Prayer

                                                                                                            April 2, 1993

   The devout have infinite faith in prayer and resort to it often. The atheist has a good laugh at the superstitious attitude of the faithful. It is true that we have witnessed hundreds of prayers being granted. It is equally true that thousands of acts come to fruition without a thought of prayer in the mind for the  believers as well as non-believers.

   Are there gods in some world who hear and grant our prayers? How then do innumerable acts of similar nature get completed without the resort to prayer?  It is true gods do hear our prayers and sometimes grant them. It is also true that the great majority of works are completed by themselves.

   Man exists in several parts, viz. mind, vital (nerves), body, and soul.

Together they constitute his being. A work requires mental thought, nervous energy, body's work and the soul's sanction to get completed.

Our upbringing gives us a certain integrality of these parts which is our effectivity or capacity. All that we do from such a plane of our life does come out successfully. There are items of work that slightly fall out of this qualification, rather this integrality is missing. These works fail or defy completion. By a serious or sustained effort we make it a success. Some defy even such efforts. Then man resorts to prayer, addressing it to Kula deiva or Ishta deiva. At this moment what happens is that though this prayer is addressed to a deity, that effort brings about the missing integrality and then the prayer is 'granted'. Actually it is from his own inner energies better organised by prayer.

   The deities do respond to prayer and find it convenient to act through this personality of integrated emotions. A deity whom the individual worships can sanction through this channel a work greater than his personality can handle. Each deity grants prayers according to their abilities. A man by devout worship can install his deity in the centre of his integrated emotions. That makes him more effective.

   A groundnut farmer found his pumpset and borewell damaged beyond repair in the middle of the hot season, two weeks before harvest. He came to a devout pious man, his well-wisher, and spoke out his woes at length as a way of unburdening his sorrows. The farmer lit up on hearing that his crop could still be saved. Without hesitation the farmer switched over to hope from despair and agreed to pray as advised. The pious man sent the farmer to the samadhi of a famous yogi. The farmer was a transformed being from that moment, prayed at the samadhi and returned home in peace. That night 6 inches of rain fell as if to answer the thirsty call of the wilting crops in the farmer's field. Never before had the farmer had an answer to his prayer in this fashion. Being a farmer whose entire life is tied to this crop, his whole being rose to the surface and in the atmosphere of the samadhi gained the effectivity.

   Such emotions preside over your world and acts as if they could command the outer circumstances, including the weather. There is nothing in one's world -- world of experiences -- that cannot be so commanded by this centre of integrated emotions, especially when a god is installed there.