Prayers are powerful, so much so that they can alter a person's destiny. It is said, 'A prayer should be the steering wheel of our life, not a spare wheel.' It should be the key of the day and the lock of the night.
But what does it take to get our prayers answered? Let us understand the age-old secret.
Usually when we go in front of the Lord, we express our distress or desires. But this is not the ideal way to pray. Srimad Bhagavatam explains the sequence in which we should offer prayers to make sure that the Lord takes our prayers seriously and answers them in due course of time.
Following is the sequence in which we should offer our heartfelt prayers before expressing what we desire.
1. Prayers of glorification: The Supreme Lord is glorious, and the scriptures are full of His unlimited glories. When we go in front of any exalted person, we must say something in His praise. Similarly, when we are in front of the Lord, we should first glorify Him for his name, fame, beauty, qualities, pastimes and His causeless compassion.
The scriptures have many such beautiful prayers, and we can memorize them. If we cannot, we can glorify Him in our own words because ultimately it is the intention to glorify that matters.
Example of a prayer of glorification:
namah pankaja-nabhaya namah pankaja-maline
namah pankaja-netraya namas te pankajanghraye
'My respectful obeisance is unto You, O Lord, whose abdomen is marked with a depression like a lotus flower, who is always decorated with garlands of lotus flowers, whose glance is as cool as the lotus and whose feet are engraved with lotuses.'
2. Prayers of gratitude: Secondly, we should offer our
immense gratitude to the Lord and thank Him for whatever he has blessed us with. If we look around, we will see that we have so many blessings starting with this human body, a nice family, facilities, food, shelter, friends and so on.
Expressing gratitude for anything we receive is a sign of culture. If someone gives us glass of water, we say 'thank you'. Similarly, God has given us so much to sustain our life. Thus, it is only appropriate that we acknowledge it and thank Him from time to time.
Example of a prayer of gratitude:
pratijna tava govinda na me bhaktah pranashyati
iti samsmritya samsmritya pranan sandharayamy aham
'O Govinda, Your promise is that Your devotee will never perish. By remembering this over and over again, I am able to retain my life.'
3. Payers for forgiveness: To err is human. Knowingly or unknowingly, we end up committing so many mistakes. With our thoughts, words and actions, we end up hurting and exploiting other living beings, sometimes even without having such intentions. We should therefore seek forgiveness from the Lord for all the wrongs that we have done and thus humble ourselves before Him. To forgive is divine. And humility is one quality that softens His heart like nothing else. No matter what we have done, if we are humble, and seek forgiveness, He will certainly forgive as He is extremely kind. But our repentance and seeking mercy should be based on resolving not to repeat the mistake.
An example of a prayer for forgiveness:
aparadha sahasrani
kriyante har nisham maya
daso 'ham iti mam matva
kshamasva madhusudana
"Thousands of offenses are performed by me day and night, but thinking of me as Your servant, kindly forgive those, O Madhusudana!'
And lastly:
4. Express your desire: Now that we have glorified the Lord, acknowledged His blessings by thanking Him and even accepted our wrongs, we can express what we desire. We all know that when a person is in a happy mood, the chances of them giving what another wants are greater. By offering the first types of prayers, we please the Lord and thus He is more than happy to pay attention to our prayers and grant them as and when He sees fit. His timing and his method of reciprocating with what we desire are always perfect. But most importantly, even after expressing our desire, we should end all prayers with one line and that is, 'My dear Lord! Now do whatever You think is best for me or my family.' And rest assured that He will certainly do the best since only He knows what is best. He has promised in the Srimad Bhagavatam, 'Anyone who develops love for me, I desires.' So instead of asking from the Lord straight away, must fulfil all his we should do something to please Him and when He is pleased with us, He will be kind enough to grant our wishes.
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