IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER by Swami Siva Yogananda

Prayer is a spiritual communication with God or any form of worship as in supplication – request for something, adoration – expressing love, devotion and bakthi to god, confession and thanksgiving.

Prayer is a means of transitioning you away from the activities of life and more and more closer to God. The more you pray the more you move into a pure, pristine and sacred space and the ultimate goal for liberation is to reach absolute pureness or parisutham.

When your mind is overwhelmed with thoughts of God there is no space for impure and evil thoughts to emerge therein and constant prayer keeps you connected to Divine thoughts. Prayer keeps you connected with god, the universe and everything within it. In this connectedness your heart opens up and starts flowering, and your love and compassion start growing and your life opens up to a beautiful inner state as your inner suffering diminishes. Your life then starts resonating at a higher level of consciousness.

You must choose a particular form of the Divine and connect to this particular form in your daily prayer as this form will become deeply embedded in your consciousness. When you keep changing forms to which you connect you will dilute your connectedness with the Divine.

Establish a relationship with God viz mother, father or best friend and speak to god as you would speak to a person in the worldly relationship.

To achieve the best out of prayer follow the procedure below:

• When you pray be specific about what you want with absolute clarity.

• Pray with passion, emotion and feeling.

• Do not complain to God but rather ask for solutions.

• Visualise what you want in 3 dimension and colour.

• Visualise as if you are receiving what you asked for.

• Experience the joy, thrill and excitement of receiving what you want

• Express gratitude to God for giving you what you want.

Enjoy your prayer!

AUM NAMASIVAYA