God Answers Knee-Mail
Charlotte Bhakti Yoga
Nowadays almost everyone is accessible on email. What about God? He is
available on a very special type of email, which is as old as the human
race
and which requires no internet. Its knee-mail - mailing prayers from
our
heart to God while standing on our knees. Almost all the great wisdom
traditions of the world urge us to physically express humility while
praying. In addition to the kneeling down common in Semitic religions,
the
Vedic culture recommends prostrating the entire body in panchanga and
ashtanga pranamas.
Some people deride rituals as useless show-offs and say that only the
inner
feeling, bhava, counts. Agreed that consciousness is crucial in
communion,
but do the externals not affect the internals? Try this exercise: Sit
relaxed on an easy chair, put one leg across the other, place your arms
behind your head, lean backwards - and now try to feel humble. Almost
impossible, isn't it? Our very posture makes us feel bossy. Based on
profound understanding of this empirically observable psychophysical
science, the Vedic texts prescribed physical activities that facilitate
the
awakening of divine emotions in our heart. A ritual with spirit becomes
spi-
ritual.
Most people pray to God when they want something which is beyond their
human
ability to get. While praying, we often intuitively try to feel and
express
humility, knowing we depend on divine grace. To receive God's answers
to our
knee-mails, we need humility - especially in our brain. Many people
lose
faith in God when their prayers are apparently unanswered; they feel
that
either God doesn't exist or that He can't fulfill their prayers -
or doesn't
care to. But are we not presuming that we know better than God what is
best
for us? This presumption is rooted in a fundamental philosophical
misconception that we can enjoy life in this world and that the main
purpose
of God's existence is to provide and protect our material enjoyment.
Of
course we do need basic material resources for our existence. But as
souls
we are essentially spiritual and eternal; whereas everything in this
world
is material and temporary. Due to this inescapable incompatibility,
nothing
material can make us truly happy. Often due to our spiritual myopia, we
forget this basic fact, but thankfully God doesn't. A mother
sometimes
withdraws or withholds toys from her child to ensure he doesn't
neglect his
studies and miss out on a bright career. Similarly God sometimes
withdraws
or withholds our cherished toys - wealth, love, positions,
possessions - to
ensure we don't neglect our spiritual growth and miss out on a bright
spiritual career in the hereafter. God wants us to be happy in this
world
too, but not at the cost of our eternal happiness in the next world. A
lost
child feels so happy when at last he returns home. Then how much more
happy
will we - the lost children of God - be when God takes us back to our
eternal home? God is constantly planning and endeavoring to provide us
this
supreme happiness. All we need to do is cooperate with His plan by
serving
Him, come what may. Therefore when our prayers appear to be unanswered,
we
can pray to God for the wisdom to accept His plan and the determination
to
participate in that divine plan.
Srila Prabhupada, the founder of ISKCON, would say that the best prayer
-
the one prayer that will never fail - is the prayer asking for
strength to
serve God in every situation. When a child calls the name of his
parent, a
responsible parent immediately provides his real needs. Similarly when
we
chant the Holy Names of God, especially the Hare Krishna maha mantra,
He
will immediately provide our real need - the strength to serve Him.
When we
humbly chant and pray for this inner strength, we will find that God
will
never disappoint us.