How To Pray ? Ensure Your Prayers Are Heard !

The enclosed excerpt tells us how to pray? We all pray, but many times our prayers are not heard and we face disappointments in worship. Our faith gets shaken and we wonder why our prayers were not heard.
The following quoted text explains to us how to make our prayers meaningful and effective. The enclosed passage is an excerpt from the autobiographical text  "My Life its Legacy and Message" authored by Shriram Sharma Acharya.

Quoted Text:

"The only reason which causes disappointment in the field of religious worship is to consider formal rituals as everything and to pay no attention to our inner cleansing and refinement.

What really matters is the inner vision and steadfastness of faith which acts as manure and water for nurturing the tiny seed that enables a seed to grow into a mighty tree. In fact, it is the radiant personality of the devotee that infuses life in worship, and mere performance of rituals is nothing but a pastime.

Ram of Tulsi, Hare Krishna of Soor, collective singing of devotional songs by Chaitanya, songs of Meera, Ramakrishna’s worship of Mother Kali, did not become radiantly alive for these devotees merely by their ritualistic worship.

Innumerable persons act in an absurd and mechanical manner; what they get in return is therefore nothing . When Valmiki changed the pattern of his life, he became illumined even by doing JAP (chanting of a Mantra) in an incorrect, reverse manner. Ajamil, Angulimal, Ganika and Amrapali were hardly literate but they had moulded their inner lives in conformity with spiritual ideals and achieved greatness.

It is rather a sad irony that people these days mistakenly assume that they have embarked on the path of self-realisation merely by uttering some words, performing certain rituals or making certain offerings to the Deity. They never try to transform their thoughts, character and attitudes in the light of the Indwelling Spirit which is a must for spiritual progress. I have always been cautious not to allow this falsity to enter into my way of worship (Sadhna). This path is realistic, practical and easy to be followed by and beneficial to the common mass of humanity. My way of life should be studied keeping this in view.

When righteous people act together towards righteous ends the result is bound to be good. Thus those who want to understand the nature of Spirituality of the Rishi traditions will greatly benefit from the in-depth study of my way of life. The whole of my life has been spent for this very purpose.