IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER

The word prayer or prārthanā (in Sanskrit) is derived from two words ‘pra’ and ‘artha’ meaning pleading fervently. In other words, it is asking God for something with intense yearning.

 

Prayer includes respect, love, pleading and faith. Through a prayer a devotee expresses his helplessness and endows the doership of the task to God. Giving the doership to God means that we acknowledge that God is helping us and getting the task done. Prayer is an important tool of spiritual practice in the generic spiritual path of Devotion.

The very act of prayer implies that the person who is praying considers the power to whom one is praying to as superior to oneself. Hence by praying a person expresses his helplessness and surrenders to the higher power and pleads for help. This is a blow to the individual's ego as praying implies that one is looking for help from a higher mind and intellect than one's own. Thus by praying frequently we transcend our limited mind and intellect and access the higher Universal Mind and Intellect. Over a period of time this contributes to the dissolution of our mind and intellect. Thus, frequent and sincere prayers for spiritual growth help in the dissolution of mind, intellect and ego.

BENEFITS OF PRAYER

Improves spiritual practice: Prayer impacts our spiritual practice at three levels, action, thought and attitude: 

Enhances the potency of chanting the Name of God: A seeker chants the Name of God with the aim of realising God. Only if accompanied by intense motivation for God realisation and spiritual emotion will the Name repeated (chanted) be truly effective. One Saint would be so engrossed in chanting the Name of God that He would become oblivious to the world. One rarely finds someone who can chant the Name of God with such intense spiritual emotion. However, repeated prayers about being graced with quality chanting, along with chanting the Name of God, helps in generation of spiritual emotion and makes our chanting reach God.

Divine help in spiritual practice: When a seeker sincerely prays to God to get a particular action/thought/attitude pertaining to his spiritual practice, done through him (the seeker), a seemingly impossible task is easily accomplished by the Guru’s grace.

Receiving forgiveness for mistakes: Having committed a mistake, if one makes a prayer and surrenders unto God or the Guru, then God or Guru forgives one for the mistake. However the prayer and surrender have to be commensurate in intensity with the mistake committed.

Reducing the ego: While praying we plead before God; it is therefore the place where pride is abandoned and we humbly admit our need/human frailty as well as our dependence upon God. It therefore helps to reduce the ego faster. 

Protection from ghosts: Prayer is a powerful tool that helps protect one from ghosts (demons, devils, negative energies, etc.) and creates an armour around oneself.

Increase in faith: When a prayer gets answered, faith in God or the Guru increases. Faith is the only currency on our spiritual journey

Action: All actions that are preceded by prayer for spiritual benefit are performed with spiritual emotion; hence fewer errors are committed. Thus by praying, various actions in one’s spiritual practice  occur as per the way God  would like them to happen.

  

Thought: So long as the mind is active, thoughts will continue. They pose an obstacle to the dissolution of the mind. Useless thoughts also cause wastage of energy. Prayer is an extremely useful tool to prevent this waste. Prayer reduces worry and enhances contemplation.

Attitude: A prayer done with spiritual emotion initiates the process of contemplation within a seeker, and this assists him in becoming introverted.