Prayer

I'm a big fan of George Carlin, Robin Williams, Seinfeld and other comedians because they talk about facts and point out the follies of some of our ways. Take Carlin for example. One of his tirades goes

I've often thought people treat God rather rudely, don't you? Asking trillions and trillions of prayers every day. Asking and pleading and begging for favors. Do this, gimme that, I need a new car, I want a better job. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday God's day off. It's not nice. And it's no way to treat a friend.

But people do pray, and they pray for a lot of different things. And I say, fine. Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan? Remember that? Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan? What do you want God to do? Change the plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant?

And here's something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? "Well, it's God's will." "Thy Will Be Done." Fine, but if it's God's will, and God's going to do what God wants to anyway, why bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to God's Will? It's all very confusing.

Prayer is intended to make the person feel God's presence. But we have converted prayer into a quest of self-fulfillment. We constantly pray - not to acknowledge the fact that we living beings do not control anything. We pray to ask for more. We pray to demand more. We bribe God by offering material gifts. We hold God at ransom by fasting or through self-denial of things we like. Why? Because that's what we are taught we need to do to get something. And I think we were taught wrong.

I myself pray. I don't expect the prayers to be answered, but I do it "just to be on the safe side", in case God really is listening. So in case God's listening, I choose not to waste God's time by praying for myself. I pray for those I love. I pray for things that will make their lives better. And going by my past track record, there's almost a 99-1 split - my prayers for others have worked wonders, those for myself have been a shaky-flaky affair. So I continue to pray for others.

And I dont choose a place or time to pray. I make it spontaneous. I have prayed in trains, I have prayed during meals. I think those are the best forms of prayer, the spontaneous ones. Its when you really want to feel a connection, want to make sense of what you see. And I pray when something good happens to me. Just a quick "thank you". I reckon its common courtesy to say atleast that much to a friend who helps you out.

As a signboard outside my church put it:

"Prayer does not change God's will...

It helps us understand God's ways."

.:.:.

And a blog is born.

http://wierdideasfromme.blogspot.com/

Timing

Timing, I have realised, is a state of mind. Or atleast an indicator of the contrast between what the mind wanted, and what reality presented. Our judgements about "timing" reflect how much we wanted something. The more extreme the reaction, the greater our desire. You want to go for a dinner with your spouse on your wedding anniversary, and your parents show up just as you are about to leave. Good timing for you and your parents, probably not timing for your spouse. Of course.. if it was your spouse's parents showing up, it would have been bad timing for you.. and all good news on the other end.. hm?

My mind's bit bent out of shape today due to some jet lag so this post shall end soon. But I wanted to write about this because I started, and lived my day very wierdly. I woke at 3, dozed off at four, had a few good dreams, woke up late, was jolted out of sleep by the shower that refused to spit out warm water initially, forgot the combination to my bag's lock, but remembered it just as i was about to break the bag's zipper, skipped breakfast, but reached office in the nick of time for a meeting, felt brain-dead during a meeting at 4 pm, but was perked up two hours later after hearing the wind scream outside my hotel's 46th floor gym while I jogged for a little longer than I normally can.. in the end, i realised it really didn't matter whether the timing of the event was good or not. Even if the timing was bad, the moment is gone.. all that remains is your reaction to what you wanted and what happened...

Say the truth, but..

There's an old anecdote about Birbal. An astrologer (how much ever I hate their breed, its relevant to this post) was once at a rich man's home, predicting his future. All was fine until a deep furrow appreared on his forehead and he said "Hmm. All your relatives will die before you". He was thrashed and chucked out before you could say "er ?".

Would have made me glad to participate in the thrashing, but anyways, while the guy was lamenting his own fortune, Birbal walked by, and listened to his tale. After a while, with a fake moustache, and a pagadi the astrologer was back at the rich man's home, and was ushered in. This time around, he said "Ah! Great news! You will live longer than your whole family!". By the time he was out, he was laden with jewellery and cash.

While frying my brains in meetings every day, I have realised the importance of saying things nicely. For example, rather than saying "We are sorely lacking on the depth planning and delegation in our execution", I say "In addition to all we are doing, we need to add more depth and delegate better." I have seen it work wonders even with the nastiest of people. Try it sometime. Don't say something's "cheap". Call it "economical" or "value for money". Dont say what you could not do. Talk about what you *did* do.

Ofcourse, take it all with a pinch of salt. Don't say your boss "Is good, and could be better". Just say (s)he sucks, if (s)he really does. And if you are asked "do you really love me?" start chewing gum and act as if you are choking on it..

Me and the folks in the team started discussing origins of religions over coffee, and I made a statement "I'm an accidental Hindu".. it caused a bit of a stir as people tried to figure it out. All I trying to say is, no one belongs to a religion at birth. We just "happen" to be Hindus or Muslims or Jains or Jews.. and ofcourse, there's the question of multi-religious parents.. what happens then?
Here's an interesting page:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/30953/questions_and_answers_about_raising.html