We now have a glimpse of what true prayer is. We have left behind traditional ritualistic prayer, although no prayer is bad. Every prayer makes us connect to God. Prayers that are not meaningful, that are just rituals are not as effective as realized prayers.
We know that God exists, and we know that prayer is communication with God. But when we realize the truth about God, then we can feel the Divine presence and feel truly connected to God.
God is in you, God is in me. God is everywhere on earth. God is in every creature, in every being that takes birth. Therefore, true prayer is seeing God in one and all. When we realize the truth that everything on earth is a manifestation of the Divine, then we don't pray only on a Sunday, a Monday or a Friday, when we go to our church, temple or mosque. We pray every day. We pray all the time. How is this possible?
Thousands of years ago, the sages in the Himalayas wrote a mantra 'Satyam Shivam Sundaram.' This became a very famous Bollywood movie. But very few people realize the truth in the meaning of this Vedic chant. It means, 'The Truth is God is Beautiful.' How does one explain this? Let us take the instance of a beautiful butterfly. It is so exotic, so lovely as long as it flies. The moment the Life Energy or the Soul within it leaves, it dies, dries and withers away. Where did the beauty go? Just as the Divine left, the beauty left.
Have you seen a little baby rabbit that is barely a few days old? It is the most adorable white tuft of hair that you can hold in your palm, and through it, you can feel the presence of beautiful Divine Consciousness. The Divine appears in everything beautiful and when the Divine Consciousness leaves, the beauty also, leaves.
It could be a beautiful bird or an exotic fish. The same holds true for you and me. Human beings are beautiful only as long as the Soul exists. The moment the Divine Consciousness leaves, the beauty leaves and our dead body starts to deteriorate and decompose only to become so unpleasant to our senses that even our near and dear ones want the dead body to be disposed of as soon as possible. The dead body or dead plant decomposes to the 5 basic natural elements - Air, Water, Earth, Fire, and Space. These too are manifestations of the Divine. Upon the death of a living thing, the Divine Consciousness from the dynamic body leaves turning it immobile and then the beauty of the gross body ceases to exist.
It should also be clear that if something is beautiful or ugly, it depends upon our perception. For a Realized Soul, God is within every conscious living being. God is the Divine Consciousness in all, be it a reptile, a strangely shaped sea creature, an insect or a person suffering from some kind of physical ailment that may not look pleasant to our eyes but there is Divinity—there is beauty because, 'The Truth is God is Beautiful.'
What do we learn from this mantra? It is very simple. It is the truth. God manifests as everything beautiful in this world. Therefore, if we want to pray to God, do we need to go anywhere? No! We can open our eyes and see the Divine in a beautiful tree, in a butterfly or a bee, in the waves of the sea and in you and me. The Divine exists but because of our ignorance, we are not able to see the Divine. Thus, we go back to pray to idols, to pictures and even to our ancestors, when in reality, the Divine is all around us. When will we open our 'real eyes' and realize that this is true prayer? God is everywhere. The fact is, only God exists, nothing else. To the human eye, we see all the beauty, just as we also see ugly things. But we don't see God Power in all that makes them ‘dynamic’ and thus ‘beautiful’. The moment we realize God's presence in all His manifestations, then we achieve a state of being in a prayer mode all the time. This is how a true Yogi lives and prays.
This is true prayer. Feeling the joy of God's Divine presence, staying ever-connected, communicating with the Divine all the time. There can be no better prayer than this.
How does one reach this state? There is only one way. It is to overcome our ignorance. As long as we don't, we will only see the beautiful sky, lovely clouds and amazing sunset or a gorgeous sunrise. We will see nature as exotic flamingos, magnificent tigers, cute dolphins, and unbelievable penguins. We will keep wondering at the magic of creation when we see geese flying in a 'V' shape across the sky from one country to another. We will be amazed by wild horses, just as our little pet dog will make our hearts skip a beat. And what do we think? All these are beautiful creations of God. This is true, but it is not the ultimate truth. The ultimate truth is that all these are not just creations of God. They are manifestations of the Divine, nothing else. Divinity appears as all the beautiful creatures we see. It is just as gold appears as a beautiful ring, a bracelet or a chain. It is just as mud appears as a pot, a plate or a statue. So also, God appears as all His beautiful creations on earth, in the skies and below the waters. God is the cause; all his beautiful creations are just effects. When we realize this, we will realize the truth behind 'Satyam Shivam Sundaram.' 'The Truth is God is Beautiful.' If we reverse this mantra or chant, we realize that 'The Truth is everything Beautiful is Divine.' This is the secret that unlocks the door to true prayer.
The next time you are in a garden and you see a beautiful rose, realize that it is God that blooms amongst the trees. When you see little birds chirping as they hop from tree to tree, feel the Divine presence of God in these birds, in fact, in everything. God appears as that butterfly or bee that moves from flower to flower. The Divine appears as the lush grass that carpets acres of land. All this is God's magic. It is God hiding behind all beautiful creatures and creation. It is only when we truly seek God, that we will win in this hide and seek game of life. Only then will we truly pray in the real sense as we realize the Divine presence all the time in everything that surrounds us.
A beautiful butterfly or a bee…
An exotic flower on a lovely tree…
True prayer is when we see,
the Divine in them and in you and me.