Prayer

Lead me from the darkness of ignorance to the light of full understanding;
Lead me from the ephemeral to the eternal;
Lead me from mortality to immortality;
Lead us all to be joyful, pure and eternal.

Not being satisfied with the visible/ephemeral, pleasures/comforts, vexed with pain/sorrow and seeking ‘permanent fulfilment’ is the starting point of spiritual quest for achieving the goal of life.

By experiencing difficulties and pain flowing from negative aspects, (Poverty, disease, death, defeat and other misfortunes) as but spurs for greater determined efforts in the right direction and overcoming the temptations offered and fears/frights created on the way, to move forward to the said goal is the content of this prayer.

Shapes, Names, Physical & Chemical properties, etc. of all things are getting destroyed & happenings drowned into the past. Intimate relationships too are changing even daily as per day to day needs. Body is constantly changing. Life is transforming, mind too is changing. Circumstances are evolving. All the glory of life is like a dream sequence in a movie cinema. Let me therefore have no illusion on/about the impermanent and destructible. For this purpose, Oh Lord, bless me that ‘truth’ shall become my most intimate friend/part of me. As loving parents protect, provide sustenance and enable a child to develop to live decently and in this process punish the child when deemed necessary, Oh lord, so bring me up. I admit that as I move in this direction of spiritual efforts, the sky, the rays of sun, the varied aspects of surrounding nature (of which I am only a speck), my five cognitive faculties begin to convey their connection with the divinity of / in cosmos.

Knowledge is of two kinds. Knowledge of the differences between two things and knowledge of the unity between the two. Recognition of the differences and their working is very essential for worldly knowledge and sustenance of life properly. But by this, the secret working of the ‘prime cause’ of all, and the purpose and logic of this creation will not be understood. The thirst and efforts to realise the unity underlying the ‘differences’, the unity of the inner cause which makes the cognitive faculties to function and recognize the differences, are the beginning of a person’s early steps (like those of a baby) in the spiritual journey towards the goal of a life.

One becoming many is creation. One is the shelter/base of many - just as two (or more) consists of 1 + 1 (+ more ones) only, despite the different nomenclature, shape and value. Minus numbers perhaps represent ‘Maya’ in continuously occurring/changing evolving cosmos. Hence Albert Enstein is said to have observed once that what we consider as reality is also an illusion though a persistent one. Gold is one, but many shapes/designs constitute jewelry. One person simultaneously is son of another, father of another, brother of one, husband of another, etc. Friend of one and enemy to another. That ‘birthless’ one (call it ‘Existence’ if so preferred) is taking various births and playing various roles, and often conflicting and destroying one another.

In death, in life, in darkness, in light, in friendship, in enmity, in cow, in a tiger that eats the cow, in the insect, in the frog that eats the insects, in the serpent that gulps the frog, in the eagle that clutches up the serpent to tear it to pieces for feasting, in a hunter who targets and kills the eagle for his food, staying equally in all these, shining more or less in all these many, but remaining indivisible being the hunter as well as the hunted in the act of hunting. I should not only see that you, that you but also understand the overall - plan/logic/ justification for such phenomena which, I (a mere speck of dust in this creation) consider as not at all appropriate to you who is conceived as all merciful, all powerful, Omniscient and Omnipresent Divinity.

Hence, I join my hands, bow down and close my eyes in earnest prayer for enlightenment.

(A Prayer concised but mostly based on one written by Brahmagnani Sri P. Seetharamabrahmam to whom all credits)