Why we should all pray together ?
Not even 10% households offer prayers to the Lord today. People give importance only to work and leave their homes for work without offering prayers. The result is that in their work place they have to face very confused and difficult situations where nothing is in their control. As a result, their mental peace and stability is affected and they are always under stress. People stop enjoying their work as a result. Yet they have to work as they have to support their families and obligations. When such people come back home dead tired, they only get to listen to complaints and demands from their family members. Usually the children don’t listen to their parents and the parents have to watch their children slide into wrong patterns of behavior.
All-in-all most people feel helpless in such a situation. The troubles of life and the people who cause those troubles are ever increasing and those who can reduce those problems or share the load are few and far between. All this causes stress and disease in the body. Diseases such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, depression, insomnia are frequent occurrences and cause life itself to be shortened. Thus is the life that people lead-always struggling till the end and yet watching one’s carefully constructed world breaking up. Usually the one to be blamed is fate since the individual can find no logical thing to blame for his troubles.
The question is-Do you want to live such a life?
Today the Lord has come down on this earth in his own physical form to offer succor for precisely this situation. His name is Kalki. He is looking for you and He is calling out to you. He is troubled to see you in this kind of situation. Even now you can find relief by coming into the protection of the Lord. He is the only one who can take you out of your sorrow. The Lord’s peace is eternal; the Lord’s capacity is endless. By being in the protection of the Lord, all of one’s difficulties, fears, diseases and other problems can be easily either avoided or solved. By being in the protection of the Lord, the pain of living the life described above can be eased and the burning heat of life that is one’s usual lot is turned into the cool shade of a giant tree.
The Lord’s name is a benediction for the individual. It is required by every individual soul. When the Lord’s name pours into a man’s life then the burning fire of an unsatisfactory life is quenched.
Today the Lord says that He is wealthy in peace. He is the king of peace and He offers money whose currency is peace. The individual has to figure out that what is the value of peace in his life. In actuality, a person may have physical wealth in one’s life but he may not have peace. Being with the Lord means that one’s life; family and his circumstances are such that one is in peace. That is priceless and money cannot buy it.
The Lord says that to reach such a state one has to put the foundation of one’s life on him. He says that -You must accept the primacy of the Lord in your life and your wife and family members also must accept it. I know that in reality there is no one to listen to your concerns, to remove your difficulties and diseases and to solve your problems and I promise you that if you make me your foundation then I will never abandon you.
The Lord asks the devotee to take a vow and be steadfast and not fear since He Himself walks along with the devotee. He says that He will never betray the devotee; abandon him or leave him in the lurch so the devotee should believe in Him and not doubt Him.
It is nice to hear high philosophy but there are some ground truths that have to be implemented in one’s life and the basic truth is that it is the Lord that looks for you just as it is always the shepherd that looks for the sheep and protects them. The Lord wants to give us happiness and turn our sorrows into joy. The fact is that he is looking at us and He wants us to prosper and bear abundant fruit.
Every activity that we do for the Lord has a time and place. Every activity whether spiritual or temporal have their occasions. There is an occasion to laugh, an occasion to cry; an occasion to dance and an occasion to speak. Similarly there is a correct time to offer prayers to the Lord and a time to place offerings before the Lord.
It is best to offer prayers at that time when they are easily heard by the Lord and that time is from 4 AM to 6 AM in the morning. The Lord says that if a devotee does this then the Lord Himself would be His guide and He Himself would offer Him advice about the direction he should take in life. The Lord says-I will make it rain for those who are thirsty on the path and I will shower blessings to those devotees and their families that walk the path and I will level the difficult pathways of life for such people. The life of such people will be organized and looked after by the Lord Himself. The Lord will do all those things that are necessary for the well being and the spiritual progress of such a devotee. The Lord advices to the devotee that he should not be impatient and should not try to make haste. He assures the devotee that He Himself walks ahead of the devotee to clear the way and He also walks behind the devotee to guard him from danger.
Thus He is the one and only God that not only clears our way, guards us from danger but also absolves us from the sin we commit knowingly or unknowingly. He is the same Lord who prevents us from unrighteousness, protects us from danger and untimely death and who crowns us with the gift of compassion and kindness.
He is the only God and we need to worship only Him. In today’s time which is known as the time of the demon Kali, the most effective way to worship the Lord is to stay in His remembrance by taking His name constantly. Only then will the connection be made and there will be a shower of blessings from Him.
This is the straightforward way but what do people do? They try to figure out which of the 33 crore gods or goddesses they should pray to. They choose that god from the many which are easy to please and who easily grant boons. Since these boons are worldly in nature what essentially happens is that such a person has in effect left the Lord for the trinkets of worldly life that are of temporary nature.
Not only that, the gods that people worship also derive their strengths and powers from the supreme Lord and are powerless without Him. They are in effect not gods but demi-gods. Therefore when the devotee offers worship to the demigods, what he is essentially doing is to offer prayers to the supreme Lord indirectly but because such a devotee is worldly minded and has left the Lord for the demi-gods therefore his prayers are answered as per the law of karma and such a devotee is allotted what is owed to him already and no more than that. Also that fruit is only temporary since the demand is also only temporary and the prayer is not a proper prayer (Geeta 7:21-23)
These are five questions that the sincere seeker must ask of himself before he offers prayers:
Why pray to the demi-gods when the prayer is ultimately redirected to the supreme Lord? Why not pray to the ultimate source in the first place?
1. When the demi gods that you pray to derive their strength from the supreme Lord then why not pray to the supreme Lord directly?
2. When the fruit of your prayers are given not by the demi gods but the Lord then why pray to the demi gods?
3. When the fruit thus received will be in any case be destroyed one day then why ask for such temporary things?
4. When the prayer you offer is illogical and against the rules of praying then why pray in that manner and what results can you expect?
The way forward is to first correct one’s lifestyle. Get up early in the morning at 4 am. Don’t give prime focus on your family life or work but first focus on the Lord and as a family offer prayers to the Lord. The reason is that when more than one person sits together to pray then the Lord manifests Himself amongest them. Secondly remember that since the Lord stands with you therefore He will do what is best for you and offer you protection. He is the king of kings and He is the God of the gods. All we need to do is to worship only Him with complete devotion and we will be granted His eternal blessings and benediction and fulfillment of our heartfelt desires. Search for the name of the Lord in this age of kali and worship only Him and you wishes will be granted and you will be protected.