Gurumayi’s Prayer

Beneath the scintillating blue dome of the Siddha Yoga Universal Hall, Gurumayi made a prayer. She spoke in Hindi; those of you who are familiar with the language might recall her words. And I think all of us, whether or not we understand Hindi, felt the thrum of power in her speech. We could recognize that something important was taking place.

This is what Gurumayi said:

May we find peace within. This is our prayer to God. When we experience peace, then everything feels good. When we experience happiness within our own self, we feel the Lord’s prasad to be present throughout this world. It is everywhere.

May we find peace within. This is our prayer to God. When we are at peace, we live our lives joyfully with others. When there is something or other going on within us, that’s when we create tumult on the outside.

May we find peace within. This is our prayer to God.

With each repetition of this refrain—“May we find peace within. This is our prayer to God”—I felt as though Gurumayi’s intention was being etched more deeply onto the folds of eternity. I also felt that this prayer was stitching itself into my very being. Or maybe it’s just that Gurumayi’s words were revealing the latent wish of my heart.

Even so, my understanding of Gurumayi’s prayer expanded as I took in her words. The first time Gurumayi said, “May we find peace within,” I figured that her prayer was about each of us experiencing peace in our own souls. As Gurumayi continued, I quickly realized that she was making a connection between the peace we might individually experience and a much broader peace. The peace that exists between people. The peace that is felt by the animals and creatures of this world. The peacefulness of the planet itself, alive as it is with Consciousness.

There is something vital in this connection that Gurumayi was bringing to our attention—the connection between the inner and outer peace. The world might not revolve around any one of us, but we do, in fact, make our world what it is. Our scope of influence is great. The choices we make, the atmosphere we foster within ourselves, the way we subsequently show up in our interactions—all of this ripples outward. And it builds on itself. It amplifies; it sets off dozens of chain reactions. We really can, if we so choose, magnify auspiciousness.

Sometimes, for me at least, the notion of world peace can be hard to grasp. It is something I desperately want, but it feels abstract, unattainable in any practical sense—especially in such a fraught and complex world. What I love so much about Gurumayi’s prayer is that she involves each of us in the achievement of this goal. She makes clear that we all have a part to play. The goal—peace in this world—remains as noble as ever, but I feel that it can be accessible as well, if we make the effort to access it. If we look carefully enough, we can find evidence of peace everywhere—proof of its existence, however fleeting. We can uncover peace in a moment of unexpected serenity, in a charitable deed, in any sincere attempt to resolve an argument or arrive at a place of mutual understanding. Examples like these give us hope. They remind us that peace will often begin with something small, something we might not have even thought would engender peace. And it is in the accumulation of such “small” expressions of peace, and in the prominence we accord to them in our individual and collective awareness, that a wider peace becomes possible.

With that in mind, let’s make the intention to reach for peace in this world. To touch it. To experience it. To do something about it. The act of prayer is itself a tangible step we can take. In the previous installment of “Meditation on Gurumayi’s Words”, I wrote about how a lot goes into making a prayer on the Siddha Yoga path. I would add now that the same can be said about offering a prayer—for someone or something beyond ourselves.

I think it’s easier than we might realize to become indifferent to the plight of others. Life and death are happening all around us, all the time. In every moment, someone is being born. In every moment, someone is breathing their last. A bird lays eggs, and those eggs fall out of their nest. We go for a walk, and while we’re letting the delicious air fill our lungs—we step on a bug. Then there are the more dramatic examples, the lives lost to war or to some other calamity. We guard our hearts against the onslaught of such news, each new death making less of an impression than the last, simply because we need to survive, we need to go on. I wonder, though, whether in the course of our assiduous self-preservation, we also blunt some of our wonderment for life.

The making and offering of prayers presents an antidote to such thinking. It is a quiet but firm refusal. To genuinely pray for others requires that we have a conscious appreciation for life, and that we value the lives of others as much as we do our own. When we pray for the betterment of the world, we are actually constructing a vision of the world in which we do more than just try to “get by.” We are stepping out of such familiar, insular modes of being. We are recognizing our interconnection with all of life and, as we do so, I believe we gain entry to the wellspring of gratitude in our hearts. Our existence on this planet is no more of a given than anyone else’s. We are all equally lucky to be here, so why not find the best possibility for our own advancement in the progress we make with others?

I have heard Gurumayi teach about the importance of maintaining a prayerful heart. I understand this to mean that even when we are not actively articulating a prayer, we can be cultivating the inner stance of prayer. We can be looking at our world, and approaching our world, in a way that is conducive to prayer. Then, when the time comes for us to actually offer our prayers, we are ready. We do not have to dig too deep to find the requisite empathy, the necessary tenderness of heart.

One way Gurumayi has taught us to do this is by paying attention to the language we use. This includes the thoughts in our heads and the words we say aloud to others. How do we describe the people we come across? What words come to mind? What words are we using to acknowledge their character, their behavior? What ideas about humanity are we reinforcing through our choice of language?

Gurumayi has shared with me, since I grew up in a Marathi-speaking household, that one of her favorite words in the Marathi language is tsāngla. It is a word that Baba Muktananda would often use when speaking with, or about, the devotees who would visit Gurudev Siddha Peeth—especially those of Maharashtrian origin. It is a beautiful word in Marathi. It is also a word that people use all the time, so I have definitely appreciated the reminder to remember its richness of meaning. Literally, tsāngla means “good.” Yet its essence encompasses so much more. A person who is tsānglā or tsānglī has a very good character and a very good outlook on life. They are honest, truthful, virtuous, well-intentioned—just absolutely, peerlessly good. To use tsāngla as a descriptor of someone is to see the best in them. It is to recognize their inherent goodness.

Similar words can be found in other languages, too. In Japanese, a person who is good-natured, who has a gentle and honest disposition, is described as zennin. In Spanish, such a person is bondadoso, good and kind. In Italian, that person is buono, sincere, virtuous, gentle-hearted. In Russian: dobryj, good, kind, kind-hearted. And in French, this is someone who is bon; they do good for others, they wish goodness upon others, they are compassionate and generous.

I mention all this to affirm—for myself, and for all of us—that we do have the tools we need to nurture a prayerful heart. Our words create our world. To be clear, this is not about pulling the wool over our eyes; seeing the good in others is not about ignoring falsehoods or accepting wrongdoing. But by seeking out, and acknowledging, what is authentically good in others, we do bolster our belief in the overall goodness of humanity. And if we don’t do what we can to keep this belief strong, then who and what are we praying for?

This is also why, in the context of Mahashivaratri especially, I find it beneficial to learn about Lord Shiva’s many names. Lord Shiva, as we know, is no different from the Self within. He is the Self in all. So when we call him Shiva—literally, “the auspicious one, the personification of goodness”—we are remembering our own goodness and the goodness in others. When we speak of him as Gunottama, “the one of utmost virtue,” we are recognizing this virtuousness in ourselves and in those around us. And when we refer to him as Shankara, “the beneficent one, the one who grants happiness,” we are acknowledging that we all have the ability to be kind and benevolent, and to bring forth goodness in our surroundings.

These are some of my initial thoughts about Gurumayi’s prayer from the satsang on Mahashivaratri. Now I want to know what Gurumayi’s prayer means to you. When you hear the words of Gurumayi’s prayer, what comes to mind? What arises in your heart? What efforts have you been making to relate the goodness you carry within yourself to your ability to make a difference in the lives of others? How might you use your goodness to make a positive impact, whether you think that impact is microscopic or infinitely great?