Like meditation prayer too is above religion

Like meditation prayer too is above religion

In these precarious times when life is on the precipice and so precarious that anything might happen at any moment, the beleaguered mankind turns to god and resorts to fervent prayers. A handful of hardcore atheists may snigger at this. But years ago I remember reading, ‘A prayer has nothing to do with theism or atheism. It’s even beyond spirituality. A prayer, like universal morality, is non-theistic. It’s a gesture of thankfulness, not necessarily directed towards anyone or any specific or esoteric object.’ Persian Sufi poet Fariduddin Attar called a prayer: ‘Nisdaa’boon khud-shafi’ – self-cleansing soliloquy.

One needs no object or even direction to pray. There’s no god involved in a non-denominational and non-theistic prayer. Since we all associate prayers with cheap entreaties for mundane and materialistic gains, granted by someone up there in the seventh heaven, prayers have begun to be associated with outright begging and asking for alms and wishes from some imaginary power. This is not prayer. This is a travesty of a prayer.

Prayer as a transaction is meaningless, but prayer as a communication with inner consciousness has depth. It’s akin to auto-suggestion, goading one’s spirit to rise above pettiness into the realm of knowledge.

Prayer is evincing gratitude for one’s existence: ‘Apne vajood ka mamnoon hoon; Shukriya kahta hoon, log dua samajhte hain’ – I’m thankful to my own existence; I say thanks, which is often mistaken for a prayer.’ A thankless life is not worth living. It’s a natural sense of gratitude that helps us live life with a certain degree of purpose and direction. Here comes the role of a prayer. It’s a catalyst and an affirmation of our overall gratefulness that could be directed or addressed to none. A prayer is actually ‘shabd-virahit, shabdaateet arghyam vadanti’ – wordless or beyond words. We’ve relegated prayers to worded entreaties and lent religious hues and shades to make them sound theistic or religious. A true prayer is bereft of lush wordiness and any spiritual overtures and intonations.

Spiritually speaking, an individual’s whole life is, and should be, a prayer. American Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr would often say, “My very existence is a prayer to god. It’s a Eucharistic offering.”

The word ‘prayer’ may have originated from the archaic Greek word, ‘praiyster’, or medieval Latin, ‘precaria’, a petition. It meant merging into a greater, higher or universal soul.

When one prays, one is deeply immersed in the ocean of consciousness. To quote an Urdu poet, ‘Khud-ba-khud haath uthe, khud-ba-khud kaaynaat mein hal hota gaya’ – the hands automatically gestured towards the heaven, I gradually got merged into the vastness of the universe. This is a prayer, spontaneous and off the cuff.

Prayer is a prelude to self-immersion. Persian mystics often say, ‘Izz’man dua-o-bekhudi nee aqzan bahboodi’ – no need to inquire about my existence, it oscillates between prayers and states of self-immersion.

A prayer is the simplest and also the easiest form of meditation and like the latter, it’s also above god and religion. A silent prayer is far greater and powerful than the clamour of all faiths and un-faiths put together.