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The path of Self-Realization is a long one with several stumbling blocks. Many a time the devotee finds himself helpless in making any advancement. He realizes that his efforts are insufficient to overcome the
obstacles and worldly passions.
TYPES AND CONTENTS OF PRAYERS:
There are many types of prayers with differing contents. The four main types are praising, dedicating, confessing and community prayers.
1. Praise-Dominated Prayer: Here, the purpose is to glorify God's superhuman virtues and belittle oneself. This practice helps in eliminating one's ego, the main barrier to Self-Realization. It also intensifies one's devotion for the Divine by repeatedly singing, eulogizing and remembering the supreme qualifications of God, higher than anything else in the universe.
The devotee may praise the external form or inner virtues of God. How Saint Tulsidas describes Lord Rama is an example of praising God in external form. The devotee may glorify and concentrate on the inner virtues of God like infinite knowledge and bliss, as Pujya Gnanvimalsuriji describes the internal glory of Lord Adinath (Rushabhdev).
In accordance with one's spiritual development, the approach to the Divine may be monotheistic or polytheistic and the external object may be in the form of a photograph, painting, carving, idol or scripture and is only a means of support and inspiration. Intense love for divine virtues burns away the shortcomings and worldly passions of the devotee. It makes him pure so that the Divine Grace descends more readily upon him. These are considered as positive prayers and are usually joyous and uplifting. With advanced spiritual experience, all the differences of personal, impersonal, formless and incarnate disappear. Then at last, the worship, the worshipper and the worshipped all merge into one divine, ineffable mystic experience which represents the summum bonum of achievements in spiritual life.
2. Dedicating and Petition Prayer: The path of Self-Realization is a long
one with several stumbling blocks. Many a time the devotee finds himself helpless in making any advancement. He realizes that his efforts are insufficient to overcome the obstacles and worldly passions. It is at this juncture that he feels the intense need for the Divine Grace, which hel prays in the form of petition, while depicting his innermost feeling of complete dedication. Here, he expresses that none else but God alone can be his true Savior. He frankly admits before God that in absence of His guidance and merciful blessings, he will lose the battle. It is here that a true devotee makes an open minded revelation of his total, unilateral and unconditional surrender at the lotus feet of the Master and becomes free from all worries. Such dedicated and emotionally-charged prayers are well documented by devotees of great repute all over the world. The author of this paper himself had passed through such a stage and had the occasions of the spiritual survival by Divine Grace. Therefore, this is neither a conjecture nor a proposed theory, but a hard fact of realism and true experience in spiritual life. One of the most authentic, inspiring and historically recorded prayers is Bhaktamar Stotra by Shri Mantungacharya.
4th BiennialgAINA Convention 2007
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