PRAYER
(March 1985)

Every religion has prescribed certain rituals to its followers and prayer is one of them. There are many points on which religions differ from each other; but there are no two opinions about prayer. Every religion expects its followers to pray to God as often as possible. They may do it even every moment if it is possible for them. The divinity of a religious person is measured by the common people from the period for which he prays to God every day. From the view of the common man, the prayer has so close a connection with divinity.

If we see the history of human race, we will feel that the prayer must have been born along with the human race itself. If we look at the life of the primitive man, we will see that he was entirely depending on nature for his livelihood and maintenance. He was awe-stricken to see the atrocities of nature. The wild fires in the jungles, destroying miles and miles of vegetation, the surging rivers, spreading their water and flooding the entire area round about him, and often times even destroying his crops, the lightening, appearing in the sky with deafening thunder and killing the trees on which it would fall, were some of the horrifying experiences of the primitive man. In that fear-stricken condition the primitive man must have started praying to the forces of nature not to engulf him in difficulties. He must have started praying to the God of rain (Indra or Varuna of the Vedic period) to give rain when there was drought and to stop it when there were floods. Similarly he must have prayed to fire (Agni), Sun (Surya) and others for some favours.

In the Vedic period, the primitive man changed into a learned person and he composed the hymns in praise of the Gods and Goddesses. These hymns are nothing else but the prayers of the primitive man in changed form. Here we find that the God of rain was prayed for giving good rain, for growing the crops and the fodder and grass for their cattle. Some hymns request the God to destroy their enemies and to allow them to enjoy their life. The sacrifice was nothing else but offering to the Gods various things and pleasing them so that they would shower their blessings on the mankind. The fire (Agni) was supposed to be carrier of the things offered to Gods and the Gods were thus appeased through the medium of fire.

After a more close study of the Vedic hymns we find that though they were in the form of prayers for winning certain favours from the Gods, still all the prayers certain favours from the Gods, still all the prayers were not done singly. There were prayers done by individuals and by groups. A priest who was a fire-worshipper, maintaining fire in his house would worship fire singly at this house and offer prayers, but in a sacrifice many priests like ‘hota’ ‘pota’ etc, were offering the ‘ahuties’ to the fire and a sacrifice was therefore a collective prayer or a prayer done by a group. From the wording of some of the hymns, it becomes quite clear that they were certainly meant for reciting together by a group. For example one such hymn is “sahiyan vaktu sahane bhuvanbhukata sahavirya karavahe”.

“Let us be together, Let us eat together and let us do needs of valour together”. What does this wording show ? Does it not show that it was a prayerto be recited collectyively ? These prayers also show the very advance way of thinking of the persons (Rishis) composing the hymns and also of the society as such. “Tamaso maa jyotigarmaya ! musouyma amrutha gayam”. Let me from darkness to light, Lead me from death to immortality” such prayers certainly show the towering thoughts of the leaders of the society, that existed in the Vedic period. We much access the overall level of the Vedic Society from such prayers, which were very common therein.

For establishing unity among the followers of the religion, the Muslims and the Christians have made the ritual of the prayer a concern of the group. Though every follower of these religions can do the prayer at home on other days, they have to come together for a group prayer once a week. The Muslims do it on Friday while the Christians do it on Sundays. Of course the Muslims have not allowed their ladies to come to the Masjid, but the Christians have been more liberal and their lady folks also join the group prayers in the Church every Sunday. The aartis in the Hindu temples are also an example of group prayer which brings together the devotees, following the Hindu religion; but like the Muslims or the Christians there is no fixed day of the week for going through this ritual, in some holy places like Shirdi, Shegaon, Nasak, Alandi etc, the araties go on every day at fixed time when the devotees come together in a group for the prayers; but outside such places of pilgrimage, there are very few places, where the Hindus come together for group prayers. The temples of Maruti can be cited as exceptions, where the devotees gather together for a group aarti (prayer) every Saturday. Though the Hindus may thus be coming together for prayers, their religion has not made this ritual a regular affair like the Muslims or the Christians.

The common man does not realise that the prayer to God is like a holy bath of the mind, as he hardly things about it, but attends the aarti and such other rituals only as a matter of course. Persons at high spiritual level like Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Vinobhaji Bhave, Zoraastor, Radhakrishna Swamiji etc, however though deeply about prayers and they had fully realised the value of prayer. They, therefore, always insisted on prayer and directed their followers to pray to God. From the life of Jesus Christ many incidents can be cited where he prayed to God for the good of others and also where he asked his devotees to pray to God to get out of their difficulties. Prayer was a regular daily ritual at the ashrams of Mahatma Gandhi and Vinobaji Bhave and it was being sung at the fixed timings. Even when Mahatama Gandhi was on his tours, he never missed the prayer. It would be sung at the fixed timings. It was ultimately when he was going for the prayer that he was assassinated. Sri Radhakrishna Swamiji, who was the President of the All India Sai Samaj at Madras and the President of Sai Spiritual Center at Bangalore, was capable of doing many things and he actually blessed so many devotees; but due to his humility he would always tell his devotees, “I will pray to Shri Sai Baba for you. He will solve your difficulty. You also pray to him.”

Shri Sai Baba was also a great believer in prayer. His ritual of rubbing the coins was a sort of a prayer, meant for achieving the good of His devotees. The fact that He always said “Allah Malik” shows that He was also recognizing some other superior being and praying to him. The story of Rohilla, narrated in the third chapter of Sai Satcharita, shows the importance that Shri Sai Baba stayed in the masjid. He would go on reciting the Kalma (Verses from the holy Koran) in loud and harsh tone. Even in the night the Rohilla did not stop reciting, with the result that the people of the Shirdi Village, who used to work for the whole day in the filed, could not get sleep at night due to the shouting of the Rohilla. When a complaint was made in this respect to Shri Sai Baba, He did not listen to them but on the other hand He took the villagers to task on the ground that what the Rohilla was reciting was a prayer and as such it should be obstructed by anybody. This shows Sri Sai Baba’s love for prayer and therefore he also used to advise His devotees to offer prayer and therefore he also used to advise the devotees should have faith in prayers. He also assured them from time to time that whatever any devotee offers Him prayer after surrendering completely to Him, at that time He runs immediately for lifting the devotee out of his difficulties.

Some devotees are in the habit of offering conditional prayers to Shri Sai Baba. They always offer prayers and say that if such and such a thing happens or if they get such and such a thing, they would offer such and such a thing to Shri Sai Baba. This sort of conditional prayer is not proper. This shows a sort of distrust in Shri Baba. We should be sure that whatever we offer our prayers to Baba after complete surrender to Him were are bound to achieve our object. We should not doubt about the fruit. In fact it is not necessary to request Shri Sai Baba to give us any material thing, when we say that Sri Sai Baba knows the wants and needs of his devotees. Then how can we ask anything mundane from Him? He would give everything to His devotees according to their requirement. Our duty should therefore be to surrender ourselves completely to Him and take whatever He gives to us in this worldly life. It at all you have to request him to give you something, then it should be for the next world and not for something in this world which is perishable.

If we look upon prayer in this fashion, we will come to know that the prayer has great power. In the Puranas, we get lots of stories of devotees, who offered prayers to the God in their dire difficulties and have come out of them successfully. The prayer has thus much power and we should realise it. The sages and saints all over the world have been advocating the devotees to go on offering prayers to God sincerely in order to get peace of mind and happiness. As stated above Shri Sai Baba also has advised His devotees to offer, prayers every day and if that is done by the Sai devotees, then they will get peace fo mind and their wants in this mundane world will be fully satisfied. Then let us all Sai devotees offer Shri Baba our sincere prayers. Shri Sai Baba has said several times that simply by repeating His name “Sai Sai” a devotee can offer his prayer to Him. Let us all Sai devotees therefore follow this simple way of offering our prayers for our own good in this world and the next.