What is Prayer? Should Sikhs Pray?

Archived_member15 · #91 (**permalink**) 25-May-2012, 06:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by harry haller

Spji,

we are veering away from the topic, I do not find that a valid comparison.

The whole, 'please do this for me' prayer I find incompatible with Sikhism, We touched on it earlier, there are no set times for prayer, one should be in touch with Creator 24/7, with the only reward being the bliss of connection,

Surely, ask not what your Creator can do for you, but what can you do for your Creator

My dear brother Harry Haller ji peacesign

Very true!

I do not believe simply in formal, set times for prayers nor in a separation between "sacred and profane" in daily life. Our spiritual life is not separate from our work and social life, rather it is one, unified life in the Spirit that we must live.

You might be interested in Ignatian Spirituality. It is a Catholic form of mysticism that is contemporary with Sikhism, and it derives from the teachings of Saint Ignatius Loyola (1491 – 1556) the founder of the Jesuits (he lived in the same age as Nanak, although in Europe, Spain). Interestingly enough, it was a Jesuit who a few decades later became the first Westerner to write about Sikhism and the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev, with whom he sympathised deeply as I explained on another thread: http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/interf...temporary.html

"...You should practice the seeking of God’s presence in all things, in your conversations, your walks, in all that you see, taste, hear, understand, in all your actions, since His Divine Majesty is truly in all things by His presence, power, and essence. This kind of meditation which finds God our Lord in all things is easier than raising oneself to the consideration of divine truths which are more abstract and which demand something of an effort if we are to keep our attention on them...Love God in all things—and all things in God...Oh, my God, I want to love you, not that I might gain eternal heaven nor escape eternal hell but, Lord, to love you just because you are my God. Eternal Word, Teach me true generosity. Teach me to serve you as you deserve. To give without counting the cost, To fight heedless of wounds, To labor without seeking rest, To sacrifice myself without thought of any reward Save the knowledge that I have done your will....May it please the supreme and divine Goodness to give us all abundant grace ever to know his most holy will and perfectly to fulfill it..."

- Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491 – 1556), Catholic mystic, Founder of the Jesuits and Doctor of the Church

His spirituality was described as such by one scholar:

"...The key insight of Ignatius Loyola is that we can find God in all things. Ignatian spirituality is a spirituality for everyday life. It insists that God is present in our world and active in our lives. It is a pathway to deeper prayer, good decisions guided by keen discernment, and an active life of service to others...Finding God in all things is at the core of Ignatian Spirituality and is rooted in our growing awareness that God can found in every one, in every place and in everything. When we learn to pay more attention to God, we become more thankful and reverent, and through this we become more devoted to God, more deeply in love with our Creator...St. Ignatius stated that the key to a healthy spirituality was to find God in all things and work constantly to gain freedom in your life in order to cooperate with God’s will. This daily exercise he called the Examen... with the practice allowing people to hear God in their hearts and with the daily practice be able to discern God’s will for them in their lives...It enables us to open our heart more fully to the will of God in our lives and recognise God’s presence in everything, as we go about our daily tasks..."

On March 25th, 1522, Ignatius of Loyola came down from Montserrat to Manresa. He settled down and lived eleven months there. Saint Ignatius stay in Manresa includes a unique event that took place in front of river Cardoner. There he had a vision, the so called ‘enlightenment of river Cardoner’: “While he was sitting there the eyes of his mind started to open. Not that he saw a vision, but he understood and came to know many things with such a great enlightenment that everything was new to him” (Autobiography). He had previously been a Basque freedom fighter and soldier of fortune but after this 'awakening' he gave this way of life up for one of contemplation and peacefulness. From a brief biography of him, this part describing his spiritual awakening on the banks of the river Cardoner:

"...Ignatius continued towards Barcelona but stopped along the river Cardoner at a town called Manresa. He stayed in a cave outside the town, intending to linger only a few days, but he remained for ten months. He spent hours each day in prayer and also worked in a hospice. It was while here that the ideas for what are now known as the Spiritual Exercises began to take shape. It was also on the banks of this river that he had a vision which is regarded as the most significant in his life. The vision was more of an enlightenment, about which he later said that he learned more on that one occasion than he did in the rest of his life. Ignatius never revealed exactly what the vision was, but it seems to have been an encounter with God as He really is so that all creation was seen in a new light and acquired a new meaning and relevance, an experience that enabled Ignatius to find God in all things. This grace, finding God in all things, is one of the central characteristics of Jesuit spirituality. Ignatius himself never wrote in the rules of the Jesuits that there should be any fixed time for prayer. Actually, by finding God in all things, all times are times of prayer..."

Two other Catholic saints:

"...Love wholly and not partially. God does not have parts but is present totally everywhere. God does not want only a part of you….Give all of yourself and God will give you all of himself...If things created are so full of loveliness, how resplendent with beauty must be the One who made them! The wisdom of the worker is apparent in His handiwork...My brothers the fishes, you are bound, as much as is in your power, to return thanks to your Creator, who has given you so noble an element for your dwelling..."

- Saint Anthony of Padua (1195 – 1231), Catholic mystic and Doctor of the Church

"...Happy souls indeed, who love their friends in God, and their foes for God ! They love many others besides God, but nothing save in and for Him. They not only love Him above all things, but in all things, and all things in Him...You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working ; and just so you learn to love God and man by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves...Behold this divine Lover at the gate, He does not simply knock, but stands knocking; He calls the soul, come, arise, make haste, my love and puts his Hand into the lock to try whether He cannot open it...For the measure in which our heart dilates itself, or rather lets itself be dilated and enlarged, and does not deny the void of its consent to the Divine Mercy, in the same measure the Divine Mercy always pour into it, sheds over it, and increasing and ever increasing inspiration under which we also increase, growing more and more in divine love. Our free will is never so free as when it is a slave to the will of God, nor ever so much a slave as when it serves our own will. It never has so much life as when it dies to itself, nor ever so much death, as when it lives to itself. The indifferent heart is as a ball of wax in the hands of its God, receiving with equal readiness all the impressions of the Divine pleasure; it is a heart without choice, equally disposed for everything, having no other object of its will than the will of its God, and placing its affections not upon the things of God but upon the will of God who wills them..."

- Saint Francis de Sales (1567 – 1622), Catholic mystic, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Archived_member15 · #92 (**permalink**) 25-May-2012, 20:06 PM

I think that brother Harry ji might appreciate this peacesign

"...When I pray for aught, my prayer goes for naught; when I pray for naught, I pray as I ought. When I am united with the God within which all beings exist whether past, present or future, they are all equally near and equally one; they are all in God and all in me. Then there’s no need to think of Henry or Conrad (or, as we might say, of Tom, Dik and Harry)...Whoever seeks God and seeks anything with God, does not find God; but he who seeks God alone in truth finds God but he does not find God alone – for all that God can give, that he finds with God...Those who seek anything in God, knowledge, understanding, devotion or whatever it might be – though they may find it they will not have found God. But if they seek nothing, they will find God and all things in him, and they will remain with him...Human beings should seek nothing at all, neither knowledge nor understanding nor inwardness nor piety nor repose, but only God’s will. They should never pray for any transitory thing, but if they would pray for anything, they should pray for God’s will alone, and then they get everything. If they pray for anything else, they will get nothing...Human beings who love God as they ought and must (whether they would or not) must love their fellow human beings as themselves, rejoicing in their joys as their own joys, and desiring their honour as much as their own honour, and loving a stranger as one of their own..."
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/sikh-sikhi-sikhism/38357-what-is-prayer-should-sikhs-pray.html
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=38357

- Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), Catholic mystic and Dominican priest

I am so deeply humbled and heartened by how brother Harry's thought, and indeed Sikhi understanding in general, is so close to that of Meister Eckhart and the other Catholic mystics, even thouigh these two religons never mixed in their formative stages, and were sundered by time, space, different cultures and languages.

For me this is witness to the universal action of the Holy Spirit, enlightening all, as the Catholic mystic Blessed John Ruysbroeck said:

"...Now mark this: God being a common good, and his boundless love being common to all [...] his grace is common to all men, whether Pagan or Jew, whether good or evil. By reason of his common love, which God has towards all men, he has caused his Name and the liberation of human nature to be preached and revealed to the uttermost parts of the earth. Whoever wishes to turn to Him can turn to Him [...] Thus God is a common Light and a common splendour, enlightening heaven and earth and every man, each according to his need..."

- Blessed John Ruysbroeck (1293 – 1381), Flemish Catholic mystic