Letter 18:
On Prayer
14/07/07
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Hello... (Bhagavan) is under treatment and is not speaking to anyone now. He is to return to the ashram in three days.
Two stages of prayer
There are two stages in prayer. Firstly, it is necessary to decide what the prayer is, concretise it in the mind properly through repeating it a few or many times, or just once is theoretically enough, though perhaps not so realistic, if you do it with enough determination to put the mind in the form of the prayer immediately.
Secondly, keeping the prayer in the mind, submerge yourself as deeply as possible in the Brahman or Bhagavan as possible. The prayer, with the rest of the mind, will begin to disappear. That is fine. If the prayer disappears because other thoughts have entered, that is not fine. The success of the prayer depends on the depth you attain.
Dualism as a tool for prayer
When you pray and meditate, you are connecting yourself with That which is beyond Maya, where there is no such thing as distance. For that reason, prayers for people on the other side of the world work. The fruit of the prayer comes from Brahman, which is your Self, not from outside. We use a god or Bhagavan to focus the prayers instead of ourselves because, if we beseech ourselves when we pray, we develop ego, which wrecks everything. It is also easier to develop devotion, which can help in the concentration and power of the prayer.
Praying for Bhagavan
As you have seen, it may seem strange to ask the person who is suffering for the fruit of the prayer. It is for that reason that I suggested asking another. Who else you use to focus the prayer is not important at all. We should just choose the concretisation of divinity with which we feel best. If we do not feel good with any, we need to develop devotion for some one through practising, or simply be satisfied with the method with Bhagavan himself or the Brahman.
Developing the sanskaras, impressions, for the ishta, chosen ideal
It is true that for you it may be more difficult at the beginning than for people who have been hearing and praying to a god since their childhood and can read puranas, spiritual mythologies, in their native language, however, you can develop the sanskaras, impressions in the mind, if you really want to. Before going to India, you were an atheist, you said, but now you say that there is a God without any problem. You have developed the sanskaras of being comfortable with that.
Different ishtas are different concretisations of the same non-dual Truth
Bhakti yoga requires us to develop the sanskaras of worshipping some concretisation of the Supreme with which we feel very positive, otherwise there is nowhere to channel the devotion. In India it is normal if people worship more than one god. In IVS we worship Bhagavan, and there are the Kali and Shiva pujas. We always say that Krishna, Rama and Ramakrishna are God. Almost everyone in Varanasi observes the Durga and Saraswati pujas, and all the pilgrims go to Kashi Vishwanath Temple to worship Vishwanathji. There is no contradiction in this. They are merely different forms of the same thing. Hindus in countries without Hindu temples sometimes go to the mosque or church to worship in the manner of the Muslims or Christians.
Choose the manner of worshipping or praying with which you feel most comfortable and develop the sanskaras.
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Hare Krishna,
Koji