Excerpts from a lecture given on July 15, 1982 at Women’s Camp, Espanola, NM…
You all want power. Power comes from prayer and now the question arises: what is prayer? Let me tell you the definition of prayer and then you can decide how much prayer you can do. Prayer is the intunement of the mind into the higher consciousness and into the unknown.
It has nothing to do with what you say and what you don’t say. It is just intunement, mental intunement, and that is where the power is. What do we do when we are in trouble? We start doing the prayer. When we are not in trouble, who cares? Our prayers are seasonal.
Prayer is the power. One who can do the prayer can be very powerful because prayer makes the entire elements serve that person. Gifts will come to that person. Whosoever will give to that person will be gifted hundredfold, thousand fold. That’s also the beauty of it.
The second aspect of prayer is that the moment you become a prayerful person, fear of the unknown is gone and love of the unknown awakens. Death doesn’t mean anything. It is never a fear to those who are prayerful, and prayer doesn’t mean that you have to jump and juggle and make a huge panorama show that you are very prayerful. No, it’s an intunement. It’s a conscious intunement with the unknown.
Where there is a known there is an unknown. If you continue relating to the known you are denying the unknown. If you relate to the known which you are, and you search out the unknown, it is the prayer.
You think, “I have to do prayer. O God bless me.” It’s totally unnatural. God understands you are folding the hands. The power which is folding the hands is God. The lips which are uttering is God. You are trying to concentrate—it is God. You might be thinking, “I could have been eating pizza at this time” and you are making a posture of prayer. So your mind is somewhere different. You are somewhere different. But when you are intuned with the unknown, the known is very peaceful.
Peace is experienced and known through the power of prayer. Believe me or not, people who do sadhana, banis, prayer—their death is very peaceful. I have seen many people who, when the last time comes, just lie down and say goodbye to everybody, and they are gone because they know where they are going. There is no fear. There is no harassment. That’s also one advantage of the power of prayer.
Then there is the most beautiful thing, which is called the selfish need of a prayer. Birth is according to the karma, cause and effect. That’s why you are born on a specific longitude and latitude with different environments. Sometimes environments are very poor, sometimes very rich. You pick the longitude and latitude and you pick parents and you pick environments according to the karma—their karma and your karma.
But the prayer brings in you the Dharma, and the prayer absolutely brings the redemption from karma. Prayer is the power of God in you. You don’t do prayer to something outside. You do prayer from inside. You do prayer from inside to inside.
This shabad [Dhan Dhan Ram Das Guru] has a virtue that if you just sing it eleven times a day, your life will not come to any dead end. It has a Naad combination to trigger the miraculous power of the Aad. Aad means the infinite God. Shabad is a projected program tuned to create a vibratory effect to respond.
You come to sadhana for yourself. When you pray, you pray for yourself. Therefore, it is useless to ask in prayer, “Get me a car.” That’s not prayer. That is projecting a desire. “God, give me a car.”
Whatever is not known to you is not intuned in you because you do not know how to project your power of prayer. Prayer is a technology through which the unknown is known, the unseen is seen, the unheard is heard—that is prayer. Prayer is not what you project out and what you project in. These are human feelings about prayer.
I saw something very strange. A woman was walking on her knees. There was no reason for her to walk that way. She walked fourteen miles a day and she was walking for a couple of weeks. That was her faith. That was her way of prayer. She came to that church of Lady of Guadalupe and she was very happy that she made it. Now for you, it may be a torture, old fashioned, a nuisance, whatever you call it, but understand her face. Her face was so glowing with happiness that she made it to the church. Her aura was so blue and so glittering that out of all the people she was like a bowl of power. It was very difficult to even to recognize that there is a woman, and a lot of people were walking around with her with a reverence and in very great salutation.
So it’s not how you do prayer. Prayer is your method in which you can tune the mind. I tune my mind in a way, you tune your mind in a different way. But remember it is your mind. It is your prayer and it is all about you. Prayer has no relationship with anybody. Prayer is totally your own power to tap the unknown.
Why did we ask you not to drive the car without chanting the mantra? It’s very simple—prayer. “Aad Guray Nameh, Jugaad Guray Nameh, Sat Guray Nameh, Siri Guru Devay Nameh. Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh.” How long does it take? A few seconds. So at least you will be not at that space at that time. When you put the key in and you start the car, you should be moving. But you stay there: “Aad Guray Nameh…” And there they go. It is about three to five seconds. By being five seconds late in space it means you might be six inches or two feet away from the point of elimination.
Prayer is the projection and prayer is the destiny and prayer is the life because all power comes from prayer, not from you.
©1982 – The Yogi Bhajan Library of Teachings®
