Which Is the Best God to Pray to?
Acharya Prashant: The mind is all and everything. The prayer is to nourish the right and auspicious parts of the mind. The mind is the highest and the lowest. And the mind can take you higher and higher. And the mind can take you, that is, itself, lower and lower.
Gods refer to the forces inside the mind itself that offer it ascension and upward propulsion, and conversely, ‘danavs’ or demons refer to the forces within the mind itself that sink it into all kinds of depravities and perversions. Both these reside very much within the mind itself. Are you getting it?
There is a very famous verse in the Amrit Bindu Upanishad. It says the mind is its own best friend and its own worst enemy. Your best friend and your worst enemy are not at all outside of you. Since you are all and everything, therefore, your friend is within you and so is your enemy.
Why do the gods have diverse names, as have the demons? Because there are various kinds of forces within that help you and there are various kinds of forces within that drown you, sink you, depress you. There is no god out there somewhere. The prayer is to oneself. It’s a kind of reminder to oneself. It’s an encouragement to oneself. It’s a monologue. You could even call it a pep-up talk to oneself. There’s nobody anywhere else. It’s a soliloquy!
So, the teacher and the disciple are together saying, “May I hear what is auspicious.” It’s being said, “O Gods, may we hear what is auspicious”. How do you have to read it? May I hear what is auspicious because the gods are not outside of me. So, if I’m praying to the gods, I am actually praying to myself. So, I am telling myself, may I hear only that which is auspicious. I’m reminding myself. At one level, I am reminding myself. At another level, I am chastening myself. Whatever you call it.
But I know that I carry gods, but gods are not all that I carry. Therefore, I need to be cautious. There are gods within. But there are others as well and they are not quite as godly and, hence, the prayer is needed and, hence, praying always contains power. Praying is not wish-fulfillment. When you pray to someone else, it is not that someone else will come to help you. When you pray, you are actually preparing yourself to be a better friend to yourself. Aren’t you getting it?
When you are praying, it’s not that I’m praying to her and she will come over and lend her hand in some way and assist me. No. When I am praying, I am actually telling myself to be a better one, a wiser one, because there is nobody anywhere to come and help me. If I am to be helped, the help has to come from within, and, therefore, all prayers are directed invariably to myself.
And when you are praying, you are full of self-respect. Why? Because you are praying to that part of yourself which is godly. You are saying, “O Gods, may we hear that which is auspicious.” Where are those gods? Within! So, when you are praying, that is the highest perception of yourself.
On the contrary, what we find is that often, when we pray, we think of ourselves as feeble and helpless. We prostrate. We say, “Because I cannot do anything, because I am helpless, so O heavens! Come over and do something about my condition.” Nobody can do something about your condition because there is nobody except you. You are responsible for what you have become and you are responsible for what you will become. This responsibility is at the center of all genuine spirituality.
Unfortunately, there has been a very popular version of religion that inculcates, breeds a very enfeebling kind of meekness. Now, genuine meekness is an entirely different thing. I am talking of a de-capacitating weakness, an enforced kind of helplessness. And that helplessness we prefer because it helps us remain irresponsible. You know, I’m so helpless; what can I do?
To be responsible, first of all, you have to accept that you are powerful enough to bring change. No? If you say I have no power, then you can have no responsibility. Responsibility and power go together. Right? If a person has no power over anything, would you ever hold him responsible for anything? No. So, when you say I am powerless, do you see what you are basically inwardly doing? You are evading responsibility. It’s an internal attempt to just evade responsibility.
We are not powerless, not when it comes to the inner world. Obviously, when it comes to this, then, your power is limited. But you have infinite power when it comes to how you are within. Your internal world is entirely your own sovereign territory. And if you do not acknowledge that, then you have some vested interest in remaining helpless. Right?
So, kindly don’t distort these verses. Kindly don’t upend the entire purpose of the Shanti path. All these gods are there? Yes, in the Vedic pantheon, there are hundreds of them. But it has to be understood what all of them essentially represent. Right? They represent the goodness within us. Will you remember this? What do all of them, and what does each of them represent? Some power within us, some power that is worthy of admiration, even worthy of worship!
But if you will pray to Varun and hope for rain, it is not happening. Or is it? No, it is not happening, because you have just not understood who Varun is. If you will worship Agni and hope that your room will get heated, that’s not happening. Agni represents something within you. Right? Something that has energy, something that has brilliance and illumination, and something that purifies, and something that reduces to ash everything that is vulnerable to destruction. That’s what Agni represents. There is no point in worshipping agni as some otherworldly entity or person or embodiment of some hallucination. Are you getting it?
‘O Gods, may we hear with our ears what is auspicious!’ Do you see the choice involved here? I have the choice to lend my ear to all kinds of garbage, and I have the choice to lend my ear only to that which is auspicious. Now, I am praying to myself and begging, please be careful because I know your tendencies. I know while you have the power to live rightly, you also have the demons lurking within. So, please be careful. Listen only to that which is auspicious. Do not listen to anything else. Please!
Now, this does not mean that if you have made this prayer, then the gods will send only auspicious words down to you. No. The world will remain full of everything as it always has been - Stuff auspicious and stuff grossly inauspicious as well. But if you have made this prayer, then you will probably be careful to let in only the auspicious part. I want only the right things to enter me.
Now, is this too complicated a thing? Isn’t it something extremely straightforward? It’s like you have those notes to yourself, those sticky things you put on the wall or on your desk or somewhere. This is a note to oneself. Listen rightly. Listen rightly. And Gautam Buddha repeated this a few centuries later. Eat rightly, listen rightly, walk rightly, speak rightly, and think rightly! Do you remember his 'Eightfold Path'? What else is that? Earn rightly, right livelihood!
So, here, listen rightly. And gods will not help you in that. Only you can help yourself or you are the god who would help you. That’s nice. Isn’t it? I’m the god; I’m the only god, and, therefore, I will pray to myself. And when I say I am the only god who can help me, I will not forget that it is not only god that I am…
Listeners: Demon as well…
Acharya Prashant: Yes, yes. That is the thing about the ego. Potentially, it is the sky, and potentially, it is the deepest, darkest hell as well. When you, therefore, look at yourself as the highest, never in your enthusiasm must you forget that in a split second you can fall down to be the lowest. That’s a human predicament. Potentially the highest, mostly the lowest! While it is true that great potential beckons us, it is equally true that most of us are not equal to that potential. That potential remains merely that, a potential, not our actuality. Are we together?
Listener: Yes, Sir.
Acharya Prashant: ‘O Devas, worthy of worship.’ So beautiful! ‘Worthy of worship’! You don’t indiscriminately worship anybody. Please. ‘O you, the ones worthy of worship!’ Do you see the beauty here? Do you see the rigor here? You are not profligate in offering yourself, because when you bow the head down, it has to be something immensely significant. Your head must respond only to worth. What do I mean by the head? The ego is the sense of self.
Don’t just prostrate anywhere. Be firm, the man of scriptures, the man of wisdom. And when I say man, that means mankind. I am not excluding women. It’s a bit old school, I know. But please. The man of wisdom is not weak or supine or spineless. He is a firm fellow. Because he does not surrender easily, therefore, his surrender carries meaning. If you keep surrendering everywhere, does your surrender have any significance? That’s what it is.
Worse still, if you keep surrendering everywhere, what is left with you to surrender? Morning till evening, you kept surrendering. At your home, at five places in your office, at the market, in front of the television, 40 times you surrender that most of us do. And then, in the evening, you rush to the temple, and you say, “O god! Here I am full of samarpan.” But then, there is nothing left in you to surrender, what will you offer now? Whatever you had to offer has already been offered. The glass has nothing. What will you offer the gods now? Right? Therefore, for surrender to have any meaning, you should first be very resistant to surrendering.
Mostly, we do not appreciate this. We think of the man of wisdom as someone who just goes with the flow. And this phrase has gained a lot of momentum in recent times. Isn’t it? Going with the flow! Just go with the flow! No, he doesn’t go with the flow. Never! Or, you could say, yes, he does go with the flow but only with the right flow because there are several kinds of flows. All flows are in the mind. Which particular flow is carrying you away? Ask. There is a flow of hormones. Go with the flow. And there is that weekend party, and there is a flow of booze. Go with the flow. Anger has a certain flow. Fear has a great flow. Prakritik tendencies have a tremendous flow. Will you go with the flow?
Therefore, firstly, learn to be resistant to all these flows. Resistance is negation. Neti, neti! That’s the method of the Upanishads! Negate! Negation is another name for resistance. Say no! Before you start saying yes to God and Brahm and truth and this and that, learn to say no. If you can’t spell No, what’s the value in your Yes’? Is there any?
And ‘Yes’ is so beautiful when it comes after a long series of ‘Noes.’ And, then, ‘yes’ is beautiful. Now, this ‘yes’ really means something. It has been something really precious that you have kept close to your chest. You have offered it only when the right time, the right person, and the worthy occasion have arrived. You are not spilling it all around. Do you just keep throwing away precious things? Your ‘yes’ has to be something very precious. Are you getting it?
‘O gods, worthy of worship, may we see with our eyes what is auspicious’! May we hear what is auspicious! May we see what is auspicious! And what is auspicious? That which is godlike. I am praying for auspiciousness to the gods. And what is auspicious? That is contained in my prayer to the gods. What is auspicious? That which makes me look upwards to the gods. I could have looked downward as well. No? That upward glance is auspiciousness, and I have the choice to look that way or look this way.
Mostly, we prefer to look this way. Looking this way (downward) is inauspicious. You have one life, and it is meant to be lived in love with the sky. And then you don’t fall in love. If you are in love with the sky, you will rise in love. We fall in love because our love is just this glance, looking downwards.
What does this downward glance really mean? It’s a symbol. The earth is there. What does the earth represent? Your biology, the soil you come from. Mostly, our love is biological, and therefore, it only drags us down. In most cases, love is not an enabler. It’s rather the biggest load and disabling influence on one’s life. It need not be.
The saints have sung of love. Therefore, love can potentially pull you up. Why does it not? Because we are indiscriminate in loving because, in the moment of love, we just go with the flow. We get so carried away that we don’t bother to pause and ask what really is this, what is happening, what am I saying yes to. Question is rarely asked. And, then, to justify our foolishness, we say you know you don’t think in love, and if you are thinking, then it is not love. A madman does not think because he cannot think; neither does a drunkard. Does that lend goodness or auspiciousness or credence to his actions and utterances? He does not think, does he?
Remember the upward glance! Can you look up to the one you love? Equally, you must be able to look up to the one you worship. Don’t just randomly start worshiping anything.
Somebody indoctrinated you into a formal religion, what we call as a faith, which is not faith at all, a way of thinking, a certain set of beliefs, and you start worshiping. No. Be it love, be it worship, they deserve to be offered only to the highest, only to the highest. In fact, there must be no difference between the two.
The one you love must be worthy of worship, and the one you worship you must be in love with. If there is a difference between the two, then there is a problem, a big problem. If you can’t worship your lover, then drop him or her, whatever, I don’t know. And if you can’t love your gods, those gods must be thrown away. …
