||ShriHari||
Prayer
O’ Lord, whatever we get, we get due to Your grace only. However, we begin to call it as ours, that this is mine! This is our main mistake and Your immense generosity and ! O’ Lord! ! Your method of giving is truly extra-ordinary! Even on giving everything, You do not remember how much You have given! Our bad qualities leave no impression on Your inner faculties. What must the camera for Your inner faculties be like? This You alone know! The bad qualities are never imprinted in them. Good and only good qualities are imprinted. Such is Your nature! Besides having the feeling of “my-very-own” “apnaapan” with You, what else do we have, O’ Great King! You know us to be Yours, You believe in us, You accept us, therefore the work gets done! Or else it would be very difficult, O’ Lord! ! We would not be able to live! We are only dependent on Your mercy, therefore we are living –
Aap kripa ko aasaro, aap kripa ko jor |
Aap bina dikhe nahin teen lok mein aur ||
Even after showering Your grace, this grace of Yours is not contented –
“Jaasu kripa niahin kripa aghaati” (Manas, Balakand 28/2)!
Due to this sort of grace of Yours, You are continuing to grace us. You understand every bit of our inner thoughts, feelings and sentiments, entirely and completely, but though knowing, You do not look towards our inner faculties, and You act as if You do not know! You are unaware! It is Your grace only that is enamoring You. You are getting enamored by Your own qualities. You forget that You Yourself have obliged. You even forget the things given by You. You are the one giving, but we begin to believe that these are ours only! We are such ungrateful thieves O’ King! A son may be bad or good, but he a son no matter what. A son can never be “not a son.” You have said in the Gita, that this “jeev” (embodied soul) is from time immemorial a part of You alone – “Mamaivaansho jeevaloke Jeevabhootah Sanatanah” (Gita 7/19) Thus know me as Your son, shower Your grace on me.
O’ Lord! What use can we be to You? Is any of Your work pending which I could do? Are our abilities of any use to You? These are only there to inflate our pride. Whatever You have given us, we begin to consider it as our own, and believe it to be ours. We become proud and arrogant! So ungrateful are we. Then too You close Your eyes. You do not look towards those flaws at all. It is due to Your such nature that we are able to survive!
O’ Lord! What should I say to You? We have no words that are capable of saying, nor do we have the ability to say. You even listen to sounds of all the jungle creatures, as a father is listening to his child attempting to speak in inaudible words –
Ved bachan muni mana agam te Prabhu karunaa en |
Bachan kiraatanh ke sunat jimi pitu baalak bain ||
(Manas, Ayodhyakand 136)
Similarly, O’ Lord ! I do not know how to say anything at all. I only know that he who has no one, You are his –
Bol na jaanum koye alp buddhi mana veg tein |
Nahin jaake hari hoye yaa to mein jaanum sadaa ||
(Karunasagar 74)
Narayana ! Narayana !! Narayana !!!