Power of Prayer - Message of the Day - June 26

Power of Prayer ¨       It is true people have faith in God. It is equally true that people do not have faith in God  in the proper sense of the word. ¨       What is more true is people have confidence in themselves, in their families and in the society. ¨       Most prayers are wish fulfilment that is sanctioned by one of the above powers. ¨       God is true and He exists in all the planes. ¨       Man does not often reach God or do his prayers ever reach God. ¨       In extreme moments of danger, a deep anguish raises a voice which does reach God. ¨       Popular religions we can safely say are irreligious. ¨       As the body cures itself when the doctors give up, and the vital solves problems when all known social supports prove infructuous, Man has not risen to his Mind for it to show its prowess. It happens when a genius gives up a long-standing problem. It rises as a revelation. ¨       The gods of each plane respond to man when he overreaches a plane. ¨       To illustrate each of these observations with an example will make it clear. ¨       The innumerable examples in ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ will fit into all of the above categories. ¨       Piety is in inverse proportion to prosperity is a general observation. ¨       To separate the power of God, in fact gods, from the power of one’s own personality and further see how one acts through another is a fruitful scrutiny. ¨       To know where ONE is with respect to piety and faith in God as his own life reveals to him will make for clarity, at least to the believers. ¨       Knowledge is the capacity to know and understand. When one has it, he becomes a genius. ¨       What we get from the school is education, the knowledge another has gained, just as a user gets a product another has discovered and designed. ¨       In the ascent of consciousness, man unconsciously accomplishes and equips his posterity with them. ¨       As in education or scientific discovery, so in Spirituality. ¨       God and Spirituality are for those who have knocked at the door of the Absolute and found entry. ¨       To all the rest of us, the Spirit is unknown. We worship the gods another person has discovered. ¨       Coming back to the analogies of education and products, we have dozens or hundreds of versions of them, even outside the schools or the fresh products from the shop. ¨       Education comes to us through the post, from the libraries, journals, printed materials, conferences, newspapers, gossip, public meetings and finally our own foolish thinking of them. ¨       The product has other versions of imitations, used ones, assembled ones, broken products repaired, improvised, etc. ¨       When a man was operated upon they found it was an advanced hopeless case. His daughter prayed to Mother. He was cured of cancer and survived. The ignorant patient believed that as the operation was completed, he was cured. ¨       Antonio’s ship returning in Merchant of Venice is a Life Response, not the work of God. It was a response to the goodness of Antonio. ¨       Suppose we have the knowledge to separate the issues where the powers of the body, vital, and mind respond to relieve our problems, we shall discover that God has no place in our lives and our prayers are the finest expressions of superstition. ¨       The original or natural powers of the body, vital, and mind are enormous and our organised personality stifles them. Our prayers are from the organised personality. ¨       Religion is the superstition of the ignorant masses about the Reality. At its best, it shades off into Spirituality. ¨       Only the saints of the land have seen God. They are not inclined to pray often. They rarely resort to it. ¨       Self-awareness is a virtue. It is a practically significant virtue in the field of spirituality. Spiritual seekers do not have any illusions in this regard. The problem is only for the uninitiated laity. ¨       In the literature of the earlier centuries, we see God figures so often as HE was a member of our life. What we know now as an action of gravity, chemistry, medicine,  mathematics, etc. they attributed to God, ignorant of all of them. ¨       In other words, God is what we do not know at present. ¨       Now, in this century, we do NOT know of life and its forces in an intelligible way. But life is full of such events. We do not always attribute them to God. We say it is luck or refuse to label it God. That is the measure of our rationality. ¨       Gods, as they are known, are subtle beings having enormous powers ranging from restoring a dead person to life and getting a lost object. ¨       At their height, they are overmental Gods--Shiva, Vishnu, Lakshmi, Indira, Ganesh, etc. To reach them there are austerities—Nonbu, Viratham, Dhavam, etc. When they are pleased they grant our prayers. ¨       Behind every collective activity of long established social activities--marriage, agriculture, games, festivals, cooking, stealing, wishing--there is a being which when reached will be able to act miraculously. ¨       The ship’s crew, the fishermen, mountaineers and all those who live a life of constant danger or insecurity know these powers and have well developed or articulated procedures to commission them into personal use. ¨       The posterity of the West is the blessing their own developed individuality has conferred on them. ¨       We know we do not pray when the work goes on smoothly. ¨       Our special interest here is to know the extent of our faith in Mother. ¨       As Mother is all around us and rushes into action the moment action is initiated, it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. ¨       At times of national, crisis we get 25 versions of an event like September 11, 2001. What we ultimately believe is the news report. There is no way of knowing it first hand. ¨       Not only news of war in another country, we know that at times of family crisis, we get not 25 but 200 versions of one event that took place an hour ago in our absence. How can anyone know the Truth? ¨       We certainly do not realise that that is the same truth about what we consciously plan and do as our consciousness is unconscious. ¨       A fool often ventures to think about what his own brothers are up to with him. The more he thinks of it, the more bewildering a confusion it is. ¨       Gandhiji espoused non-violence for 30 or 40 years and discovered that non-violence was a myth. ¨       Except the discoveries of genius, an examination of every sacred faith of the past is now discovered to be a faith of ignorance. ¨       Is there NO way of one knowing Mother? Yes. There is. ¨       The only way of knowing Her is to become a Rishi as Vasista or Viswamitra. There is no short cut to it. ¨       Sri Aurobindo offers a short cut and describes it as the longest route. He discloses his divine secret to discover the Secret for which He came on earth. ¨       He calls it Sincerity, Receptivity, Opening in yogic language. In human parlance, it is to be TRUE, utterly true. - An article by Thiru. Karmayogi Avarkal  (Source : http://www.motherservice.org/Essays/Power%20of%20Prayer.htm) Thanks, AuroMere Meditation Center (Sri Mother & Sri Aurobindo Center) (ஸ்ரீ அன்னை அரவிந்தர் தியான மையம்) Pallikaranai, Chennai. TN, India.