Let us pray!
We are mostly
engaged in daily routine. Every day we get up in the morning and sleep in the
night. In between, we do many things just out of habit or because of necessity.
This goes on repeating for years. In the meantime, we keep on changing. A child
become adult, then grows to be an old man. But our mental growth often does not
synchronize with our body. Our mind remains the same although our body grows older and older. Then, one fine
morning, we find that the man is dead. His physical identity comes to an end.
He leaves his wealth, huge mansion that he had built, bank balance and for that
matter every worldly possession here itself. What does it mean?
Most of the time,we pray only
when we are in trouble. We expect God to relieve us from the problem that we
face. If someone close to us falls ill, we immediately start praying for his
early recovery. If we are appearing at some examination, we request God to help
us in getting good result. Like that. We can imagine the futility of such
prayers. But it happens. Even thieves are reported to go to temple before
proceeding on their mission. Such is the mental situation of the people. Naturally,
when things get normalized, we forget to remember God. We get engaged in our
daily routine as usual. In fact, we utilize God as a facilitator. Once the
purpose is served, we put Him behind. That is very unfortunate. We must realize
that God is not one of the worldly items that we confront in our day to day
life. He is above these things. In fact, our material existence itself is very
limited. We live in this world for a limited period. During that period, we do
something good or bad and ultimately pass away.
The problem is
why do we behave like that? Why do we tend to utilize even God to improve our
worldly situations? It is because we are always under fear. We are unable to
face the situations which often emerge in our day-to-day life. We want someone
to help us. We look at God in such situations. Firstly, we create problems, then
complicate it mainly due to our
egocentric attitude and then start praying God for help. Once the problem is
over, we forget to remember Him. Thus, for most of us God is only a commercial
object. We promise to give him something valuable once we are able to achieve
our ambitions. Many rich people donate gold ornaments, cash and such valuables
worth crores in the name of God. Thus, assets worth several millions get
accumulated in many temples of God. I am not commenting upon merit of such activities,
but it is difficult to understand how and why God will show mercy upon anybody
just for such persons promise costly gifts as donations after their prayers are
heard. That is just because we are used to evaluate everything in terms of
commercial transactions.
Our prayers are the most
powerful asset we have. Material
achievements whatsoever, it may be, cannot give us solace. We should, therefore, pray
without any ifs and buts.