Hare Krsna
Please accept my humble obeisance. All glories to Srila Prabhupada
What is prayer and when do we pray? As per our acaryas and scriptures prayer is glorification of the Supreme Lord, a way of communion with the Lord, accepting His Supremacy and our insignificant position. It is also a way of expressing our gratitude to God. If we realise the truth of the above statement, then actually we should be praying all the time ferverently. But most of the time our prayers are result oriented. When things are going very favourably then we many times even forget to pray to the Lord or thank Him. We pray to the Lord mostly in times of danger or when we are in trouble. While it is a very good thing to approach the Supreme Father when we are in trouble, our attitude of prayer and service to the Lord should not be result oriented. When our prayers are driven based on whatever result we want, then our faith will be flickering when Krishna does not sanction the requests in the way we want. And then we even stop serving or pray faithlessly.
Our beloved spiritual master H H Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaj always said that the prayers attract the blessings of the Lord. Maharaj said that when the rains pour, it pours equally in all the places. But if the ground is hard in one place, then nothing sprouts. In a fertile ground everything sprouts. The fertile ground comes on the basis of prayers and the unfertile ground on the basis of speculation. What attracts the blessings is the prayerful attitude of the devotee.
We see a very nice example of the mood of prayer in the glorious life of Mother Kaushalya. She is really special and blessed soul as the Lord had chosen her to be His mother and her qualities are worth meditating. When Dasaratha announced that Lord Ram will be coronated the next day, being a mother, Kaushalya was very pleased. Normally for us, if our child is going to get some nice price or award it will be moment of great joy. In such happy moments we even forget Krishna. By His grace, if we have little sanity, then may be we will thank Krishna for a minute and then continue to enjoy the child's success in our own way. But Ramayana tells us how Koushalya fasted and prayed all night after hearing the good news. She neither became proud, nor did she forget to thank the Lord. She simply prayed all night, without sleep or food.
Then in the morning when Rama came and revealed to her the shocking news of His exile to the forest for fourteen years and Bharata's coronation, as a mother she indeed feels very much distressed and disturbed about the injustice done to her son by Kaikeyi. She says to Lord Ram, "For a long time I suffered the terrible pain of being childless, O beloved son. Surely the feeling of being without issue is a grief that consumes a barren woman. Before Your birth every effort your father made to please me was futile, O Raghava, for I longed only for a child. Your birth ended that pain, but now I fear that an even greater suffering has arrived." She pleads to Lord Ram to take her along with Him to the forest for she cannot bear His separation. But Lord Ram convinces her by reminding her about the codes of truth and morality. He told her that it is important for Him to go to the forest to keep up the words of Dasaratha and also for her to stay back and serve king Dasaratha.
In this situation again Mother Kaushalya teaches us how we should behave. She could understand the virtue behind Lord Ram's instructions. Although in the grip of sorrow, Kaushalya began to worship the Supreme Lord in order to invoke divine blessings for her son. She prayed that her son should be protected from all dangers in the forest. She did not become dejected that things didn't turn out in the way she wanted. She did not stop praying. But still she continued to pray intensely to the Lord. Indeed this faith and trust pleases the Lord very much. To conclude let us remember one of favourite quotes of Maharaj
Happy moments, praise Krishna.
Difficult moments, seek Krishna.
Quiet moments, worship Krishna.
Painful moments, trust Krishna.
Every moment, thank Krishna.
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