About Prayer. God Is Our Father
Shri Gurudev Shri Prakash Ji Satsang. 08.02.2014

Nowadays everyone has heard of prayer. But what does it mean? How to pray properly?

Prayer is when a person addresses God with a pure heart. When one asks for something for himself or relatives, it is a prayer, and when one simply thanks, it is also a prayer. In the English language one word is used, but in Sanskrit there are a few words: prarthna, upasana, aradhna and puja.

Prarthna is when a person asks God something from the depth of his heart.
Upasana is such a concentration, when a praying person feels as if he was sitting next to God.
Aradhna means bowing, devotion.
Puja is a collection of sacred rituals, which are performed for God.

When praying, the most important thing is the feeling with which you address God, the purity of your thoughts and inner state, because God can hear everything. One can learn good prayers and repeat them every day, but at the same time he might not have a sincere love to God in his heart.

People often say that they pray, but God neither hears nor answers them. Why doesn't God hear your prayers? The first reason is your inner state. The second reason is that only God knows for sure whether you need what you ask for.

One woman deeply loved Krishna and every day went to the temple to pray to his sculpture. She had such a strong feeling, that for her the sculpture was God incarnated. One day she arrived at the temple to find that the sculpture was closed with a shutter. Frustrated, she turned around and headed out of the temple. But then a miracle happened - the statue came to life and followed her…

Elevated love will always get a response, even if you pray to the sculpture, an icon or other symbol, representing God. The sculpture or icon becomes holy because of your feelings to it.

What is the difference between meditation and prayer? You could say that meditation is prayer too. But during the meditation one needs to be focused on a single object, for example the beloved image of God. At this time you need to try hard not to have any external thoughts. And for this purpose it is necessary to work hard.

Meditation helps to clear the mind, to reduce the effects of negative karma. A lot of thoughts, requests and questions come to mind during meditation. You need to leave them for the prayer. Meditation is just for you and your beloved image of God. This is complete focus and concentration. And after meditation or japa-meditation (meditation with chanting mantra or name of God), you can start the prayer. After meditation your prayer will be purer and more powerful.

Where does God live? He is in everyone’s heart. He sees and understands the purity that you keep inside, He feels the Love that you experience towards Him. He helps and protects, even when you think that He has forgotten you. God is our Father. Great, Powerful, Loving. We all are His children and He loves everyone, He has enough love for all. He cannot love only one and give something to only one. It is important to become a child who is worthy of accepting His grace. He will give everything that He considers necessary, His power is huge. Is there anything that God cannot give? Everything is in His hands. He only won't give you what would be bad for you and your progress.

It can happen that you don't want to ask anything: you are happy with what you have. Then you can simply thank your Father for life, for every breath and ask Him even more love to connect with Him and to know Him. When you pray, meditate or talk to God with the feeling of love, then the bond between you and Him gets stronger. And when you remember God at any time of life, then His grace and His blessings will always be with you.

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