Why should we pray?

By: Dr.
V.P.Hegadekatti
M.D.

(about 750 words)

Prayer involves submitting to Almighty, oneself in entirity and seek His blessigs in
succeeding whatever we do, or simply we feel more calm and comfortable while
praying, amidst the worries that surround us. We feel confident in our ability and
lose the waverings after a prayer.
Take the example of a child. If the child knows that its mother is nearby
and watching, it goes and plays with a free mind and boldness. It knows tha if
something goes wrong, the mother would immediately come to its rescue and
help. Inwardly it seeks the approval of its mother for all its actions. Similarly the
child will hesitate to do any thing which his mother does not approve. In fact the
child becomes scary to do anything which it thinks its mother does not like, The
child practically runs away from that scene, or shows signs of felling guilty.
Similarly, prayer keeps us alert and constantly reminds us, the presence
of a loving divine mother who is always watching us, ever ready to protect and
help us, but disapproves our wrong actions. That knowledge itself imparts us a new
energy, a new confidence to go ahead with our work which we feel is the right one.
The child boldly experiments with anything curious that comes in its way, if it is
aware of the carefully watching mothers presence nearby. But it dares not try any
thing new if its mother is nowhere in sight. We donot for a moment hesitate to
tread a new path or undertake a new deed, if we feel the divine is with us.
Secondly as we know, we are all derived from an almighty energy (??
Which created us through big bang). We have all come into being, with a fixed
quantity of prepacked energy say like a lantern or a torch. We will be utilising our
inherent energy continuously during our entire being and actions. We keep on
depleting our energy and soon will exhaust it unless get it replenished. So from
where shall we fill our energy stores?. Again we have to get it from the eternal
source which created us all. To get back this lost energy there must be a channel
set up for the energy transfer. Prayer serves exactly that purpose. It acts as a
route through which we get back our lost energy (?Atma shakti). .(Gayatri mantra
has exactly these wordings ) Hence we feel fresh and energised after a really good
prayer.

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Prayer is purely a personal affair, like that between ,a mother and the
child. It involves a pure love bond between the creator and the created. Hence not
only it is not necessary to do it in public, it becomes hypocritical to do it so. Our
love towards our mother is never advertised nor showed off in public.

In fact

worshipping places and rituals are created for layman to get his mind conditioned
and remind himself of prayers as soon as he approaches this place of worship and
starts performing the rituals. It also helps him to get himself

isolated for a while

during his interaction with the divine. No fixed time or place or rituals are required
for prayer..

Are you not happy to remember your mother any time any where

whether you need her or not?, Do you ever try to fix up a place, time and certain
rituals to meet her ? Do you not just remember her? You donot even need verbal
expressions to express your love towards her. All you have to do is just think of
her and feel the love towards her. That is all. It is exctly the same with God
Mother loves both intelligent, and foolish children alike. There is no
partiality or differentiation by her. Mother does not expect anything from her
children. She is happy with anything which you offer with love. It is alright even if
nothing is offered in physical during prayer. You will feel the energy surging in you,
invigorating all your senses after a really meaningful, loveful prayer. It is not that
the almighty will immediately come to our rescue and fulfill all our wishes. He
always fills us with the energy to achieve our goal, and guides us or shows us the
way to achieve it on our own.
Hence it is not necessary to believe in existence of God as we are taught
to think about his being. Though we cannot see the electricity, we cannot deny its
existence. But everyday we

use it to recharge our gadgets. Similarly we

periodically need to recharge our very own being, and prayer does just that.

FROM: DR. V.P.HEGADEKATTI

M.D.

MURALIDHAR MATH
ROAD
KARWAR 581301
KARNATAKA.