Prayer --- Barun Chakraborty

Prayer is a wonderful concept in spiritual pursuit. It is perhaps as mysterious as the concept ‘God’. Owing to its mysterious essence, it is practiced in innumerable ways. Seeing its universal acceptability and its ubiquitous practice, I am inclined to believe that praying is natural to human being.
Prayer is a silent communication. It is dedicated to a deity on whom one has faith that his prayer will be granted by the deity. One perhaps carries an impression that more submissive one is and more transparent one comes out before the deity, the better is the communication and higher is the chances of the prayer getting heard.
Those of us who are bred in Sri Sri Thakur Anukul Chandra’s ideology believe that prayer is a psychological process. It begins with a desire to communicate to the Lord. That desire owning to its intensity gets resolved within. Further, owing to faith on the Lord, the fructification process also gets streamlined within. That internal resolution and streamlining of actualization process push us towards action for its actual materialization. We believe and then we work for the materialization of our prayer. Then prayer takes shape in fruition.
When we pray to Sri Sri Thakur, it moves Sri Sri Thakur. Sri Sri Thakur works for the object of prayer in terms of mobilization, preparation and putting acts together. He acts in the same way as we act at our end, of course at a different plane. When all these things happen from both sides, then some outcome takes place.
At times we heard Sri Sri Thakur explicitly saying, ‘it is my submission at Supreme Father that …..’. Sri Sri Thakur’s desire, wish and benediction, whatever terminology we may use, is actually His prayer. His prayer has a great signal value for us to get a clue and act. He expects us to do in the manner and direction, as He wanted and then transform ourselves and the environment by which the desired outcome happens.
‘Verily you know, action begets acquisition’, said Sri Sri Thakur. Accomplishment, achievement and success are some key words in Sri Sri Thakur’s lexicon. Beauty, accuracy and timeliness are some adjuncts in Sri Sri Thakur’s vocabulary of performance. “Where action pursues desire, fulfillment appears immediately, with a smile”, is what Sri Sri Thakur wanted his devotes to believe and orient themselves accordingly. ‘Happiness does not lie in leisure and luxury; rather it springs from accomplishment that flows from unicentral disciplined activities, steadfast to the goal with well wishing urge’.
Therefore there are some preconditions and concomitant actions along with prayer. First is our faith on the Lord. We need to believe that the Lord, Sri Sri Thakur Anukul Chandra as we know him, is alive to our prayer. Second, we need to believe in Sri Sri Thakur’s saying which dictates us to do things as per His liking, being free from complexes. Third, we need to know the process of acquiring what we are longing for. Fourth, surrendering ourselves at His desire; thereby allowing His will to prevail.
Summarily stated; prayer involves three parts: a) deep desire, b) appropriate action and c) mutual reciprocation (between self and the divine). Each of these three elements has multiple sub elements, which requires deep research to articulate. The sub elements are dynamic in nature, as the process gets evolved psychologically, physically along with interface with surrounding environment. We are, knowingly or unknowingly, dealing with these factors and process day in and day out. What makes the process easy and enjoyable is the communion with the Lord.
Whenever these factors are not properly configured and the process gets clumsy, prayer may not lead to desired outcome. Pent up desire, with best of sincerity, may end up in frustration; which at times lead to disillusionment and disbelief in self and in the Lord.
Prayer in practice actually turns out to be a combination of elements like ‘purity, patience and perseverance’. It is a wonderful tool in our hand and it acts wonderfully in our life.
May our prayer lead us to Him!

(from Facebook group status)