Hope keeps me going :)...

Hope, I heard is the most quintessential of all human emotions....Something which grows stronger when times are hard...Something which keeps us going, when everything else takes a leave....Something that is very much our own...A thing, that we can create and destroy.....gift and be gifted and give and take away as easily.....

I have yet to meet a person that has not ever hoped for any thing nice....The rich and the poor both hope for things to be better than they are, whether they put in as much effort to earn the object of their desire is another story altogether.....People wanting a taste of success hope and pray for them to be answered; the sick and dying hope to be cured; parents hope for their kids to live a long, healthy life full of happiness; and lovers, hope for their love to be everlasting and by their side for ever...Some even hope for world peace and for poverty to be eliminated!! Everyone on this earth has something to hope for!!....

I have always noticed how 'hope' and 'pray' are almost always said in the same breath...It is like we need to hope and pray for things to work out.....'Hope' it seems is an extension of prayer, hang on to one and grab the next rung to reach closer to the source of desire, but be careful of hoping too much, too soon and too desperately, for they will lead you farther away from your goals...'too much' of either of these will lead closer to 'desperation' and and its next rung 'fear of failure'...Hope, I have learned goes better with not just prayer but also effort....Everything done in moderation somehow seems to have a greater impact then hoping for things to somehow magically go right.....

What I hope for is simple and yet so much complicated....It encompasses everything the heart could ever desire.....I hope for a love faithful; a happiness that lasts; good health without too much effort; loyalty of the ones I love, to a degree that I myself gift; trust, that is never betrayed; joys unparalleled; a laughter, that never ends; peace of heart and mind and to be ALWAYS surrounded by the ones that I love ......Nothing material here, but everything that is so essential to our very being..... All I'm really hoping for is everything that is good, for a life that is so precious......Is that too much to ask??.....

I Pray.....

Living in a place where people religiously pray 5 times a day often makes me wonder about my way of going about it....Prayers, I have heard are our direct contact with God....I see them praying 5 times a day, and I often wonder if they are in better touch with God than the rest of the world...After all, they pray more frequently and so devotedly too, there 'must' be 'something' to it or they wouldn't be doing it with all their hearts and souls, right!!.....I see the Christians doing the same thing too, and so do the people of many other religions around the world...Is praying in groups, doing it a certain way and doing it a certain number of times a day then to be considered a better approach of being heard by the Almighty, or is it just a way of involving the less enthusiastic and less-learned about the need for it all??.....

But what of those, who are for reasons varied, are not able to reach these places of worship, and those that choose to pray in the comfort of their own homes?...Is their prayer heard by the Lord Almighty? or are their prayers going to be in vain?....Is there a special way that needs to be followed to please the Gods, or is a simple, heartfelt prayer good enough for the Great One??....I for one, choose to believe that a good, heartfelt thanks for the gifts bestowed should be good enough, but I could be so wrong too...I pray among other things for his blessings and I thank him too, but my thanks are as heartfelt, as my demands of him....and I would love to think that my shortcomings are in no way deterring the Lord from hearing me out....

Aren't the idols and places of worship all man-made and all the procedures of doing prayers handed down by word of mouth through generations and eons??....Would it then be wise to blindly follow the words printed and half-understood and sometimes not understood at all, to the words simple but good intentioned!!......I know, idols are man's way of stopping the mind from wandering, it encourages focus, and focused thoughts lead to a higher understanding of things....It might lead to an enlightened stage, which so few are able to accomplish during their life time....I firmly believe in the existence of an invisible good force that guides us all our lives...I believe, that it is this force, that prevents us doing wrong...It guides the way when we are troubled, and keeps a watchful eye over us, when we need it most...Call it conscience, call it God or call it the invisible force.....It is there, and we have all felt it sometime or the other in our lives......I do believe in its existence, but I DO NOT believe in chants, or religious ceremonies which defy logic...I do not believe in doing prayers half-heartedly...I most certainly do not want to believe that I am being bad not knowing the details of my own religion...

I believe, God gifted us this life to savor and cherish.....I believe, that he meant us to search our soul and He meant us to be a good human beings..... and if my not praying in the places of worship, or in a certain way accomplishes his great goal, then so be it...I care not for the judgment of the world, for I have pleased the people I most value, Him and me...and THAT is all that matters!!...The peace of mind and of soul and the accomplishment of being a good human being...If that is a trivial accomplishment, then so be it....I am at peace with myself, and hopefully God will understand my simple human logic :).....