Here is a series of 3 blogs we will be publishing from the book, ‘The Power of Prayer’. We have taken the write-ups by Swami Chinmayananda. Prayer is a very personal thing for most of us. We all pray at different altars and with different techniques. There is no right or wrong. But if we understand the various aspects of prayer and its effects, our relationship with God might become stronger.

No worry or anxiety should be entertained at the worldly losses, as it is the 
Nature of a true devotee to surrender constantly his limited self and all
It’s secular and sacred activities to the Lord of the heart. 
(Narad Bhakti Sutra VI:2:61) 

“Never entertain anxiety.” “Don’t worry.” “Never mind what happens.” – This is the attitude that a true seeker should cherish, explains the sage Narada. There is the Lord; He is the Reality. All these worries and anxieties are only mere bubbles – even when their threats and dangers are from the All-loving Lord alone – somehow hold on! 

The cardinal attitude of heroism in Vedanta is “Refuse to weep; keep smiling.” Then even the sorrow that reaches you gets ashamed and retires in its incompetency to make you suffer. It has to go away; it cannot stand against a heroic heart. 

“O Lord, this is all your Maya only. O! beloved, I know you are just behind this very sorrow I am now facing” – this is the attitude of a true devotee in all his experiences, good or bad; and true enough, just behind the experience is the ever the consciousness divine, the effulgent one, constantly becoming forth its irrepressible glory. 

“Apart from Him, I don’t exist” declares the devotee of the Lord. “Everything of me is already laid at the feet of the Lord. I do not exist, so I cannot worry about anything. It is all now his worry. I am but the ‘witness’ of the sorrow; as such the sorrow itself cannot be mine.” Constantly the bhakta lives in this attitude, dedicating himself, the world, the Vedas, and everything to the Lord. 

By this attitude, the bhakta cultivates in himself the spirit of renunciation, the joy of surrender, and the constant sense of self-offering. ‘To give’ is ever the expression of love. Love is measured by the very joy of sacrifice – of giving one’s self and one’s all to Him, the Beloved. How can one take back what has already been offered in love? When one’s anxieties have been offered, whose worries are these? When one’s self has been offered, who then exists to worry? “O Lord, it is all yours.”

Read our blog on Ethics in Vedanta – Spirit of Sacrifice or Yajna.