In so many words I pray ...

May 7, 2006

Om Namah Shivaya

Namaste, I am posting below Swami Dayanandaji's excellent

discourse/article on prayer. It is written in simple language and

instantly stirkes a chord with your heart. It is rather long but

every word is worth reading.

regards,

Om Namah Shivaya

Human free will finds its total expression in a quiet voluntary

prayer. Therefore, what I feel and say at these prayerful moments is

very important. That I can pray is itself a blessing, and how I pray

makes prayer meaningful to me.

The past seems to have a tight hold on each of us. To let go of

one's past is just wishful thinking. It does not happen. If one can

have a degree of awareness of this problem, one can discover hope

and the solution in a well-directed prayer.

These few pages bring to you some of the meditation-prayers I

conducted for the students of the gurukula. When you read them, be

with the words and keep seeing their meaning.

As a limited individual, I invoke the Lord's help, the Lord's grace,

by an act of prayer. Being based on one's will, prayer is an action.

It is an act invoking grace as well as a simple autosuggestion. As I

sit in meditation, relaxed, I offer a prayer to the Lord whom I

invoke in any given form, in any given name.

I pray:

Lord may I have the maturity to accept gracefully what I cannot

change; the will and effort to change what I can; and the wisdom to

know the difference between what I can and cannot change.

I cannot change my childhood, my parentage, my entire past. What has

happened in my life I cannot change. What has happened is happened.

I cannot do anything about it. On the basis of what has happened, I

have nothing to regret. I have no reason to be sad, depressed, or

angry. I drop my anguish for what has happened. I accept gracefully

whatever has happened in my life.

There are a lot of things that I can change, that I can repair. I

seek the strength of will and the ablity to make proper, adequate

efforts to change. I do not waste my time trying to change what I

cannot change; nor do I waste my time putting up with unhealthy

situations that I can change. The difference between the two- what I

can and cannot change - is not easy to distinguish. It takes wisdom

for which I again invoke you grace:

Lord, may I enjoy, have, the maturity to accept gracefully what I

cannot change,the will and effort to change what I can, and the

wisdom to know the difference.

I am just awake, alive to what happens at this moment. I lay down my

will, my choice. I am just awake to the moment. Moment to moment, my

being aware of the moment does not fluctuate. My being aware of the

moment is an abiding, lasting, ever-present fact. My being aware is

not in fits and starts. It is a presence, a presence which is always

present.

What I am aware of at this moment is unique. The object changes;

even these words are never the same. At this moment, a given word, a

sentence, a sound, or an object changes. My being aware of what

happens at this moment is not by choice. I am aware because I am an

awareful presence. Free from memory, I am an awareful presence.

As an individual with a limited mind, a set of senses, and a body, I

play different roles every day. As son, husband, father, uncle,

friend, employer, and so on, I play different roles. All these roles

are played by me, the individual.

When I think of my father, I am a son. When I think of my friend, I

am a friend. In order to be a friend, I replace my father with my

friend.

My relationship with the Lord is not the same. As an individual I am

fundamentally related to the Lord, whether I recognize the

relationship or not. This relationship is expressed by the

word "devotee." As a devotee, when I assume the role of father or

son, the devotee is not replaced This relationship between the

individual, me, and the Lord is the same as that between my father

and the Lord or my friend and the Lord. The devotee remains due to

the abiding nature of the relationship with the Lord.

This relationship is an abiding relationship, a fundamental

relationship born of recognition. As a person, an individual, I see

myself a devotee. A relationship that exists with the Lord is

recognized. Only then does religion have meaning.

As a devotee, I express my devotion in various forms. As a devotee,

I invoke the help and the grace of the Lord by an act of prayer.

Prayer is an action. Its result is what is called grace. I create

the grace through the act of prayer. I require the grace to remove

obstacles, problems, and difficulities. My efforts themselves are

supported by the grace I win or earn. I invoke the grace of the Lord

or I invoke the Lord:

Lord, may I have the capacity, the maturity, to accept gracefully

what I cannot change, the will and effort to change what I can and

the wisdom to know the difference.

As a child, I was helpless. My will was not with me. My mind was not

informed enough to see, to interpret. Whatever happened to me as a

child and later in life, I cannot do anything about. It happened in

the past; it is past. What has happened has happened. May be there

is a meaning to it all. May be the meaning is that I can now pray.

All that happened may be valid for me to be what I am today.

May I accept gracefully what has happened in the past. May I have

the maturity to do this. There are a lot of things I can change. I

can change my attitudes toward myself and the world. I can tighten

up my personal life if it is loose. If it is too tight, I can loosen

up. I can change a lot of things. I can repair any damage done. May

I enjoy the will, not merely an intention or a desire, but a will

supported by adequate effort. May I have the will and effort to

change what I can wherever I have to. And may I have the wisdom to

know what I can and cannot change.

May I not vicitmize myself by subjecting myself to the past. Let me

see clearly that I cannot alter what has happened. May I not have

any regret, sadness, anger, or agitation on this score. Let me

recognize very clearly thoughts about the past that I cannot change

so that I can accept the past for what it is. Let me be aware of

whatever I can change. Let this be clear to me. Let there be no

doubt. Let me not waste my power and time trying to change what I

cannot change. Trying to change what I cannot leaves me so

powerless, helpless, and impoverished, that I cannot bring about the

change that needs changing.

Lord, may I have the maturity to accept totally, gracefully what I

cannot change, the will and effort to change what I can, and the

knowledge of the difference between what I can and cannot change.

That you are not the past, you see by being awareful of the present.

The present moment.... You are aware of it.....

You are an awareful presence. In the awareful presence that you are,

perceptions happen and the objects of perception are many and

various. You are an awareful presence, an abiding, awareful

presence.

Problems like anger, depression, sadness, self-criticism, and self-

dissatisfaction all stem, for the most part, from one's childhood. I

am not to blame for these problems. The outside world is to blame-

parents, teachers, other elders and society consisting of a number

of people, situations and events. All these are to blame. Either we

blame ourselves illegitimately or blame others legitimately.

I free myself from blaming myself. I am not to blame for what

happened to me as a child. As a child I was helpless. I did not have

the necessary knowledge or information with which to understand, to

take action appropriate to each situation. When someone else was to

blame, I did not have the knowledge to say, "You are wrong." I

thought I was wrong. I was not an adult and, therefore, could not

make decisions and act upon them. Others had to make decisions and

do things that affected me. I am not to blame.

I free myself from blaming others also. If I blame others, then I

still carry the past. As long as I continue to blame, the factors

that cause damage to me continue. The I that was subject to pain

continues to be, along with anger and resentment.

I cannot forget my past. How can I? I know what has happened. How

can I forget? To bury the past is easier said then done. No one can

bury one's past. All I can do is to accept the past gracefully. I

cannot afford to blame anyone or anything. Nor I can afford to blame

myself. Even as an adult, any omission or commission on my part was

determined by the helpless I that was the child . I see that I am

not to blame. I also see the uselessness of blaming others.

I gracefully accept the past because I cannot afford to blame.

Perhaps there was a meaning to all that has happened in my life. All

is well that ends well. All that happened to me might be in order

because now I am ready to accept the entire past gracefully. People

do not accept what has happened even in their old age.That I now

pleading to the Lord, " please help me accept this situation," makes

the entire past meaningful.

Please help me, O Lord, Help me to accept my entire past gracefully.

Let me not blame anyone, neither myself nor anyone else. Please help

me accept the past gracefully.

There are number of things I can do. One thing is what I am doing

right now. I can pray. I can my attitudes. I can change some of my

personal habits- habits in thinking and in behaviour which cause

recurring problems.

Let me have the will and effort necessary to fullfill that will so

that I can bring about the desirable changes in my life. Let me be

objective enough to drop and false ideas and concepts held by me

against all evidence because of my emotional attachment to them. Let

me have the courage and the honesty to drop ideas, beliefs, and

speculations.

May I be open enough to explore, to know where there is valid

belief. May I not be confused between a fact and a belief, nor

between a valid and a baseless belief.

May I have the ablity to change, to reshuffle. Let me not be afraid

to be wrong. Let me not be afraid to face up to the fact that my

forefathers and my parents might have been wrong. May I have the

love to know, the love to be objective.

O Lord, give me the will, courage, honesty, and sincerity of purpose

to change what I can change.

A prayer is always from an individual. It is never from the self,

atma, but from the individual, jiva. Who is nothing but atma, in

fact. It is this individual who prays.

To whom does the individual pray? I do not pray to another

individual. Any other individual also has the limitations that I

have as an individual. The power and knowledge of the one I pray to

are free from any limitation.

Let there be no confusion about whom the individual is praying to.

The self? The individual is the self. The self is not an individual,

but the individual is the self. Therefore the prayer is not towards

the self but towards the self as Isvara. The self that is now an

individual is praying to the self that is Isvara, the total, the

Lord.

Let there be no confusion about this. A prayer is always to the

Lord. Even the enlightened person who knows the meaning of the

sentence, Tat Tvam Asi, "That Thou Art," can offer a prayer as an

individual, is evident, even though there is no difference in fact.

Non-difference between the Lord and the individual is a matter for

knowledge. That the difference is apparent, mithya, must be

recognized. But, now as an individual, when I see myself helpless, I

cannot but pray. So, prayer is not against the teaching. In fact,

any form of ritual, also a kind of prayer, is not against the

teaching. I pray because I seek help. Therefore the prayer is never

to the laws themselves but to the laws as the Lord. Therefore, the

prayer is always to the Lord, the maker of the world and its laws.

Even a prayer directed to a deity, with reference to a given

phenomenon, like sun, water, fire and so on, goes to the Lord.

I seek help in order to accept my past. The past is not a villain,

nor does it have to be looked upon with contempt. The past makes me

what I am. Every experience was an enriching experience. The problem

is not that I have a past, but that I see myself as a victim of the

past because I do not accept it. Let this be clear.I do not hate my

past.

In such hatred there is denial of the past, rejection of the past. I

cannot deny my past, much less reject it. The past has happened. It

is an already established fact. I cannot do anything to alter the

fact. The problem is that when I reject the past, when I resent

anything about the past, I do not accept the past. The more I am

able to see how the past cannot change, the more I become free of my

resentments, anger, remorse, and so on.

We spend our time and energy resenting the past. I seek help here

because it is one thing to understand the past but quite another to

be free from resentement and anger towards it. Prayer itself is an

action, and its result is called grace. I create the grace. I do not

wait for grace to come to me. I invoke it by prayer. That I pray

also produces a result because there is an acknowledgement of my own

helplessness in the submission.

If I understand how I cannot change my past, why am I angry? why do

I hate myself? why do I criticize myself? Well, I am helpless. In

that acknowledgement oh helplessness and in the capacity to pray is

my effort, my will. My will is used prudently in submitting. In

submission, it is the will that is submitted, and to submit my will,

I use my will.

One has to see the beauty of the prayer. There is no meditation, no

ritual. without prayer. There is no technique which can replace

prayer because in any technique the will is retained. Here. the will

willingly submits. That submission performs the miracle. In the

submission itself, there is an acceptance. Understand that in the

submission there is acceptance of the past.

I do not change the self-criticizing mind. I do not want a mind that

will not critize me or anyone else. That is not the issue for me.

All that I want is to accept that mind. Let me accept the self-

criticizing mind. When I say I accept my past, then I accept the

outcome of the past. The outcome is self-criticism. I accept the

mind as it is. I am not afraid of this self-juding mind, this self-

condeming mind. All that I seek is to totally accept this self-

criticizing mind.

O Lord, help me accept the mind, the self-judging, self-criticizing,

self-condemning, self-pitying mind, to me. Please help me. I submit

my will because I have tried to use my will to change. It did not

work. It will never work. And therefore I give up. I give up, not

helplessly. I give up prudently and deliver myself, my will, into

your hands. I have no reason for despair. All I seek is this

acceptance of the past with its outcome. I am not avoiding self-

criticism. I want your grace to accept self-criticism.

Acceptance of the past implies accepting the outcome of the past. If

there is an innate anger or sadness, it is the outcome of the past.

Sometimes anger and sadness are manifest; sometimes they are not.

When I want to accept the past, I accept the outcome, too. My

manifest anger, pain, depression, and so on, all stem from the

past.My prayer to the Lord is to help me accept the past along with

its outcome.

I am not interested in changing a given habit of thinking. I am

interested in accepting the habit. Acceptance may bring about a

change in the habit. If a change happens, it happens but it is not

why I pray.

O Lord, I pray for the serenity to gracefully accept my entire past

and its outcome.

What I have to change is my attitude. The prayer to accept the past

with its outcome is for a change of attitude on my part towards my

past along with its outcome is for a change of attitude on my part

towards my past, towards my mind, towards people, money, the future,

and towards my health and body. If these attitudes cause problems,

let me change.

Let me have the will and courage to change my beliefs if they

require change-blind beliefs, beliefs which are not valid because of

the evidence against them. We tend to hold on to such a beliefs only

because we have interested our time and heart in nursing them. Let

me have the honesty and courage to drop these nursed, false beliefs.

Let me change these beliefs for those that are valid. Let me see the

difference between valid and false beliefs. Let my commitment to the

pursuit of knowledge be unflinching.

No one wants to be a victim of one's own past. If I hold on to the

past, I can drop it. I can let it go. Like an object in my hand, I

can just drop it. However, the problem is that the past holds me. I

am helpless. When the past holds me, the past and I are so united,

so identical, that the past itself becomes I. It seems to hold me

hostage.

In my igorance and innocence I subjected myself to hurt, guilt, and,

therefore, pain. I remain associated with these memories. Some of

these memories may not be vivid, but they form the very I. I find

myself helpless in letting go of the past.

If someone holds me, I can seek someone else's help to free myself.

Here the one who holds, the held, and the holding itself are

identical. I have to either plead to myself or to the Lord.In this

pleading, imploring, there is submission. There is an

acknowledgement on my part that I am helpless. The submission of my

helplessness to the Lord is real prayer.

This prayer, implying an acknowledgement of helplessness and

submission to the Lord, is what brings about the conversion of

letting the past go. In the submission is the acknowledgement. The

completeness of the acknowledgement takes place in the submission

and the submission takes place when I pray, consciously pray. Prayer

is not a technique. It is an action, no doubt, but it is not a

technique. It is born of an acknowledgement of my helplessness.

Lord, help me to let go of the past. Let me not try to change what I

cannot. When I blame someone, I do not let go. I want to change what

I cannot change. In blaming, there is no acceptance of a fact. There

is an attempt to change what I cannot. O Lord, let me not blame

anyone. What has happened is a fact. It remains a fact. I cannot do

anything about it.

I do not have remote, resentment, or anger. O Lord, let me not try

to change what I cannot change. May I have the will to back up my

desire, to fulfill my will. May I have adequate effort to change

what I can. May I have no cofusion with reference to what I can and

cannot change. I implore thy help.

I bring Isvara, the Lord, into my life when I recognize my

helplessness, uncertainity, and incapacity to order things as I

want. There is uncertainity with reference to the fulfillment of my

wishes and desires. There are limitations of strength in terms of

will and capacity to make the necessary effort. There are

limitations in terms of knowledge and resources. There is an absence

of freedom in my mental life. Recognition of all this makes me

acknowledge my helplessness.

This recognition itself reveals a degree of maturity. I seek further

maturity by invoking the grace, the invisible, the intangible

something that makes things possible. I invoke that grace, the grace

of the Lord, to accept things that I cannot change. Our sorrows,

agitations, and anger leading to depression, all stem from not

accepting and understanding the past,

O Lord, I have blamed a number of factors: people, situations, time,

places, society. Perhaps all of these have helped me to come to the

point where I can pray. I realize that no one is to blame, nor do I

blame myself. What I cannot change may I gracefully, totally, accept.

I can change my attitudes and work for the necessary understanding.

I can bring a better order to my personal life. I can make whatever

effort is necessary. O Lord, may I have the will and effort to

change what I can. May I know what I can and cannot change.

More often I lay waste my powers and my time to change what I cannot

change. And when I have to change what I can, I am already tired. I

am impoverished in terms of will, energy, effort, and the capacity

for effort. May I have the knowledge to know the difference between

the two: what I can and cannot change.

Find out, one by one, what you want to change. One by one, list

them.

I wish my father had a different attitude. I wish my mother had a

different mental make-up and more personal discipline. I wish I had

studied more. I wish my home was a real home. I wish I had

understood the value of values. I wish I had been more disciplined.

I wish I had heeded the words of advice of so and so. I wish I had

not met this person. I wish I had not done a particular action. I

wish I had done a particular action. I wish I had equipped myself

with some skills and better titles. I wish I had been born under

another astrological sign. I wish I had been born a male. I wish I

had been born a female. I wish I had not been born at all.

How many resentments and useless wishes!

O Lord, help me understand intimately the uselessness of all these

wishes. Help me drop every one of them.

As an individual I see myself as a victim of my past, I honestly

acknowledge the fact that the past holds me and determines my mental

condition. I see myself as a hostage of the past. I acknowledge this

fact and I also acknowledge my helplessness. If I can help myself I

will not be the victim of the past. Depressions, fears, anger, self-

criticism, intolerance, hatred, unhappiness - if I am not a victim I

will not have any of these. These conditions reveal my helplessness.

They do not happen without the past. If I can help myself I will not

have them.

Once I see and honestly acknowledge my helplessness, I can seek

help, I seek help not at the altars of the world. I have sought

there before. I now seek help from a source I look upon as a being

of all knowledge, of all power, whom I call the Lord, Isvara. I

establish a contact, a relationship with Isvara through prayer. As I

child I went to my mother or father for help. Now, as an adult, I go

to the source of everything. Freely I go to the source. I am not

shy. I ackowledge my helplessness. I seek help through prayer.

I pray for the strength, the clarity, the serenity to accept gladly,

gracefully, what I cannot change. When I blame a situation or person

for my being what I am - mother, father, friend, boss, death,

poverty, society, political/ economic systems, my stars, health,

institutions, schools, colleges, media, or music - when I blame any

one of them, I must know that I do not accept my past. In blaming

there is resentment of a fact. There is rejection of a fact. But a

fact is a fact. My rejection does not alter it. It only adds to my

confusion.

In order to accept gracefully what I cannot change, I blame no one.

I blame neither the situation nor myself. I am not to blame. I let

go of the past. I totally accept all situations and people who have

come into my past, who have perhaps contributed to my past, who have

caused my past. At this stage, I may not appreciate why these people

did what they did. I may not appreciate their problems to be what

they were, what they are, but atleast I do not blame them because I

accept my past.

Whatever has happened is a fcat. I cannot but accept it. My

rejection does not change the fact or negate it. I accept gracefully

and blame no one. All that I seek is the maturity, the clarity, a

space in myself from where I gracefully accept what I cannot change.

I also seek help for adequate will in order to bring about changes,

desirable changes - in my attitudes towards people, towards money,

towards the future, towards my health, my body, and my skills -

healthy proper attitudes. If I have to bring about any other change

or if I have to apply myself in order to learn more:

O Lord, please give the unflinching will, the will that holds

against all odds, an unflinching will to change. May I also have the

knowledge to know what I can and cannot change, knowledge that helps

me to accept what I cannot change. Once I know something cannot be

changed, I accept it. And once I know I can change, I can do what

has to be done. May I have this knowledge.

The basis for any form of prayer is not one's helplessness; it is

the acknowledgement of one's helplessness. The key to an efficacious

prayer is realizing my helplessness. Prayer is born naturally when I

realize my helplessness and also recognize the source of all power,

all knowledge. If both of these are acknowledged, prayer is very

natural.

If everything is in order I need not pray. All prayers have their

fullfilment in keeping everything in order. If everything is in

order, prayer becomes redundant. My prayers have been already

answered.

When I am helpless, I seek help from any person I can. When the

helplessness is in terms of my incapacity to let go of my past or to

let the future happen without my being apperhensive, then no outside

help from a person like myself is of any use. I go to the source

from where such help is possible. I invoke the Lord in prayer.

I intimately realize that I am victim of my own past. As a victim of

my past, I cannot be apprehensive about the future. I become

worried. I become cautious. I become frightened of my future. To

deliver myself into the hands of the Lord, I deliver myself to the

order that is the Lord.The Lord is not separate from the order and

the order is not separate from the Lord. My past then becomes part

of the meaningful order of my personal life. The future unfolds

itself in keeping with the same order, an order that includes my

previous karma, if there is such a thing.

All's well that shapes well, that ends well. Past mistakes become

meaningful as long as they have made me wiser. To acknowledge my

helplessness is itself a great step towards recognizing the ordeer.

I intimately acknowledge my immediate past and remove the past from

my life.

As a child I had no will of my own. I was in the hands of my

parents, my elders, my teachers, and other adult members of the

society. As a child, I see that I was absolutely helpless. My

knowledge was limited and my perception was never clear. I was

insecure. I was learning with a small mind and with meager

information, without any worldly wisdom, without any wisdom at all.

Naturally, I made conclusions about myself and the world. Those

conclusions formed the basis for my interpretation of the events to

come. In the process, these interprated events definitely seem to

confirm my conclusions.

Look at the helplessness. As an adult I cannot remove the

conclusions I made as a child and therefore I become a victim of my

own past. Whom should I blame? I cannot blame myself. Nor I can

afford to blame the world. Blaming is to retain the past and does

help me let go. It is one thing to acknowledge the mistakes of

others but quite another to hold on to them and to retain my fears

and anger. I have to eliminate all forms of blaming in order to be

free of my past.

I may have valid reasons to blame. I see those reasons and let go of

my past. By allowing my blaming to continue, I allow the past to

continue. If I was a victim of the behaviour of my elders, by

blaming them nowI continue to be a victim. Understand all of this,

but still I am helpless.

O Lord, help me. Help me accept gracefully what I cannot change. Let

me be free of blaming anyone, including myself. I cannot blame

myself for what happened to me. Nor I can blame others because

others themselves have others to blame.

Help me accept gracefully what I cannot change. Blaming means that I

want to change the past. I want my past to be different. How can it

be? O Lord, help me accept gracefully what I cannot change. I let go

of my resentement, anger, and dissatisfaction by accepting

gracefully what I cannot change. O Lord, perhaps what I went through

was meant to happen. Perhaps it was all in order, for now I pray.

All the years of pain, struggle, and groping seem to have paid off,

for I pray and by this prayer everything has become meaningful. My

pain, my past, has resulted in my coming to you to seek help.

Intimately, I acknowledge my helplessness. I seek thy help, thy

intervention, to make drop what I cannot change, even what you also

cannot change. You cannot change what has happened, nor I can or

anyone else. Intimately I acknowledge this fact: What has happened

cannot change be changed.

Help me totally accept what I cannot change. My mother's behaviour,

her omissions and commissions, my father's neglect, his anger, his

indifference, his lack of care, his mishandling, his mismanagement,

his drinking, the fights between them, the confusion at home, my

being left alone, not fondled, not cared for, not loved. I was wrong

perhaps, but this is how I felt.

O Lord, I cannot change what has happened. Please help me accept

gracefully what I cannot change. I do not want to bury the past, nor

do I want to forget the past. I cannot. I just want to accept the

fact, accept the past. Gracefully, I accept the past. I even begin

to see an order in all of this, for do I not pray now? I have come

to the objective. I see some order here. Please help me accept

gracefully what I cannot change.