Come, Holy Spirit, renew the heart of our city!
Silence.
Wonderful Prayers at Midday FOR MISSIONS in The Book of Common Prayer, page 16:
- That all mankind may look unto to thee and be saved.
- Illumine the world with the radiance of thy glory, that all nations may come and worship thee.
- Forgive, we pray thee, our unbelief, and so enlarge our hearts, and enkindle our zeal, that we may fervently desire the salvation of all, and with more ready diligence labour in the extension of thy kingdom.
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What goes on in the name of prayer is not prayer; it is desire disguised. You go to the temple or to the church and you pray to God; your God is part of your imagination. Your God is not true God; it is a Christian God, it is a Hindu God, it is a Mohammedan God. And how can God be Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan? It is a God that you have created. It is God who has made us — how can we make God?
ReplyDeleteRemember, if you pray to ask for something, it is not prayer. When you pray to thank him for something, only then is it prayer. Prayer is always a thanksgiving. If you ask for something then the prayer is still corrupted by desire. Then it is not prayer yet — it is still poisoned by dreaming. Real prayer happens only when you have attained to yourself, when you have known what God has given to you already without your asking for it. When you realise what you have been given, what infinite sources have been given to you, a prayer arises You would like to say to God, ‘Thankyou.’ There is nothing else in it but a pure thank you.
Thanks for your thoughts, Shibu. I inadvertently deleted your second comment when trying to publish it. Here it is from the email message:
ReplyDeleteWhen a prayer is just a thank you it is a prayer. Never ask for anything in a prayer; never say, ‘Do this, do that; don’t do this, don’t do that.’ Never advise God. That shows your irreligiousness, that shows your lack of trust. Thank him. Your life is already a benediction, a blessing. Each moment is such pure joy, but you are missing it, that I know. That’s why the prayer is not arising — otherwise you would build a house of prayer; your whole life would become that house of prayer....
Shibu, Paul does write that we should give thanks in all circumstances, but he also writes about striving and struggling in prayer as I've noted in the post. Matthew points out that the Father knows our needs before we ask (Mt 6:8) but Jesus encourages us to pray and not lose heart (Lk 18:1). Although thanksgiving is an important component of prayer it is not the only one. Prayer is also listening, worship, petition and supplication. Ask, seek and knock, Jesus said (Lk 11:10).
ReplyDeleteMy thanksgiving prayer is just like this: you fall in love with a woman and you say, "You are the only woman, the only beautiful woman in the world." Not that this is true, but still, in a certain moment of love, it is true. It is not an ordinary fact; it is a truth. When you say to a woman, "You are the only beautiful woman in the world who has ever existed or will ever exist," that doesn't mean that you know all the women who have existed in the world before or that you know that all the women who are going to exist will not be more beautiful than this. How can you know, how can you compare? This is not a logical fact; this is a poetic realization.
ReplyDeleteIn that moment of love it is not a question of statistics. Some logician can raise the argument: "Wait! Do you know all the women that exist right now in the world? Have you looked, searched, and have you found that this is the most beautiful woman in the world? What are you saying? You are using comparative language."
But you will say, "I'm not worried about other women, and this is not comparative. I am not comparing: I am simply asserting a truth about my feeling. It is not a fact of the outside world; it is a truth of my inner feeling. This is how I feel: that this is the most beautiful woman in the world. I am not saying anything about the woman; I am saying something about my heart. I don't know all the women; there is no need." It is not comparison. It is a simple feeling.
God has given to you already without your asking for it. When you realize what you have been given, what infinite sources have been given to you, a prayer arises in you. So for me ‘Thank You’ is the biggest prayer.
Christ is the very principle of religion. In Christ all the aspirations of humanity are fulfilled. He is a rare synthesis. Ordinarily a human being lives in agony, anguish, anxiety, pain and misery. Jesus is the culmination of all aspiration. He is in agony as you are, as every human being is born -- in agony on the cross. He is in the ecstasy that sometimes a person can achieve: he celebrates; he is a song, a dance. And he is also transcendence. There are moments, when you come closer and closer to him, when you will see that his innermost being is neither the cross nor his celebration, but transcendence.
That's the beauty of Christ: there exists a bridge. You can move towards him by and by, and he can lead you towards the unknown -- and so slowly that you will not even be aware when you cross the boundary, when you enter the unknown from the known, when the world disappears and God appears. You can trust him, because he is so like you and yet so unlike. You can believe in him because he is part of your agony; you can understand his language. That's why Jesus became a great milestone in the history of consciousness.
Let me tell you a small story. It happened that Moses was passing and he came across a man who was praying. But he was doing such an absurd prayer (not only absurd, but insulting to God) that Moses stopped. It was absolutely unlawful. It is better not to pray than to pray in such a way, because the man was saying things which are impossible to believe. The man was saying, "Let me come close to you my God. My Lord and I promise that I will clean your body when it is dirty. Even if lice are there, I will take them away.... And I am a good shoe-maker; I will make you perfect shoes. You are moving in such ancient shoes -- dirty, gone completely dirty.... And nobody looks after you, my Lord. I will look after you. When you are ill, I will serve and give you medicine. And I am a good cook also!"
ReplyDeleteThis type of prayer he was doing! So Moses said, "Stop! Stop your nonsense! What are you saying? To whom are you talking -- to God? And He has lice on His body? And His clothes are dirty and you will clean them? And nobody is there to look after Him, and you will be His cook? From who have you learned this prayer?"
The man said, "I have not learned it from anywhere. I am a very poor and uneducated man, and I don't know how to pray. I have made it up myself and these are the things that I know. Lice trouble me very much, so He must be in trouble. And sometimes the food is not good -- my wife is not a good cook -- and my stomach aches. He must be also suffering. This is just my own experience that has become my prayer. But if you know the right prayer, you teach me."
So Moses taught him the right prayer. The man bowed down to Moses, thanked him, tears of deep gratitude flowing, and he went away. Moses was very happy. He thought that he had done a good deed. He looked at the sky to see what God thought about it.
And God was very angry! He said, "I have sent you there to bring people closer to me, but you have thrown away one of my greatest lovers. Now he will be doing the right prayer, but it won't be a prayer at all -- because prayer has nothing to do with the law. It is LOVE. Love is a law unto itself; it needs no other law." So prayer should come out of heart, not out of memory.
It happened once that a woman purchased a parrot, but by the time she reached home she was very much puzzled, worried. She had paid a good price for it; the parrot was beautiful. Everything was good; only one thing was very dangerous -- once in a while the parrot would say loudly, "I am a very wicked woman." This was something!
ReplyDeleteThe woman lived alone. And she was a very religious woman -- otherwise why live alone? She was a very serious woman, and this parrot would say again and again -- and even passers-by would hear and listen -- and the parrot would say, "I am a very, very wicked woman."
She went to the priest because he was the only source of her wisdom and knowledge and information. She said, "This is very bad, and I am puzzled about what to do. The parrot is beautiful and everything is good except this."
The priest said, "Don`t be worried. I have two very religious parrots. “Look one was in his cage tolling the bell and another was praying in his cage. Very religious people -- You bring your parrot. Good company always helps. Leave your parrot for a few days here with these religious people, and later on you can take your parrot back."
The woman liked the idea. She agreed brought the parrot, and the priest introduced the parrot to his parrots. But before he could say anything, the parrot said, "I am a very, very wicked woman."
The priest was also shocked-- what to do? In that moment the parrot who was praying stopped praying and said to the other parrot, "You fool! Stop tolling the bell, our prayers are fulfilled." They were praying for a female parrot! "Stop tolling the bell; the prayer is answered!"
In fact whenever you see somebody praying, suspect something has gone wrong. They are praying for a woman, praying for money; praying for something, praying for happiness. A truly religious person will always be happy and grateful. Happiness and gratitude is his prayer, and there cannot be a higher or a greater prayer than just to be grateful to God.