By Pradeep A. Shah, Chartered Accountant
Mayur Nayak in two excellent articles taught us that ‘Prayer Makes One Complete’. I would like to share a few thoughts on the subject of Praying.
What is a prayer ?
Let us understand what a ‘prayer’ really is and what it is not. Prayer is conversation with God. It is when we open our heart and talk. It is not raising a charter of demands or submitting a list of wishes to God. In a prayer one does not go to God with a begging bowl. Prayer is essentially an expression of our gratitude to God Almighty.
When does one pray ?
In my younger days, I came across this couplet which has left a lasting impression on my mind :
How true ! Only when we face difficulties in our lives we look up to God and remember Him. Never when we are happy.
Personally I have remembered Him in my happy days, and that has really rewarded me with ‘mental peace’.
Kahlil Gibran says,
“You pray in your distress and your need,
would that there might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.”
The right time to pray then is now, whether you be happy or unhappy.
When to start praying ?
A question may arise as to what is the age when one starts praying. Is it only meant for old and aged people ?
Adi Shankaracharya laments in ‘Bhaj Govindam’ that,
“In the boyhood one is attached to play; in youth to sense objects, in old age one is obsessed with anxiety. At no age one is attached to the Supreme.”
Hence I believe : the right time to pray is now, whether one be happy or unhappy, young or old. Whatever be our age we must pray. Tomorrow might be too late.
How should one pray ?
Our prayer must be with faith, trust, and confidence in God that He will look after us. He will do what is best for us. There is a bhajan, a favourite of Mahatma Gandhi, which very lucidly express this :
We must give over the reins of our lives in the hands of God, and know that He will do what is best for us. We must pray with full faith in Him. We must understand what faith means.
In words of St. Augustine
“Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for that faith is to see what you believe.”
As Wayne Dyer puts it “You will see it when you believe it.”
Where does one pray ?
And where does one pray to God ? Where does one find Him ? We confine our prayers to temples and mosques, churches and gurudwaras, as if God stays only there ! Gurudev Tagore answers it beautifully as under :
“Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut ? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee !
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path maker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust.”
The lines of the song from Yatrik come to my mind :
So let us look for Him within and find Him in our hearts. He is very much there within all of us.
Let us then start praying right now in the right manner and at the right place. We must always continue to pray and thereby attain eternal peace.
