Prayers and Topping the Bar

Lawyers swear the bar is the most difficult, if not the most torturous, exam on earth. The torture starts during the preparation until the actual exams. The Latin words that they have to memorize and the volumes of books they have to read is torture enough. Reading is important for everybody who values continuing education. “Reading,” Francis Bacon says, “maketh a man.” But reading volumes of books to the point that one deprives himself of required sleep, leisure, and other activities for mind-body-and-soul balance is torture indeed.

The torture continues during the exams staggered on four Sundays. After the exams, the examinees cannot just sit back and relax. Waiting for the results, which get released after five to six months, is part of the agony. I know somebody who secluded himself in his wife’s village while waiting for the bar results. He showed up in town only when the result of the bar came out and he was one of those who passed.

Under this torturous situation, the best weapon, as new bar topnotcher Noel Neil Malimban of the University of the Cordilleras proved, was prayer. Having reviewed all by himself in a one-room space, Malimban would have been likened to a prisoner in solitary confinement. But he was not alone in that single room. Besides his law books, he had company from an infinite resource, which he tapped through prayers.

Prayers and meditation have long been part of the lives of sages, spiritual teachers and practitioners of all various faiths. One spiritual teacher says prayers and meditation help cleanse the mind from all the confusion and illusion of this material world in the same way that water and soap can cleanse one’s physical body from dirt. So a prayerful and meditative person, the spiritual teacher says, can think clearly and can say what he means and means what he says. It thus follows that if one thinks clearly, one can act accordingly.

After using some brain wave devices on Buddhist monks, scientists recently have conceded that prayers and meditations have a positive impact on a person’s mental and physical well-being. Of course, the sages and spiritual teachers have long known this fact besides other phenomena, which scientists have not yet discovered through their gadgets.

In resorting to prayers, Malimban had actually tapped an infinite resource, which actually helped him through the torturous road toward becoming a bar topnotcher. Prayers and meditation must have helped cleanse the dust from Malimban’s mind so he could think clearly as he remembered clearly what his law professors at the University of the Cordillera had taught him.

It is thus not surprising that when he was taking the bar exams, Malimban felt it was lawyer Reynaldo Agranzamendez, UC acting president and law dean, who formulated the questions in the exams. All the tips from Agranzamendez and other law professors came into play when Malimban was reviewing for and taking the bar exams. Malimban clearly remembered the advice that he must be straight to the point and concise in his answers to the questions.

There was no doubt that Malimban studied hard and had an excellent discipline as he was also a working student. He definitely needed a lot of stamina and multi-vitamins on which, he said, he probably overdosed. But he also prayed hard. This must be his secret, and his topping the bar exams was a good testimony on the strength and power of prayers.