Re: Hindu Prayer
Originally Posted by
ConfusedLearner
Hi all! I'm back with another question.
I am curious about prayer within Hinduism.
Within the sect of Christianity that I am surrounded by here in the southern USA, prayer is typically simple and non-prescriptive. You simply talk to the Divine, silently, or out loud.
Is this form of prayer practiced within Hinduism? Or are more elaborate prayer rituals carried out?
Can I simply talk to a deity, or is this not traditional?
Brahma-jijnasa and Smaranam-ji had given good answers.
I just want to add that a Hindu prayer consists of recitation of hymns and/or mantras because a Hindu believes that, the prayer itself being rendered by some great devotee, carries subtle meditative and medicinal quality about it, which will be pleasing to one's own psyche as well as the deity being praised upon. 'Medicinal' does not simply mean just the treatment of one's body, 'medicinal' here is a term that denotes 'changes to one's psychology as well as body'. Hence, the slokas and mantras are believed to bring about psychological changes in oneself, and supposed to be pleasing to the deities, whereby one's wishes come true, out of the deity sanctioning them.
jai hanuman gyan gun sagar jai kapis tihu lok ujagar
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