Prayer

[gord96]

How more intimate can it be when the Supreme is one's own SELF. Who says this ? Kṛṣṇa-jī in the bhāgavad gītā, chapter 6, 31st verse.

beautiful!

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namasté


I am happy one is asking questions...

In the forest (araṇya¹) in which we reside there are 3 kinds of people:

• Those that are in darkness and do not know that they do not know.
• Those in total light and know they know.
• Those that in the dusk or the dawn and know they do not know.

The 1st and 2nd types ( from above) have no questions to ask. The 1st ( those that are in darkness) do not know to ask; those in light have no questions, as all questions have been answered. It is those that know they do not know are the one's asking questions.

iti śivaṁ

1. araṇya - a wilderness , forest . We find this in use for the bṛhadarāṇyakopaniṣad. The notion of 'forest' is that of diversity; some say too a forest of thoughts in one's mind. Other say a vast forest of knowledge.

[brahma jijnasa]

Namaste

Sometimes I just want to bow my head and say "Thank you God for this day. Help me to think kind thoughts, speak kind words, and act in kind ways. Please guide me to see you in everyone and everything... etc."
...
Whether we are novices or priests, for some reason I can't imagine God being offended by someone trying to pray to him in a spoken word "Hey God, thank you, I love you" type of way.

That's ok. You can turn to God with your own words in your own language, English. There's nothing wrong with that. We can express our gratitude to God, pray to him for favorable thoughts, ask him for inspiration and guidance, ask Him to direct us in the right way, ask him to revive the spirit and our spiritual strength, spiritual purity and knowledge, for the purification of sins, pray to him for protection and refuge, etc.
All this has the support in the scriptures. Here are some examples:

"May we know Narayana. For that, may we meditate upon Vasudeva. May Vishnu impel us towards it." (Maha Narayana Upanishad I-29)

"O thou Divine Person, who is dark blue and brown and who is red in eyes make haste to favour me. Grant me more and more purity. Be a grantor of knowledge and purity to me through the medium of my preceptor. May my thoughts become purified. I pray that I become the Supreme Light bereft of all obstructing sins and their cause, the passions in me. For this end may this oblation be appropriately offered into the consecrated fire. Hail !" (Maha Narayana Upanishad LXV-5)

"Assist our holy thoughts, wake up our spirit: weaken the hatred of our foe and rivals." (Rig Veda 4.50.11)

"Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender (take refuge) unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear." (Bhagavad gita 18.66)

See, even this is not something like "chat with Him about anything that's on your mind".

And don't we all have a very intimate relationship with God?

Potentially yes, we do, but in fact this relationship we have yet to develop. This should happen gradually. Be patient, it will not happen hastily, overnight.
That what is our current intimate relationship with God is far from comparable to intimate relationship with God which Arjuna, Vasudeva and Devaki, and gopis and gopas had. They were personal associates of Lord Krishna. They could see him every day, personally hang out with him, even dance with him (gopis). Where are we compared to them?

regards

[gord96]

Namaste.

Interesting topic. What about prayer for others? It's something I always struggled with. What's Hindu thought on this? Coming from a Christian background I would always here "i'll pray for you." or "pray for me." etc. never really sat well with me.

I have found lately that i prefer to pray that I have the ability to help others when i can and when i should, instead of prayer for some sort of divine help for another. seems more practical.

Thanks for your time!