Beyond prayer

In the ashram we repeat God8217;s name and go about doing our work. We must transcend the stage of prayer also. Because utter dependence on...

In the ashram we repeat God8217;s name and go about doing our work. We must transcend the stage of prayer also. Because utter dependence on God does not admit of any prayer. We live and move in Him. Then why pray to Him? We are completely under His protection and we are aware of it.

A child has nothing to pray for when the mother looks after it. The mother knows what is good for the child8230; We need not pray. We are perfectly confident that He is doing everything for our good. In whatever way He makes us live, we must reconcile ourselves to it, taking it that God has done these things for our good only.

Good and bad are mental attitudes. In the Absolute, that is, in God, there is no evil. We reconcile ourselves to everything that happens in our life, taking them as given to us by God. He is all goodness and mercy. From Him evil cannot come. Evil is of man8217;s own making. Man takes certain situations as evil and suffers.

Certain other situations he considers as good and is happy. If we go beyond these dualities, then good and evil have no meaning for us. The same is the case with the so-called loss and gain, success and failure, praise and blame. These terms have no significance for us because we enjoy internal bliss, which is eternal.

Why do we care whether the world praises us or not? But the man who clings on to these worldly things wants honour and praise; when he gets them he is happy and when he does not, he is unhappy. His life is like a pendulum moving betwixt a smile and a tear. Suffering is necessary spiritual growth just as manure is to plants. Sufferings will later on be transmuted into joy.

Another devotee prayed in a wonderful way, 8216;8216;Oh God, you say that we should do spiritual discipline, that we should remember you by chanting your name for a number of years in order to get your darsan or vision. That means we must toil hard in order to get what we aspire for. You are then like a shopkeeper.

If we go to the shop we pay for obtaining things. When you give darsan only after my toiling like this, it does not mean you are conferring grace in me. You are simply paying, as it were, my wages. If you are really gracious you must reveal yourself to me without my doing anything. If you say I am not pure and so cannot see you, make me pure and grant me your vision. Then I will call it grace.8217;8217; This is the highest state of the devotee in which he knows that everything is done by God, and that to say he himself can do anything is utterly false. Our struggle must cease in total surrender to Him. Then only we have Him.

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Extracted from 8216;The Power of Prayer8217;, Central Chinmaya Mission Trust