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PRAYER AND ITS POWER
A prayer may be defined as the universally accepted mode of communication between the devotee and the Divine, practiced in all religious traditions.
PREVALENCE OF PRAYERS:
Regarding its prevalence, we find prayer to be universal and international because no elaborate preparations, either in the form of materials or in the form of its method of implementation, are required. The Almighty will always listen to me even if I were illiterate or a pauper or ugly or otherwise downtrodden. He has no distinction among His devotees regarding race, religion, nationality, caste, creed, color or any other external criteria. The only real instrument required to approach Him is divine love, untainted by selfish motive or falsehood. In its pure spiritual form, it is the pouring out of our hearts before God. An important point to note here is that all great men of the world pray to God. Even those saints who have attained a very high spiritual state also pray to Him and spend decades of their lives in the eulogy of the Divine. This is the case of the great sage Maharshi Vyas in the Hindu tradition who wrote Shrimad Bhagvata, and Acharya Jinsen-l & Acharya Hemchandra who wrote respectively Mahapurana and Vitrag-Stava, in the Jain tradition.
FORMS OF PRAYERS:
The three main ways to approach the Divine are physical, vocal and mental
prayers.
1. Physical Prayer: This is in the form of adoration, bowing before the image and performing the ritual called Pooja with various materials such as water, flowers, sandalwood, incense burning, waving of lights before the deity and so on. Other non-verbal forms of prayers include dance, food-offering, etc.
2. Vocal Prayer: This is the main form of prayer. It may be in the form of prose or poetry; very short in the aphoristic form of Mantra, medium in the form of Stotra (psalm or hymn) or quite elaborate as in Pooja. In all these forms, the devotee invokes purer thoughts in his mind through the medium of sound. These thoughts have close cause and effect relation with sublime emotional feelings in the human mind.
3. Mental Prayer: This is the highest form of prayer from the spiritual point of view; and is usually carried out silently along with the different forms of meditation and contemplation. The practice of this form is possible for an advanced aspirant who is well versed in right spiritual tenets, and has good control over his mind and senses. Normally, when the prayer begins, it is vocal in nature and subsequently, when the mind of the aspirant becomes steady, the vocal aspect ends and the silent prayer takes over.
14th Biennial JAINA Convention 2007
Jain Education International
144
For Private & Personal Use Only
Pujya Shri Atmanandji Shrimad Rajchandra Adhyatmik Sadhana Kendra, Koba, Dist. Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
Pujya Shri Atmanandji was formerly known as Dr. Soneji. He is a well respected spiritual leader and this article is a piece from his research work on the Power of Prayer.
PEACE THROUGH DIALOGUE
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