How Much Prayer is GOOd?

[B.Ravi]

There are people who pray to almighty once or twice a day and then there are those who do Naam Jap for hours and hours everyday.

While it is understandable that prayer provides spiritual strenth and ability to weather storm...but when do we cross the boundary of prayer for healing to being just obsessed or some may call sick - Extreme of anything is not good. Correct?

I have wondered about this always and wanted to hear our hightly educated and successful and also heavily Sai dovotee think of it.

rgds
ravi

[SaiServant]

Om Sai Ram.

Ravi ji, i'm not a 'highly educated or successful or great devotee of Baba', as you mention in your post. But as an insignificant and ordinary devotee, I would like to ask you one question: If you believe that there has to be a limit to prayers by claiming that excess of everything is bad, how about your breath? Why do you breathe all the time? Isn't that bad for your health? Would you stop beathing if you truly believe in your logic? Naam jap and prayers for any sincere devotee is like his or her breath. There can be no limit to it. In Bhakti path, you need to give up your logic to follow spiritual practices that will take you beyond your reason.

Om Sai Ram.

[B.Ravi]

Jai Sai Ram,
I am not suggesting prayer is bad or devotion is bad.  What I want to understand is that when does it become unhealthy.

The analogy of breathing is quite good.  Breathing is natural...if one starts breathing too much or too little compared to your normal breathing....that is what will be considered extreme.

May be  that is where the original question came to my mind

[SaiServant]

Om Sai Ram.

It depends on what you understand by the notion of "health". That is a very subjective thing, and its definition varies from person to person. Remember Meera Bhai, Surdas or Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Always immersed in the devotion to the Lord, were they "unhealthy" as per your definition? It may help if you know that the domain of spirit is not the same as that of mind or body. The logic that you apply to understand the health of mind or body cannot be applied to the realm of spirit. You must also draw a difference between devotion and religious rituals. What you are saying could be true for the latter but not the former. 

Om Sai Ram.

[rr_sai_bhakt]

Dear Ravi,

Om Sai Ram ...

Before you decide on how much prayer is good, you need to ask yourself what you aim to achieve through your prayers.

Remember, as you sow... so shall you reap.

So as much as you pray, that much shall you receive in return ....

An extreme form of prayer is nothing but penance. And this is the same penance or prayers that our great rishis and munis undertook in order to attain salvation or nirvana. And we know that not many were successful at this, right. Only a few chosen ones were fortunate enough to pray with such intense devotion, faith, discipline and single minded consciousness that the divine powers blessed them to attain salvation.
You would have definitely read about Gautam Buddha and his penance in order to attain salvation.

So how would you classify that prayer? Too much? extreme? unhealthy?

Then there are other prayers that are again of a very very intense order. Remember Savitri prayed with so much devotion that her dead husband had to be brought back alive.
Then there are other so many examples where the devotees have prayed with so much faith and devotion that the almighty or the satgurus have been so pleased as to appear before them and grant them a boon.

How would you classify these prayers? Too much? extreme?

In Kaliyug, there have been very very few swamis and satgurus who have prayed with such intensity to have attained enlightenment ... Sai Baba, Akkalkot Swami Samarth, Swami Narasimha Saraswati are some of them and they are also known as the avatars of Lord Dattatreya ...

So from my point of view, you need to decide first on what is your aim ... and what you wish to achieve in life.
Only once you know that for sure can you then decide how much of prayer is good.

As of us normal human beings, our desires are of very wordly in nature compared to the spiritual goals of the great beings above and i am sure that we need not have to go through such an extreme form of prayers for our desires to be fulfilled.

Maybe a lesser form of prayer can be enough.
However, even that cannot be guaranteed since we never know of our past sins and our past karmas. And hence we never know how much we need to pray for our past sins to be washed away and for our current desires to be fulfilled.

Most of us take for granted that we all pray with a lot of devotion and so all our desires must be fulfilled. But only the great beings like Satguru Sai Baba know of all the debts that we need to clear from the past before we can get our desires truly fulfilled in this birth. And so many times it leaves a lot of us confused when we do not see any result for our praying efforts.

Also in this kaliyug, there are hardly any human beings who are willing to let go of the wordly path and walk on the tough path for their spiritual desires to be fulfilled. Remember, Sai Baba has said that walking on the spiritual path is akin to walking on a razor's edge and so most of us normal human beings never really choose to follow this path seriously.

So, in the end .. just to summarize ... decide your aim in life and only then can you decide how much prayer is good.

But before you start praying, you can never decide on an exact number - that so many hours or so many months of prayer is good and any thing beyond that is extreme. That can never be pre-decided. That is known only to those great powers.

So you just have to start praying for your aim to be fulfilled.

And once you have attained your goal, one of two things will happen - either you will stop praying yourself since your goal has been achieved. So you yourself will not attempt praying what is more than necessary.
Or, there would be some divine intervention to let you know that the almighty has been pleased and so you need not pray any more. Even the almighty does not like to see his devotees pray more than what is needed for their desires to be fulfilled.

Either way, you will never be praying what is more than necessary or healthy for you.

So in a way, maybe it can be said that no amount of prayer is ever extreme or unhealthy.

Om Sai Ram ....

[Anupam]

Remember as said in Puranas
"Adhikasya Adhik Phalam". But my and other people experience is that it is only the initial effort that the person has to make, for his SAI, anyway the PP Gurudev does 95% of work in Kaliyug. After that the jaap becomes so natural that no effort is required for it. It autimatically goes on and on in the heart, without the person even realising that. Once that is attained a person is just carrying on his normal worldly activities while his soul is finishing its own agenda.
Even in this era. Did you ever hear SAI going for long samadhis. He was natural playing around and doing wordly activities. Ramana Maharishi it is said after initial effort, was always found doing his natural activities while OM vobrations came naturally from his body