Have you seen people pray? Some people pray so hard. They wake up long before dawn and they pray. They stop doing all their work several times a day to pray. They spend several hours every day praying to their God. They travel to distant shrines, go on pilgrimages and perform complex prayers and poojas. These are not only time consuming, but expensive and taxing. Then there is another section of people who perform penance in prayer. They roll on the floor, pull hair from their chin, and fast for days and weeks together without food and water. These are instances where people try hard to pray. But like they say, 'Work smart, not hard to succeed', we must 'Pray smart, not hard' to achieve our ultimate goal of prayer.
In his quest for the Truth it is said that, Siddhartha Gautama happened to meet some of the followers of Mahavira, a sect that followed the Jain Tirthankaras. To them, life was all about tapasya, letting the body suffer physical pain and living with deep austerities. Siddhartha Gautama became a tapasvi, living a life of sacrifice and deprivation. He even gave up eating fruits and drinking water to deprive the senses of the body. He gave up all desires to achieve liberation. It is said that he nearly died as he deprived his body of food and water. One day, a young maiden exclaimed, 'You have become like a stick where your front and your back have become one. What is the use of such a life?' She asked the prince who was in search of the truth, 'How would such deep tapasya and austerity help in realization and liberation?' She gave him an analogy saying, 'If you make the string of the sitar very loose, you cannot extract music from it, just as tightening too much will snap it.' The Buddha realized that such extreme austerities would not help to achieve the goal of life. He realized that one cannot realize the Truth by making the body suffer. It is through the body that one achieves liberation. He then coined a new way known as the 'Middle Path' philosophy for people to live a balanced life. Prayers, he advocated, must be for the purpose of realization.
However hard we may pray, will that bring God to us or take us to heaven? This is our utter ignorance that makes us think so. We foolishly believe the Divine to be like one of us made of bone and skin. We do not realize God is a Power that lives within. We may pray for hours together, even pray for days in entreaty, but we will not realize God. To realize God, we must pray smart. We must use our intellect as we go on a sincere quest yearning to realize God.
Why does most of humanity continue to go around in circles without achieving the ultimate goal? Because we don't pray smart. We just get engrossed in ritualistic prayers and we don't take the trouble of finding out who God is, where God is, and what God is. But we just pray! On top of it, we fumble and mumble prayers that make no sense to us. We chant mantras and recite prayers that we don't understand. This is not smart prayer. It can't be effective. We must stop to realize the truth. We must ask questions and investigate, only then we will realize God.
The biggest question is this – are we sincere in our prayers? Are our prayers genuine? There is no doubt that our devotion may be full of faith, hope, trust, and belief. But just devotion will not get us to our destination. Prayer is profound. It is communicating with the Divine. It is not only talking, chanting, and singing, but also going within in silence and listening to the Divine voice.
Haven't you heard of 'blind faith'? Millions around the globe live and die with blind faith. To them, all that matters is their scripture. They don't even stop to reflect whether their scripture is authentic or not. Over a period of time, the scriptures have diluted the original message of their messengers of God and may not even appear in the pages that they consider as God's laws or commandments. But they pray! These people who seem to be so devout and religious, follow the word of their religious priests as if they are superhumans, angels, special nominees of God who have spiritual powers beyond the ordinary. Why are we so naive in our beliefs? Genuine prayer is something else. It is the realization of the truth—realizing the truth about ourselves and then about Divinity. This is praying smart and it will open the door to heaven—which is nothing but the state of unification with the Divine.
Unless we discover the true meaning of prayer, our prayers will never work. We can't fake it in our prayers. The purpose of prayer is to communicate with the Divine, not to impress the ones who see us pray. We may spend loads of money in making offerings to God, even dress very special when we go to our temple or church, but does that matter to God? That is our own Mind and Ego, the ME, that is making us go around in circles as we pray hard, but not smart.
Is it so difficult to realize what God expects? The Divine wants that we yearn to be liberated and united with God. God manifests as all those who live around us. But instead of being kind to God's manifestations, we are cruel and indifferent to the Divinity that is all around us, and in sheer ignorance, we work hard to please our God in heaven.
In this world, there are millions of people who work very hard. Sometimes, they work 18 hours a day, 7 days a week to fill their stomach and feed their family. But they achieve little success. They don't use their intellect. They slog day and night but achieve very little. So will it be with those who pray diligently but without praying intelligently. It is those who pray smart, that realize God. Of course, just like the most successful people are those who not only work smart but also work hard, we should not only be very focused on our prayer but also be consistent. Prayer is not a casual 'once in a way' thing. It is living in constant union with God. But if we don't know the truth about the Divine Power and we don't understand our prayer, how can we expect success with our blind faith?
If we are highly religious, and we think we will achieve God in heaven, this is a myth. It is just like somebody who studies for years together in a kindergarten. In fact, they spend their entire life in a kindergarten, learning ABC. Can we expect them to become a genius? They have been studying so hard, but that hardly matters. If these very people who studied, evolved from religion which is a kindergarten to the university of spirituality, they would realize God within the temple of their heart. Let this inspire us to break free from our set pattern and belief-system. Let this motivate us to climb the ladder to heaven to be one with the Divine. Let this inspire us to make our prayers not just prayers of belief, of faith and hope, not restricting our prayers to trust and enthusiasm that loves God. Let our prayers create a passion that leads us on a quest. Let us cry to the Almighty in our prayers – ‘O Lord, I seek thee and nothing else. Enlighten me with the truth, O Lord. Pour thy grace upon me so that I can overcome my ignorance and realize the truth.’ While praying, let us stop to listen to God. Let us make our prayers effective by remaining silent in meditation. Then we will receive God's Divine message, and we will be enlightened and liberated from the illusion of this world.
Smart prayer that will make us realize God is not about following all the rituals and dogmas of our religion without understanding a word of it. It is not about going every week to the institutional abode of our God and talking about our God to all. It is not about converting people to believe in our religion. It is not about crossing all the 't's and dotting all the 'i's of the endless superstitions created over generations. Smart prayer is about realizing God. It is about being conscious of God's Divine presence all the time. Smart prayer is serving humanity as God. It is seeing God in everything beautiful infused with Divine Consciousness. It is treating one and all as God. It is living with kindness and love, with compassion and grace, giving and forgiving, knowing that everything is God. There is nothing else, only God. This seems easy, but it is very difficult to do because we are slaves of our mind and our monkey mind jumps here and there without letting us contemplate the reality. The ones who pray smart, a tiny fraction of humanity, are the fortunate ones who transcend ritualistic prayer. They pray incessantly, being ever-connected to the Divine.
As long as we allow ourselves to believe that we are the body, mind, and ego, we will continue praying hard. Smart prayer is going on a quest and realizing the truth. Then, there is a formula, a path to follow, a discipline that is needed to realize God. Only the sincere seekers of the Divine will be able to take this road less travelled. The majority of mankind is busy seeking the ordinary pleasures of the world. They offer God money, gold, and diamonds.
They donate to their religious institution. Do you think God wants our money? Do you believe God needs our wealth? When will we overcome our gross ignorance and learn to pray sincerely? When will we go beyond the human form and pray from the Soul within? When will we transcend the ego, mind, and body and truly start praying to God? This is our biggest challenge in life.
We human beings have 9 doors as we know, doors that are looking outward: the eyes, the ears, the mouth are some of these doors. Real prayer is opening the tenth door, a door that looks within. This is the toughest challenge in prayer, not to search for God outside, for God is within. Once we realize this, then we will experience God everywhere. Then, we will be praying all the time. Our life will be a seamless journey of prayer as we live moment by moment, in Divine union. One who is blessed to be thus, observes his mind as it wanders away from this Divine journey. He prayerfully and gently brings back the mind to restore the Divine connection. This is the most profound way to live prayerfully.
We may live our entire life going to and ringing the temple or church bell for God. We may break coconuts and light candles. We may chant and sing the name of God a thousand or a million times. But this will not make our prayer effective unless we pray from the Soul. Unless we realize we are the Divine Soul, our prayers will be very superficial.
Can a dead man pray? Won't you laugh at this question? But think about it. What does it mean? It is the Soul that prays. It is the Soul that we truly are, and it is the Soul that is nothing but the Divine. As we live, if we realize this, then we have discovered the right way to pray. Then we will stop trying to please God through our prayer. We will not think that offering God something that we collected in this world is prayer. Instead, we will build a beautiful relationship with God - if we realize the truth and pray. Finally, a test of this, whether we pray hard or pray smart, is a simple litmus test. If our prayers a