What is Religion? Why do We Pray?

Questioner: What is religion? Why do we pray?

Acharya Prashant: “What is religion? Why do we pray?”

The mind is off-center. It remains distracted, a little away from its core. And that is the reason it feels restive, uneasy. That is why there is always an urge to achieve, to reach somewhere, to feel fulfilled. All of that is because the mind is not really at its center.

Religion is the way that brings the lost mind back to its center, its home. That is religion.

Now, when you are away from your home, then what brings you back? That way too is not really your home, it is a path in a space and area other than your home. So essentially, religion consists of saying something to the mind, doing things that calm the mind down, all in the domain of the mind itself. But the central purpose, as you would be seeing by now, of religion is to bring man back to where he really belongs — his center, his core, his essence.