ESSENCE OF PRAYER

                     

                     

If you pray with the intention of doing good to someone, your prayer may bring about good both to him and to yourself. Some people pray for the spiritual benefit of those who have done them some wrong, thereby helping others spiritually. But all prayers with a motive fall short of the ideal prayer which is without motive. In the entire spiritual panorama of the universe nothing is more sublime than spontaneous prayer. It gushes out of the human heart, filled with appreciative joy. It is self-expression of the freed spirit without any motive. In its highest form, prayer leaves no room for the illusory duality of the lover and the Beloved. It is a return to one's own being.

For most persons, outer ceremonies and rituals prevalent in diverse religions constitute the established and even indispensable approach to God. However, they are neither essential nor necessary, though at times they have been allowed or given by masters by way of inevitable accommodation to human weakness. Its practice brings benefit when they are allowed or given by a master, but only during the period prescribed by him, and in the context in which they are intended to be given effect. They have no lasting value nor can they be made eternally binding. They never were, never are and will never be, essential or indispensable.

No master has been content with merely external discipline. Through their teachings as well as example, they have set forth prayer as the inner approach to God.

Among the lovers of God, many prayers are prevalent, arising from diverse cultural contexts. Some prayers invariably contain an element of asking something from God, either material or spiritual. In fact, God is so merciful that even without their asking He always gives more than they can receive. He knows our real needs more deeply than we do. Therefore, the element of asking from God is superfluous. It often mars the inner love and worship which a prayer tries to express.

What constitutes the essence of prayer? The ideal prayer to God is nothing more than spontaneous praise of His being. You praise Him, not in the spirit of bargain but in the spirit of self-forgetful appreciation of what He really is - because He is praiseworthy. Your praise is a spontaneous appreciative response to His true being, as infinite light, infinite power and infinite bliss. It is futile to attempt a standard prayer and hold it up as an ideal for all people of all times. The glory of the Almighty transcends all human understanding and defies all verbal descriptions. Eternally fresh and self-renewing in its unlimited amplitude, it never fades; nor is it ever confined within the limits of the hymns.

All hymns and prayers reach out towards the eternal Truth of Godhead only to merge those who utter them in silent and unending adoration. If by ideal prayer is meant a set formula, any search for it is a wild goose chase. All prayers ultimately initiate the soul into an ever deepening silence of sweet adoration; and all formulae are dissolved into the integral and direct appreciative perception of divine Truth. That which seeks to reach towards the immeasurable, itself becomes incapable of being measured by any set standards.

The ritualistic and repetitive expressions of prayer cannot do justice to the innermost essence of prayer, which is adoring love for the eternal Beloved. To attempt to standardise prayer is to mar its intrinsic beauty.