Our most typical agenda for prayers is a demand for a wish or a desire that is unfulfilled. The other reason for prayers is a state – the state of fear. If I leave aside conformism and parental conditioning, the above two reasons – a menu or a fearful state - are the most typical motivators for prayers.
God does not run errands. He is not somebody who takes orders. In fact, God appreciates the fact that there is no demand (representing absence of desire) and no fear (representing karma consciousness). In fact, the pearly gates of heaven are open to those who want God for God’s sake.
Below is a short anecdote by Osho.
A person died. He had spent his whole life praying. He went to the synagogue and shouted his prayers out loudly. When he went to bed at night he would again shout out his prayers. If his sleep was broken, again he would shout his prayers –“Listen God!”
In front of him lived an atheist, who never prayed and never went to the temple. The person thought in his heart – he was religious – he thought, “Child, enjoy your two or four more days of fun and then you will fall into hell, then the score will be settled.” And he was happy that, “I will be in heaven. I have done so many prayers, I have earned so much virtue. You will fall into hell. Now enjoy your four days pleasure and delights. Enjoy playing on your flute. But after these four days of moonlight come dark nights.”
Thus he thought to himself, doing his prayers more and more loudly. In his prayers he asked heaven for himself and in addition asked hell for his atheist neighbor. By coincidence they both died the same day. The angels came to take them. They took the religious man off towards hell. He screamed loudly, what are you doing?
And they took the unreligious man towards heaven. The man said, ”This is unfair. My whole life it was unfair and now injustice again. I was suffering then, but I kept patient in every way, assuring myself, ’It is nothing, endure it. Just four days of suffering, then heaven.’ And you are taking this sensualist off to heaven? Certainly there has been some mistake. You must be carrying orders to deliver me to heaven, look at your letter. Take him instead, you have made a mistake.”
But they said, “There is no mistake. If you are too upset we will take you both to meet god.” He said, “Take us. Certainly. It can be decided there.”
Coming in front of god he shouted again, it was his old habit. God said, “I am in front of you, now why are you shouting? What do you want?”
He said, “Some mistake has happened; they were supposed to take me to heaven and took this knave. He is a sensualist, and he spent his whole life doing wrong things. He has never prayed. I was always praying, why was I being taken off to hell?”
God said, “Because of your prayers. You have been eating my brains. Should I invite you to stay in heaven now and put my life in danger, in this harassment? This is the fruit of your prayers. This fellow I am inviting because he plays flute, he lives in music and melody. He will bring a little gaiety to heaven. Your staying would not add gaiety, what little gaiety there is here would disappear.”
When you have got God, why would you want anything else?
Copyright © Nitesh Kotecha
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