Why should we Pray
Why should we at all have a relationship with God and pray to Him? After all God knows everything – our desires and needs! Why should we pray and ask what we want? This is a question in all of us, whether we are god believers or atheists.
God has been described by scriptures in various ways – as The Creator (The Parabrahma), The In-dweller (The Paramatma), The Omni-present (The Sarva Vyaapi), The Formless God (The Sat), The God in a Human Form (The Purushottama), etc. While these descriptions are common, we often forget one more main description of God that is helpful in our day to day life, that is, God – the Bhakta Paradeena or the God who is dependant on the Bhakta (the devotee who prays). Here we wish to narrate a story from the scriptures for clarity.
Once there was a great Bhakta during the time of Sri Krishna’s avatar. He was a renowned worshipper of Sri Krishna, and knew the powers and greatness of the Krishna avatar. Once a king approached him and questioned Krishna’s powers. He cut a cow into two and asked the devotee if Krishna would come and save the cow. The devotee in all devotion said, “just give 3 days time, my Krishna will save it”. The king employed his servants around the cow to see if Krishna saved it in 3 days. The devotee in earnest started praying to Krishna to save the cow.
One day went by and on the second day, the devotee, thinking that his prayer was not sufficient, was more ardent on his prayer but Krishna did not come. On the third day, the devotee thought that Krishna was testing him; so he did not sleep or eat and was all the time praising Krishna in all his bhajans and prayers and crying and weeping to Krishna to come and save the cow. At the end of the third day, Sri Krishna came and made alive the cow. It was a great miracle to be witnessed and the devotee became very happy. But he had a doubt. He asked Krishna, “Dear Great Krishna, You, who have done miracles after miracles since your birth, You, who have command over everything in this world, why did You take 3 days to come and save the cow? Why did you test me so much and made me cry? Why did you make me so anxious?”
Sri Krishna said, “My dear bhakta, all your descriptions about me as the great God, the creator of miracles, the commander of all that is – everything is true. But you have forgotten an important/great aspect of mine. You forgot that I am a Bhakta Paradeena (The God who is dependant on his devotee). I am totally dependant on your perception. It is you who said that I will come in 3 days. If you have had faith and said that I will come in 3 seconds, I would have just done that! Then all your anxiety would have gone!”
So that is it! God has given so many things to us without our prayers. But if we need anything extra, He is exactly dependant on our prayers. Our prayers are in turn dependant on the perception of the God we have within us; the beliefs that God can do this but not that; our doubts whether He would do for us or not; our doubts about us, whether we deserve or do not deserve; or whether God would do this within this period or not – and so on! In other words, While God’s powers are unlimited, we limit God’s powers by our own limited perception and God is exactly dependant on our perception about Him. In fact, WE create a God limited to OUR perception!
That is why Sri Bhagavan says, God will be exactly what you think He is. If you think God tests you, He will be that. If you think God will punish you, He will be that. If you think God is very friendly and forgiving and loving, He will be just that.
Hence it is up to us to create a friendly, loving or a punishing God!
(We will deal more about this later in the chapter –Belief System).
One of our devotees asked the following question to Sri Bhagavan.
What is the easiest way to get your grace and how would you like your Bhakthas to be? (Feb 2)
Answer by Sri Bhagavan: See, all that I want is, you have to just ask. When you ask you should not say simply – Bhagavan, Bhagavan…that is no use. How do you see Bhagavan - that is the question. Do you see him as a father or a brother or a friend or a son, whatever you want you have to put it in that framework and then there must be that actual feeling that you have towards your father and brother, know. The same feeling must be there. Thereafter it can either be a prayer or it can be an asking or a command, anything, that’s not so important.
But is there a bond? You might be very good people but if you don’t have a bond you don’t get it. So, bond is the secret, emotion should be there. When we say there is a bond, what we mean is there is emotion. Emotion is the telephone line between you and Bhagavan. If there is no emotion, the telephone line is cut. It doesn’t work well.
And try to talk to Bhagavan in pictures. The picture is important.
(Note: ‘In pictures’ means ‘visualisation’. We shall explain this later.)
