The speedy way to reach God is through prayer. Imagine yourself going in front of the most kind, most magnanimous person in the universe. What would you ask from such a person? You would definitely want to make the best use of the opportunity at hand. And before you went to meet that person, wouldn’t you fully plan what you were going to say? And what if that person was the Supreme Lord Himself?
In the early stages of practicing bhakti-yoga, we tend to be inconsistent in praying. Once in a while we may be inspired to heartfully pray for what we yearn for in our life. Yet sometimes when we go in front of God in the temple, we become so captivated or distracted by the surroundings that we forget to pray. Sometimes we may be confused about whether praying for a particular thing is right or not. Yet other times, after an inspiring seminar on detachment, some prayer may make its way out from our mind and heart. But we may later regret that prayer, thinking we didn’t really mean it, and we may request the Lord not to take our prayers seriously. Sometimes years may go by, and we may remain without praying about anything substantial.
The following analysis is meant to help us increase the quality of our prayers. It’s not an exhaustive analysis, but it includes things I think are worthy of consideration.
We need not be in front of the Lord in the temple to offer Him prayers. He is accessible always and everywhere. For example, the elephant Gajendra was in danger of his life from the attack of a crocodile. He prayed while he was struggling in a lake, and the Lord heard him. Draupadī called for Kṛṣṇa in the midst of the royal assembly in Hastinapura, but Kṛṣṇa could hear her even though He was in Dwarka. Dhruva, who was only five years old, prayed while in the Madhuvana forest in Vrindavan, and he received the direct audience of the Lord in only six months.
To Whom to Pray
While reading through the pages of Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, we understand that demigods like Indra, Candra, Vāyu, Gaṇeśa, and Umā can fulfill our material desires but because their posts are not eternal they cannot offer us something eternal. Furthermore, whatever they grant us is actually granted by the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa. The demigods themselves tell of the pitiable situation of one who takes their shelter:
avismitaṁ taṁ paripūrṇa-kāmaṁ
svenaiva lābhena samaṁ praśāntam
vinopasarpaty aparaṁ hi bāliśaḥ
śva-lāṅgulenātititarti sindhum
“Free from all material conceptions of existence and never wonder-struck by anything, the Lord is always jubilant and fully satisfied by His own spiritual perfection. He has no material designations, and therefore He is steady and unattached. That Supreme Personality of Godhead is the only shelter of everyone. Anyone desiring to be protected by others is certainly a great fool who desires to cross the sea by holding the tail of a dog.” (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.9.22)
Uddhava tells why Kṛṣṇa is the perfect shelter for everyone:
tasmād bhavantam anavadyam ananta-pāraṁ
sarva-jṣam īśvaram akuṇṭha-vikuṇṭha-dhiṣṇyam
nirviṇṇa-dhīr aham u he vṛjinābhitapto
nārāyaṇaṁ nara-sakhaṁ śaraṇaṁ prapadye
“Therefore, O Lord, feeling weary of material life and tormented by its distresses, I now surrender unto You because You are the perfect master. You are the unlimited, all-knowing Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose spiritual abode in Vaikuṇṭha is free from all disturbances. In fact, You are known as Nārāyaṇa, the true friend of all living beings.” (Bhāgavatam 11.7.18)
Can We Pray for Fulfillment of Material Desires?
Once we are convinced that there is no one other than the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa who should be the object of our prayers, the next question is what we should pray for. Can we pray to have a child, to go to another country, to crack a competitive exam? The Bhāgavatam urges us to worship the Supreme Lord for the fulfillment of even our material desires:
akāmaḥ sarva-kāmo vā
mokṣa-kāma udāra-dhīḥ
tīvreṇa bhakti-yogena
yajeta puruṣaṁ param
“A person who has broader intelligence, whether he be full of all material desire, without any material desire, or desiring liberation, must by all means worship the supreme whole, the Personality of Godhead.” (Bhāgavatam 2.3.10)
The beauty of worshiping Kṛṣṇa is that He knows which desires to fulfill and which ones to refrain from fulfilling. And He knows exactly how to fulfill them. When Dhruva wanted a kingdom greater than his great-grandfather’s, the Lord fulfilled his desire, but because He appeared before Dhruva to do so, Dhruva was blessed with deep spiritual realization. When Kardama Muni desired a suitable wife, he married Devahūti by the Lord’s grace and became the father of the Lord’s incarnation Kapiladeva. When Mahārāja Nābhi asked Lord Viṣṇu for a son exactly like Him, the Lord replied that no one can be like Him. But to fulfill Mahārāja Nābhi’s request, He descended as Ṛṣabhadeva to become Nābhi’s son.
The way in which Kṛṣṇa fulfills material desires is extraordinary. He certainly gives desired objects to devotees who request them, but He gives them in such a way that the devotee will not ask for them again. He does this by giving the devotee service to His lotus feet, which include all desirables. Rewarded in this way, Dhruva Mahārāja detested what he had previously so intensely yearned for.
Citraketu Mahārāja, another celebrated devotee of the Lord, mentions that persons obsessed with material desires who worship the Supreme Lord are not subject to rebirth, just as roasted seeds do not grow. (Bhāgavatam 6.16.39) An object that falls into a well of juice becomes juicy; similarly, when material desires enter the Supreme Lord, they become spiritualized.
At the same time, asking for material things does not constitute the topmost form of worship of the Supreme Lord. Śrīla Prabhupāda writes, “Asking for material benefit is not a sign of a pure devotee. For the living entity who desires to return to Godhead, material desires are impediments.” (Gītā 7.22, Purport)
Can We Pray for Our Own Deliverance?
It’s natural to be concerned for our own welfare, including our deliverance. But “deliverance” can come in various forms. Deliverance can mean simply freedom from suffering. The first thing that naturally happens as a result of practicing bhakti-yoga is kleśaghnī, or relief from material distress. To attract Lord Kṛṣṇa’s grace, as part of bhakti-yoga we beseech Him for deliverance from our fallen condition and suffering. Many prayers in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam depict such feelings. Even Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, as the ideal devotee, prayed, “O son of Mahārāja Nanda [Kṛṣṇa], I am Your eternal servitor, yet somehow or other I have fallen into the ocean of birth and death. Please pick me up from this ocean of death and place me as one of the atoms at Your lotus feet.” (Śrī Śrī Śikṣāṣṭaka 5)
To want deliverance in the sense of ending the cycle of birth and death and going to the spiritual world is also a healthy aspiration. A lost child naturally desires to go back to his or her parents. Our praying to get Kṛṣṇa’s eternal association makes Kṛṣṇa eager to respond. In fact, if we do our part, He takes us to His abode even without our asking, because He is more eager for us to enter Goloka Vṛndāvana than we are.
Can We Pray for a Specific Service?
When we pursue the path of spiritual life, we may be happy simply rendering the services given to us by our authorities. But can we pray for a specific type of service?
Pṛthu Mahārāja says, “Now I wish to engage in the service of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and to serve just like the goddess of fortune.” (Bhāgavatam 4.20.27) Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura, one of the ācāryas in the Gauḍīya-Vaiṣṇava-sampradāya, expresses his desire to anoint the forms of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa with sandalwood paste, to garland Them, and to fan Them with a cāmara whisk. Such prayers are technically termed lālasāmayī, meaning to intensely long for personal service of the Lord. This is an elevated stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness in which the devotee’s desire has nothing to do with the false ego that still affects the aspiring devotee in lower stages of practice.
Still, prayers for rendering a specific service to the Lord are a means to express our spiritual desires even early in our spiritual life. Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disciple Īśāna Dāsa recalls receiving the following instruction from his guru. “Just try to understand our Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy: you should decide what you want to do for Kṛṣṇa.”
The chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra is itself a petition to the Lord to engage us in His service. The Lord is extremely pleased when we wish to render Him service. At the same time, nonfulfillment of our desire for a specific service should not become an obstacle in rendering other, designated services. Nor should it lead to an unhealthy attitude of wanting to render a particular service by hook or crook and thus becoming insensitive to people and situations.
Prayers Conducive to Bhakti
The devotees offering prayers in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam wish to progress in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and attract the Lord’s grace. Their prayers guide us in what exactly we should pray for. Many devotees, such as Parīkṣit Mahārāja, Pṛthu Mahārāja, Dhruva Mahārāja, and the Pracetās, pray to the Supreme Lord for association with His devotees. For instance, the Pracetās prayed:
yāvat te māyayā spṛṣṭā
bhramāma iha karmabhiḥ
tāvad bhavat-prasaṅgānāṁ
saṅgaḥ syān no bhave bhave
“Dear Lord, as long as we have to remain within this material world due to our material contamination and wander from one type of body to another and from one planet to another, we pray that we may associate with those who are engaged in discussing Your pastimes. We pray for this benediction life after life, in different bodily forms and on different planets.” (Bhāgavatam 4.30.33)
Another prayer conducive to bhakti is to ask the Lord to protect us from committing offenses on the devotional path. Brahmājī prayed to the Lord in the Third Canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam to not get deviated from his service of creation or to become proud. He also prayed to be empowered to render this service efficiently.
Such prayers for empowerment signify our dependence on the Lord. When King Rahūgaṇa mistakenly committed a great offense against the devotee Jaḍa Bharata, the repentant king prayed that although he was afraid of neither Indra’s thunderbolt nor Śiva’s trident, he terribly feared disrespecting brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas.
From Practice to Perfection
We can estimate the quality of certain prayers based on Kṛṣṇa’s reciprocation. When Dakṣa prayed to be empowered to increase progeny, which was his assigned service, the Lord fulfilled his desire, but He left without granting Dakṣa any spiritual benediction. Lord Viṣṇu appeared in Mahārāja Pṛthu’s sacrificial arena, and being greatly inclined to Pṛthu Mahārāja’s behavior, He lingered on the scene. Pṛthu Mahārāja was thus able to offer beautiful prayers to the Supreme Lord.
One kind of prayer that constitutes the highest form of worship is one that doesn’t ask anything for oneself but simply prays for other living entities. When compassion takes the form of a prayer to the Supreme Lord, He is extremely pleased. Prahlāda Mahārāja prayed to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva on behalf of all the unfortunate souls suffering in the material world. Nṛsiṁhadeva responded in part by delivering Prahlāda’s father (the demon Hiraṇyakaśipu) and twenty-one generations of Prahlāda’s ancestors.
Kṛṣṇa offered even higher reciprocation when He confessed to the gopīs His inability to repay their love. What was the gopīs’ mood, and what were their prayers that made Kṛṣṇa speak like that? They desired nothing for themselves; they simply desired Kṛṣṇa’s pleasure. They were ready to sacrifice any amount of time and energy, they were ready to forsake their reputations, and they were ready to be forever in utter distress simply to make Him happy for a moment. Their prayers and their lives were meant only to awaken the deepest feelings of love in Kṛṣṇa’s heart and give Him the ultimate happiness.
A Life of Prayer
Sometimes Kṛṣṇa may reciprocate externally, and sometimes He may not – just to intensify the devotion of His devotees. Therefore all the prayers from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam or any other scripture that express the highest desire to serve Kṛṣṇa and please Him, demanding nothing for oneself, are valuable jewels to be cherished and adored. All of these constitute the perfect prayers. In bhakti there can be innumerable perfections in various shades. The journey of life is to transform ourselves from a state of no prayer or prayers for material well-being to a state of prayers of the highest stature. We must not only deepen the quality of our prayers, but also deepen our commitment to prayers. From occupying a small part of our daily life, prayers are meant to envelope our entire life. The heart-melting prayers of Vṛtrāsura from the Sixth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the devotional prayers of the Pracetās, Pṛthu Mahārāja’s earnest entreaties, and many others are among the choicest prayers offered in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Kṛṣṇa fills with grace the heart of the devotee who prays to Him in a humble disposition. That grace inspires in the heart of the devotee newer and newer desires for service, and the cycle continues indefinitely. A devotee who lives a life of prayer feels extremely content and spreads Kṛṣṇa’s grace everywhere. Śrīla Prabhupāda was such a devotee whose life exemplified prayerful living. By his prayers and life, he transformed the lives of millions of people all over the world.
