Good Morning Friends, Thursday, October 02, 2008. Day start with prayer at Dadaji’s house as today is Thursday. Today is Gandhi Jayanti that is Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday. Mahatama Gandhi is called Father of Nation, Father of India.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace and the Father of the Nation was born on 2nd October 1869 at Porbandar in Gujarat. Gandhi Jayanti is celebrated on every 2nd October to celebrate birthday of Father of India. I am proud to say that I belong to Mahatma Gandhi’s state Gujarat.

In his autobiography My experiments with Truth Gandhi recalls that his childhood and teen age years were characterized by education in a local school, marriage to Kasturba at the age of 13 and an intrinsic love for ‘truth’ and ‘duty’.

Mahatma Gandhi strongly believes in prayer. His following prayer is very popular one. We also sing the following prayer at Manav Parivar Prathana Hall today morning.

“Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram, Patit Pavan Sita Ram

Sita Ram Sita Ram, Bhaj pyare tu Sitaram

Ishwar Allah tero naam, Sab ko Sanmti de Bhagawan”

Gandhi, as he was popularly called, proved that non-violence is the most effective instrument of social change. His teachings are promoted even today to avoid violence and find peaceful solutions to conflicts.

Through his sheer dedication and self-belief, Gandhi freed India from the British Raj (British Rule). He proved to the world that freedom can be achieved through the path of non-violence.

Gandhi explains his philosophy and way of life in his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Mahatma Gandhi follows following principal in life.

We will talk more on his quotes in next post.  

• Truth
• Nonviolence
• Vegetarianism
• Brahmacharya
• Simplicity
• Faith 

The United Nations General Assembly announced on 15th June, 2007 that October 2nd will be celebrated as the International Day of Non-Violence.

We will talk on quotations from Mahatma Gandhi in next post.

Defined broadly, faith healing is the attempt to use religious or spiritual means such as prayer to prevent illness, cure disease, or improve health. Those who attempt to heal by prayer, mental practices, spiritual insights, or other techniques say they can summon divine or supernatural intervention on behalf of the ill.

According to the varied beliefs of those who practice it, faith healing may be said to afford gradual relief from pain or sickness or to bring about a sudden “miracle cure”, and it may be used in place of, or in tandem with, conventional medical techniques for alleviating or curing diseases. Faith healing has been criticized on the grounds that those who use it may delay seeking potentially curative conventional medical care. This is particularly problematic when parents use faith healing techniques on children.

ref: wikipedia, agentswebworld, insurance software

Prayer or worship is considered to be an integral part of the Hindu way of living. The chanting of mantras is the most popular form of worship in Hinduism. Yoga and meditation are also considered as a form of devotional service towards the Lord.

The Vedas are a collection of liturgy (mantras, hymns)

The Hindu devotional Bhakti movements emphasizes repetitive prayer. Stemming from the universal Soul or Brahman, prayer is focused on the personal forms of God, such Shiva, Vishnu, or Vishnu’s avatars, Rama and Krishna.

Before the process of ritual, before the invoking of different deities for the fulfillment of various needs, came the human aspiration to the highest truth, the foundational monism of Hinduism, pertaining ultimately to the one Brahman. Brahman, which summarily can be called the unknowable, true, infinite and blissful Divine Ground, is the source and being of all existence from which the cosmos springs. This is the essence of the Vedic system. The following prayer was part and parcel of all the Vedic ceremonies and continues to be invoked even today in Hindu temples all over India and other countries around the world, and exemplifies this essence.

ref: wikipedia 

Good Morning Friends,

Thursday starts with Prayer at Dadaji’s hosue. From 6-00 am to 7-30 am. Let’s talk about prayer.

Prayer is the act of attempting to communicate with a deity or spirit. Purposes for this may include worshipping, requesting guidance, requesting assistance, confessing sins, as an act of reparation or to express one’s thoughts and emotions. The words of the prayer may take the form of intercession, a hymn, incantation or a spontaneous utterance in the person’s praying words. Secularly, the term can also be used as an alternative to “hope”. Praying can be done in public, as a group, or in private. Most major religions in the world involve prayer in one way or another.

The efficacy of prayer as a petition to a deity is usually evaluated with regard to the concept of prayer healing. There have been numerous studies done, with contradictory results. There has been some criticism of the way the studies were conducted.

The act of worship

Praying has many different forms. Prayer may be done privately and individually, or it may be done corporately in the presence of fellow believers. Prayer can be incorporated into a daily “thought life,” in which one is in constant communication with a god. Some people pray throughout all that is happening during the day and seek guidance as the day progresses. There can be many different answers to prayer, just as there are many ways to interpret an answer to a question, if there in fact comes an answer. Some may experience audible, physical, or mental epiphanies. If indeed an answer comes, the time and place it comes is considered random. Some outward acts that sometimes accompany prayer are: anointing with oil; ringing a bell; burning incense or paper; lighting a candle or candles; facing a specific direction (i.e. towards Mecca or the East); making the sign of the cross. One less noticeable act related to prayer is fasting.

A variety of body postures may be assumed, often with specific meaning (mainly respect or adoration) associated with them: standing; sitting; kneeling; prostrate on the floor; eyes opened; eyes closed; hands folded or clasped; hands upraised; holding hands with others; a laying on of hands and others. Prayers may be recited from memory, read from a book of prayers, or composed spontaneously as they are prayed. They may be said, chanted, or sung. They may be with musical accompaniment or not. There may be a time of outward silence while prayers are offered mentally. Often, there are prayers to fit specific occasions, such as the blessing of a meal, the birth or death of a loved one, other significant events in the life of a believer, or days of the year that have special religious significance. Details corresponding to specific traditions are outlined below.