by Suhotra Swami
In a spatio-temporal sense at least, this article on prayer is outside
the Christian tradition. But space and time have only to do with
physics. If there is anything accessible to human experience that is
metaphysical (that is, "beyond physics"), it is prayer. I therefore
believe that prayer is the true common ground upon which all religions
and all humanity can find a unity that remains ever-unrealized within
the physical realm.
My readers in Catholic Poland are likely to term my religious
tradition as "Hindu." Now, that's not really a fact, even in a spatio-
temporal sense. The word Hindu is nothing more than a foreign
mispronunciation of the word Sindhu, the name of a river (also known
as the Indus) in present-day Pakistan. It is not the proper name of my
religion, no more than "Jordanism" is the proper name for Christianity,
which began in the region of the river Jordan in Palestine. The real
name of my tradition is Vaishnavism, which is derived from a name of
God: Vishnu, meaning "He who dwells everywhere." For instance,
Vishnu dwells within the hearts of all creatures as their conscience and
inner guide, which we call the Paramatma or Supersoul. Vishnu dwells
outside of each of us as the maintainer of the form and progress of the
universe. And ultimately Vishnu is transcendental to the material
universe altogether. In His most intimate form, known by the name
Krishna, God enjoys eternally with His pure devotees in the supremely
blissful spiritual abode known as Goloka, which is not a "place" in any
spatio-temporal sense at all. Goloka is a place of pure consciousness.
If our consciousness becomes pure, we are "there." Pure prayer is the
means to enter Goloka and serve Krishna His pastimes of unending
joy.
I have titled this article The Voice of Pure Devotion to draw the
attention of my Catholic readers to the unity shared by the Christian
Bible and the Vedic scriptures of India. In the New Testament, the
Gospel according to St. John, Chapter One, it is said, "In the beginning
was the word, and the word was with God, and word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him,
and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was
life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in
darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."The "word" mentioned here is a translation of the Greek *logos.*
*Logos* has various senses of meaning. One is "word" or "language,"
from which we get modern words like dialogue. Another sense is the
structure of thought, from which we get the modern word logic. A third
sense is the structure of the world around us, which we study in our
sciences of cosmology, geology, biology, anthropology and so on. All
these words end in -logy, revealing the trace of *logos.* I said that
*logos* has various senses of meaning. Actually, *logos* means "the
sense of meaning" of speech, thought and the world--of everything we
can know or communicate. And as we've seen in the passage quoted
from John, in the beginning God gave the original sense of meaning to
everything in creation by His word. Without God, there is no meaning
to anything at all. Only with God can we sense the meaning of
everything. And that, I hope to help you understand, is the true
meaning of prayer: the giving of our voice to the sense of everything
as in God, with God, and as God.
Greek is an ancient language full of profound concepts. Even more
ancient and profound is the Sanskrit language. *Logos*, the word
that was in the beginning, the word that was with God and is God, is
known in Sanskrit as *vac* ("voice"). Vac is the feminine, devotional
aspect of the Godhead. You see, in my tradition, God is known as the
*adi- purusa*, the original personality.
That original personality
displays male and female aspects simultaneously. This is not to be
understood in a mundane, biological sense. What I mean to say is
that the energetic (*saktiman*) is male, while the energy (*sakti*) is
female. And They cannot be separated, no more than the sun and its
light can be separated. So Vac is the *sakti* (energy) of God, the
energetic. She is with God in the beginning, in the eternity before
creation.
We Vaisnavas address God as Radha-Krishna. Radha comes from
*aradhanam*, a Sanskrit word meaning "worship." We also address
God as Hare Krishna. Hare comes from *hara*, "the divine power."
And Krishna means "the All-Attractive." Because He is the Perfect
Being, She is ever-attracted to serve Him. Radha-Krishna, Hare
Krishna--these are the eternal names and forms of the complete
Godhead. Radha or Hare is with God, and actually She is God, for She
is Krishna's energy. For instance, in school children play with rubber
bands, stretching them and letting them fly at one another. When a
rubber band strikes a child, she may cry out, "oh, you hit me."
Actually there was no direct contact between the children. One child
simply sent a rubber band flying at the other. But still, that one isaccused, "you hit me." What hit was the energy of the child.
energy is not different from the child. Yet again, it is different.
That
Similarly, the energy of God is God, and yet it is different from Him
at the same time. This simultaneous difference and non-difference
between God and His energy is the essence of our Vaisnava
philosophy. All things are made by God through His energy of speech
(*logos*, or Vac-*sakti*), and thus all things are in one sense the
same as God, and in another sense different from Him. This oneness
and difference are indicated in the Gospel of John with these words:
"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light
shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."
Life is eternal. God is the Supreme Soul, ever-existing, and we
tiny individual souls are His effulgence, each of us like a tiny photon
(particle) of timeless life and light. In pure spiritual consciousness,
God and the souls share the same quality of eternality, knowledge and
bliss. They are One, but since it is a Oneness of love, there is a
Difference of love too. For example, a boy and a girl who love one
another are one in that they are inseparable. Yet again, the difference
between them makes their mutual enjoyment possible.
As we see from the Gospel of John, the light of spirit, of eternal life
and light, shines forth from God into darkness, or *avidya*
(ignorance). According to the Vedas, God sends forth some of the
countless effulgent souls into the darkness of material existence
because of their desire to enjoy separately from Him. A soul in
ignorance does not comprehend his eternal life. In ignorance, then,
the oneness between the soul and God seems lost, while the difference
between them seems terrifying. God is never in ignorance. But the
soul in material existence is. The soul's ignorance is forgetfulness of
God due to contact with matter. When we forget God, we instantly
think, "I am matter." Thus instead of enjoying our true spiritual nature
of eternality, knowledge and bliss, we suffer the opposite: repeated
birth and death, ignorance and unhappiness in the material body.
The Vac-*sakti*, the Divine Voice by which the meaning of
everything is understood, pervades both the spiritual and material
realms. In the spiritual realm Vac is self-apparent: everything there
exists only for the loving glorification of God. But here in the material
world, Vac is hidden--hidden by our own ignorance. Therefore it must
be revealed to us by one who is in knowledge. Knowledge, in the
Sanskrit language, is Veda. Vac, the Voice of Pure Devotion to God, is
the mother of the Vedic scriptures. Now, what kind of person is ableto know Veda in this world of ignorance?
states in the Rig Veda:
As Goddess Vac herself
"He whom I love, that one I make a saintly person, that one a seer of
the truth, that one a wise sage." (RV 10.125.5)
Who does Goddess Vac, the mother of the Vedas, love? She loves
that one who loves God. And to that person She gives the power of
prayer, the Voice of Pure Devotion.
Thus true prayer is an expression of pure love of God. And pure
love of God is the meaning of everything.
In a biography of St. Francis of Assisi, we find this statement: "The
happiness beyond all happiness comes from loving God and feeling
oneself loved by Him." This happiness beyond all happiness is the
happiness of our original nature as pure spirit, which needs nothing
material to sustain its existence. Some people pray to God for the
happiness of physical satisfaction. Others pray for the happiness of
wealth. Still others pray for the happiness of a long life in the body.
But these kinds of happiness are not real happiness. Therefore these
kinds of prayers are not real prayers.
Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the original founder of the Hare Krishna
movement in India five hundred years ago, prayed in this way:
"O Lord of the universe, I do not desire material wealth,
materialistic followers, a beautiful wife or to achieve anything else the
poets of this world describe in flowery language. All I want, life after
life, is unmotivated devotional service to You."
In the original
Sanksrit, Sri Caitanya's prayer closes with the words *bhavatad
bhaktir ahaituki tvayi*, "Let there be *bhakti* (pure devotion) with no
motives unto You." This is the prayer of a pure soul to his pure God in
pure love.
I have heard people say, "But if we pray like that, how will we live?
After all, we are not disembodied souls floating in empty space. We
have so many needs to attend to in our present condition." I answer
their question with another question: "Do you think God is a miser? If
you simply pray to God, `I want You and You alone, for You are the
true and only shelter of my life," do you think He will neglect you in
any way?" After all, God is a person--the greatest, kindest, gentlest,
most loving and most beautiful person. What endears us to the people
we know? Is it our friendship, or our demands of them? Obviously, ifyou are a friend to someone and he is a friend to you, he will naturally
want to help you in so many ways. But if you pester someone, "give
me this, give me that," without showing any true feeling for him as a
person, he'll not be pleased with your company.
What we Vaishnavas call "material religion" is based upon this
pestering process. What we call "spiritual religion" is based upon love.
Spiritual prayer is the echo within our hearts of the original Voice of
Pure Devotion, which cries out for Her Lord in the acute anxiety of
separation.
"O Govinda (Krishna)! Feeling Your separation, I am considering a
moment to be like twelve years or more. Tears are flowing from my
eyes like torrents of rain, and I am feeling all vacant in the world in
Your absence."
This is another beautiful prayer composed by Sri Caitanya. There
is a transcendental mystery to His identity. He appeared in this world
as a *sannyasi*, a wandering ascetic. In fact, He is Radha-Krishna
Themselves, Who mix together in loving ecstacy as one person
stricken by the deepest of divine emotions. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu
gave the world the simplest and most sublime formula for prayer: the
Hare Krishna Mahamantra, which expresses the essence of all pure
religion: "Oh my Lord Krishna, Oh Hare, Energy of the Lord, kindly
engage me in your blissful service." The Hare Krishna Mahamantra is
chanted thusly:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Each of us individual souls are the property of the Divine Couple,
Radha and Krishna. We are meant only for Their pleasure (*rama*).
That is the true meaning of our existence, and that meaning is
revealed by the Voice of Pure Devotion, which is expressed in this
world as the Vedic scriptures, the essence of which is the Hare Krishna
Mahamantra. By Vedic scriptures, I do not mean simply a canon of
religious texts from India. I mean the record of all the prayers of all
pure devotees of all time and places whose motive was only love for
God. All these saintly persons adhere to the *logos*, the Vac, the
revealed word of God that cries out for Him and Him alone.