Prayer

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Norman Vincent Peale has highlighted a lot about prayer in his books on positive thinking. Hindu scriptures have prescribed numerous methods of prayer. ‘Puja’ which is the Indian synonym of ‘worship’ in English is based on methodical prayers, which is also at times referred as ‘idolatry’. But in Hinduism God has also been described as unmanifested implying without any forms unlike the ones that we find in the temples. Our ‘Sastras’- scriptures have hinted at many places about such practices where idolatry is not required.

So what does prayer mean? I understand when one begins from his bottom of heart with collective body and mind and communicates in such form to the almighty or the super soul in true sincerity it is called prayer. It is very often rewarding for all of us to participate in such communion with God.

I watched a Muslim beggar pray with sincerity and unique bliss on his face in my childhood. He carried a ‘lathi’, meaning a stick in his hand as a support for walk and very often came to our house for food and clothes. He sang songs of his own miseries, citing the reasons of those in wonderful lyrics while we sat in pensive silence. He sang while his tears ran on his haggard face and the only music was the lifting and mild dashing of stick on the ground. But his despondent features were overpowered by an unexplained grace when he prayed. It was some ethereal energy which flowed through him when he went for ‘Namaz’. His mien beaming with effulgence with his eyes closed and being self-surrendered to the super-soul, he was absorbed in communion with the master of universe. Miseries were no where on his face and those holes in his torn clothes exuded celestial charm. I would wait for him to turn up and insist on keeping a few pieces of breads with my parents for him and I kept my urge on hold to learn prayer from him till the last because I was a Hindu.

I read in fables that prayer could transform miseries into richness. Perhaps his example served me with the first instance. One day I was bent on asking him that why he prayed staying in the thousand-fold miseries.

“Khuda sab ki bhala kare- may He do well to all”- He said as he proceeded to our exit.

An excerpt from the collected essays of Swami Vivekananda reminds me a similar example that he narrated in his explanation.

The mighty sage had once written about the birth of pearl in the womb of a shell.

Shells come up to the surface from the depth of ocean’s water and stay lingering there for the first drop of water of the monsoon. As the rains bring the drops of water and as a drop falls into the shell, it shuts itself and then dives un to the water only to rest on the floor of earth, deep below the surface of water.

“There the shell experiments in deepest miseries and thus the pearl is born”-Swamiji explains in his inimitable style.

Humans living in the hardest miseries and circumstances, when communicate with the super soul there comes transformation and that Swami Vivekananda describes as birth of pearl.

Being a Hindu by religion I was compelled to approach a Christian for some help. But although he tried, nothing could materialize at the end. Sitting with our fingers crossed we decided to pray. Both held each other’s hands and sat immersed in prayer for the welfare of each other. As he said ‘Amen’, I stopped finishing the last sentence of Sanskrit spell .Despondency was still there but silence reigned over it. I rose and my Christian buddy hugged me while parting ways. It was after a few weeks when I succeeded in my enterprise, I saw him in his newly bought car. At the instant both learnt that our prayer for each other’s welfare bore fruit. As he prayed from the bottom of his heart for my failing initiatives, God granted it with compassion towards him in equal measure. His desire for owning an expensive car came true.

“Your palm and the lines on it show the good and bad that you are destined to enjoy”- A palmist had told me.

“But the bad and good both exhort a human being for a soul search”-I argued.

If anyone goes though the fundamentals of spirituality, he would of course find that every religion has reference to the “who am I?” enquiry.  Miseries are karmic diagrams of unexplored paths. With prayer when one goes through searching, the ultimate axiomatic truths spill out of it showing the ways for self –elevation.

My Guru narrated the wonderful tale of flute .The legendary Krishna in the epic of Mahabharata was very fond of a flute which he played with unthinkable competence and the voice of the flute charmed the entire universe, as it is described in the epic. But the Gopis, known as the lovers of Krishna were envious of the small instrument which held the passion of God incarnate Krishna. One day they stole it when God was asleep and decided to break it in to pieces and throw the pieces in the flowing water of the river ‘Yamuna’.

But one of the female lovers of Krishna was curious and she decided to ask the flute that how it could be so near and dear to God. The flute said –“I am hollow inside and open outside”.

It implied the make of the flute which is made of bamboo in India. It has to be hollow inside and it must carry the holes so that the voice (read pressure from the lips of the player) could penetrate it, enabling it  to produce beautiful tunes-mellifluous music. The listening Gopis repented when they heard it realizing the true divine value that the small musical instrument in the hand of the God held. They returned it as it was to Krishna.

Let me explain it with symbolic significance to our lives.

Just think of the human body. It has greater resemblance to a flute. The human body has hollowness so that God’s voice could be there and it has innumerable holes which bring the voice of the almighty. So we are just instruments of God which get filled with divine instructions from time to time.

Prayer just brings forth the divine message which transforms us to be loved ones’ of God.

Amen.

Srikanta Mohanty,

H.I.G-1/60,B.D.A. Colony,

Bhubaneswar,Pin-751002. India

Email;srikant_mh@rediffmail.com