Chapter title: Prayer

‌Chapter title: Prayer‌

6 February 1980 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 8002065 ShortTitle: WITHME06 Audio:

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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy-typed. It is for reference purposes only.]

God is for gamblers who can risk all for the unknown. The gambler is not really interested in winning.

His whole interest is in gambling. When he risks, time stops for him, mind stops for him, his heart misses a beat. that is his joy. In that suspense he unknowingly tastes something of meditation.

We are doing it here very knowingly, deliberately. I am teaching you to be gamblers. I am asking you to risk your life, and to risk it for the unknown. Worship means risking all that you have in the search.

[There is an interview with Ma Anand Savita which is not included here.]

Prayer does not mean talking to God, because God understand no language, or, he understand only the language of silence.

To me utterly in silence is prayer, not repeating certain formulas, The Lord's Prayer and this and that and all that nonsense. Prayer cannot be reduced to words, all words falsify prayer. And that's what all the religions have been teaching people: words and words.

True prayer is the art of silence. One is simply silent, with no motive, because if there is a motive silence cannot be true. The motive will remain there, lurking around. If one is silent for the sheer joy of being silent then it is prayer.

And the second thing to remember.… The first is, no word is needed, the second is, coming with God means listening to him, not saying something to him. Be silent and listen. The chirping of the birds and the wind passing through the trees and the sound of running water -- listen to it all. This is how God is speaking, giving his messages. He will not come like an Old Testament prophet and shout at you. He is not a person, he is a presence. And if you are silent you can feel the presence. There is nothing to say but much to feel, nothing to say but much to listen to. And the beautiful things about silence is, it is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan.

When you are listening you are receptive, vulnerable, open. That vulnerability, that openness, creates great joy in you because for the first time you drop all bondages. At least for the moment you are out of the prison, in the open, under the sun, under the moon. for the first time you feel the wind, the sun. these are all ways of contacting god.

He comes through the heart, but he can come only when the heart is utterly silent, absolutely still.

God need not be advised, and your advice cannot be of any meaning; the very effort is stupid. People are hiding their desires behind their prayers. Their prayers are only a facade; they want to snatch something from god. There is desire, and whenever there is desire, prayer disappears.

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Prayer means a total acceptance of whatsoever is. Desire means that something else is needed, this is not enough, more is needed. And when there is the desire for more, how can you be silent? There will be turmoil within. There are millions of desires, so you will be crowded, suffocated. You cannot be at ease

and you cannot be at rest. And prayer is a deep rest, a rest in existence, a relaxation so deep that you disappear totally.

To be in prayer means to be available to god, to his creativity, to be open, to be utterly silent, relaxed, to be a non-being, so that he can possess you. You are so empty of yourself that he is bound to possess you.

Prayer is a gesture from your side that "I am ready to be possessed. I am ready to be overwhelmed --

come to me!" And that too has not to be said, that is just a feeling in every fibre of your body, mind, soul.

How long will you be here?

-- A year.

-- That's very good! Do many groups. And those who come for one year never go back! (laughter)

-- I don't want to go away.

-- There is no need to go -- you have come home!

Mediation is the only true prayer. All else that goes on in the name of prayer is mind stuff. It is utterly useless. You can go on talking to God for lives together, but you will never be heard.

Real prayer is not verbal. It has to be out of silence. Silence is simply silence, it does not belong to any religion. It certainly belongs to the religious heart. It is the very center of the religious heart but it is not part of any dogma, doctrine, church.

A really religious person is free of all Christianity, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism. Because "isms" as such are something in the mind. They are ideology, philosophy, thinking. And thinking is never silent, thinking is a always a turmoil. Silence means a thought-less stillness. When there is no thought in you, when nothing stirs, you are in prayer.

Because meditation is difficult, priests all over the world invented prayers,

prayers which can be done by anybody. Even a small child can be taught so that he repeats them like a parrot every night -- out of fear, because the mother and the father, all are after him: "Have you said your prayers or not?" So he has to do it, and then it becomes a habit: when you are grown up you continue saying the same prayer every night. If you don't do it, it will be difficult for you to sleep because a routine is missing. If you say it, you gain nothing.

It is just like a habit. A few people like to have a cup of coffee before they go to sleep, a few people like to have a little smoke before they go to sleep, and a few religious people like to do some praying -- but it is all the same! (laughter) There is no qualitative difference, just a routine. sleep needs a certain ritual: make love, smoke a cigarette or jog or do something else!(laughter) Even if you enter your bed from the wrong side you will find it difficult to go to sleep. In a new room it is difficult to sleep. It takes at least three days to settle into a new room, into a new house.

Prayer also can become part of ritual. That's what it has become all over the world. It is not prayer. It is an invention of the cunning priest, a toy to play with.

Real prayer is meditation. Meditation is hard work. You have to transform much in your being, you have to drop much rubbish. You have to empty your head, you have to move more and more close to the heart.

You have to become more silent and still. And when you are utterly silent God speaks, not in a certain language -- he has no language. But through silence there is a communion. It is a totally different way of giving a message. You start hearing the message; not only that, you start living the message. Once you have heard from God in you deep silence, you have to follow it -- you cannot do otherwise, and not out of any sense of duty but out of sheer joy. The more you follow those subtle guidelines that happen in you silence, the more and more your silence deepens, the more and more you become available to God. He can communicate more. Then meditation becomes your very being. Then it is not something special to do, it becomes your ordinary life.

Cooking, you are meditatively cooking, taking a shower, you are meditatively taking a shower. Even while sleeping you are meditatively sleeping. When meditation has become just like breathing or the heart beating, then you have come home.

Praise is the very essence of prayer. If you can praise life and all its gift you are bound to encounter god.

People only condemn, their very being is negative. They are very vocal in negating, in saying no, in condemning. And not only the ordinary people but the so-called religious people are also condemnors, they 1/08/07

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are great poisoners. They don't teach people how to praise life and its blessings, they teach people how to condemn life, how to negate life. Their idea of God is that he is an enemy of life. On one hand they go on saying that God created life, on the other hand they go on teaching people to renounce life. This is such an absurdity, but it has been perpetuated for so long that nobody sees its contradiction.

If God created life then it can't be renounced. To renounce it will be to renounce God himself. It is because of this that George Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples that all the saints are against God. His statement has tremendous significance. The saints teach people to go away from life. That can't be God's intention. If he creates life and he goes on creating it, that means that he wants you to live it in its totality.

He wants you to live it with gusto, with fervour, with joy. He wants you to transform life into a love affair.

and that's what praise is.

Look at the stars, at the sun, at the trees, at the people. We are living in such a wonderful world but we are so blind and so deaf that we don't hear the music that surrounds us and we don't see the beauty that is constantly showering on us. And when we start seeing it, praise arises, silent praise. Nothing has to be said in particular. What can be said? -- all words are inadequate. But one bows down in silence, in gratitude.

That is prayer.

Prayer is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian. How can it be Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian? It is just the silent, singing heart, full of joy, full of thankfulness.

Praise is the very foundation of prayer. One who can praise has a heart ready to jump into prayer.

It is difficult to praise, it is easy to condemn. It is easy to condemn because through condemnation the ego feels nourished. Through condemnation you reduce people to being lower than you, you become higher, holier, superior. That's how the ego exists, it always reduces everybody to a lower status.

Praise means raising the other higher than you. It is poison for the ego. When you praise each and everything, when the whole universe becomes an object of your praise, the ego disappears. And the disappearance of the ego makes you available to god. Only when the ego has completely gone can God descend in you. The ego has to vacate the heart, only then can God enter in.

God simply means the whole. Ego means you are trying...... [page missing? 195]

.… is in gambling. When he risks, time stops for him, mind stops for him, his heart misses a beat. For a moment it is as if the whole world stops, everything is in a suspense. That is his joy. In that suspense he unknowingly tastes something of meditation.

We are doing it here very knowingly, deliberately. I am teaching you to be gamblers.… not in the ordinary sense, I am not asking you to risk your money. I am asking you to risk your life and to risk it for the unknown. There is no guarantee, there can never be any guarantee for it, because if there is a guarantee it is business. It is no more gambling.

Worship means risking all that you have for the search of what it is all about. This mysterious universe, this infinite existence, this beginningless, endless life -

- what is it all about?

God is only a name for all this, for this totality. If it is only curiosity one becomes a philosopher. If it is only a ritual one becomes a Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan. But if it is a deep love affair then one becomes a sannyasin.

Worship can be out of fear or out of greed but then it is not worship at all. That is what is know to people as worship. In the temples, in the mosques, in the churches, in the synagogues you will find people who are either afraid or greedy.

It is very rare to come to the third category because the third category rarely exists. The third category consists of those people who worship just out of gratitude, because god has given so much. They don't desire any more, they are not greedy. They are not afraid. How can they be afraid when god exists? How can there be hell when God is? It is impossible, God and hell don't fit. All those tortures of hell simply prove that there is no god. If hell is a reality then God must be unreal. Then devil is a reality. The devil fits perfectly well with hell. If God is, then there is no hell. That is enough proof that hell does not exist.

But this is strange, a very strange phenomenon, that people have been arguing against God but nobody has argues against hell. I have come across thousands of books which argue against God saying that there is no God. but I have not come across a single book which argues that there is no hell or which argues that 1/08/07

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there is no devil. It appears very strange but when you give it a second thought it has a certain logic: we are so miserable that we can accept hell easily. We are already in hell, how can we disprove it? And we are surrounded by all kinds of evil forces. We have created them, we have released them. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung are enough proof that the devil exists. Our world is enough proof that there is hell, and certainly hell will need somebody to control, to dominate, to rule over it; hence nobody says that there is no hell, nobody says that there is no devil, but thousands of people have argues against God.

The real worshipper is one who looks at the beauty of existence. Although we have contaminated everything, still it is beautiful; we have not been successful although we have destroyed much we cannot destroy the whole. Still the beauty lingers, still trees dance and birds sing and stars go on showering light, life. And the celebration continues, only man has been lagging behind. He has become

heavy and he is no more part of the celebration of existence.

The real worshipper is one who becomes part of this celebration. He dances with the trees, he sings with the birds. He is blissful and grateful; out of his bliss he is bound to be grateful.

So I don't teach you God, I teach you bliss, because this is my observation: if you are blissful then you are bound to be grateful to God, then you are bound to find God. You cannot avoid it, it is inevitable. To the blissful heart God simply happens.

So worship has neither to be out of fear nor out of greed, but out of bliss. Then it is true and it has a tremendous beauty of its own. It brings freedom.

Religion has to be a conscious decision because it is going to be a commitment. For example, you are entering into sannyas, this is religion, this is your decision. This is not out of any conditioning. This is falling in love!

Now worship becomes possible. And when I say worship I don't mean that you have to worship a certain statue with certain prayers. By worship I simply mean looking at existence with worshipful eyes, eyes full of wonder and awe, with a heart full of praise. To look at existence with wonder and awe is worship, because through that wonder and awe one starts feeling the presence of God.

And once you start feeling the presence of God then nothing can take it away from you. No argument, no proofs, no logic can take it away from you. It becomes your authentic experience, nobody can destroy it.

It becomes your very foundation. And for the first time you know that you are not an accident, that you are intrinsically related to existence, that existence needs you as much as you need existence, that you are not really separate but interdependent.

To feel that is to be blissful. To feel that is to rejoice.

Daso means servant -- servant of God, one who is ready to serve existence, one who is ready to worship God through service. All other worship is mere ritual. Real worship is service. Service is pouring your love wherever it is needed -- on the trees, on the rocks, on animals, on human beings. Everybody has an inexhaustible source of love -- and love is a healing force. So wherever you find

any suffering, pour your love, shower you love. You will be surprised, love heals. And love heals not only the person you shower it upon, it heals you too, simultaneously.

When you see somebody becoming whole a great joy arises in you. Even in seeing the seeds that you have sown in the soil growing up, and becoming plants something inside you also starts growing with them.

That's the beauty of creativity: it creates something on the outside about which the whole world knows, it creates something in the inside of which only you are aware. And the inner is the real, the more precious.

The outer is only a spin-off, a by-product.

Service is creativity. and by serving existence one comes closer to God, otherwise there is no way to come close to him. Love, be compassionate, share whatsoever you have. Share your very being and don't be a miser. That's the way of sannyas. You may not go to the church and you may not go to the temple but God is bound to happen to you. He is going to come to you, you need not worry. He always comes to the person who has fulfilled the basic requirement, and the basic requirement is unconditional love. That's what I mean by service.

To be blissful is the only true prayer. there is no need to ask anything from god, he already knows. all that is needed on our part is a blissful surrender. Joyously we should surrender ourselves to god. and that is enough, then god starts taking care. He is very caring but we don't allow him to take care of us.

Sannyas means leaving everything to God, and whatsoever happens -- good or bad, pain or pleasure --

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always feeling grateful for it.

There is no other prayer than love. All other prayers are false substitutes. Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan -- all prayers are just toys. Man has been deprived of love so he has been supplied by the society, the church, the state with some false toys.

It is just like when a child is deprived of the mother's breast we give him something false, a rubber breast. And the child is deceived, he goes on sucking on the rubber thing. But a child can be forgiven, a child is after all a child; he is not aware of the cunningness of grown-up people.

But as far as reality is concerned we are all deceived. Prayer has been given to us just as a substitute because love has been taken away. Something is needed, because love is a basic need: so don't love human beings; love God, love humanity. Now where is humanity? You will never come across humanity.

Whenever you meet it you will meet a human being. Don't love human beings; love humanity, an abstraction. Don't love the world, the concrete world; love God, an abstraction. And we call this love for abstractions, prayer.

My effort here is to bring prayer back to its reality, back to the earth, back to the concrete. the abstract has exploited man too long and too much. we have to get rid of great abstract words -- humanity, freedom, communism, God, Christianity

-- just words.

Love the concrete: human beings, animals, trees, birds. Love the real that is prayer. The whole universe is his temple. Love more and more and you will become more and more religious. You will not become a Christian and you will not become a Hindu; you will become more and more religious.

Religion has nothing to do with all these isms. Religion is a quality of the heart. A heart which is overflowing with love, that is what true religiousness is.

[An interview follows with Ma Prem Divya, ms pg 200-202, about prayer, in verses, which is not included here.]

Meditation is the greatest adventure in life, because it is easier to go out -- all our senses are out-going --

it is difficult to come in. To come in means transcending nature, transcending the ordinary laws of nature. It is the greatest conquest. One has to be a masterful

warrior.

The fight is with one's own consciousness, with one's own darkness, with one's own lethargy, sleep, inattentiveness -- in short, with one's own mind.

It is easy to fight with somebody else because you can see the enemy there, outside, you can define the enemy. The mind is so close to you that you feel almost one with it; hence the difficulty. The first step is to create a distance between you and your mind so that your mind is also separate from you. Then the fight starts.

It is a very non-violent fight. It is more of a transformation than a fight, because we are not going to destroy the mind, we are going to use the mind as a stepping stone towards the state of no-mind. But still in the beginning it looks like a fight, and one has to be very very alert, intelligent. Only then is there a possibility of winning over it, of becoming victorious.

Sannyas is the beginning of a great adventure, the greatest in life.

Bliss happens only to those who know what loyalty is. Bliss happens only in the heart, never in the head.

The head is like a desert: nothing grows there. It is only in the heart that everything that is of any value grows -- love, meditation, God, bliss, peace, silence. Anything that has any value, any eternal value, grows in the heart. But the functioning of the heart and the head are totally opposed to each other. And we are trained for the head -- that becomes a problem.

The head is based on doubt and the heart is based on trust. Our whole training is of doubting, thinking, suspecting, questioning. And that is not the way of the heart; hence we remain hung-up in the head. There are very few people on the earth who know that the heart exists. For others it is only a metaphor, poetry, fiction, not fact; at the most just a pumping mechanism for the blood. But that is not the heart that mystics have been talking about.

There is a center deep down inside you, but that center can only be known through trust. Sannyas is a jump into trust. It is getting involved in a love affair, a love affair with God himself. Less than that is of no use. Only a love affair can help.

The head will say that this is blind trust and it will condemn it in every possible way. But don't listen to 1/08/07

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the head; it is the devil who speaks through the head. Listen to the heart -- that is God's voice.

If You Choose To Be With Me, You Must Risk Finding Yourself Chapter #7

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