Hindu Prayers:
The Trail of Divine Un-foldment

       All religions believe in the power of prayer. God, however, is not only omnipotent and omniscient; he is also our most benevolent mother and father. Only he would know what is best for us at a given time. Accepting the will of God is indeed part of a good prayer. When we pray with utmost sincerity, there is always a change of our heart toward divinity and virtue. This is indeed the most secure benefit, which never fails to occur from a forthright and genuine prayer. Prayer brings a treasure of blissful joy. Says Doctor Swami, an esteemed saint of the Swaminarayan sect, “Prayer is both the exercise and rest for the soul. It is the essential food, too, and the cleansing shower. Prayer may take time to show the result, but no sincere and truthful prayer ever goes unheard.”150

       Prayer is the most important tool of any religious activity. We may perform many good and noble deeds, but these would not be considered spiritual until we add a touch of the Divine to these. A brilliantly clever person may do amazing things but could be, at the same time, a good or a bad person. A truly spiritual person, however, is always a noble being. Hindu seers of the yore created a very intimate connection with the Divine by prayers and meditation. This would become the passage of devotional communication and exposition between an individual and the celestial.

       Hindu seers envisaged that we need God’s grace for the emancipation of our soul. Good and noble deeds alone are not enough. With prayer and worship, in utmost sincerity and humility, and with total surrender at the lotus feet of the Lord, we may obtain his grace. According to Hindu philosophy, God does not intervene until a special request is made. Prayer renders purity. When we sincerely pray, we cannot, at the same time, think or do anything impure. To pray and simultaneously hate anyone is incompatible. Nor we may scheme to cheat when we are in the midst of a truthful prayer. It is said that God will answer the prayers of those who are pure in mind and body.
Said Pramukh Swami:
If someone has harmed or hurt you, don’t retort in the same manner. Instead, respond with calmness and with goodwill and prayers. Pray that the other person should see the divine light and understand properly. Pray for his welfare. The vibrations sent spiritually will always bear powerful results, both to the person who is thus praying and sending the good wishes, as well as to whom these are directed. This is the principle of religion and
spirituality in everyday life.151

       Prayer also makes us humble. When we kneel down before God, we at once dispense with our pride and arrogance. Ego and arrogance are closely associated. With prayers, we may be rid of both of them. Prayer is empowering. Time and again we come across the futility of confronting the odds in our lives. We simply become helpless spectators, even as tragedies flow past us. With prayer, we get connected to the infinite power of the Divine and use it for our great benefit. Prayer brings peace and a sense of security. With surrender to our Supreme Lord, we attain the serenity and quietness, even when tough life situations surround us. In some mystical way, God always helps a person who sincerely prays. This is borne by the experience of most great persons of the world. There simply are no boundaries or limits to the infinite treasures of the Divine.

       Medical practitioners, scientists, and politicians alike have repeatedly kneeled down and endorsed the high value of prayer. Sages regard prayer as a spiritual substitute for worry, our most potent enemy! In estranged relationships, prayer becomes our soothing repose. Prayer, however, is not just for mystical benefits; rather, it yields tangible results in most trying circumstances. Often, as we are not able to contain the evil of others, we might pray for them. Prayer is the magical link with God, in the opinion of Paramahansa Yogananda.

 In the Bhagvad Gita, four types of worshippers are described:
1. Those who pray out of distress, to mitigate their sufferings. This is indeed the commonest form. Said Kunti, the mother of the five Pandava brothers, to the Lord, “Grant me sorrows, so I can always remember and worship you!”
2. Those, who yearn for guidance in their quest of the Divine, pray.
3. Those who have discovered that nothing else but the love of God will grant them the everlasting joy. Mirabai and other devotional worshipers sang for the passion of God.
4. Those who have attained the spiritual wisdom and illumination, pray by deep meditations.

       Hindu prayers are often universal in nature. They are free from any sectarian bias and are devoted to the Divine above all the religions and faiths. They would therefore appeal to every seeker of truth, regardless of individual affiliation.
     The ancient sages discovered a close relationship between sound and thought. The spiritual aspirant would awaken holy thought by listening and reciting a sound symbol. Prayers were created with this concept. They endowed these devotional hymns with haunting musical tones to make them more powerful and efficacious.
     Hindu sages sought God for different reasons, in different ways, and in many different forms. They sang of the Lord’s praises in abundance and with passion. But the Rishi was constantly aware of the mergence of all manifestations in one Supreme Being, as is clearly stated in this hymn of the Rig Veda: “They call Him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, and Agni. The being is one, but sages call him variously.”152
     The universality of the Divine has been abundantly emphasized in ancient Hindu scriptures. While invoking each individual god as omnipotent and omniscient, Hindu sages only recognized the many attributes of the infinite Divine. They also worshipped God as the one who illumines everything, and so they worshipped him to illuminate our own understanding, as in the famous Gayatari Mantra. They worshipped the Lord not for their own self, nor for any sect or group. They worshipped wholeheartedly for the benefit and welfare of all beings.

        In Hinduism, there has been the unique phenomenon of presenting God as the immanent principle. He is not only the God of gods but is also the Self of all; he is the life seed of everything.153 As is well expressed in the Kena Upanishad: “He is the ear of ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of the speech, the cosmic power at the back of the vital energy.”
     Proceeding further in the spiritual path, the seer realizes the transcendental who is “beyond speech and thought” and “who is invisible, unrelated, unperceivable, indefinable, essentially of the nature of the Self, the Consciousness alone, peace, supreme bliss, and the One without the second” (Manukyoupanishad).154
     The path of the absolute and the un-manifested Divine is hard to follow, as has been stated by the Lord in the Bhagavad Gita. The worship of the God incarnate or God’s chosen messenger has been the practice in all religions. The worship of a guru, a personal being, who is more tangible and accessible, would be a further step in this direction, as Sri Shankaracharya wrote: “I offer my salutations to that beneficent being who is incarnate as the guru.” Hindu seers, however, takes the process of divinity yet farther—in his enlightened state he realizes his own self. The Hindu goal is to ultimately realize the Divine within one’s own self. With this self-realization, one would be free from the recurring cycle of birth and death, samsara. He would attain moksha, the state of ever-lasting peace and bliss. With prayers and meditations, an individual sets on this long journey of holy search. Spirituality is not so much a mystical phenomenon as it is simply a superior intellect and a higher wisdom. It is the wisdom of the Divine revealed through the human mind.

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