How should one pray to the Lord ?

Sripadarajaru's devaranama is an excellent prayer for all. It incorporates the most important entreaty necessary for a sadhaka which are amazing assets for one who longs for liberation. Intense attachment to the Supreme Divine and deep distrust elsewhere.

mumukshuNA mukhyataH sampAdhyam dvayameva

bhagavati ratiH aratiH anyaMtreti ||

Further without vairagya one can never acquire the jNANa or bhakthi which results in the intense attachment to the Divine Lord. In the Bhagavatham Jadabharatha exhorts King Rahuguna.

na tasya tatvagrahaNAya sAkshAdvarIyasIrapi vAchaH samAsan |

svapne nirktyA grihamEdhasoukhyam na yasya heyAnumitam swayam syAt ||

" Even the study of the entire Vedas which are apourusheya and of the highest order of spiritual learning cannot impart a correct comprehension of the nature of the Truth to one who does not on his own develop disdain towards house-hold happiness recognizing it as a fleeting dream. Vairagya is a must for stabilizing jNAna and bhakthi."

Dasaru shows by example, how one should pray to the Lord in order to achieve the purpose of life. He is saying,"I shall not ask anything , I only ask that you stand in my heart."

Applying the converse the this implies that the Lord gives His darshan in one's heart ie gives 'bimbaAparOksha" to one who does not ask the Lord for anything.

nA ninagEnu bEDuvudilla enna

hrudaya kamaladoLu nindiru hariye

Since the appeal "I am not asking you for anything." is in the pallavi which is meant to be repeated after every charanam , Dasaru wants to bring home to us the point that this is very important. It should be made a practice of saying this everyday again and again. One should not ask the Lord for anything means one should not have any desires which are not related to discerning the spiritual truth.

Then he in the next line he is asking the Lord ,"You please be present in my heart lotus at all times."

So what does one make of these two statements. They seem contradictory. Firstly he is saying ,"I am not asking..." and then he is asking the Lord to make him to do certain things . So he is exactly showing us how to practise Karma yoga as taught by Lord Krishna in the BG 3.47.

karmaNyEvAdikAraste mAphalEshu kadachana

mA phala hEtur bhU mAtesangOstwakarmaNi ||

" One has only the right to want to do karma not the right to ask for fruits." By karma here it is meant the nivrutta karma(karma done without motivation for fruits but as a dedication to the Lord) which leads one towards God.

The what to do is not decided by us, the how do is our effort/prayatna. We need to use our intellect and understand the necessity for accepting the Lord's supreme control This is also mentioned in the BG, because Krishna tells Arjuna that "The kings gathered here are already moving towards thier end, they will face thier end soon,. Whether you want to or not you will be made to fight and the work will be done, but listen to my wise words and be my instrument."

The anusandhana that one should cultivate is the thought that the Lord gives the prerana and makes us do while he makes us feels by His achintya adbhuta shakthi as if we felt the wish, and then did the work.

One may say that the expereince of wishing and doing is there with us, so how to understand it as otherwise. For this one should observe the origin of a wish. If we observe closely our wishes just pop up in our minds. We just get them. Thier actual source is not known . Even western philosophers agree that wishes are not one's own independent thinking. Our siddhanta gives us an idea of the method by which it happens. The wishes are put in place by the Lord through the tatvabhimani devatas depending on the swabhava and the anAdi karma .

When the wish comes up we use our intellect to think about ways in which is accomplish that. These intellectual options of whether we want to do and how to do is our prayatna or effort. These also cannot be called as independent decesion as the intellect itself is dependent on various factors which are in God's control. But due to His achintyaadhbuta shakthi He makes us feel that we are thinking independently and taking decesion. This is because He wants us to feel and expereince the store of karma chosen by Him from our beginningless karma. As a result we learn and gain knowledge through such expereince.

1. The intelect under God's prerane takes decesions based on the knowledge stored and recollected which is also dependent on the Lord.

2. The trigunas namely satva, rajas and tamas act on the intellect and influence the decesion. The trigunas are brought into play by Srimahalakshmi who is so instructed by the Lord .

3. Also the place and body where we are doing all these things have been bestowed on us by the Lord. So intellectual efforts are there but they are not independent.

The Lord does the needful and makes us do and makes us experience , understand and also bestows the fruits according to eligibility.

The way or path to release is to do nivrutta karma by increasing one's time spent on God oriented activities on a daily basis so that it grows in weight and becomes a part and parcel of each breadth. When this happens the Lord graces the devotee with the expereince of His presence.

Now the question is how to make the thoughts of God's as a part and parcel of our breadth.

For this Bhakta Prahlads describes a method to attain this unflinching devotion to the Supreme Lord Hari. He says ," One can never obtain such devotion as required to obtain the Lord's grace without the devoted saDanga services . The mind should be busy in divining and contemplating on the Paramatma tatwa, the eye ardent in seeing the equisite glories, the hands and legs in worshipful activities and the ears in listening to His wonderful glories."

tatvE manO darshane dhyagapi stutou cha vAkkarmaNi hyApi karou shravaNam katAyAm

samsevayA tvayi vinEti shadangaya kim bhakthim janaH paramahamsagatou labEt ||BhagavathaSaarodhara 258

Even the Bhagavathas Nala and Kubera entreat Lord Krishna in a similar way. "O God of Gods, let thy favour activate our tongue to narrate thy majesty, ears to hear thy charming glories, our hands to cleanse thy temple and such other activities, our head in bowing to thee again and again and our eyes in seeing thy earnest seekers and thy celestial forms and our mind in contemplating thy Lotus feet." This saDanga seva is not only essential for antaranga bhakthi but is prayed for even by the greatest devotees.

King Ambarisha who was favoured by the Lord also followed the saDanga seva to propitate the Lord.

One may get the idea that God wants to be praised and gets pleasure from being praised.

For this one should understand that the Lord is totally unique and He is beyond our comprehension. He has no need for anyone's praise. He does not get any pleasure from anything or any entity outside Himself.That is one of His attributes - svaramaNA. Not even Lakshmi has something which He would want to have . Everything that anyone else has is because of the Lord's grace. So it is not for His pleasure. Then what is the reason ?

The reason is that the mind of a jiva is impure, the senses are impure , the intellect is impure, the body is impure. So the only way to make these pure is by immersing them in the contemplation of the purest of the pure, which can then make this also pure. The body can be cleaned with water but even with a clean body if the mind is unclean no sadhana can be done. The mind cannot be washed with soap or water to make it pure. Only truth can make the mind pure. And the highest truth is the Lord's supremacy , His overall control on all things at all times and the fact that He has any number of infinite auspicious attributes and is completely devoid of blemishes.

So it becomes clear that each one depends on the other as follows.

The goal -Experiencing the Lord in one's heart.

Steps

1.One should have no desires related to bodily relations, possessions and status/power.

2. One should have complete interest in the Divine Lord and the longing for Him should be above any other thing.

3. Interest in anything can be developed only by constant association with it. Similarly for the Lord, constantly engaging in the worship of the Lord using the karmendriyas, constant thirst for knowledge about the Lord using the jnAnEndiryas amd using the mind and intellect to recollect the auspicous attributes/glories and leelas of the Lord which has been acquired throught the jnanendiryas.

4. This causes purification of the mind, intellect, senses and body making it eligible for the Lord to grace the devotee with His vision.

Srimad Acharyaru has said in the Dwadasha stotra :

saMtataM chiMtayet anaMtam..... "Always think of the Lord Anantha who has infinite forms and auspicious gunas."

Coming to Sripadarajaru's song once again.

shira ninna charanadalleragali enna

chakShugalu ninna nODali hariye

karNa gItaMgala kElali enna

nAsika nirmAlyAgrAnisali hariye

Dasaru says , " O Lord let my head bow at your divine feet. Let my eyes see You O lord Hari, let my ears listen to Your glories, let my nose smell the tulasi and flowers offered to You. "

nAlige ninna konDADali enna

karagaleraDu ninage mugiyali hariye

pAda teerthayAtre hOgali ninna

dhyAna enagondu koDu kanDya hariye

"Let my tongue always sing Your praises. Let my hands fold in respect to You O Lord Hari, let my feet be used to perform theerthayAtre and I entreat you O Lord Hari, please do give me Your dhyana."

bhuddi ninnolu kuNidADali enna

chitta ninnali nalidADali hariye

bhakta janara sangavu dorakali ranga

viTTala ninna dayavAgali hariye

"Let my buddhi be always be aware of Your greatness and send out vibrations of happiness, let my chitta dance in Your memory, Oh Lord Hari, please have compassion on me and give me the association of Your devotees."

Dasaru ends with the request for satsangha. It is because only with satsangha one can be led to perform the actions adoring the Lord.

A possible method do perform such kind of saDanga seva continuously even while engaging in other daily activites is possible if one adopts the NishkAma karma way of life. Every act that is done through any of the karma indriyas or jnana indiryas are offered at the Lord feet as his worship.

Sri Purandara Dasaru's devaranama ...

sulabha pujeya mADi balavilladavaru

naliNanAbhana pAda nalina sevakaru

nuDida mAtugalella kaDalashayanana japavu

........

naDumaneya aMgalavu uDupi vaikuMTagalu

eDa balada maneyavaru kaDu bhAgavatharu

hige anudina tilidu higguva janara bhava

rOga parihAravu mUrjagadi sukhavu........

So whatever one uses one karmendriyas or jnanendiryas one has to bring the proper anusandhana to the mind in order to make it as a worship of the Lord. Thinking of His greatness and glory and seeing that in His creation while being aware of Him being the over all controller is a sure step towards spiritual upliftment.