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Prayer is a way of communicating and connecting
with God.
Importance of prayer for spiritual
progress
To experience constant communion with or spiritual
emotion towards God one needs to be at a very high spiritual
level, such as Saints. Seekers experience spiritual emotion only
intermittently. Therefore one needs to make constant prayers to
increase spiritual emotion and make rapid spiritual progress.
Some benefits of praying:
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One develops faith in God
and feels His support during difficult times. |
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It develops gratitude to
God, which is very important to help increase devotion and
spiritual emotion.
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God is in an observer
stance and only responds as per the communication with Him. By
praying, the subtle
sense organs of the divine principle one is praying to are
activated, bringing about a response from the divine
principle.
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It helps to develop
surrender and reduction in one's ego.
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One is able to realize
God's Blissful presence and control over everything.
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Below is a table of the importance of prayer
corresponding to the level of the seeker.
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Level of seeker |
Importance of chanting |
Importance of prayer |
| 40 |
10 |
30 |
| 50 |
20 |
20 |
| 60 |
More |
Less |
What should one pray for?
A seeker should not pray for worldly benefits
like success in relationships, career, good health, etc., but for
the ability to do spiritual
practice and for spiritual progress. For
example, one should pray for the ability to do chanting, meditation,
etc. with spiritual emotion, overcoming obstacles in spiritual
practice, efforts in spreading Spirituality to be effective,
etc.
When should one pray?
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One should pray as soon
as one wakes up and before retiring to bed. In this prayer one
can offer gratitude for being given yet another day to serve
Him, ask to get maximum chanting done from oneself for that
day, seek protection from negative energies that would attempt
to obstruct the spiritual practice, to remind one about
praying and feel gratitude for the energy or help received
because of the prayer. |
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At the beginning of and
during any activity so as to do it as spiritual
practice, for
example, to be able to chant and keep focus on God during the
activity. Refer to Issues 126 through 128, Practical Guidance
section for details on how to do an activity as spiritual
practice.
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One can then strive to
pray continually, say every 5 -10 minutes, praying to get
continuous chanting done, seeking protection, asking for
constantly reminding one to pray after 10 minutes or so and
feel gratitude.
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How should one pray?
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One should pray or talk to God/Guru
principle with the faith, reverence and intensity that He is
hearing one's prayers.
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Prayers are more fruitful when expressed from the heart with
sincerity and should not be mechanical. For example, if a child
calls out to his mother casually, she might not respond, but
when he calls fervently she will surely respond. Though
initially one will notice that most of one's prayers are
mechanical, as one progresses one will experience more spiritual
emotion and greater intensity in one's prayers.
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Praying in front of an image of the divine principle or deity or
one's Guru, with
the attitude that God is actually present, helps in praying
sincerely and developing spiritual emotion.
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One can change the prayer depending on the situation, instead of
just saying the same prayer that let my chanting be continuous
or let me grow spiritually, etc., The prayer need not be
elaborate or with some particular words, but whatever helps make
it a sincere, heartfelt communication with God. For instance,
suppose in the past few minutes, one's chanting was smooth and
full of spiritual emotion, then one can pay gratitude to The
Lord and pray for it to continue in the same way. Similarly, if
one is currently finding the urge to talk unnecessarily or is
thinking unnecessarily, one can pray about how one is getting
tempted and to help one to stay focused on chanting.
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One should pay gratitude to God/Guru for everything, especially
for being able to do spiritual practice.
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One should seek God's help in performing all activities as
worship to Him and in developing whatever divine quality (say,
timeliness or perfection) one can during that activity. This not
only helps reduce the influence of one's ego, mind and
intellect, but also brings divine energy or success in that
activity.
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Examples of prayer
In general, prayer could have components like
below:
"O Lord, let the doership for this
activity remain with you, let it be done as spiritual practice, let
it result in the sacrifice of my mind, intellect and ego, and let my
chanting* go on continuously during this activity."
The immense power of prayer is illustrated
here: A seeker, who has recently started a new job, was a part of a
major mistake at work one day. Everyone who came to know about it
told her to expect a lot of criticism from the supervisors the next
day even though the mistake was not totally her fault. Despite this
situation, the seeker continued to make effort to pray every few
minutes saying: 'O Lord, let my focus be only on praying to You
every few minutes and chanting continuously. Let me not worry about
these consequences, but please give the strength to face whatever
happens." With this, she did not have any reactions and could
chant smoothly. Further, she never heard any criticism from anyone
about it.
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