PRAYER Mehar Baba

7/27/2019 PRAYER Mehar Baba

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would be of any value if done as a ritual.

These five minutes of thought, meditationor concentration on God or the Master area thousand times better than any prayer.God wants love, pure sincere love. Hedoes not want to hear bombastic jaw-breaking words and shlokas from theshastras and passages from the Avesta.

The prayer books of all the religions, the

Avesta of the Parsis, the Koran of theMuslims, the Bible of the Christians, theVedas of the Hindus, and all otherreligious books are long treatises, andhave nothing to do with the Truth.

Zarathustra taught that you must burnyour heart in love of God, and the dasturs

thereafter changed the meaning of it andaltered it to mean burning externally withsandalwood. The religious dogmas anddoctrines of the Kusti and other prayers inthe Avesta all have been changed fromtime to time.

Take one name sincerely, lovingly,devotedly for a few minutes, without thethought of anything else, and that isworth more than hours of mechanicalprayers.


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Zarathustra had fourteen disciples towhom he gave God-realisation. Thereafterthere was only one God-realised disciple,and from him the knowledge andexperience of God enlightened thecommunity for 700 years. This knowledgecame down from father to son.

The last true dastur was Azar Kaivan.Ever since, there have been false priestsamong the Zoroastrians who have given

their own versions of the Avesta. Fromthat period until today there has been noRealised saint among the Zoroastrians.Whatever religious books theZoroastrians have today are the works ofthose dasturs, and not of Zarathustra.However, to his special fourteen discipleshe gave real knowledge and experience,

and to the world he gave a way of life.

As changes were made by the dasturs inthe teachings of Zarathustra, so weresimilar changes made by the priests inChrist's Bible and Muhammad's Koran.Sometimes these changes came about

inadvertently. Members of the Avatar'sCircle would go out to different parts ofthe world and address masses of people.These lectures would be taken down byscribes, and later attributed to the Avesta,Bible, Koran and the Vedas. As time


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passed, the changes became so completethat the original teachings were lost.

I therefore once again repeat that insteadof wasting your time on religiousdiscussions, reading and listening todoctrines and dogmas of differentreligions, love God and think of God.Meditation, concentration, and thecreation of a feeling of love in the heartare the essence and substance of all

religions. All else is illusion.

The alphabet is taught to the beginnerwith a view to making him master of thelanguage. But if the student merely learnsthe alphabet, and does not make an effortto form words, he has learned nothing.Similarly, if an aspirant sticks to religious

doctrines and dogmas, he will neverachieve his ultimate aim, realisation of theTruth. God and Truth are far abovereligions.

7 February 1928,Meherabad,to Abbas Ali

and two dasturs (Parsi priests),BG p1-3

Another version of the same explanation:


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Zarathustra had fourteen disciples whomhe Realised. There was one whom heRealised after the fourteen. From him, theknowledge and experience of Goddescended from father to son for 700years. After that, the last one, Dastur AzerKaiwan, was false, and obtained the sacredseat and started collecting money. Thosewho followed him decreed as theythought.

After them, until the present, there hasbeen no realised person among theZoroastrians. Whatever religious books(the Avesta) the Zoroastrians have noware the books of these false dasturs, andnot of Zarathustra. Zarathustra taughtand gave out gems of truth, gems of

Sufism, but they are not known to people.There were tremendous changes in thedoctrines set down by Zarathustra madeby the false dasturs.

So my best advice to you is to create lovefor God. Earn something in my contact.

Otherwise, if you spend your time indiscussions on religious doctrines anddogmas, it will take you nowhere towardTruth. It is all rigamarole, and will wasteyour precious time, which might better beused in thinking of God, meditating and


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creating love. Love is the sum andsubstance of all religions, and the onlyessential of all creeds. Leave therigamarole alone.

For example, this alphabet board which Iuse may be given to a child to make himbegin the ABCs. But if he merely learnsthe alphabet without any efforts atproceeding further, he will learnpractically nothing. It is the same in

religion. The shariat, doctrines anddogmas are given as a preliminarybeginning, like the alphabet, to reach theultimate aim of the realisation of theTruth. After one learns to master thefundamentals, one advances. But if aperson merely sticks to religiousceremonies and rituals, and believes that

religion is that alone, then he does notadvance at all. God and Truth are far, farabove shariat, doctrines and dogmas,ceremonies and rituals.

7 February 1928,Meherabad,

to two Parsi priests,

LM3 p1020

In Dhulia, a Brahmin priest lived in aroom adjoining the Mandali's. Every


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heart, not an outward show ofmeaningless chatter.

"From any corner of the world, heartfeltremembrance of God, even by the worstsinner, or the most worthless and lowestperson, immediately reaches God's ears. Iam deaf to the sound of that Brahminpriest's chanting, though it is so near. Icannot hear it because it does not touchme. It has no effect upon me. Any type of

loud, insincere prayer from any quarterleaves us Masters unmoved, because it isonly noise and carries no heart. Such dry,flat prayers, however loud or lengthy, ordone over a long period of years, have noeffect on us Masters. Instead, if anyoneprays to God, to me, purely and honestly,from however far away, and however

slowly or softly, I, as God, immediatelyhear it, and a connection is established.

"For example, take a long distancetelephone station. Other telephones areconnected to it, and the desired connectionis given immediately upon dialing. In the

same way, the Qutub is humanity's centralmain station; and if one remembers himsincerely and wholeheartedly, fromhowever long a distance, one's cry isheard, and the connection is made. Thereis no question of distance here. The Qutub


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is the center, the focal point equidistantfrom one and all in creation. And he, asthis center, serves the purpose not only forthis world or universe, but for the threeworlds and their various levels and planes.

"But how is it possible that all prayers areheard at one and the same time? How is itthat the prayers and calls of millions ofpersons bring immediate connection withthe Qutub? The answer is simple. What is

a Qutub? The ruler of infinite andunlimited powers. To him there is noquestion of one or twenty-one, a thousandor a hundred thousand, or millions andbillions. Everyone is equal in his eyes. Butyour call should be from the innermostdepths of your heart. It will then reach hisears irrespective of distance or traffic on

the line.

"All prayers and sounds are a mere show ithey do not originate from the heart. Ifnot, then such prayers, however loud andhowever long, are quite meaningless. Butcompared to this, offering hired prayers

through Brahmins, dasturs, maulvis andpriests is much worse. It is nothing shortof sheer hypocrisy."

Q. If it is done with a feeling of devotion,is it bad for a person who has no time to


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pray himself to have it done through amedium?

Baba: This is total foolishness andcompletely absurd. It is an excuse and auseless pretext. It does not hold water. Itis an insult to one's common sense. Canprayer, worship or entreaties to God everbe hired? It is beyond one's imagination.While still being lured by maya, it is likethrowing the burden of one's actions on

the shoulders of others, and paying themmoney to take him to God. It is a pretensefor keeping oneself immersed in mayavicpleasures.

A person says, 'I have no time to pray.'Why not? Because one is unwilling tospare time for it. It is a meaningless

excuse to cover up one's preoccupationwith the world and lack of time due toone's desire to remain involved in mayavicpursuits. The mind is entrapped in maya,and does not want to be freed. And so, toachieve merit, a person offers hiredprayers. Can this ever result in any

meritorious action or virtue?

If you want to remember or offer worshipto God, do it honestly and loyally with allyour heart and mind. Even if you can onlyremember or pray to him a few minutes


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each day, do it sincerely. Compared tobabbling for hours on end, a sincereprayer of two minutes has more effect. Itimmediately reaches God's ears. Thereason is that God always listens to thevoice of the heart.

4 July 1929,Dhulia,

LM4 p1174-1175

Is God deaf? Where is the necessity ofshouting his name so loud? It makes one'sheart skip a beat. But God does not listento such bleating. He has an ear only forthe voice of the heart, of which the worldhas no idea.

17 April 1930,Panchgani?

about the repeated calling of'Allah' from a mosque early in the morning,

LM4 p1306

People pray to me to solve theirdifficulties, saying that they love me. Butthere is a vast difference between love andprayer.


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In Persian to pray means to beg, to want,to desire something, even the blessings ofGod. But when a person really loves, hegives himself over to his belovedcompletely. This is true love. In that thereis no begging, no wanting, and no roomfor desires. Only the longing to unite withthe beloved remains.

Love means the renunciation of the self.Prayer means selfishness, no matter how

high the prayer may be. So there is a vastdifference between when one prays andwhen one loves.

July 1931,Karachi,

LM4 p1374

Upon the altar of humility we must offerour prayers to God. Humility is spirituallyof greater worth than devotion. It is easierto be devout than to be humble, butdevotion in many instances proves to be astepping-stone to humility.

True bhakti (worship or devotion) doesnot necessarily mean the observance ofreligious rites and the muttering ofmantras or bhantras.* But it certainly


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means the continual repetition of any onename of God, or the continuous thinkingand remembrance of God.

To pray to God for material prosperity isnot a prayer, but a farce.

On the day of Jarthoshtno-diso manyParsis fervently pray, 'May the soul ofZoroaster rest in peace.' Surely theseParsis are utterly ignorant of the spiritual

position of their Prophet, or are impudentto the last degree. No greater insult can behurled at Yezdan Zoroaster than byoffering such a prayer.

Worldly-minded priests, though they maymutter prayers throughout the day, andmay perform this and that ceremony, can

confer no spiritual benefits on anyone.Poison trees may be watered with nectar,but they will not produce edible fruits.

Intellectual disputations about God willnot bring you any nearer to him, and maytake you farther away. But persistent,

heartfelt prayers to him will lower the veilthat now envelops you in darkness.

before 1933,Sa p11-13, 22

each paragraph is a separate quote


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*A mantra is a sacred verse or formula, a prayerwritten in rhythmical form. A bhantra is the

chanting aloud of a mantra.

Man wants God, but is given stone, in theform of churches, temples, idols andimages. They are now all corrupt.Considered once as places of worship, theyhave turned into pitiable centers ofbusiness for their caretakers. The places of

God's prayer, worship and love havechanged into centers of business. Thus arethe names of God and religion besmeared,bringing ultimately to humanity naturalcalamities such as plagues, pestilence,famines and other curses of nature withuntold miseries on humanity in theirwake. So, it is for this that the teaching of

the Avatars and Sadgurus caution one notto give importance to such places andforms of worship. Their work is todiminish and destroy all these piles ofstone which keep humanity away fromGod, rather than drawing it closer.

1 April 1938,Panchgani,LM7 p2277


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The first thing every morning is to say asincere prayer from you to God to makeyou understand him and his will: 'God,make me understand you and your will.'

15 May 1943,Meherabad,

to 125 men devotees to be said daily for one month,LM8 p2875

The sigh within the prayer is the same inthe heart of the Christian, theMuhammadan, the Jew. They areindivisibly longing for the same God.

Gl May 1974 p7

It is better not to worship if your heart isnot in it. Any prayer made mechanically ina spirit of show or ceremony is all a farce.It results in greater bindings throughone's pretense to purity.

November 1955,Meherabad,

LH p42


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There are many religions, temples, andmany religious practices and prayers,which you yourself may know, and thepeople following them. But God appearsindifferent to those prayers or does nothear them, for this reason: that they arenot of the heart.

The prayer God hears is the prayer of theheart, that raising of the heart, thatsuffering of the heart, that is what God

pays attention to. And so it does notmatter, and certainly it is foolish, to relyupon the usual religious practices andritual. What matters is your heart, theprayer that arises from your heart. That isthe prayer that Baba hears, that Godhears.

Jesus Christ said this exactly when hesaid, 'When you pray, close the door, prayin secret.' So pray from the heart, even ifyou are with a thousand people...

People know it all by heart, but they don'tgrasp it, or God would hear... Pray from

the heart by giving yourselves. Just sayingthe words or being still, unless you aregiving yourself, is useless. It is the prayerof the heart, the giving of your heart thatcounts. Those prayers are answered.


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July 1956,London,

Aw 4:2 p 14-15

God forgives sins in the sense that he doesnot eternally damn anyone for his sins. Hekeeps the door of redemption eternallyopen.

Through repeated sincere prayers, it is

possible to effect an exit from theotherwise inexorable working out of thelaw of karma. The forgiveness asked fromGod evokes from him his inscrutablegrace, which alone can give new directionto the inexorable karmic determination.

1956? Be p37-38

The Masters have sometimes followedexternal disciplines, including prayers,and have set an example of humility andreadiness to learn from others... Noteachers have been content with merelyexternal disciplines. Through theirteachings as well as example, they haveoften set forth prayer as the innerapproach to God and divinity.


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What constitutes the essence of prayer?Many prayers to God are current amongthe lovers of God, arising as they do fromdiverse cultural contexts. Some of theprayers invariably contain an element ofasking something from God, eithermaterial or spiritual. In fact, God is somerciful and bountiful that even withouttheir asking, he always gives much morethan his lovers can receive. He knowstheir real needs more deeply than they do.

Therefore the element of askingsomething from God is superfluous. Itoften mars the inner love and worshipwhich a prayer tries to express.

The ideal prayer to the Lord is nothingmore than spontaneous praise of his being.You praise him, not in the spirit of

bargain, but in the spirit of self-forgetfulappreciation of what he really is. Youpraise him because he is praiseworthy.Your praise is a spontaneous appreciativeresponse to his true being as infinite light,infinite power and infinite bliss.

It is futile to attempt a standard prayer,and hold it up as an ideal for all people ofall times. The glory of the Almightytranscends all human understanding anddefies all verbal descriptions. Eternallyfresh and self-renewing in its unlimited


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amplitude, it never fades. Nor is it everconfined within the limits of the best ofhymns. All hymns and prayers reach outtowards the eternal truth of Godhead,only to merge those who utter them insilent and unending adoration.

If by ideal prayer to the Lord is meant aset formula, any search for it is a wildgoose chase. All prayers ultimately initiatethe soul into an ever-deepening silence of

sweet adoration. And all formulae aredissolved and assimilated into the integraland direct appreciative perception ofdivine truth. That which seeks to reachtowards the immeasurable, itself becomesincapable of being measured by any setstandards. The ritualistic and repetitiveexpressions of prayer do not and cannot

do justice to the innermost essence ofprayer, which is adoring love for theeternal beloved. To attempt to standardiseprayer is to mar its intrinsic beauty.

If you pray with a motive to do good tosomeone, your prayer may actually bring

about good both to him and to yourself.Some people pray for the spiritual benefitof those who have done them some wrong.There also, they are helping othersspiritually. But all prayers with a motivefall short of the ideal prayer, which is


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without motive. In the entire spiritualpanorama of the universe, nothing is moresublime than a spontaneous prayer. Itgushes out of the human heart filled withappreciative joy. It is self-expression of thefreed spirit, without any actuation of amotive. In its highest form, prayer leavesno room for the illusory diarchy of thelover and the beloved. It is a return toone's own being.

1956? Be p73-76

God does not listen to the language of thetongue and its japa, mantras, devotionalsongs and so on. He does not listen to thelanguage of the mind and its routine

meditations, concentrations and thoughtsabout God. He listens to the language ofthe heart and its message of love, whichneeds no ceremony or show, only silentdevotion for the beloved.

IS p109

God is not fooled by any outward show.He is completely deaf to ceremonialprayers and ringing of church bells and


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chanting of mantras. He is never taken inby such superficial veneer, never ensnaredby such blandishments. Love alone canmove him, love alone can conquer him.Without that, nothing is to any avail.

1963? India, IS p79

REPEATING THE NAME OF GOD

(Nam-Smeren)

... Stay at home, do the nam-smaren, feelhappy, free-minded and jolly, and bedevoid of anxiety and disappointmentthroughout. Have full faith in me, and be

sure in the future you will one day come toknow all.

letter to Adi, signed Merwan,1920s, Aw ?

(special photo issue) p34

... Repeat in low voice for half an hourdaily one of the following six lines ofnames of God:

Parabrahma Paramatma


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Ya Yezdan AhuramazdaNirkar ParvardigarAllah Ho Akbar Allah HuHari Narayan BhagwanGod Almighty Omnipotent

Immediately after this half an hour ofmeditation, repeat the name of yourMaster for five minutes.

23 October 1941,

Panchgani, circular to Baba'sdevotees, to be done for 45 days,

LM8 p2733

REPEATING THE MASTER'S NAME

I actually advised my own mother thismorning to take my name one thousandtimes daily. It will be good if she does.Otherwise the family may suffer for hernot heeding my advice. Thinking ofmaterial things will never satisfy her orthose akin to me.

16 February 1928,Meherabad,LM3 p1022


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One young fireman came with a gift offruit, and asked Baba, 'How can I open myheart more, love more.' Baba gave him a

midnight meditation of saying Baba'sname 100 times. The fireman said he wasvery grateful. He said that in thecrescendo of the fire siren he felt theexaltation of God.

Sunday, 5 August 1956,San Francisco,

Aw 6:1 p24

The Master's Prayer(by Meher Baba)

O Parvardigar, the Preserver and Protector of all!You are without Beginning and without End;

Non-dual, beyond comparison; and none can measure You.You are without color, without expression, without form and

without

attributes.You are unlimited and unfathomable, beyond imagination and

conception;eternal and imperishable.

You are indivisible; and none can see You but with eyes divine.You always were, You always are, and You always will be;


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PRAYER Mehar Baba

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