PRAYER
It's Nature and Technique
 
 

Need for Prayer

    WE cannot win God either by flattery or by vain repetitions, nor does He stand to gain or lose anything whether we offer prayers or not. Compassionate as He is, His Grace is always at work in each and all alike for we cannot live without It. We can, however, attract that Grace to our advantage by becoming a fit receptacle for It. Humility and faith purify the mind and make it a fit instrument for God's Grace. These two aids help in inverting the lotus of the mind which at present is attuned with the senses. Unless we are able to turn its direction upward, God's Grace cannot flow directly into it. Prayers, humble and sincere, help in establishing a harmony between man's mind and God's Grace. He needs no forensic arguments and legal acumen in defense of our deeds and needs. All that is required is a pure and loving heart attuned to His Grace and the latter is automatically attracted to it.

God is all Love, and we cannot ask Him to be more loving. He is Omniscient, and we cannot by loud and strong prayers make Him any wiser. Perfection cannot be made more perfect by our protestations and prayers. We must learn to "stand and wait" as the classic poet Milton puts it, and His Grace shall of its own be attracted and flood our very being.
 

. . . God doth not need
Either man's work or His own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best; His state
Is kingly, thousands at His bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve, who only stand and wait.
                                                                            JOHN MILTON


God is an unchangeable permanence and eternally the same:

He was when there was nothing;
He was before all ages began;
He existeth now, 0 Nanak,
And shall exist forevermore.57
                                           GURU NANAK

Eternity is ever in love with the products of time.
                                                                                                       W.B. YEATS

The way to God's Grace lies not in striving and crying. It is enough for man to wait silently as a receptacle for Divine breath which bloweth where it listeth. It is merely by waiting and trusting that one arrives at the Ultimate Truth, which cannot be apprehended at all except as it is focused upon the soul of man. Here lies the advantage of prayer which molds a correct attitude for approach to the Divine Will.
 
Wheresoever I turn my face, Thou art there,
Why should I pray to anyone else,
  when I see Thou art there to listen to my prayer, O Lord.  58
                                                                                                                             GURU ARJAN


Man's only duty is to be ever grateful to God for His innumerable gifts and blessings. On the contrary, we become so infatuated by them that we not only lose Him but lose our own self also in the plenitude of His bounties and more often than not are carried off our feet by the whirlwind of desires.
 

We get attached to the gifts, forgetting the bountiful Lord.
For we have forgotten that we have to die some day. 59
                                                                                                             GURU ARJAN



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