“gratitude is prayer.”

gratitude is prayer. Generally our religious life starts in prayer, ends in gratitude. Prayer has got different dimensions. It gets matured as you get matured. Prayer is the bridge towards divinity. Prayer is the bridge towards your higher consciousness. Prayer is the bridge to take you beyond the sufferings of the planet Earth. Prayer is the technique, is the method to lead you to superconscious state.

Let us understand the various dimensions of prayer step by step. One thing, prayer has got different forms. Nothing is higher, nothing is lower. Whatever way you can start, you can start. But naturally you will be growing towards the higher level of consciousness. First thing, in the physical level. Prayer starts in the physical level. Going to the temple. Praying to God. Praying to the murtis of Gods and Goddesses and doing some pooja, doing some havan. First physical thing. Prayer should be started in physical way. Many people come and ask me “Swamiji why we have idol worship in Hinduism? I always tell them no! We don’t have idol worship. We worship through idol, not the idol itself. There is a big difference. What we do is worship through idol not idol worship. When you stand in front of idol do you pray “Oh stone please give me boon... O copper please give me boon?” No! You say, “Oh Shiva please give me boon. Oh Rama please give me boon. Oh Vishnu please bless me.” You relate to the divine through idols. Idols are bridges to take you beyond the forms.

There is a beautiful incident in Vivekananda’s life. Vivekananda was wandering all over the Bharat. He went to a king’s palace. The king is little intellectual guy. He is a guy who is little bit educated in the western system of thoughts. He started questioning Vivekananda “Why should idols be worshipped? Why should idols be respected?” Vivekananda said “Just give me few minutes, I will explain to you.” So he continued the conversation and some other topic. Suddenly he called one of the minister Vivekananda called one of the minister of the king and told, “Can you get the photograph of your king?” (which was hanging on the wall). Minister said “Why not?” He just brought the photograph and gave it to the Vivekananda gave it to Swamiji. Vivekananda said “Can you spit on it?” The minister was just shocked! Minister said “What are you talking? It is the photograph of our king! How can you say I should spit on it?” Vivekananda said “What is this? It is just a paper and canvas cloth. It is just a paper and canvas cloth. Why are you taking things so seriously? Just now your king said why should idols be respected, idols be worshipped? It is just a paper and canvas..it is just a canvas cloth and paint.” Minister said “No, it is not simple canvas cloth and paint. As long as the paint and the canvas was separate it is cloth and simple paint. The moment they started representing our king’s form, it is a picture of our king, portrait of our king! I can’t spit it represents our king. I can’t spit on it.” Vivekananda said “Understand? Even your photo...when your photo can receive so much of respect, why not God’s photo? Why not God’s idol? Why not God’s murti?”

Ramana Maharishi answers beautifully. As long as you feel you have a body.. As long as you feel you are a body, it is good to start with idol worship. It is good to start with Vigraha Pooja. The problem is, the moment you read one or two books, you start thinking you know all the philosophy, you have become God. The moment you start thinking you have become God, you stop the Vigraha Pooja. There are few people who always think they are flying, but they don’t even move. So the people who read few books and who think they have reached everything, they achieved everything, just after reading few books, Ramana Maharishi says beautifully, “As long as you feel you have a body, as long as you eat, you take bath, as long as you think you have to maintain your body, it is good to do the Vigraha Pooja.” He says in a very humorous way, “The sandal which is applied on your body starts smelling within a hour, but when you apply it on a God’s idol it never gives any bad smell.” The food which you eat, in 3 hours how it transforms you know, but never the food offered to the God’s idol. So as long as you have an idea that you are having a body it is good to start idol worship nothing wrong. It is actually a technique to go beyond the form. As long as you have the body consciousness meditate on some form. This is the physical level of prayer. The first level which you start.

There is one more small scientific research which I wanted to refer. This is a great scientist who went and stayed in Amazon forest with a small group of tribal villagers. The tribal group is famous for one thing. They have a belief by making the idol of a certain person they will heal him or kill him. They don’t do anything. They just make an idol of a particular person. If that person needs healing for hands, they put medicine on his idol on the hands and the person gets cured. And if they want to kill somebody they just break the hands of the idol and the person dies. Of course when you hear it looks like a story, but this scientist wanted to know what is the truth. So he went with his 3 assistants, stayed there for 10 years. Understand not for one day or two day 10 full years he stayed with them. Learnt their language, learnt their way of living. Gave their type of food. Lived in their own houses. Related and mingled with them. Almost he lost his identity and he has also become a tribe. Hundred incidences he has video recorded and observed. He says, “Hundred incidences which I did research - by videographing and audio recording and taking research hints and getting the experience observing the experiences of the people - after doing research over the hundred incidents, incidences, he says more than 96 incidences proved to be totally truth, 100% effective, other 4 created effect but not 100%.” 96% is not a small amount. In 100 incident 96 proved to be the truth. It happened actually! He says they used a sort of a vibration, mantra. First they make an idol, and they use a vibrations, mantras, to provoke that person into this idol. Then they treat that idol or kill him. If he is a criminal, they kill that idol. Or if he has to be helped, they treat that idol and heal him. You will be surprised to hear one more thing. They say even they are able to relate with a person who is dead already. Even with a person who is already dead they are able to relate through the idols. He has proved he has clearly observed and recorded it, how they are doing. When I read I understood, if you can relate with an ordinary man, ordinary mortal through idol, can’t you relate with the existence, with Parashakti, with the Brahmanda, with the immortal divine through idol? You can! The spiritual people, the great mystics who dived deep into their inner consciousness, who achieved something in a spiritual level, they all created wonderful techniques for others also to reach the same level. Idol worship, the Vigraha Pooja is one of the techniques created by those great mystics.

There is a two kind of, kind of religion. One is just a social law. How many times you can eat. How many hours you can sleep. How many wives you can marry, what all...How many kids you can have. Just a social religion, social rules. There is another kind of religion, which is spiritual religion, to show you the true nature of your being. To help you to reach the ultimate consciousness. To help you to taste the ultimate bliss, the spiritual bliss. The second kind of religion which worked in the inner world in the mysteries of the mysteries in a deeper conscious level, those great masters only created the techniques and gave it to us in the form of idols. The Kaali is a philosophical representation of the spiritual wisdom. See when you are, when you cut your ego with the jnana katka, with the sword of knowledge, you will be protected and taken care. That is what Kaali says. Through her four hands. When you cut your ego by the sword of knowledge; divine, existence will protect you and existence will take care of you. So every form of a God is representation of great spiritual wisdom. Some or other spiritual wisdom.

First prayer starts in the level of physical worship. Then next it goes to the level of verbal worship. You chant the stotras. You chant the mantras. You do the naama japa. Chanting by words, you worship the divine. You pray. Now you come to a little higher level. First pooja then japa, stotra or repetition of the Gods mantra, all these things are the verbal prayer. Verbal prayer plays a major role in keeping the mind in higher form in the higher level. Remembrance of some sacred syllable, continuous repetition with awareness. That is a important thing. Without awareness, repeating will become an unconscious habit. Please don’t do that. There are many people. Rama rama rama rama krishna krishna krishna krishna..aye did you switch off the telephone..did you switch off the oven..and then again rama rama krishna krishna rama rama..no! Not with unconsciousness but with conscious awareness. Again and again consciously repeating the divine name, the Lord’s name, can lead you to the higher consciousness. The more your mind is filled with some sacred syllable, sacred words, the more your inner chattering will be cleansed. Your inner chattering has almost become like a junk. So much of unnecessary things you throw into it. So much of repression and suppression. So much of anger and violence you suppress inside your being. Where will all that go? It will go and disturb your inner chattering. Your inner chattering is made out of the stuff which you suppress inside. If you suppress too much of violence, if you suppress too much of sex, if you suppress too much of anger, those things only will come out in your inner chattering unconsciously. All your inner chattering is made of the same stuff which you suppress inside. What you put inside that only will come out naturally. If you put mantras inside, the sacred syllables inside, the divine words inside, the stotras inside, good word.. words inside, you will see you are radiating the same beautiful words, same beautiful feeling, same beautiful bliss. The more you chant the right words, less you will be chanting the wrong words. People ask me “Why should we chant God’s name Swamiji?” Otherwise you will be chanting your wife’s name! That is what we will be doing in our life. If you don’t chant God’s name, you will be chanting somebody else’s name in your mind. Your mind cannot remain unoccupied. Your mind cannot be empty. If you chant Lord’s name you will be occupied in a positive way, you will reach the higher consciousness. Otherwise you will be chanting your boss’ name, or your wife’s name, or your friend’s name. It is a big cleansing process. Your inner chattering will have a new experience. Your inner being will have a new space. It will experience a new consciousness. If you can, use the technique of verbal prayer using some divine name using some sacred syllable. If you don’t like some divine name, even the words like “Aum Shanti” or just “Aum”, even those words will help you tremendously. Even those words can create a beautiful vibration in you. Just the other day one boy was asking, “Swamiji what is the meaning of the word Aum?” Aum is the sound from which the whole world is created. Today modern day physics scientists are agreeing with this concept. They say from sound came light from light came the whole universe. So the root goes back to sound. And you will be surprised, in one place called Uttara Meru in Tamil Nadu, they were doing Mahamrityunjaya Homa. Mahamrityunjaya Homa with the mantra of Shiva, continuously the Homa was going on for 3 days. A group of westerners, they are..thery have come there just as a tourist. They just wanted to see what is going on. They were brought and they were shown what is going on. They asked “What is going on..why are you offering all the good food varieties and everything inside the fire..why are you throwing all these things into the fire..why are you putting all the valuable clothes inside the fire..why are you burning it away..why are you destroying all these things?” It seems the priest said, “No we are offering it to the God.” Scientist - tourists, they laughed..”What are you talking? How will it reach God if you put it in the fire?” Priest said, “No we invoke God with the form of mantra through mantra in this agni, then we offer it to him. The curious scientists, they took Kirlian photography - Kirlian photograph is one of the highly scientifically developed diagnosing system. Today it is accepted as a important, one of the important diagnosing system in Russia. Just like X-Ray through this Kirlian photography you can find out any disease before happening. In X-Ray you can diagnose only after it happens. It is almost like X-Ray which photographs your aura body. Every thing in the planet Earth emits particular light, not only the living being, even the dead things. Everything emits particular colour, particular ray of way of light. Kirlian photography is the method to photograph that light, aura body. They took few Kirlian photographies. You will be surprised to hear the results, in all the photographs, the dancing form of Shiva appeared in the same way. In all the photographs there is a clear proof record, in all the photographs, dancing form of Shiva appeared in a same way. Mantras are not as simple as you think. When you do it with devotion and consciousness, they create their own effect, their own energy.

Second is the verbal prayer. Third is important thing- mental prayer. When prayer reaches the third dimension, it becomes mental. First it is physical, second verbal, third mental. In mental level it is called as meditation. In physical level it is called worship or Pooja. In the verbal level it is called japa. In the mental level it is called meditation, dhyaana. When you reach this level, neither your body needs to involve, nor your inner chattering needs to be involved, just your being will start relating. In japa it is a communication, in dhyaana it is a communion. In prayer it is a communication between you and God, in meditation it is a communion with you and God. You start experiencing the taste of divine. You start experiencing the glimpse of Divine. You start experiencing the glimpse of bliss. Important thing, as long as you do Pooja or Japa, you and God are different. The moment you enter into dhyaana, you start realizing Godliness in you. You start experiencing the Divine in you. You start getting the glimpse of what you worshipped all these years. A unique communion starts between you and You. It is not even between you and God, because God becomes part of your being, you become part of Him. Drop merges into the ocean, ocean merges into the drop. You start experiencing the glimpse. You start feeling you are the part of the whole. The advaithic experience - advaithic means, not dualistic. A feeling of oneness starts happening inside your being. A different kind of experience. As long as you do the japa, you are worshipping. The moment you enter into dhyaana, you merge with the object which you worshipped. With that, you become one. You start experiencing the consciousness.

The final, final step comes the fourth thing, where neither you, nor the God exists. Both disappear into one experience. That is what I call gratitude. In the beginning, the physical level you worship, is the Pooja- worshipping. In the verbal level you chant japa, this is what I call the repetition of the name. In the mental level you meditate, you experience the divine in you. That is what I call dhyaana. And in the spiritual level, the fourth level spiritual level, you experience not only the oneness, even the idea of oneness disappears. There is only one thing remains, gratitude. Towards whom? Towards nobody. Just gratitude. Not even addressed to somebody. As long as the gratitude is addressed to somebody there is two person - person who gives, person who receives. But in the ultimate level it is not even addressed to somebody it just overflows. Energy expresses itself in the form of gratitude. Energy expresses itself in the form of bliss. Deep feeling of fulfillment. That is what we call Samadhi. Samadhi means the being after getting totally fulfilled expresses itself in the form of energy. There is nobody who expresses and there is nobody who receives. Just experience. In this level, the experiencer and the experienced merges into experience. In that moment only one thing exists, that is simply experience. Neither experiencer nor the experienced, both merges into one being. That is what we call experience. You feel so much life is showering on you, you feel it is too much! I can’t tolerate anymore! It is so much of joy so much of ecstasy. You start losing your identity. You start losing your boundary. You can have identity as long as you have a trace of suffering. The moment suffering disappears you lose your boundary.

Understand? An important thing you need to understand. You can have ego only if you have suffering. Your ego cannot exist without suffering. Suffering is the root for your ego. It is an important thing you need to understand. We always think the other way. Ego is disturbed by suffering - no! Ego is enriched by suffering. One important thing. If your suffering is less, your ego is less. You feel you are too small, so you increase your suffering. You increase your suffering so that you can feel you are somebody. Ask anybody about their life, “How is your life?” They will tell “Swamiji, nobody should suffer like me! I am the person who suffered most on this planet Earth, even my enemies should not get this much of suffering.” They know how to write their biography. Ask anybody to start their biography, this will be the first sentence to introduce themself. Less the suffering, your ego is less. More the suffering, your ego becomes more strong. So you always exaggerate your suffering. The problem is, after some time you forget you exaggerated and you are also caught in the same net. It is you, who create more bigger net for you and exaggerate noo..you don’t know my life, you don’t know my suffering, how much I have to struggle and all those things. After some time you are caught in the same net. You are caught in the same net which you created.

A small story. One yellow journalist. Here what do you call yellow journalist? People who write continuously about celebrities. Tabloid. One tabloid journalist..He reached hell - of course, they will reach only to that area. They can reach only to hell. He reached hell. But somehow he managed to beg the God, “Please just let me enjoy the heaven only one day. Anyhow I am going to be in the hell eternally. Can’t you be little compassionate towards me just 24 hours?” God said “You are a dangerous guy - you cannot be, you can’t be allowed in the heaven! You may write something about me! You are a difficult guy you can’t be let in. You can even believe lawyers but not tabloid journalists. It is difficult.” But somehow he convinced..”No no in 24 hours I can’t write anything. After all, your guys are editors. I can’t do anything. Just for 24 hours.” God said, “Alright, come in.” The moment he jumped in, he started demanding. “If I make some one of your journalist, if I convince some one of your journalist to go to the hell, will you give me job here?” God said, “Picchi ah? My people will never get convinced to go to hell.” He said alright. This guy started spreading rumours. You know how these guys spread rumours. He started spreading rumour “A new satan, new devil has taken over the hell and it is..it has become totally hi-tech. It is, it has become centralized AC and all the eternal hell or eternal fire concept is wrong, now it is totally updated. Anybody who wants, they can go there. And especially they want to start a new newspaper. If you are experienced here, there is every chance you can become editor there. He started spreading the news. You know how these guys will spread news. Any news if you want to spread. Just you have to tell that news to somebody and take promise - don’t tell others. Just take only one promise, don’t tell others it is secret. And that person will tell the next person and tell - don’t tell others it is secret. In ten minutes even the dog will bark [UNCLEAR]. Anyhow the news has spread all over the heaven. After 24 hours the journalist is about to leave the gates of the heaven. He came to the gates, God says “No no no you cannot go away from heaven, you have to stay here!” This guy asked “Why?” “You do not know we had 10 editors, all the 10 escaped! They are now in the hell. We don’t have any journalists. We don’t have anybody to do our job, you have to be here.” By now, after talking same thing again and again and again, this guy himself is slowly convinced. That in the hell everything is updated and he’s going to have a good job. He says “No no I have to go to hell, I also want to become editor.” God says, “Arre fool you are the guy who spread this rumour! Why are you [believe], you are the one who created the rumour?” Journalist says “No no, I may have created, but when 10 people believes, there must be some truth in it. When so many people are believing, it cannot be a lie, there must be some truth, let me just give a check.” When you create, only you create. When again and again you repeat and then people start believing it, you also start falling in the same net, you also start believing. One religious preacher, I met him in Bharat. He is a very aggressive preacher. He came to me for healing. He told me he has got some personal problem and wants healing. After healing I was speaking to him, “Why are you preaching so aggressively condemning all other religions? Your religion is great, no doubt but why should you condemn others?” He says, “Swamiji, unless I convert people I am feeling insecured. When I see 10,000 people are believing, following my ideas, I feel safe- Oh what I am preaching is truth. I feel 10,000 people can’t be fools! I may be telling wrong things, but when 10,000 people are believing there must be some truth in it. So when 10,000 people are converted, I feel little more strong in my faith.” So when many people believe, when you created the net, you also fall in the same net. In your life also, you create an idea, your life is more suffering, more misery. By and by you start believing the same thing. If you analyze very clearly, you will see, there are thousands of miseries just created by your own mind, your own words. It is just your creation, but you forget that you are the one who created.

When ego disappears, you will be merged inside the bliss. When you merge inside the bliss, ego disappears. When you go really deep into your being, when you become one with the existence, when you experience, only gratitude flows, only grateful feeling overflows. It is just gratitude. There is a beautiful meditation in sufism, they say- the only only way to relate with God is gratitude. Because with gratitude you start experiencing Him. With prayer, you only start relating with Him. With gratitude, you start experiencing Him. The deeper level of your being, your spiritual layer, start experiencing with gratitude. Understand few things. How many things you are showered in your life! How much God has showered. But we never look into the things which is showered on us. We always look, what next, what next and what next!

I never forget to tell this small story this is a very nice story. One guy was praying to God in temple, “Oh God please just give me $100 to take care of my one week. Within a week, I’ll get my job and afterwards I’ll start donating to you. Just for one week, please give me $100 to take care of myself.” Priest felt very compassionate. He thought I should help him. Priest heard the prayer and he felt really I should help him. But he is also poor. He put $50 in a cover, went to that boy and handed over. “You see, God told me to give this cover to you, please have it” The guy ran to his home, opened the cover, saw $50. Again started praying, “Oh God next time when you send money please send directly, not through this priest, he has taken away half of his commission.” You do not know how the mind behaves. The guy did not bother about the $50 which he received. He is bothering about the $50 which is not received by him! Our mind also works in the same way. You bother about the things which has not happened to you, but you never bother about the things which has happened to you. If you are asked to write a list of things which God has not given you will that list ever end? You will start with limousine and it will go longer than limousine. And if you sincerely start writing the list of things which God has given you again that list also can never end, because every inhaling, exhaling, breath is given to you by divine! Can you say you earned it? No. Every inch every moment of life is given to you by divine. Can you say you made it? You created it? No. Your very life, your very existence is given from the divine. If you honestly make a list of things which is given to you by God, again it will never end. So many things, so much is showered. Can you say you created your life? Can you say created your one single inhaling or exhaling breath? No.

A small story. A big scientist gathering. They all decided all the scientists put together they decided now we can do anything which God does. Now we can do anything which God does. Why should there be God at all? We can do by ourself. What do you say God creates man, we will also clone. What do you say God does this, we will also do that. They become so advanced, they decided, now we can tell God to go and rest. We don’t need anymore, we don’t need Him anymore. We are doing everything by ourself. Let him retire. God said alright, let us have a small competition. First, he created something to fly. Immediately scientists also created aeroplane. Then he created fire. Scientists also created something to destroy the fire. Competition went on, went on. Finally God just took the dust and created a human being. Scientists also, they took the dust and created a human being out of cloning. God said, “No no no no no, stop! Bring your own dust and do it. Not from my dust” Understand, you can’t create even an inch. The whole thing is just given to you by divine. But when we take our life for granted, we live in a deep misery. Two list of things is there in front of you, one is the things which is given to you, which is showered on you. The another one is the things which you don’t have. Now it is up to you, whether to look into the things which you don’t have continuously suffer, suffer, suffer and make your life as a hell, or to look at the things which you have continuously and feel joyful ecstasy and enjoy it. Whether to look at this side or to look at this side is under your choice. Bliss is simply your choice. Gratitude is simply your choice. It is you who is supposed to decide what is your life is supposed to be. Whether it should be hell or it should be heaven, it is simply your choice. When you look at the things which is showered on you, which is given to you, then you will understand how much existence protects you. Divine takes care of you. God showers on you.

One guy went to the real estate agent and wanted to sell his house. After a week, ran to the agent and told “No no no no no I don’t want to sell my house. Please remove the advertisement.” Agent was surprised. He asked, “Why? Why you don’t want to sell?” The guy said, “Only after seeing your advertisement in the paper, I realized my house is exactly as I wanted it to be! My house is exactly how I wanted it to be. It’s really exactly as I always wanted it to be. Only then I realized how beautiful my house is.” You take things for granted, you take persons for granted, you take life for granted. Ultimately when you take life for granted, you feel bored. When you make things unconscious, you feel bored.

There was a great saint who lived in Maharashtra. Last 10 years of his life he was asked by doctors to eat the same type of food. Same type of food, same little rice and greens because his stomach has become very sensitive. Every day he will eat the same food. The devotee who cooked, she got fed up actually. Cooking the same food. She went to the master and asked, “Master, are you not bored eating the same food? I am bored cooking the same food! Are you not bored eating the same food.” Master says beautifully - listen - he says, “I am not eating the same food. How can I eat the same food? Everyday it is different! Everyday it is new. Everyday it is totally different. How can I eat the same food next day. No. When you generalize you feel bored. When you understand, when you live moment to moment everything looks very fresh. When you live moment to moment things really look fresh and you live and you feel grateful to the existence. When you take things for granted you feel bored, dull, tired, depressed. Biggest problem which I see at least in this country is taking things for granted. That is why so much, even after having so many entertainment things you feel so much of boredom. Depression has become a big disease. Obesity is nothing but taking the food for granted. When you take food for granted you try so many other new techniques. Again you feel unfulfilled. Again you try some more techniques. Continuously you take things for granted and try new new new things. The more you try the more you get more bored, more depressed. When you really live with a deep sensitivity, with understanding, without taking things for granted, you experience a new space in your being and you will experience deep joy in your being. You will experience different gratitude towards the whole life, towards life. Towards persons. Towards situations. Ultimately towards the whole existence. Gratitude is the ultimate prayer. Gratitude is the greatest attitude. Gratitude is the greatest attitude which you can have towards human beings towards life towards persons towards situations. So gratitude is the greatest attitude towards God. Gratitude is the ultimate prayer. Let you experience the gratitude. Through the gratitude, experience the eternal bliss- Nithyananda. Thank you.