Prayer: Not a spare wheel
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Maswood Alam Khan
ONCE I had asked my mother: "You earnestly advised me to salute you with 'Assalamu Alaikum' (May blessings be showered on you) every time I leave home so that you can reciprocate my gesture with 'Oa-Alaikum Assalam' (May more blessings be showered on you)-an exchange of Islamic greeting, you taught me, God always appreciates. But I never greeted you with Salam; because I find such salutation a little official, a little formal not quite appropriate in case of an intimate bond like that between a son and his mother. You must know how I love you when I am home and how I miss you when you are not around, though I don't express my feelings in words of mouth. Will you now award me a severe punishment for my defying your advice on offering you Salam?"
"I won't. I know you are introvert and you hate flattery", my mother replied.
"Then how can God punish me if I don't pray five times a day in spite of my great reverence towards Him I hold in my silent contemplation? Is not God kinder than you are?" I reasoned.
My mother had fumbled helplessly for words before she said: "It's God's order that you pray and you must obey."
Yes I pray silently though not regularly or at times ritualistically. There was a time I hardly skipped any of the five times of prayer of the day. During 'munajat' (raising hands towards God in supplication at the end of prayer) I never petitioned God with a rote prayer for fulfillment of any of my desires; instead I keep mum and try to transmit to God through silent meditation my thought cycles that 'He knows what I love and what I hate; He knows what are troubling me. He may make my living enjoyable if He so wishes'. That's all. No recitation of a memorized supplication, no begging for passing in an examination or no soliciting for divine intervention for my having a lift in my job.
It sounds to me a bit sacrilegious if one tries to equate interactions between humans with the way we should commune with God. We humans feel charmed when someone praises us or even flatters us. It is wonderful when we pray fervently to our superior authority in office for something and we get it! But, God, I am sure, doesn't like flattery. God, unlike humans, does not care how many times you are praising Him by rote of words. God listens to your heartbeats and scans the waves of your soul.
"Unless the baby cries, the mother doesn't feed it", this saying should not be referred to as an example for our praying to God with loud and crying words. We don't need to utter a single word or to weep while supplicating to God because God can hear what sound our mind makes in silence. What we need to do is pray in words or in silence to express our soul's sincerest gratitude through outpourings of our heart's deepest sentiments. God will answer my prayer only when He will see I have fulfilled the mission on this Earth I have been sent with; God will answer my prayer if He finds a match between what my mouth is uttering and what my mind is radiating.
Catherine of Siena, a Dominican Tertiary of the 14th century, wrote that "perfect prayer is achieved not with many words but with loving desire; everything you do can be a prayer"
God does give us what we want, alright, but rarely does He give 'when' we want it or 'in the way' we want it. You beseeched God for granting your wish to get a job of a clerk so that you can live a happy life; God was silent and you didn't get the job. But God made sure that you live a happy life as a cricketer instead, not as a petty pen-pusher! We must not importune God for granting our wishes all on demand or all in toto. We rather should say: "Oh God! I will accept whatever you give me".
But on Lailat-ul-Barat (the Night of Privilege or the Night of Fortune) we maddeningly rush to book tickets for our fortunes because that is the night we have been taught when our fate is to be written, signed and sealed for the next one year. The more we pray throughout the night the better is the chance for crediting good lucks and debiting ill lucks in our accounts of fate.
A great many Muslim people, I know, who perhaps never made an attempt for a single day to perform all the compulsory five times of prayer did spend throughout his life the whole night of Lailat-ul-Barat every year inside a mosque begging the Providence for his troubles to end and his fortunes to gain. What an example of shirking! It is really lamentable and painful that some of us, clouded by ignorance, even try to short-change our God.
But, short-changing between humans should not be equated with a human attempt to short-change God. God sometimes smiles at you if you approach Him with some trepidation and with a true sense of guilt, even though you are trying to short-change Him by praying only once in a while.
There are thousands of legends where God had x-rayed the hearts and souls of sinners and forgave their lifelong sins as a spur-of-the-moment decision because the sinners' confessions and appeals at those moments were real and unalloyed.
But, it would be a great blunder if we all wait for one single prayer or for a whole night of prayers only on the night of Lailat-ul-Barat for God's forgiveness of all our sins! That bijou moment of God's great mercy may not come in our lifetime. If we truly love God, if we are really grateful to God, we must supplicate to him day and night, seven days a week.
We, most of us, rush to a mosque or to a church when danger befalls us and we turn a deaf ear to the Azan wafted from a mosque or to the bell tolled from a church---both are calls for prayer---when we don't have any agony. Such lackadaisical human attitude to prayer is unpardonable and unhealthful.
We should remember that prayers are not simply songs to praise God; prayers are periodical structures that discipline our behaviour to keep us out of harm's way. Prayer heals our diseased body and repairs our injured mind. Prayer is not a spare wheel that you pull out when "you are in trouble"; prayer is rather a steering wheel that keeps you on the right path throughout your life.
So, if we are not yet true adherents of our religious faiths, it is wise we jumpstarted our prayers in the disciplined manner as ordained by God and as prescribed by the prophets of our religions, no matter it is going to a mosque, to a church, to a synagogue or to a temple.
He, who loses money, loses much; he, who loses a friend, loses much more. But, he, who loses FAITH, loses everything. Whatever the FAITH we follow our purpose is same as is our destination: to please God, our creator and to live in heaven, our permanent abode.
The writer is a banker. His e-address:
maswood@hotmail.com
ONCE I had asked my mother: "You earnestly advised me to salute you with 'Assalamu Alaikum' (May blessings be showered on you) every time I leave home so that you can reciprocate my gesture with 'Oa-Alaikum Assalam' (May more blessings be showered on you)-an exchange of Islamic greeting, you taught me, God always appreciates. But I never greeted you with Salam; because I find such salutation a little official, a little formal not quite appropriate in case of an intimate bond like that between a son and his mother. You must know how I love you when I am home and how I miss you when you are not around, though I don't express my feelings in words of mouth. Will you now award me a severe punishment for my defying your advice on offering you Salam?"
"I won't. I know you are introvert and you hate flattery", my mother replied.
"Then how can God punish me if I don't pray five times a day in spite of my great reverence towards Him I hold in my silent contemplation? Is not God kinder than you are?" I reasoned.
My mother had fumbled helplessly for words before she said: "It's God's order that you pray and you must obey."
Yes I pray silently though not regularly or at times ritualistically. There was a time I hardly skipped any of the five times of prayer of the day. During 'munajat' (raising hands towards God in supplication at the end of prayer) I never petitioned God with a rote prayer for fulfillment of any of my desires; instead I keep mum and try to transmit to God through silent meditation my thought cycles that 'He knows what I love and what I hate; He knows what are troubling me. He may make my living enjoyable if He so wishes'. That's all. No recitation of a memorized supplication, no begging for passing in an examination or no soliciting for divine intervention for my having a lift in my job.
It sounds to me a bit sacrilegious if one tries to equate interactions between humans with the way we should commune with God. We humans feel charmed when someone praises us or even flatters us. It is wonderful when we pray fervently to our superior authority in office for something and we get it! But, God, I am sure, doesn't like flattery. God, unlike humans, does not care how many times you are praising Him by rote of words. God listens to your heartbeats and scans the waves of your soul.
"Unless the baby cries, the mother doesn't feed it", this saying should not be referred to as an example for our praying to God with loud and crying words. We don't need to utter a single word or to weep while supplicating to God because God can hear what sound our mind makes in silence. What we need to do is pray in words or in silence to express our soul's sincerest gratitude through outpourings of our heart's deepest sentiments. God will answer my prayer only when He will see I have fulfilled the mission on this Earth I have been sent with; God will answer my prayer if He finds a match between what my mouth is uttering and what my mind is radiating.
Catherine of Siena, a Dominican Tertiary of the 14th century, wrote that "perfect prayer is achieved not with many words but with loving desire; everything you do can be a prayer"
God does give us what we want, alright, but rarely does He give 'when' we want it or 'in the way' we want it. You beseeched God for granting your wish to get a job of a clerk so that you can live a happy life; God was silent and you didn't get the job. But God made sure that you live a happy life as a cricketer instead, not as a petty pen-pusher! We must not importune God for granting our wishes all on demand or all in toto. We rather should say: "Oh God! I will accept whatever you give me".
But on Lailat-ul-Barat (the Night of Privilege or the Night of Fortune) we maddeningly rush to book tickets for our fortunes because that is the night we have been taught when our fate is to be written, signed and sealed for the next one year. The more we pray throughout the night the better is the chance for crediting good lucks and debiting ill lucks in our accounts of fate.
A great many Muslim people, I know, who perhaps never made an attempt for a single day to perform all the compulsory five times of prayer did spend throughout his life the whole night of Lailat-ul-Barat every year inside a mosque begging the Providence for his troubles to end and his fortunes to gain. What an example of shirking! It is really lamentable and painful that some of us, clouded by ignorance, even try to short-change our God.
But, short-changing between humans should not be equated with a human attempt to short-change God. God sometimes smiles at you if you approach Him with some trepidation and with a true sense of guilt, even though you are trying to short-change Him by praying only once in a while.
There are thousands of legends where God had x-rayed the hearts and souls of sinners and forgave their lifelong sins as a spur-of-the-moment decision because the sinners' confessions and appeals at those moments were real and unalloyed.
But, it would be a great blunder if we all wait for one single prayer or for a whole night of prayers only on the night of Lailat-ul-Barat for God's forgiveness of all our sins! That bijou moment of God's great mercy may not come in our lifetime. If we truly love God, if we are really grateful to God, we must supplicate to him day and night, seven days a week.
We, most of us, rush to a mosque or to a church when danger befalls us and we turn a deaf ear to the Azan wafted from a mosque or to the bell tolled from a church---both are calls for prayer---when we don't have any agony. Such lackadaisical human attitude to prayer is unpardonable and unhealthful.
We should remember that prayers are not simply songs to praise God; prayers are periodical structures that discipline our behaviour to keep us out of harm's way. Prayer heals our diseased body and repairs our injured mind. Prayer is not a spare wheel that you pull out when "you are in trouble"; prayer is rather a steering wheel that keeps you on the right path throughout your life.
So, if we are not yet true adherents of our religious faiths, it is wise we jumpstarted our prayers in the disciplined manner as ordained by God and as prescribed by the prophets of our religions, no matter it is going to a mosque, to a church, to a synagogue or to a temple.
He, who loses money, loses much; he, who loses a friend, loses much more. But, he, who loses FAITH, loses everything. Whatever the FAITH we follow our purpose is same as is our destination: to please God, our creator and to live in heaven, our permanent abode.
The writer is a banker. His e-address:
maswood@hotmail.com