Two Vegetarian Prayers of Thanksgiving (one is Gnostic from Nag Hammadi; the other is from Jainism)
Prayer of Thanksgiving in the Nag Hammadi Library (Gnostic Gospels) and Corpus Hermeticum
This the prayer that they spoke:
“We give thanks to You!
Every soul and heart is lifted up to You,
undisturbed name, honored with the name ‘God’
and praised with the name ‘Father’,
for to everyone and everything (comes) the fatherly kindness
and affection and love,
and any teaching there may be that is sweet and plain,
giving us mind, speech, (and) knowledge:
mind, so that we may understand You,
speech, so that we may expound You,
knowledge, so that we may know You.
We rejoice, having been illuminated by Your knowledge.
We rejoice because You have shown us Yourself.
We rejoice because while we are in (the) body,
You have made us divine through Your knowledge.
“The thanksgiving of the one who attains to You is one thing:
that we know You.
We have known You, Light of mind.
Life of life, we have known You.
Womb of every creature, we have known You.
Womb pregnant with the nature of the Father,
we have known You.
Eternal permanence of the begetting Father,
thus have we worshiped Your goodness.
“There is one petition that we ask:
we would be preserved in knowledge.
And there is one protection that we desire:
that we not stumble in this kind of life.”
“When they had said these things in the prayer, they embraced each
other and they went to eat their holy food, which has no blood in it.” *
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/prat.html
* “Vegetarian food” — footnote from the Marvin Meyer translation of this in, The Gnostic Scriptures.
This passage is also found in the Epilogue of Asclepius, in “HERMETICA,” translated by Sir Walter Scott: “Having prayed thus, let us betake ourselves to a meal unpolluted by flesh [animalia] of living things.”
The G.R.S. Mead translation of the same verse: “With this desire we now betake us to our pure and fleshless meal.”
“With such hopes we turn to a pure meal that includes no living thing.” (Asclepius, translated in “Hermetica”, Brian Copenhaver, Cambridge University Press)
Thanksgiving Prayer (from Jainism)
Start the meal with the seven contemplations, or with whatever traditional grace or prayer you prefer to use to express our gratitude.
1. This food is the gift of the whole universe: the earth, the sky, numerous living beings and much hard, loving work.
2. May we eat with mindfulness and gratitude so as to be worthy to receive it.
3. May we recognize and transform our unwholesome mental formations, especially our greed, and learn to eat with moderation.
4. May we keep our compassion alive by eating in such a way that we reduce the suffering of living beings, preserve our planet, and reverse the process of global warming.
5. May we ask for forgiveness from all living beings that we may have harmed, intentionally and unintentionally. May peace and compassion grow in ourselves and extend to all around us.
6. May we pray that all the people everywhere in the world will avoid inflicting harm on animals and fellow human beings and practice nonviolence and compassion.
7. We accept this food so that we may nurture our sisterhood and brotherhood, strengthen our community, and nourish our ideal of serving all living beings. (Contemporary Vegan Jain Prayer)
