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Need For Spirituality
Message to Seekers
Practical Guidance
Clarification
of Doubts
Children's Corner
Activities Worldwide
Religious Festivals
Implied Meanings
Spiritual Experiences
Science of Spirituality
Experiment of the Subtle Dimension
Saints' Quotes
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(Continued from Issue 126,
Practical Guidance)
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The importance of saying a prayer before an
activity to perform it as one's spiritual practice was explained in
the last Issue. However, one also needs to review if one is behaving
according to the prayer.
Importance of reviewing if one is behaving according to the
prayer
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Prayer would not help much
if just done mechanically or like a ritual or force of habit.
To make it truly effective, one should check every few minutes
if one is behaving according to the prayer. |
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Further, it is very
difficult to accept from others that one is not behaving
accordingly. It is easier to accept one's incorrect behavior
if one finds it himself. For this reason too, one should check
frequently whether one is behaving according to the prayer one
has said. |
Examples of self-review
If one prays before carrying out the activity of
making coffee for someone, but while making coffee, one thinks,
"Why can't this person make the coffee himself, why should I
have to do everything?" Immediately, one should notice that one
has made a prayer, but is not behaving accordingly. Similarly, some
of the other examples where one's behavior is contrary to the prayer
or intention of doing the activity as spiritual practice are:
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Making the coffee, but not
handing it to the person properly. |
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If the other person does
not like the coffee one made, getting a reaction that one was
not appreciated. |
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Realizing after handing
the coffee that it could have been made better and tasted
before handing it to the person. |
Checking and making efforts repeatedly to abide by the prayer
As is evident from the above examples, when one
makes a prayer, starts an activity and checks oneself after a few
minutes, it may very well happen that one is not acting according to
the prayer. At that point, one should pray again, adding: "O
Lord, I have prayed to you a few minutes back, and I have noticed
that I am not behaving accordingly." And again one should check
oneself after a few minutes. One should continue checking and
praying thus for as many times as it takes to make an activity one's
spiritual practice.
The above prayer can also help in overcoming the
obstacle of doership,
which is a major obstacle in one's spiritual practice. How prayer
helps one overcome doership will be explained in the next Issue.
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(To be continued)
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