Prayer is joy

Prayer is experiencing the presence of God. “Does God come first or prayer?” somebody asked. “Let me know God, then I’ll pray. To whom should I pray? Unless I know to whom I am praying, how can I pray?” No, no, no, that is not it. You pray first. Wherever you pray, there is God. You don’t have to go to churches or to temple or to a mosque someplace. Wherever you pray, there is God. Atheists say this, “Let me know God and then I’ll pray.” It’s like saying, “First I’ll learn to swim and then get into the water.” No. The whole mathematics here are very different. Pray comes first. You pray. Pray is being grateful for all that has been bestowed on you. You are being bestowed with eyes, ears, nose, the whole world—feel grateful for all that. Feel grateful for all that you have now. That is prayer.

Another question is, “Why should I pray?” That is not at all a question, “Why should one pray?” No. If one has prayed, then one knows how futile this question is. It’s like asking why should you live? Why should you want peace? Why should you want to be happy? Why do you want to give love and to be loved? Prayer is the flowering of your life. Prayer is evolution; the nature of an evolved human being is prayer. Prayer is a sign of evolution. If you’re not grateful, that is as good as being an animal. Even animals are grateful. Everything in creation is grateful. There is something basically wrong in you if you are not full of gratitude. If you don’t recognize the-presence of infinity around you, then you’re not normal, not in your true nature.

Nature has devised pain in your life in many ways and brings out some of the quality of prayer through it. When we find excuses and slip away—we are very good at it, at slipping away—we miss every opportunity for prayer and try to remain in a small shell.

To whom you should pray is not at all an important question. It doesn’t matter to whom you pray. Whether it is Rama, Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed, Allah, it doesn’t matter. Prayer depends on the one who prays. Pray depends on you and you alone. If you are there, that is enough. You are more than enough for a prayer to happen.

Prayerfulness is a very intimate feeling. It’s very personal. You can’t intimate prayer. You can’t duplicate a prayer. Prayer spontaneously happens. You can’t just pray something and keep on chanting it, singing it. That is not prayer. Prayer is very original. If it is not original, it’s not prayer.

Prayer is very personal and intimate. It is not the repetition of something. You don’t have to say one thousand times, one hundred times, “Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” No. Once you call from the depth of your heart, that is prayer. It’s not repetition. It is original. Even prayer can be made stale by repetition. Prayer is very original. Every devotee, every saint has sung in his own words. There were many songs before Mira, before Kabir, but they did not sing the same old songs. They made their own songs. They sang in their own way. They connected themselves very personally to God. There are no rules. All rules fall away in prayer.

When Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was asked to pray, he prayed in his own way. He broke all the rules in the temple. He said, “My Mother knows me, and I know what my Mother wants.” There are no rules in love. When you so love somebody, it’s not that you must sit on this side, you must love like this. Nobody goes to a school, to college, and reads books to learn to love. You don’t have to become a scholar to love. Love, devotion is your nature.

No one else can do your prayer. Your prayer is your own prayer. Your prayer is your own flowering. No other bud can bloom for you. Any other blossom that blooms, blooms for itself. Being thankful, being grateful is what prayer is. You have to do your own prayer, but you can be helped. Prayer is not possible through words. Certainly not. It’s not that God only understands Latin, Greek, or English, or Sanskrit, or Hindi. No. Prayer can never be done by words.

Words cannot reach that well where prayer happens. You can use words to bring about a feeling. It is in the depth of the feeling that prayer begins. So don’t worry about words or wording. Prayer is not going outside you to something away from you. Prayer is becoming aware of the presence, experiencing the presence in the depth of your feelings.

You can pray anytime. There is no fixed time that you should get up and pray. And it is not necessary to pray in some particular manner. I know one gentleman who would get up at three o’clock in the morning when everybody was asleep at home and start chanting and reading, louder and louder and louder. He started reciting and signing at three o’clock in the morning. He disturbed the whole house. His wife and children used to get very upset. You don’t have to pray that way, getting up early in the morning or sitting late at night. At any moment you can pray. Prayer is not a mechanical thing. It should rise from within you. Prayer can rise with maturity. If you are immature, any effort you put into it, any amount of practice you do, you can’t pray. Prayer should never be practiced, cannot be practiced at all. Prayer is not a practice; it’s a spontaneous happening which comes when your life matures. The more maturity you have in your life, the more prayerful it becomes

Often people say behind every successful man is a woman. But I say behind every success, there is the Divine saying “I am behind you”.And the Divine dawns in you when you pray and cry for it. You don’t need any special qualifications or abilities to pray.

Whether you are a wise person or not, whether you are rich or poor, you can pray.Prayer is a vital tool to improve your life. When you feel an obstacle is too much to handle, a deep prayer can work miracles. What you can do, you do. What you cannot do, you pray for it! Whatever you do, know that the higher power has the final say and you can tap that power through your prayers.

Prayer doesn’t mean just sitting and chanting some words. It’s about being in that serene, calm and meditative state. That is why, in the Vedic tradition, before prayer comes dhyana (meditation) and there is dhyana after prayer. When the mind is focused, the prayer becomes far more powerful.

When you pray, there should be total involvement. If the mind is preoccupied elsewhere then that is no prayer at all. To whom you pray is not important. Whereas religion puts words to the prayer, and adds symbols and rituals to it, the prayer itself transcends them. It happens at the subtle level of feelings and the feelings transcend words and religion. The act of praying itself has the power to bring about transformation.

Be sincere in your prayers. Do not try to outsmart the Divine. Usually you give the time that is leftover; when you have nothing else to do you go to the Divine. This is not quality time. Give prime time to the Divine and you will definitely be rewarded.

Don’t be in a hurry to get what you seek from the Divine. Your hurry to get something throws you off balance and makes you small. In today’s fast-paced world, people often pray out of fear and greed. Usually when you love something, you want to possess it and you pray for it.

True prayer, however, is just the opposite of wanting to possess. It’s about honouring and offering everything to the Divine. Honouring brings devotion and it leads to surrender. Devotion brings a healing touch to life. Devotion and faith is the central core of prayer. A true prayer can’t happen without devotion and faith.

Having faith is to realise that God’s protection is there for you. Devotion is an inner flowering. Unless you are lit in devotion to the Divine, your life will remain restless. In devotion, longing will arise in you. And when there is longing, true prayer happens by itself.

Prayer is not a serious thing. You don’t need to be sad to pray. Prayer is joy. Prayer is a game, it’s play. If you’ve once tasted the joy, the ecstasy of prayer, you can never forget it. There is no experience that equals the ecstasy of prayer. So a devotee takes every opportunity to pray, every opportunity to dance, every opportunity for God to dawn. That is evolution, no?