in darkness. In these states of consciousness we are not able to see; that is why we lash out at those around us.
Yet human beings evolve. We don’t have to remain where we are, neither as individuals nor as a civilization, because it is by changing ourselves that we help civilization itself move forward. We don’t have to say, “I am only what my chromosomes say, what my conditioning is, what my parents and my school made me to be.” Instead of clinging to these limitations, we can emerge out of this darkness by drawing upon our deepest resources within. That is what the practice of the spiritual life means.
Through the practice of meditation and allied disciplines, we can slowly push ourselves from darkness into light. Nobody is going to push us from behind; we have to do the pushing ourselves. As we do, we begin to see more clearly, which brings a bit more wisdom into our daily lives. This is how peace spreads – a quiet but persuasive reminder that no physical limitation can ever set barriers around what the human being can become.
