Vi­jay Ma­haraj

In­dia is a land of nu­mer­ous man­i­fes­ta­tions of God in the form of var­i­ous deities. For Hin­dus, pray­ing to God is a part of every­day life. It may be a thanks­giv­ing to God or a re­quest for some favour. Some pray in­di­vid­u­al­ly; oth­ers pray in a group.

Theo­phany in Hin­duism is the man­i­fes­ta­tion of deities to hu­mans; re­la­tion­ships be­tween the di­vine and hu­mans, guid­ing, in­spir­ing and bless­ing them. Every­one is free to choose their God, or the mode of prayer. The Hin­du way of life is lib­er­al in this as­pect.

Pray­ing is im­por­tant to Hin­dus. It is a way to ex­press their faith and de­vo­tion to God. It is a way of look­ing up to a pow­er­ful force that has no equal. It not on­ly gives one an ide­al to strive for, but al­so an abil­i­ty to trans­form one­self to be­come a bet­ter per­son. A lit­tle is achieved each day. It helps cush­ion the prob­lems of every­day life.

In the Rig-Ve­da, it is said:

“Those peo­ple, who wake up be­fore sun­rise, bathe and pray to God are re­li­gious and wise. They are eth­i­cal. Their ac­tiv­i­ties are di­rect­ed to­wards God. Those men and women who speak soft­ly, pray to­geth­er and en­joy a good re­la­tion­ship are blessed with hap­pi­ness.”

The im­por­tance of dai­ly prayer to God in the Ma­hab­hara­ta refers:

“The per­son who de­vot­ed­ly bows, of­fers prayers and med­i­tates to the Almighty shall for­ev­er be­come free from all prob­lems through rev­er­ence and of­fer­ings to the om­nipo­tent, om­nipresent and om­ni­scient God.”

In the Padampu­ran, one of the 18 ma­jor Pu­ranas, En­cy­clo­pe­dia Text cov­er­ing Cos­mol­o­gy, Ge­neal­o­gy, Re­li­gious prac­tices is named af­ter the lo­tus (Pad­ma). The de­tails of ‘flow­ers’ de­sired by God are giv­en. Non-vi­o­lence is the first flower; con­trol over the sens­es the sec­ond, com­pas­sion the third, for­give­ness the fourth, peace the fifth, con­trol of the mind the sixth, med­i­ta­tion the sev­enth and truth the eighth. Al­though God is pleased with ros­es and oth­er flow­ers, it is in­ner peace with­in in­di­vid­u­als that pleas­es Him the most.

By of­fer­ing prayers to God, one can re­pent for un­in­tend­ed sins and find men­tal peace. De­vo­tion aris­es with­in the in­di­vid­ual and self-con­fi­dence grows. One sees a new pur­pose in life, stays mo­ti­vat­ed to rise above the ego, sur­ren­der pride and keep away from sin. One al­so be­comes free from wor­ry and stress and finds con­tent­ment. How­ev­er, this is pos­si­ble on­ly when one truth­ful­ly of­fers prayers with de­vo­tion. Just as one finds valu­able gifts like wa­ter and min­er­als by dig­ging deep with­in the earth, by look­ing deep with­in one­self, one finds di­vin­i­ty.

The pur­pose of of­fer­ing prayers is to make one’s mind placid, gen­tle and calm like the wa­ter in a lake. One must be able to keep smil­ing like a flower, have stead­fast faith and de­vo­tion.

In the Bha­gavad Gi­ta, Lord Kr­ish­na says:

“Through one’s good deeds and prayers to God, an in­di­vid­ual finds di­vine con­tent­ment and sal­va­tion.”

Swa­mi Vivekanan­da has said, “To do one’s du­ty is the best prayer to God.”

When of­fer­ing prayers, it is sug­gest­ed that a per­son must face the east. There are spe­cif­ic rea­sons for this. The sun ris­es in the east. The Vedas ac­cord great sig­nif­i­cance to the rays of the ris­ing sun.

The ris­ing sun de­stroys all kinds of dis­eases. It pro­tects one from all caus­es of death. To break the bondage of death, stay con­nect­ed with the light of the sun. To live in the light of the sun is like liv­ing in the land of im­mor­tal­i­ty.

Hin­dus look up to the sun, which is God Surya. Since God Surya is sym­bol­ic of Lord Narayan, the sun is al­so called Surya Narayan. Surya is the sight of the world, giv­ing and sus­tain­ing life and look­ing af­ter the wel­fare of mankind. By pray­ing to Surya, one is re­ward­ed and finds per­son­al ful­fill­ment. Surya is wit­ness to the good and bad ac­tiv­i­ties of mankind and noth­ing can be hid­den from Surya.

The Surya Up­an­ishad is part of a col­lec­tion of an­cient philo­soph­i­cal and re­li­gious texts con­sid­ered the foun­da­tion­al scrip­tures of Hin­duism, the Vedas. To ob­tain max­i­mum ben­e­fit of the rays when per­form­ing no­ble deeds and aus­pi­cious cer­e­monies, the Vedas di­rect that one must sit fac­ing the east.

Sun­light is con­sti­tut­ed of sev­en colours—vi­o­let, in­di­go, blue, green, yel­low, or­ange and red. On ei­ther side, ul­tra­vi­o­let and in­frared rays flank these. Each of these colours con­tributes its en­er­gy to sun­light. This en­er­gy as­sists the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of aus­pi­cious cer­e­monies. Light [to see] and warmth [to live] are in­evitable con­stituents of the ex­is­tence of life on earth.