I COULD say millions, but I don’t think I’m exaggerating if I said billions of people pray in various forms all over the world every day.
No one religion has dominion over prayer: Catholics and Protestants alike pray in their churches; Muslims pray in their Mosques; Buddhists in their temples; Jews in their Synagogues; etc., etc., even non-believers have some sort of a wish–list which could technically be regarded as prayer.
So with all this prayer going on, on a daily basis, I think it is a very good and worthwhile exercise to stand back and ask the question ‘What is prayer?’
We may all have different approaches to this very pertinent question but for the purpose of this exercise I want to tell you about one of my favourites.
I came across it in a video about 10 years ago and the title of the video need I say – Yes you’ve guessed it, was ‘What is Prayer?’
It told of a story of a man riding on horseback up to the doors of a huge Temple. He jumped off his horse, opened the large wooden door and rushed up the long aisle of the Temple to the Guru who was seated at the top.
He couldn’t conceal his excitement any longer and he shouted out to the Guru “I have so much faith in The Lord, that I didn’t even bother tying up my horse outside”.
The Guru in return calmly but firmly replied – “Go out this minute and tie up your horse, for The Lord won’t do for you what you can do for yourself”.
So on further analysis of this we could say that ‘Prayer is doing good deeds for ourselves, for others and for our world in the Spirit of goodness’.
I know I used the term ‘The Lord’ which some people might find objectionable, but I can tell you I have absolutely no issue with substituting this with ‘Higher Power’ or ‘Higher Energy’ or whatever term anyone else would like to use as long as it is done in the spirit of respect and goodness.
At the end of the day it is only language and it is important to respect everyone’s relationship with their own Higher Power.
Doing these good deeds i.e. (tying up our horse), can sometimes require great effort, courage and bravery, taking stances that might not be very popular but as long as they are done in the right Spirit and with the right intention for the betterment of our World and our fellow Human Beings, then these good deeds can be regarded as Prayer.
When we do this with good intent then something amazing can happen. Tasks or situations that we deemed impossible, become possible, doors open that we thought could never be breached.
This is what is meant by the phrase – ‘The Lord helps those who help themselves’.
Prayer, as I said above, can come in many forms and it doesn’t always have to involve doing good deeds, it can come in the form of the spoken Word i.e. formal Prayer or indeed one of my favourite types of prayer ‘Silent Prayer’.
The reason I love ‘Silent Prayer’ which I call ‘Silent meditation’ is because it gives me a form of connection with my own ‘Higher Power’ and when I do this it gives me great peace of mind knowing that I am being guided in the right direction. I call this My Inner Sat Nav.
Next week I am going to write about- My Inner Sat Nav.
Great!!