No matter who houses a bad thought —
A desire-man or an aspiration-man —
A bad thought is a dire challenge
To humanity’s progress-life.
Sri Chinmoy, Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 24, Agni Press, 1984
/What do you say while you are praying? To whom are you speaking? Have you ever prayed for others, for the world, for peace? How have you done this?/
How to pray? With tears in our hearts. Where to pray? In a lonely place. When to pray? The moment our inner being wants us to pray. Why to pray? This is the question of questions. We have to pray if we want our aspirations to be fulfilled by God.
When I am praying, I am communing with the Highest Absolute. I speak to Him either like a beggar to an emperor or like a child to his grandfather. I started praying and meditating - you can say unconsciously - at the age of four or five. But since the very beginning of my conscious spiritual journey, I have been praying to the Supreme not only for my own perfection in life but also for a oneness-world founded upon inner peace. At this point in my spiritual journey, all my prayers are for others, for the world, for peace.
Then again, in the highest sense, there is no separation between myself and "others." After I attained my own conscious union with God, I came to realize that there is only one "person," and that is my universal oneness-life.
During prayer and meditation, it is advisable to speak to God in your own mother tongue because the language that you learned from birth has become inseparably one with your life-breath, which is all simplicity, sincerity, purity and divinity. So it is advisable, especially for seekers, to pray to God in the language in which you were brought up.
To pray to God or to work as God wants us to work - which is the better of the two?
I am happy to answer this question. It is a question of questions. But the answer is quite simple. To pray to God or to work as God wants us to work - both are of supreme importance. Both are inevitable means to an end. And that end is God-realization.
Which is the most beautiful prayer: the prayer of praise and beseeching, where man sees God as omnipotent, or the prayer of acceptance - "Thy Will be done"?
The prayer "Let Thy Will be done" is infinitely more beautiful, infinitely more illumining and infinitely more fulfilling than a prayer of praise and beseeching. When we say, "Let Thy Will be done," it means we have become fully aware of our measureless limitations, incapacities and ignorance, and aware of God's measureless compassion, concern and love for us. Because of our fathomless ignorance, we admit that we do not know what is good for us. We realize we may ask for the wrong thing, which instead of helping or satisfying us will only make us miserable. So we ask our divine Father, who loves us infinitely more than we love ourselves, to take control of our lives and make the decisions for us.