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Prayer is the most natural and conscious response when religious awakening occurs for the first time. The mindfulness of our limitations and mortality is generally enough to turn us in the direction of, and seek help from, a Power or a Person who isn't bound by those limitations. As a form of “ entering, ” prayer is a movement from God toward mortal beings. When a prayer is answered, our hearts are filled with gratefulness.
Worship is an expression of gratefulness to God. It's expressed through love, praise and immolation of effects that we hold dear. As a form of “ giving, ” deification is a movement from mortal beings to God.
How does this movement from mortal beings to God manifest in diurnal life? It manifests through the practice of hospitality.
When everything is endured as percolated by God’s presence, hospitality becomes an act of deification. God is the only possible guest, who's encountered inside a tabernacle through ritual deification, and outside the tabernacle through air yoga, or selfless service to others seeing them as instantiations of God. Saints and mystics have endured the presence of God through both ritual deification and selfless service, attesting to the power and authenticity of these practices.
God as Guest in Ritual Worship
In Hindu forms of deification, God is the godly guest and rituals recreate the kind of hospitality that was traditionally offered to an honored guest in ancient India. Among the effects that are offered during deification are a special place to sit, words of hello, water for washing hands and bases, water to drink, water for bathing, clothes, beautifiers, sandal paste, flower, incense, light, and food. The immolations themselves are emblematic and are accompanied by applicable Sanskrit mantras. More important than the emblematic immolation and the chanting of mantras is the fastening of the mind on God with love, devotion, and faith.
Another form of Hindu deification, called ārati, involves signaling of light, water( poured from a conch shell), cloth, flower, and a addict, ritually recreating a regardful hello to the recognized, godly guest. The five particulars that are offered correspond to the five primary rudiments which Holy Writ view as the structure blocks of the material world fire, water, space, earth, and air, independently. In this form of deification, God is both a particular guest and a cosmic presence, ate contemporaneously in one’s home as well as in one’s heart.
God as Guest in the Practice of Air Yoga
The presence of God is encountered not only inside tabernacles but also outside them. The Upaniṣads educate us that the godly is present in everything and in everyone. therefore the Taittirīya Upaniṣad,2.6
तत् सृष्ट्वा तदेव अनुप्राविशत् ।
Tat sṛṣṭvā laddie eva anuprāviśat.
“ Having projected all this( macrocosm),( the godly) entered into it. ”
Helping others is thus further than simply “ helping others. ” It also includes admitting and worshiping the presence of God in their hearts. When “ others ” are none but the godly, “ helping ” can only mean worshiping. Hospitality therefore becomes not simply an act of service but also worship.
When work becomes deification, helping others is converted into service of God in everyone and in everything. It involves paying of oneself freely without seeking anything in return. The Gītā( 17. 20- 22) categorizes “ giving ” into three types
“ The sāttvika gift is one that's given with no anticipation of return; also, it's given in a right place and to a good person, with the idea that it's good to give. The rājasika gift is one that's given with an anticipation of return, or with an eye on the result, or given with disinclination. The tāmasika gift is one that's given at the wrong place or time, to unworthy persons, without regard or with misprision. ”
The sāttvika gift is the bone
that qualifies as air yoga. Swami Vivekananda spoke radiantly about the spiritual benefits of serving others in the spirit of air yoga
“ Although a man has not studied a single system of gospel, although he doesn't believe in God, and noway has believed, although he has not supplicated indeed formerly in his life, if the simple power of good conduct has brought him to that state where he's ready to give up his life and all additional for others, he has arrived at the same point to which the religious man will come through his prayers and the champion through his knowledge; and so you numerous find that the champion, the worker, and the sucker, all meet at one point, that one point being tone- renunciation. still much their systems of gospel and religion may differ, all humanity stand in reverence and admiration before the man who's ready to immolate himself for others. ”( CW, 1. 86)
Two Stories
Then are two stories to punctuate what has been said above — one is from Hindu tradition and the other from recent history. The story from tradition highlights the binary part of God as guest and schoolteacher.
Disguised as a wandering mendicant, Krishna visits a fat family, who drink him warmly and offer him hospitality that matches both their devotion and substance. When it's time to leave, he blesses the family profusely, promising them indeed more wealth and glory. Krishna’s coming visit is to a poor widow, whose only possession is a cow. She too welcomes him with great devotion but all that she can offer him is a glass of milk. When it's time to leave, Krishna blesses her and tells her that her cow will die soon.
Arjuna, who has accompanied Krishna to both the places, is affrighted. He asks Krishna, “ Your fat hosts demanded nothing and yet you blessed them with indeed further wealth. Whereas your blessing to the poor sucker accompanied the portentous news that she'll lose her cow. This is illegal and inferior. ”
Krishna smiles and tells Arjuna, “ My fat hosts are insanely attached to their wealth and their character; they've a long way to go before they come spiritually awakened. On the other hand, this poor sucker is formerly far advanced on the spiritual path. The only thing that's separating her from the loftiest freedom is her attachment to her cow. I removed the chain from her path. ”
The perceptivity that this story provides are egregious. God can enter our lives in any form and at any time, frequently in utmost unanticipated circumstances. The blessing that the godly guest bestows upon us can frequently be delicate to decrypt at first regard.
My alternate story is of a fairly recent origin it happed in southern India where I lived in the early 1990s. A cyclone had wrought enormous damage in and around the Tirunelveli quarter of Tamil Nadu. A monk of the Ramakrishna Order and a many levy members visited the affected area and were temporarily accommodated in a classroom of a academy that had incompletely escaped the destruction. They had reached the place late in the evening after a long train trip. Exhausted, they had gone to sleep right down.
Beforehand coming morning there was a knock at the door and they were surprised to see a middle-aged person with a bag filled with food. He said that he'd a dream the former night when a woman appeared and told him, “ Go feed my children who have just arrived. ” The dream was so pictorial that he woke up with a launch and recited the dream to his woman
in the morning. She told him to just forget about it, but when she saw how affected he was by the dream, she felt it would be good if commodity were done about it. They learnt that some people had arrived from Chennai the former evening and were staying in the academy coming door. To get the dream out of his mind, they decided to give some food to those nonnatives and be done with it.
When the man was chronicling all this to the swami and his companions, he noticed the picture of Holy Mother Sarada Devi on the small temporary balcony the group had set up in the classroom after their appearance. At formerly his face lighted up and he blatted, “ That’s the woman I saw in my dream last night! ” thwarted at what was unfolding before them, the swami and his group wiped their gashes of joy and gratefulness.
Life offers horizonless openings to extend hospitality in one form or another. Hospitality isn't just about food. Indeed a kind word or a smile or a friendly nod goes a longway.However, what reason do I've to be nasty to others? How can I conceivably look down upon anyone? How can I face God with my heart filled with wrathfulness, abomination, If God is in everyone and in everything. Still, all I need to flash back is that, no matter in which direction I look, If I want to change my life for the better. How can there be anyone anywhere who isn't God? God alone exists.
In a worldview that has God’s presence percolating all actuality, God isn't only the godly guest but also the host. Hospitality is deification for those who understand its inner significance and eventuality.
Source:Vedanta society,Wikipedia