Black Christians : Scripture Prayers for Our Families

Louise Cosper

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Feb 26, 2018
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Prayers we can pray over our families:
1Pet 4:8...Father, I pray that our family members love one another.
1Pet 4:9...That we are hospitable to one another without complaint.
1Pet 4:11...Serving by the strength that You supply,
1Pet 4:11...so that in all things You may be glorified.
1Thes 5:11...I pray that we will encourage one another, comfort, edify,
Acts 20:32..and build one another up.
Mt 18:19...That we will stand in agreement in every area of our lives,
Neh 8:10...Letting the joy of the Lord be our strength,
Col 3:15...with the peace of God ruling in our hearts.
Ps 138:8...Father, I thank You that You're perfecting
Ps 138:8...everything concerning us.
Ps 92:10...Anoint us with fresh oil.
Ps 103:5...Satisfy us with good things,
Ps 103:5...So that our youth is renewed like the eagle's.
Ps 92:14...In old age we shall still bear fruit,
Ps 92:14...and be fresh and flourishing.
Ps 91:16...With a long life You will satisfy us.
Job 1:10...Father, place a hedge of protection
Job 1:10...around us, around our household,
Job 1:10...and around all that we have on every side.
Ps 34:7...I thank You that the angel of the Lord encamps
Ps 34:7...round about us and delivers us from all evil,
Ps 91:3...from the snare of the fowler, from every pestilence,
Ps 91:10...and that no plague will come near our dwelling.
Prov 3:24...We shall lie down and our sleep shall be sweet.
Prov 16:7...Because our ways please You Lord,
Prov 16:7...You make our enemies to be at peace with us.
Deut 29:9...We keep Your word and do it,
Deut 29:9...therefore, we prosper in all that they do.
Jn 15:4...Because we abide in You and delight ourselves in You,
Ps 37:4...You give us the desires of their heart.
1Pet 5:6...And because we humble ourselves, exalt them in due season.
1Pet 4:19...Father we are committed to You, to doing good,
1Pet 5:7...casting all our cares upon You, for You care for us.
1Pet 5:8...That we are sober, vigilant, continually resisting the devil,
1Pet 5:9...and steadfast in our faith.
 
The practical spiritual knowledge, which is the essence of the BIBLE and other scriptures is that you should approach God simply by your attraction to God (based on His Divine personality that is expressed through several stories presented in scriptures), which is the natural and spontaneous love or devotion.



The best example is your love for your issues in which you are prepared to sacrifice what all you earned in the entire life even though your issues are insulting you throughout your life. You are prepared to do any sin for their sake. Such love should be expressed to God aspiring no fruit in return as in the case of your issues.





You may argue that such love cannot be expressed to an outsider, be the God. Your argument is not correct if you take the example of a fan of a cinema hero. For the fan, the hero is outsider only. The fan is not benefited in any way from the hero. Moreover, the fan spends from his pocket only in the celebrations of new pictures of that hero. His love to that hero is so much that he takes away his life when the hero dies! Such love is not seen even in the case of issues!



What is the reason for such madness of love to the hero? In all the films of the hero, the personality of the hero is expressed in such climax so that the impression of the fan to the hero goes beyond even the climax. All these stories of God in scriptures are only the various films of that God-Hero. The difference between God and the cinema hero is that the stories of God are true and the stories presented in films about the hero are totally false and artificial.



If such love is developed in the mind of the fan by such false stories, how much love to God should be developed by these real stories! Hence, you should become such fan of God to worship Him simply based on your unassuming attraction to God and not based on the fruit in return. It is this fundamental cancerous point that brings failures in the approach to God.





God is always in the reverse gear. As you ask repeatedly for something it is pushed down and down. This is very clear even in our worldly experience. If you press the feet of your father asking for his property to be given to you, what a nasty opinion is developed in the mind of your father? You may keep the nasty opinion in your mind as secret and express the true devotion outside through acting since your father can’t know what is in your mind.



But, God is omniscient and knows everything present in your every internal nerve and hence you can never fool God. Therefore, you should totally detach from the desire and worship God as in the case of that fan to that cinema hero.



When you are not aspiring any fruit in return and express your real love on God based on your attraction to Him due to the impression of His Divine personality on you, God grants everything asked by you and also not asked by you, which is good for you.



This is the essence of the Gita, which says that you must worship God without any desire. Narada in his Bhakti-sutras says that one way of developing the devotion is to hear the stories of God, which project His Divine personality that develops terrible attraction in your mind without the context of fruit in return (Tat kathaa shravanaadishu…).



You need not worry about the historical aspects of these stories like time and space, which are relative with respect to the absolute God. God is beyond space and time. Therefore, the essence of the message to any ordinary human being in this world is to read the stories of God and to see the pictures of God so that a spontaneous inspiration of attraction develops in the mind without any reference to the context of the desire or fruit.



Even if you observe social pictures, you super impose God on that hero trying always to establish justice in the society, thereby even the social picture is turned to a Divine story based on the concept of the hero as representative model (Pratika) of God. This was the real tradition of our ancient sages.



Unfortunately, we are in the present blind tradition, which was developed by our ancestors in the middle age connecting God always to the fulfillment of desire by achieving its related fruit. Whenever we do worship of God in the form of rituals, the very starting point is to say ‘Samkalpa’ in which the list of all worldly desires are mentioned. From our birth we are grown up in this blind psychology of God linked to the fruit(result).





The very first introduction of God to us was given in terms of fulfillment of desire and attainment of fruit only. The theoretical devotion like prayers to achieve a practical fruit from God is like the false love of a prostitute, who extracts your money through sweet words (Veshyaa bhakti).



Sometimes, the practical devotion in terms of service to God is also seen, which is only a business deal of exchange of practical devotion with practical fruit (Vaishya bhakti). Of course, in the Vedas also, the devotion linked to fulfillment of desires is projected as instrumental devotion (Kaamya bhakti) in which God becomes the instrument to achieve a desired fruit.



The Vedas have expressed this way for the beginners in the spiritual path, who are like children going to school with the help of the chocolate. After sometime, as the child gets interest in the process of learning, the chocolate gets dropped. But, unfortunately, we are going to the school only for the chocolates from birth to death. I’m not telling to eradicate LKG class from the school. I’m only telling that you should not sit in the LKG class throughout your life.







After obtaining divine nectar, one can taste it and develop a very strong attachment to it. The detachment from coffee then comes naturally due to the attachment to the taste of the divine nectar. After tasting the divine nectar, You need not put any effort to get detached from coffee. But before obtaining the divine nectar and tasting it, You have to put in a lot of hard effort to achieve the divine nectar. Since You have not tasted the divine nectar, You are tempted to drink coffee and You have to forcibly avoid coffee. Similarly, You have to put some effort forcibly to detach from Your worldly bonds before attaining and tasting God. This is the starting trouble, in which the majority of humanity is trapped.



Initial detachment from unnecessary worldly matters has to be achieved through force. Such detachment includes avoiding unnecessary talking and listening to the gossip of worldly people, reading unnecessary worldly books and seeing unnecessary worldly films. Such forcible detachment saves energy, time and money. This wasted energy, time and money can be used for God instead, following the principle of waste-to-wealth. In this way, the starting trouble can be overcome and one can at least reach God temporarily, and taste His subject (knowledge and devotion). Once the person is attracted by the taste of God, any further effort for worldly detachment is not necessary.



Detachment then takes place naturally. In this initial stage, there is no need be afraid that as a result of pursuing the spiritual path, one might develop so much detachment that one might not be able to fulfill one’s worldly duties. The reason is that only one soul, among millions of souls and that too only after millions of births, reaches the highest state. It is only in that highest state that one’s worldly duties get dropped. But even in that climax-state, God performs the worldly duties for that rare soul! So, there is no reason to fear that the duties will get neglected!



The point raised by you about God protecting you in your worldly life, in case you are more involved in spiritual activity, is a very critical question. It needs a lot of explanation, which is given below and is to be understood carefully by you. It is a multi-dimensional question. I can simply give its answer through the following song sung often by Bhagavān Shri Satya Sai Baba in His divine discourses:





“O mind! Don’t aspire for any fruit in return from God;

As you aspire, the fruit goes down more and more,

So, if you don’t aspire for it, He gives it to you at once,

And know that He is omnipotent to give any fruit”.​



Spiritual knowledge means (i) knowing the details of the personality of God, (ii) knowing that the soul is not God and (iii) knowing the real path by which God will be really pleased. Once you know that you are not God, there will be interest to know about God about whom several people in this world are speaking. Then, you should also inquire about the path to please God since He is omnipotent and if He is pleased, He can give anything to anyone at any time and at any place.



The human being passes through different stages in life called as āśramas. In the first stage, the person concentrates on education, which enables him to earn his living throughout his life. This stage is called brahmacarya. In the second stage, he starts earning and establishes himself in professional life, which also enables him to have a family. This is the stage of the householder or gṛhastha.



In the third stage, the person is established in his professional and family life well-enough that he has sufficient leisure time to concentrate on God. This third stage is called vānaprastha. In the fourth stage, the person retires from his profession as well as from his duties towards his family. In this stage, he does the work of propagation of spiritual knowledge to uplift others in the world. This stage is called saṁnyāsa. This is the normal course of the life of a normal human being in present times.



There are deviations from this normal course in the case of some human beings and the deviations may be towards the wrong side or the right side. The deviation to the wrong side means not developing an interest in God at any stage, and being involved in worldly life alone, till one’s death. The deviation to the right side means getting more and more interested in God and concentrating more and more on spiritual life.



There is no stipulated time or stage as mentioned above when one develops an interest in God. Any human being may develop an interest in God at any time. Generally, such interest comes due to a spiritual inclination in the person owing to the soul having led a spiritual life in the previous birth. A person may also develop an interest in God due to a congenial atmosphere around the soul, given to him by the grace of God. That congenial atmosphere around the soul is granted based on the soul’s spiritual life in the previous birth. This congenial spiritual atmosphere around the soul can include spiritual family members or other people outside the family who influence the soul positively. In any case, getting such a congenial spiritual atmosphere is indeed the greatest fortune of the soul.



When the soul develops interest and attachment to God, it naturally brings detachment from worldly bonds. No soul should try for worldly detachment directly. It is not only impossible, but it is also a total waste. The detachment from the world should come indirectly due to the attachment to God. Some people are afraid that attachment to God might lead to detachment from the world, which in turn would result in a materialistic loss. Nobody should have this false fear since the power with which the world attracts the soul is unimaginable! It is like a person avoiding divine nectar as much as possible, fearing that the attachment to the divine nectar might result in the detachment from ordinary food.



Here, divine nectar is like God’s grace and the food is like worldly life. The person is under the false impression that he will actually attain the divine nectar as soon as he develops interest and attachment to it! Developing interest in the Divine Nectar (God) itself is very difficult in the opposing atmosphere of the world. Even if the interest in the Divine Nectar is born, it is very difficult for it to grow in the negative worldly atmosphere. The Veda says that both spiritual and worldly atmospheres are opposite to each other (Dūramete viparīte viśūcī). Even if a person’s interest in the Divine Nectar (God) grows, it is very difficult for the person to stand firm in his attachment to It. It is even more difficult to cross all hurdles on the way and finally attain the Divine Nectar.



Older people know all these practical difficulties and hence are never worried even if their children develop an interest in God. In fact, parents encourage their children to worship God. They know very well that a mere interest in God will not result in attaining the ultimate grace of God, which could spoil their worldly life. Instead, due to their children’s devotion to the omnipotent God, He will help the children in every walk of their worldly lives! The Veda says that the attainment of the grace of God alone results in the spontaneous detachment from the world (Yadahareva virajet tadahareva pravrajet). This statement means that as soon as you get theoretical detachment from the world (virajet) due to attachment to God (bhakti), you will naturally detach from the world practically (pravrajet).



But we see that in the world, this rule fails. We see many people who have developed attachment (devotion) to God. Not only do they show theoretical devotion to God in the form of prayers, meditation and devotional songs, but they also show practical devotion, in the form of service and sacrifice. Yet, the natural consequent detachment from the world is not seen in them. When even theoretical detachment from the world is not seen, practical detachment from the world is out of the question! Why does this rule from the Veda fail practically in the case of devoted human beings? The reason lies in the fundamental step, which is developing an interest or theoretical attachment to God.



The fundamental reason is that people’s devotion is contaminated with the aspiration for worldly fruits from God in return for their devotion. They may be devoted to God, in both theory and practice, but it is only due to their aspiration for getting worldly fruits from God. The theoretical and practical devotion developed by these devotees is not due to real love for God. It is due to their real love for the worldly fruits, which they expect as boons from God. A plant dies if you introduce poison through water poured at its root. Similarly, the real theoretical and practical devotion dies due to the aspiration for worldly fruits in return from God, which is introduced at the root-level of developing an interest in God.



True spiritual knowledge can help you identify this main problem due to which your devotion fails to please God. The safest path is to learn spiritual knowledge and prevent the problem from arising before developing devotion to God. One should eliminate the tendency to use God as an instrument for attaining our worldly goals and ambitions. The devotion to God that will then develop will be free of aspiration. This is the best and easiest option. It is the defensive approach for protecting ourselves from the attack of the virus of worldly ambition.



The second option is treating the devotees, who have already been infected by the virus of the aspiration for attaining their worldly ambitions from God in return for their devotion. In the case of such infected patients, the treatment is complicated and it takes some time to cure the disease. It is a psychological disease and hence, careful handling of the patient is needed.



The first line of treatment is to initially allow the devotees’ worldly aspirations in the hope that in due course of time, they will be able to overcome the aspirations and develop real devotion for God. It is essential to play along with the person for some time just as you have to run along with a powerful running bull for some time before you can control it. Following this approach, God responds to the prayers and worship of devotees who have desires for worldly fruits as boons from God.



The Veda also reveals formal sacrifices as paths to attain heavenly boons from God. These Vedic sacrifices essentially involve prayers to God along with the distribution of cooked food to devotees. Śaṅkara has clarified that the Veda, by prescribing these formal sacrifices, does not induce the desire for the boons in the devotees. It only provides a path to fulfilling the desires of the devotees who already have the desires for the boons. The treatment does not induce the disease in the patient; it only aims to cure the patient! In the course of time, the devotee is expected to develop some real devotion for God. When the devotee sees that God has always been by his side and has helped him in fulfilling his worldly desires, he can develop some real love for God, which is beyond the aspiration for worldly fruits.



Experiencing the greatness and kindness of God, he may realize that the eternal God should not be used as an instrument for attaining temporary worldly fruits (Nāstyakṛtaḥ kṛteneti—Veda). This is the sign of the cure.



In some cases, as the desires get fulfilled, more desires flare up and the unreal devotion to God for the sake of getting boons continues. It means that the first line of treatment has been ineffective. Then the second line of treatment is started. This treatment takes an offensive approach. God acts shrewdly in giving boons. Boons are the fruits of a person’s good deeds in order to encourage their good deeds. Conversely, worldly difficulties and illnesses are the fruits of sinful deeds. They are punishments to discourage sin. When these souls demand for undeserved boons in the present, God merely draws some reward, which they were supposed to enjoy in the future and grants it to them in the form of a boon in the present.



This premature withdrawal of the soul’s good fruits leads to a loss in the value of the fruit. Similarly, when such devotees pray for their present difficulties to be removed, God merely postpones these punishments for the souls’ sins, to the future with increased interest. Thus, in this second offensive line of treatment, God ensures that even if the souls do not get cured of the disease of worldly ambition, neither He nor His constitution is exploited by these souls at any time.



There are two categories of souls who need this second line of treatment to cure their worldly ambition. The worst category of souls try to get practical boons from God in exchange for their theoretical devotion to Him. They only worship God through verbal and mental forms of worship such as prayers, meditation, and singing of devotional songs. Yet they expect practical boons from Him in the form of health, wealth and protection.



Such devotion is the worst kind of devotion and is called as prostitution-devotion. A slightly better form of devotion is to try to get practical boons from God in exchange for their practical devotion to Him. In other words, apart from theoretical devotion the devotee practically donates some money for God, but expects much more in return. This is called business-devotion. Both prostitution-devotion and business-devotion are forms of unreal devotion. In both forms, the devotee’s real devotion is only for the worldly fruits and not for God at all!



The best-possible devotion available in the world is issue-devotion, which is the devotion to God as a parent is devoted to his or her child. Parents not only love their issues theoretically but they also practically serve their child and sacrifice the fruit of their work (money) to their issues. The practical devotion is the proof of their theoretical devotion to their children. Their theoretical and practical devotion to their children is free from the aspiration for any fruit in return from the children.



The parents continue their practical devotion even if their children behave badly with them. At the most, the parents may scold their children for behaving badly with them, but there is no change in their practical devotion to the children! In this issue-devotion, it is very important to keep God in the place of the issues and to keep ourselves in the place of the parents; not vice versa! In other words, we should always practically serve God and sacrifice our money for God without expecting anything in return from Him and we should continue the practical devotion even if He responds negatively to us.



This issue-devotion should be taken as the guiding path for how our devotion to God should be. In issue-devotion, we see the essence of true devotion, which is theoretical devotion, and practical devotion involving service and sacrifice, without the aspiration of any fruit in return. In real life, when parents scold their ungrateful children for their bad behavior, it shows that the parents have lost theoretical devotion for their children. But in the case of God, we must be very careful about maintaining the purity of even our theoretical devotion along with the practical devotion.



We must remember that God is not in need of our service or sacrifice and that the practical devotion is only the proof of our theoretical devotion. There is another important point to note in the context of freedom from the aspiration for worldly fruits. Worldly fruits mean not only the fruits that are to be enjoyed in this world but also the fruits that are to be enjoyed in the upper worlds. The aspiration to escape from the punishments of our sins in hell and the aspiration to enjoy in heaven without doing good deeds here are also to be avoided.



In this second line of treatment for curing the worldly ambitions, it is clear that our good fruits get exhausted and the bad fruits grow more and more with increasing interest. The soul only goes deeper and deeper into difficulty and there seems to be no escape for the soul. How can it be called a treatment then? Actually, no matter how much the pending punishments grow with interest, one need not fear. In the wonderful administration of the kindest Lord, an escape and a chance for reformation is ever-present.



The golden path of the propagation of God’s spiritual knowledge can be adopted by any soul at any time. The work of propagation enables the soul to learn the knowledge deeply and get the grace of God. As the soul learns and propagates God’s spiritual knowledge, his misconceptions are eliminated. He realizes and repents for his sins. When he finally does not repeat the sins practically, he is said to have reformed. Upon getting permanently reformed, all his pending punishments are canceled by God since the punishments were only meant for reformation and not for revenge. However, the soul must choose to follow this path of reformation through spiritual learning and propagation.



The souls whose worldly ambitions are not cured even by the second line of treatment are thrown into the life cycles of animals, birds, worms and so on. This is not at all done for revenge but in fact, God is only fulfilling the soul’s desire. When the soul is simply attached to his worldly goals and refuses to rise above them, in spite of several efforts made by God, God finally gives the soul a congenial living atmosphere. In the animal births, the soul is driven only by materialistic goals like eating, drinking, and sex, which is exactly what these souls pursued in their lives as humans (sāmānyametat paśubhirnarāṇām). If apart from the strong desire for these worldly goals if the soul also has a lot of ego, it is thrown into the births of devils and demons (kṣipāmyajasramaśubhān āsurīśvaiva yoniṣu—Gita).



The important point is to delink our worldly ambitions from God and live like an atheist in the single aspect of taking worldly efforts to get worldly fruits. Of course, we should follow the atheist only in this single aspect and not follow him in the aspect of disbelieving the existence of God. The lack of belief in God drives the atheist to fulfill his excessive worldly ambitions even by sinful means, whereas the theist’s belief and devotion to God controls his ambition and prevents him from committing sins.



Mere belief and confidence in God does not bring any result. The belief must also be associated with theoretical and practical devotion to God. If you simply have faith and confidence in the prime minister, you will not be favored by him. You must come in contact with him as a real and sincere worker of his party. Then alone will he be pleased with you and favor you.



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- By Shri Datta Swami



Universal Spirituality for World Peace
 

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