Here is a series of blogs we will be publishing from the book, ‘The Power of Prayer’. We have taken the write-ups by Swami Chinmayananda. Prayer is a very personal thing for most of us. We all pray at different altars and with different techniques. There is no right or wrong. But if we understand the various aspects of prayer and its effects, our relationship with God might become stronger. In this blog we see how a devotee can transform to reach the Highest Truth.
When the whole being of the devotee exposes itself in ardent invocation of Him, the bhakta (devotee), through such intense association with the Infinite, is gradually transformed to discover that he has attained the very divine attributes he is worshipping.
When invoked, He indeed reveals Himself and makes the devotee realize His absolute nature divine (IX:1:80)
When we worship the Lord, invoking Him by our constant contemplation upon his glories, our mind is cut loose from its fanciful attachments to the pluralistic world. When the mind is turned towards the Higher through our earnest identification with His glories, the Truth that is already within us unveils and reveals itself.
Truth is not anything separate from us – it is already present as the illuminator behind every thought in us. Erelong indeed, very quickly, as soon as the mind is hushed, Truth is uncovered. Just like a lost key, having been long sought for in futile excitement, is at last discovered in one’s own pocket. The key was already searched in vain everywhere. Truth was with us all the time, but we did not know it, and when we invoke it, we experience it as divine revelation.
The Self is ever with us, but because It is veiled from our direct perception we do not apprehend It. Apprehension of the Truth takes no time; the Self is revealed immediately when the non-apprehension is removed. Turning our mind towards Him through constant contemplation of His glories will lend us to apprehend the Reality, the Lord.
It is the Lord Himself who gives His faithful devotee the experience of his absolute, unchanging Truth. The devotee cannot say “I know God”, or “I saw God”, for the Reality is beyond the triple distinctions of experiencer, experienced and experiencing. At that stage there is no instrument for us to perceive or feel or think of Him! The knower, the known and the knowing are all merged into One, the pure Consciousness.
With the equipment transcended, there is no instrument with which to know. Then how does no one understand the Reality? The Lord, out of his own compassion, makes the devotee experience Him. To realize is not the seeker’s responsibility – his is only to experience. Eating is our job; to remove the hunger is the Lord’s work. Read about Hanuman – The Greatest Devotee.
Even the world outside, an object may sometimes be veiled from our perception when there are unfavourable conditions for its perception. In order to hear a sound, the sound produced must be of the right frequency, and the soundwaves must reach the eardrums of the listener. Similarly, an object may be in front of the eyes, but it must be bathed in a beam of light before the eyes can perceive it.
The Self that already exists in us, now hidden behind conditions unfavourable for its cognition, gets unveiled when these unfavourable conditions are removed. The negative atmosphere in us that screams the Self is called “the darkness” (tamas) born of ignorance. Even in the darkness of ignorance the Self abides; only it is not available for our intimate, subjective experience. When a seeker has established himself in the above mentioned constant invocation of the Supreme, he becomes fit for the final experience of his real identity with the Self.
When a seeker succeeds in removing the veils of ignorance, which are nothing but his mental agitations caused by the cloudiness of his intellect, the self-effulgent Self then spontaneously reveals itself. It comes not as a result of deliberation action, but as spontaneous revelation, as through the intervention of Divine Grace.