Why should we pray

Why should we pray? By: Dr. V.P.Hegadekatti

M.D. (about 750 words)Prayer involves submitting to Almighty, oneself in entirity and seek His blessigs in succeeding whatever we do, or simply we feel more calm and comfortable while praying, amidst the worries that surround us. We feel confident in our ability and lose the waverings after a prayer. Take the example of a child. If the child knows that its mother is nearby and watching, it goes and plays with a free mind and boldness. It knows tha if something goes wrong, the mother would immediately come to its rescue and help. Inwardly it seeks the approval of its mother for all its actions. Similarly the child will hesitate to do any thing which his mother does not approve. In fact the child becomes scary to do anything which it thinks its mother does not like, The child practically runs away from that scene, or shows signs of felling guilty. Similarly, prayer keeps us alert and constantly reminds us, the presence of a loving divine mother who is always watching us, ever ready to protect and help us, but disapproves our wrong actions. That knowledge itself imparts us a new energy, a new confidence to go ahead with our work which we feel is the right one. The child boldly experiments with anything curious that comes in its way, if it is aware of the carefully watching mothers presence nearby. But it dares not try any thing new if its mother is nowhere in sight. We donot for a moment hesitate to tread a new path or undertake a new deed, if we feel the divine is with us. Secondly as we know, we are all derived from an almighty energy (?? Which created us through big bang). We have all come into being, with a fixed quantity of prepacked energy say like a lantern or a torch. We will be utilising our inherent energy continuously during our entire being and actions. We keep on depleting our energy and soon will exhaust it unless get it replenished. So from where shall we fill our energy stores?. Again we have to get it from the eternal source which created us all. To get back this lost energy there must be a channel set up for the energy transfer. Prayer serves exactly that purpose. It acts as a route through which we get back our lost energy (?Atma shakti). .(Gayatri mantra has exactly these wordings ) Hence we feel fresh and energised after a really good prayer. 2

Prayer is purely a personal affair, like that between ,a mother and the child. It involves a pure love bond between the creator and the created. Hence not only it is not necessary to do it in public, it becomes hypocritical to do it so. Our love towards our mother is never advertised nor showed off in public. In fact worshipping places and rituals are created for layman to get his mind conditioned and remind himself of prayers as soon as he approaches this place of worship and starts performing the rituals. It also helps him to get himself isolated for a while during his interaction with the divine. No fixed time or place or rituals are required for prayer.. Are you not happy to remember your mother any time any where whether you need her or not?, Do you ever try to fix up a place, time and certain rituals to meet her ? Do you not just remember her? You donot even need verbal expressions to express your love towards her. All you have to do is just think of her and feel the love towards her. That is all. It is exctly the same with God Mother loves both intelligent, and foolish children alike. There is no partiality or differentiation by her. Mother does not expect anything from her children. She is happy with anything which you offer with love. It is alright even if nothing is offered in physical during prayer. You will feel the energy surging in you, invigorating all your senses after a really meaningful, loveful prayer. It is not that the almighty will immediately come to our rescue and fulfill all our wishes. He always fills us with the energy to achieve our goal, and guides us or shows us the way to achieve it on our own. Hence it is not necessary to believe in existence of God as we are taught to think about his being. Though we cannot see the electricity, we cannot deny its existence. But everyday we use it to recharge our gadgets. Similarly we periodically need to recharge our very own being, and prayer does just that. FROM: DR. V.P.HEGADEKATTI

M.D.

MURALIDHAR MATH ROAD

KARWAR 581301

KARNATAKA.