What is Prayer? vandanam, prayers are one of the very important process of devotional service. Prayer to God is to be considered an inherently pure activity, it is a medium through which we connect to the Lord, our connection and association with God is established on our quality of prayers to him, and our intent or mood affects prayer’s purity. So it’s a sacred dialogue and a mode of communication that is personal between you and God.
Why we should pray? When you love someone, you want to speak to them, you want to please them. Similarly, in our relationship with Lord, love is the highest emotion and we want to reciprocate that. He knows what is in our heart and what is in our mind but it pleases him, when, by our free will we express ourselves. We could do million other things but when we choose from these plethoras of things, to speak with God with integrity, honesty, and sincerity, he values that and reciprocates with us.
How we should pray? In personal prayer, whether we are repeating the words of the Vedic scriptures or whether we take the spirit of the shastric prayers and put it in our own words, God reciprocates. Prayer to the Lord has great potency, it is not the volume or intensity of prayer that changes a situation; it is Krishna’s will and mercy he bestows. So make your prayer personal and even you tap into the prayers from scriptures make it about your own feelings, thoughts, and words, be in the mood of you crying out to Krishna and not mechanical. If you express with feelings your prayer will be communicated.
What we should pray? The greatest of all prayers is: “O Lord! How may I serve you? How may I love you?”. Lord Caitanya’s (who is Krishna himself in form of the devotee who came to teach us how to love Krishna) prayers was “I only want Your causeless devotional service, birth after birth.“ To start with we can keep these points in our mind while praying – – look behind and thank Krishna (be grateful, prayers don’t mean we have to ask all the time) – look ahead and trust Krishna (“May I find your hand in everything in my life”) – look within and find Krishna (pray to connect to him, to find the right words to glorify him, ..” Krishna please empower me, please help me love you as I am so unqualified.”) – look around and serve Krishna always.
Krishna is known as Uttamashloka. which means “one who is praised with beautiful prayers.”
