To Live is to Pray: Invitation to Pray with Mystics and Philosopher

It is often suspected or believed that the stars are silent and manencounters a deaf sky. Man’s attempt to talk to the stars has, however, beenthe most indefatigable. Beyond the stars, man has been more desperate aboutnews from the other side of grave while newer philosophies and exoterictheologies have claimed that man is imprisoned in the world while the otherworld is far off and we need to die before we can enjoy colours or smells ofParadise. Man’s attempt has been to seek freedom against the  iron walls of life of bondage. This attemptto talk to the stars and beyond and to the other side of grave and break freefrom the prison of self/world/mechanism is called prayer. Prayer is anadventure to the most distant or hidden or most sublime heights we can imagineand it achieves the deepest longing of all of us for union, for meeting, fortalking to the Beloved – mi ‘raj (ascension). The greatest gift from thenight of ascension was prayer. Let us try to understand how with the help ofcertain insights from a philosopher whose life has been described as one ofprayer – Kierkegaard – and two towering religious philosophers of the 20thcentury – Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel – whose explication disarmsall scientific criticism of prayer.

Let us first note that prayer is not primarily petition and that Godand not any object is the object of prayer. Mir, the godfather of Urdu poetry,said that it is wishes that make us who are really Godly bonded slaves. So thebest prayer would be to be delivered from bondage to desires/wishes  and thus a contented heart with no wish atall that is left to be granted.

   

What should oneask God for? Previously our parents prayed for rains or sunny days – andorganized collective prayer food (gam-i niyaz) ceremony – but today itis usually thought it is better to ask weather man. Our parents prayed formonths till the baby was delivered for it to be a boy and healthy. Now testscan show both sex and any abnormalities it might come up with. Previouslyparents prayed for softening of the heart of feudal lord whose land theycultivated. Today, thanks to passing away of feudalism and, in case of Kashmir,courtesy Sheikh Saheb, God has been relieved of attending to that prayer aswell. Previously they prayed for refuge from problems accompanying raising agirl child (kour-i malen sater) while as today they focus energy ongiving her education that itself is almost a solution to the prayer . Suchprayers as those for destroying other communities – especially Jews – orresolution of Palestine and Kashmir haven’t so far been answered. It seems that most of petitionary prayerswe once made no longer seem to concern either us or God. In Bedil, the sage-poet and “father of meaning,” we findrejection of those who believe or claim that all the prayers are granted.Noah’s prayer for son and Abraham’s for Azar was not accepted.

 This may help us to consider other forms ofprayer or deeper understanding of prayer that is so crucial in an age whensecularist critiques of prayer have become fashionable while quest formeaning/God – the object of prayer – remains as desperate as ever. Even “ancientand unrepentant agnostic” Khushwant Singh who boasted that he didn’t waste asecond in prayer during his life recited Gaytri Mantra every morning andsought, like Faiz, help of special prayers from sages. What prayer means for usafter encountering modernity is the question and here our mystical philosophershave much to teach us.

I don’t know ofany man who can wholly dispense with prayer. Whatever meaning or joy we find inlife is possible by means of resources of spirit that prayer is an instrumentto access. To live is to pray. The primarypurpose  of prayer is not to makerequests but “to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is asong and men cannot live without a song” as Heschel noted. Prayer changes theman who prays and that is granting of prayer. All prayers are answered thoughnot all petitions and our job is not to worry about outcome of prayer as prayermeans waiting, waiting to receive or be present to receive the grace that isnever absent. When there is a deep desire for the object, prayer happens. Itneedn’t be said. 

Buber’s classic work cites Rabbi Pinhas of Korez who said:  “The people think that they pray beforeGod. But it is not so. For the prayer itself is the essence of theGodhead.”  Buber notes that prayer in the original meaning of the yihud in its purest form is no”subjective” event, but that “it is the dynamic form of the veryunity of God.” These points help us understand why the Prophet (S.A.W) saidthat prayer distinguishes a believer from nonbeliever and prayer is worshipping.

Kierkegaard has addressed another importantproblem – fight against distractions and other struggles we are forced to take while praying. “One who prays arightstruggles in prayer and is victorious.” In Buber’s Hasidism and Modern Man we read: “Whenman stands in prayer and desires to join himself to the Eternal, and the alienthoughts come and descend on him, these are holy sparks that have sunken andthat wish to be raised and redeemed by him; and the sparks belong to him, theyare kindred to the roots of his soul: it is his power that will redeem them. Heredeems them when he restores each troubled thought to its pure source, allowseach impulse intent on a particular thing to flow into the divine creativeimpulse, allows everything alien to be submerged in the divine self-identity.”

Heschel has noted that “The focus of prayer is not the self. … It is the momentary disregard of ourpersonal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute theart of prayer. Feeling becomes prayer in the moment in which we forget ourselves and become aware of God. …. Thus, in beseeching Him for bread, thereis one instant, at least, in whichour mind is directed neither to our hunger nor to food, but to His mercy. Thisinstant is prayer. We start with a personal concern and live to feel theutmost.” Iqbal has explained this last mentioned point in one of his lecturesin The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam.  And furthermore, against wide spreadcriticisms of petitional prayer thought to involve request for bending theuniverse for personal interests of someone, it may be noted that petitional prayer is “onlyone department of prayer; and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaningevery kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized asdivine, we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched. Prayerin this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion.”

The most influentialmetaphysicians/sage-philosophers from Sankara to Ibn Arabi to Eckhart havebequeathed us hymns and prayers that silence all critics of Unitarian/Wujoodiparadigm who think devotion and prayer are of no use to nondualistic thought.  Kierkegaard has also bequeathed us his ownlist of prayers and meditations on praying  that would be favourites of “God forsaken”moderns. “The earthly minded person thinks and imagines that when he prays, the important thing,the thing he must concentrate upon, is that God should hear what he is prayingfor. And yet in the true, eternal sense it is just the reverse: the truerelation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the personpraying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God isasking for.” And “Prayer doesnot change God, it changes the one who offers it. If you complain of yourenemies to God, he makes short work of it and opens a case against you, becausebefore God you too are a guilty person. To complain against another is tocomplain against yourself. You think that God should take your side, that Godand you together should turn against your enemy, against him who did you wrong.But this is a complete misunderstanding. God looks without discrimination uponall. Go ahead. If you intend to have God judge someone else, then you have

made God your judge as well. God is, like-for-like,simultaneously your judge. If, however, you refuse to accuse someone before Godhe will be merciful towards you. “Even if prayer does not accomplish anything here on earth, it neverthelessworks in heaven.”  “Inproportion as one becomes more and more earnest in prayer,one has less and less to say, and in the end one becomes

quite silent. Indeed, one becomes quite a hearer.” “Theimportant thing is to be honest towards God, until he himselfgives the explanation; which, whether it is the one you want or not, is alwaysthe best.”

ForBuber prayer is “to offer God the unbroken promptings of his heart.” Sowhatsoever your background, consider singing your heart out and listening tothe silence and music of the universe and you have participated in prayer andsecured your berth in Heaven.  

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