Praying to the Sky

 

Photo Credit: PeakPx

Praying to the Sky

If we want to pray, we should offer prayers to the sky. If we want to meditate, meditate on the sky… sometimes with open eyes, sometimes with closed eyes, because the sky is within too. It is as infinite within as it appears without. We are just standing on the threshold of the inner sky and the outer sky, and they are exactly proportionate. As the outside sky is infinite, so is the inner sky. We are just standing on the threshold. Either way we can be dissolved, and these are the two ways to dissolve.

If we dissolve ourselves in the outside sky, then it is prayer. If we dissolve ourselves into the inner sky, then it is meditation. But finally, it comes to the same - we are dissolved. And those two skies are not two; they are two only because we live in duality. We are the dividing line. When we disappear, the dividing line disappears. Then in is out and out is in.

The extrovert prays because he can only relate to the outward. The introvert meditates. The extrovert has to conceive of a God there as ‘thou’ so he can have a dialogue. The introvert need not have any God; he can simply close his eyes and start disappearing. The extrovert needs some help – somebody there, objective. Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, are all extrovert religions. Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism, are introvert religions; they don’t have anything like prayer. Prayer is just absurd in Buddhism; because it carries the duality, it is absurd.

Prayer is more like love - the other is needed. Whether the other is or is not, is not the point, but the prayer becomes possible only through the excuse of the other. If there is no God, then God has to be invented, otherwise the extrovert will never be able to reach to the ultimate. Once he reaches, he will know, but on the way, he needs a support, an objective support, something which he can relate to. Prayer is a dialogue.

The introvert being alone is enough. He need not create a God. God may be there; he is not needed. Whenever Buddha is asked, “What do you say about God?” he says, “It is irrelevant.”

Prayer is akin to love and meditation is akin to silence. Prayer is a bridge between the two. Meditation is absolute aloneness – not lonely, not solitary, but alone, in a state of solitude. These are the two ways.

Man is standing just in the middle of the two and he is the dividing line, so whether he disappears this way or that, once he disappears the dividing line disappears. Then there is no prayer and no meditation.