From IIM Ahmedabad To Happiness

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

Page 97

THE LOGIC OF PRAYER
prayer cannot be said to be due to the interference on the part of a prayer-granting agency in heaven.
The true meaning of prayer lies in engaging oneself, with a cheerful mind, in subduing one's likes and dislikes and dissociating mentally from all kinds of worldly interests and undertakings. During the period of engagement in prayer, we, as a consequence of our mind's immersion in God, automatically distance ourselves from the commission of all kinds of sins. The most valuable gain is the cultivation of an ever-growing feeling of equanimity and well-balanced state of mental quietude and serenity.
Prayer, thus, is the submission of our body, mind and speech to the Glory of our object of worship, with the idea of getting inspiration from its divine qualities, and, in the process, getting immersed in divinity. What we have to offer to our God, if we really wish to 'please' Him, is our false, personal self, that is, our own lower nature. All other offerings of material goods may, at best, be just symbolic of this basic principle of offering. The prayer of the ignorant is only for the objects of his desire; the very things he should have left at home before entering the place of his worship.
In the prayer, known as the Lord's Prayer, we say, "Give us this day our daily bread." According to our interpretation of these words, they have nothing in common with the idea of an urgent appeal, or that you should be craving, wishing and praying for your daily bread. Even the richest of men, a king or head of a state, who is in no danger of not having his daily bread, is to offer this prayer. Our study of the Christian literature for the interpretation of the Lord's Prayer revealed:
The Lord offers living water. He offers Himself as the 'bread of life.' He says, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and
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