AFTERWORD
I too prayed in ignorance for 40 years. As I reflect, it was a long period of my life that was spent praying to a God I believed in. I didn't know what I was saying in the rituals that I followed, although I was clear in my intentions and my devotion was sincere. Let me share my story.
I started praying even before I was 8. Although I did not understand what prayer meant, I used to go to the temple as a child holding my grandfather's hand. I grew up in an atmosphere of faith, devotion, and prayer. I started fasting when I was 8 years old, as a mark of my love for God, although, in hindsight, this must have been inspired by my faith in my grandfather who taught me to pray.
My grandfather was a staunch believer in Lord Shiva, and he would visit the temple near my home frequently. On Mondays, we would both start and end the day at the temple. My father too followed my grandfather's footsteps and as a family, the prayer ritual had significant importance.
As I look back on my prayer life, I realize that I have been praying to Lord Shiva for 40 years. I always thought that He was the real God and as the scriptures said, I believed that He lived in Mount Kailash. The religion I followed, and the associated mythology with it kept me ignorant for over 4 decades. As per mythology, before praying to Lord Shiva, we must pray to Lord Ganesha, the son of Lord Shiva who has an elephant head! How did this happen? The story reveals that when Goddess Parvati, the consort of Lord Shiva was once having a bath, she created Ganesha, her son, out of mud. She told Ganesha to guard the door as she was taking her bath. As the tale goes, Shiva wanted to enter and Ganesha refused. Becoming furious, Shiva cut off his head. Hearing the commotion, Parvati hurriedly came out only to be distressed and agonized at the horrifying scene. To cut the story short, on the insistence of Parvati to return life to her son, Shiva put an elephant head on her son, Ganesha and bestowed him with life again. The Gods pronounced that no prayer would be performed without first praying to Ganesha. While this is mythology, and like millions of Hindus, I too followed it, I never realized that I was living in ignorance. Do millions of Christians realize that Santa Claus is a myth? Although we know it, we tend to believe in such myths out of respect for our religion and scripture.
My faith grew stronger by the day and I must admit that it gave me power. My belief in God, and my prayers truly worked. My strong devotion in God made all my dreams come true and I achieved success after success, as I continued to live in gratitude, with faith and enthusiasm.
Just like every religion has a special day - Christians consider it to be Sunday, and for Muslims, it is Friday - Lord Shiva's day was Monday. Not only would I fast for 24 hours with one meal that was allowed during that period, I would also pray, perform poojas, abhishek, aarti, and sing bhajans. Bhajans are spiritual songs or hymns that we sing in praise of God. Abhishek is a ritual where we pour water, milk, honey, sugar, and curd on the Shiva lingam, a uniquely shaped cylindrical pillar rounded on the top placed on a large base made of stone. For years together, I too believed that I was giving a bath to God, until one day, I realized the truth. Abhishek symbolically means that we cleanse ourselves when we pour water, milk, honey, curd, and sugar on the lingam, the symbol of Lord Shiva. But people understand this ritual very differently. They think it is us giving God a shower. Ridiculous! But that is what myth does. While the purpose may be positive, a ritual is misunderstood and this makes religion impractical. If the ones who teach religion and who explain it to us were careful, then we would understand the true meaning of prayer and God. Millions of people repeat religious slogans known as mantra and say 'Om Namah Shivaya,' 'Om Ganapatyae Namah,' and 'Om Namo Bhagvate Vasudevaya' but they don't know the meaning of these chants. They chant these spiritual and religious mantras for decades and die repeating the mantra without understanding its meaning. In 'Om Namah Shivaya,' 'Om' is a symbol of the Divine, 'Namah,' is Namaskara or bowing down, and then the name of God. It means 'O Divine! I bow down to You as a manifestation of Shiva, Om Namah Shivaya.' 'O Divine! I bow down to You as a manifestation of Ganesha, Om Ganapatyae Namah.' 'O Divine! I bow down to You as a manifestation of Vasudev or Krishna, Om Namho Bhagvate Vasudevaya.' When will we stop praying without understanding what we are saying?
Before realizing the truth, my blind faith made me continue my prayers without understanding what I was doing. Of course, I was not the only one who was involved in rituals like the aarti! We held a plate which had a lit diya or lamp on it and as we sang, we also clapped, rang the bell, and offered this prayer to our God.
The problem was that nobody stopped to ask the question, 'Why are we doing all this?' Billions of people around the globe pray without understanding what the meaning of their actions is. I was just one of them. The only difference was that I believed in God. There was not an iota of doubt that God created this world and everything in it and my prayers were a mark of my gratitude, just as they were used to ask for favours amongst many other things.
I was consistent in my prayers. I don't remember a phase of my life from my teenage years till today where I stopped praying to God. As a child, my prayers were innocent. I would go to God and ask that I pass in my exams. I would fervently pray to come first in class. Thereafter, as I became older and started facing challenges and problems, I used to go to God so that He would solve my problems and it worked! I grew up with the belief that praying to Lord Shiva was magical, that He heard my prayers and He solved my problems. Doesn't the whole world fold their hands and seek all this from God? That is what the majority of us think prayer is.
There were many positive affirmations that formed the strong foundation of my prayers. When I prayed, I used to say, 'When God is for us, who can be against us?' This gave me faith just as it eliminated fear. I believed that God's delays are not God's denials. This thought in my prayer created hope. To me HOPE was Having Only Positive Expectations and FAITH – Full Assurance In The Heart. As I grew up, I built a strong relationship with Lord Shiva. I used to tell him in my prayer, 'Oh Lord, help me to remember that nothing can happen tomorrow, that you and I can't handle together.' These affirmations only built power in my prayer.
After 20 years of faith and devotion in my God, one day I had a flash of inspiration - an inspiration that came from God. Lord Shiva was directing me to build a huge temple. The vision, as I clearly remember, depicted a huge statue of Lord Shiva with the Ganga river flowing from His head, with the backdrop of Mount Kailash, the abode of the Lord. It would be a place of peace and tranquillity, a temple of faith where dreams would come true. To anybody else, this would just be a dream. But I believed it was a vision from God. While at that time, I only had the vision, no money, no land, no architect, nothing that could help me make it happen, I realized that it was God's will, because no sooner than I had got the vision, that He gave me all the resources I needed to make it into a reality. On the 27th of February, 1995, on the auspicious day of Maha Shivratri, the festival of Lord Shiva, the temple was inaugurated by none other than His Holiness Shankaracharya of the Sringeri Shankar Mutt in Sringeri. As he consecrated the Shiv Ling by performing Prana Pratistha, the energy of Lord Shiva seemed to flow out of the Ling midst the chanting of mantras by dozens of priests. As if by magic, lakhs of people appeared to take blessings from the Divine.
This was the turning point in my life with God. It s t rengthened my connection with Lord Shiva exponentially. Without even realizing it, God became 'the' priority of my life. My prayers increased as I would spend hours in the temple every day. As my life transformed, I achieved success after success. However, I feel I was blessed because the Lord led me into doing both humanitarian and spiritual work. As I prayed to God, I used the temple as an institution to spread the power of faith. I did everything possible to make people believers as I myself grew in my connection with God. Inadvertently, I was led to doing humanitarian work. Before the temple was built, as if it was God's wish, I had already started serving the poor and the destitute on the streets. But after the Shiva temple was built, a lot of money started coming in through devotees as an offering to the Lord. Since all the money belongs to God, I decided to spend it on God's work. Over the years, I set up many charitable homes, one after the other, that reached out to those who were suffering. We had ambulances and executives would go around the streets, identifying people who had no home, no food, or were suffering from some disease. We would bring them to our home – clean them, feed them, and take care of them like our family members. Undoubtedly, this was the work of God which I did not realize. Initially, I just thought it was good Karma. These good actions would reap me a good destiny.
At about this time, with the grace of God, I was blessed to meet my Guru, Dada J. P. Vaswani. He was my Spiritual Master, my mentor for about 25 years till he left this earthly plane. His guidance made a tremendous impact on my life as I evolved from being religious to being spiritual. Without Dada, as we fondly called him, I doubt very much that I would have reached where I am, let alone writing a book on prayer! He shaped my thoughts, guided my footsteps, and showed me the way to God. Whenever I had questions that had no answers, I would go to him. Ultimately, one day, it was my Guru who provoked me to go on a talaash, a quest—a search for the true meaning of life. It was in 2012 that I started the quest. I set out with several questions for which I had no answers.
With these 9 questions, I retreated into the mountains. After 2