Affirmation or Prayer?

A prayer or an affirmation is a method that is resorted to acquire or strengthen a certain attainable human potential.  Thus one can only pray for something that one is eligible to receive.  And this something cannot be a material object even though more often than not people pray for material things.  In order to achieve a material objective, a material effort must be made - a mental effort cannot do it.  A mental effort can only strengthen the mental capacity of a person, strengthen only a certain inner faculty of his/her personality.  If this faculty is entirely absent in a person, no amount of prayer can yield such a faculty in the same birth - for example, a blind man by birth cannot pray and be cured of his blindness.  

In many ancient Indian texts, we find that the path of affirmation is resorted to, as opposed to the usual path of prayer.  The path of prayer is far more popular and common whether one is praying for physical well being or for material prosperity.  The path of affirmation is less known and seldom used but still is very much part of the spiritual seeking process in Ancient Indian thought.  Both are valid paths and one may choose one or the other based on what he is comfortable with.  

When you make a prayer, you are making a request.  If you are praying to a granting deity, you are doing it so that the deity may be pleased with your prayer and may grant your wish as prasadam [benign fruit] - a deity is nothing but the pure unbiased intelligence and complete potential of a particular faculty.  For example if a child has made a mistake and has been given a time-out by its mother, then the child can pray to the mother to free it from its predicament.  Here the mother is the pure and unbiased intelligence having the complete potential to grant freedom to the child.  When you make a prayer therefore, the granting force is seen to be outside - external to you.   And it makes for a degree of comfort when you see the deity as external and as an office to which you can apply.  When you make an affirmation  however, you are acknowledging that the deity and the prasadam are both within you.  

The request or prayer puts us into a dialogue and the moment you enter a dialogue, the mind and ego enter the picture.  The mind tells you of other options and other desires.  The ego tells you either that you should not be asking for something or creates an expectation.  When the mind is involved, it tends to stick to something more than the other.  It might say that this desire is preferable to the other.  It depends on the maturity of the person.  


A mature person can ask and obtain in a manner that doesn't hurt him.  But this is not the case with everyone.  If we are granted what we ask with our limited knowledge, then it may be counter productive to our own well being in the long term.   If you are not mature in your understanding and in your relationship with the divine, any request carries the danger of feeding your false self or the Ego. In fact an unbridled ego can never be comfortable with a mature request and will likely create a reaction.  Therefore when one is praying, one should be knowledgeable and aware and must seek in wisdom. 

When you are affirming using an established mantra [a formula set in a language and tone that communicates  the intent of the words through both meaning as well as vibration] you are using the mind only as an instrument to state an affirmation and are not seeking its involvement.  The advantage is that there is no requirement of maturity of a person.  Any person howsoever immature can just chant it and await the vibratory strength of the mantra to do its work.   Only he must know the mantra properly and must have the faith in its power.  

Whether it is a prayer or an affirmation, the intent is to endow you with the attribute that is asked for in the prayer or stated in the affirmation.  It is important for one to know what to ask.  One can ask for atma gunas or for dharma lakshanas.  For this one must know what truly constitutes a divine characteristic [atma guna] or a sustainable human characteristic [dharma lakshana].

Those who wish to remain in the worldly sphere of work and human association, prefer the dharma kshetra - the field of dharma.  This is based on the recognition of the attributes of the dharma kshetra which are reflected in our body-mind complex and in the natural external world.  Seeing them as attributes of a naturally existing field also enables us to be comfortable with these attributes without attaching our ego to it.  It is not an external gain resulting in the setting up of a rna [imbalance] but a seeking in your effort to express your natural potential.  Knowing dharma, we seek to become the dharmajna [knower of the field of manifestation - dharma kshetra].

Those who wish to go beyond the dimensions of space and time, seek to express divine qualities called atma gunas.  They are in fact the natural attributes of our divine self.  Expressing these, we seek to become the atmajna - the knower of the pure divinity within us - the atman.   

Whenever we think of asking for something, we find that it is difficult to ask for something specific.  This is why the scriptural verses such as the chamakam [a portion of Vedic Hymns to Lord Rudra/Shiva - the deity of knowing] explicitly specify what can be asked or affirmed.  Truly, any desire that arises in our individual mind only takes us away from the Lord.  

A prayer takes the external route while an affirmation takes the internal route.  It is like Lord Subramanya  [first son of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati] going around the world while Lord Ganesha [second son of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati] simply goes around his parents.  While Subramanya is the commander of the devas, he recognises the kshetra as the external manifested kshetra.  Ganesha who realises that what is projected out is only an image of what is inside, just circum-ambulates his parents.  Once you turn your eye inward, the inward becomes closer and easier to access.  An affirmation readily communicates to your subtle body because the sookshma sharira [subtle body] understands only the binary language like a computer.  The subtle body is also vibratory in nature and affirmations change its frequency of vibration more directly than a prayer.

Whether you take the external route of prayer or the internal route of affirmation, it eventually amounts to the same thing.  The prayer may be more suitable for asking for a potential that is more helpful in the external field of work and an affirmation may be more suitable for asking for a potential that is more helpful in our inward seeking.  What is important is that we know what we want.  This is where the ancient texts authored by seers are a wonderful source of knowledge.

It is best that our prayers and affirmations are guided by the experience of sages and seers rather than being chosen by us with our limited knowledge and understanding.  We bow down in gratitude to those knowers of the divine, the knowers of the Lord.  We pray to Him who is the source and substratum of the universe to grant us the ability to affirm without doubt, to declare without hesitation that our true dwelling is within the soft glow of the gentle awareness of His glorious presence.   

bhagavadarpanam