The Prayer

(On occasion of 131st Session of Brahmo Conference, Hyderabad, 29 October 2022)

यो देवः सर्व भूतेषु ब्रह्मरूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः||
यो देवः सर्व भूतेषु आत्मरूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः||
यो देवः सर्व भूतेषु सत्यरूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः||
यो देवः सर्व भूतेषु ज्ञानरूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः||
यो देवः सर्व भूतेषु शान्तिरूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः||
यो देवः सर्व भूतेषु आनन्दरूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः||
यो देवः सर्व भूतेषु अमृतरूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः|
यो देवः सर्व भूतानां स्वामिरूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः||
यो देवः सर्व भूतानां गुरुरूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः||
यो देवः सर्व भूतानां मित्ररूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः||
यो देवः सर्व भूतानां पितृरूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः||
यो देवः सर्व भूतानां मातृरूपेण संस्थितः| नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमः तस्मै नमो नमः||

ॐ यो देवोग्नौ योऽप्सु यो विश्वं भुवनमाविवेश |
य ओषधीषु यो वनस्पतिषु तस्मै देवाय नमो नमः||
(We bow down again and again to the Almighty God who dwells in Fire, Water, in the Entire Universe, in the Herbs and Trees.)

Maharshi Devendranath Tagore has very aptly collected a bunch of verses from Upanishads describing the Almighty God by means of his qualities (Gunas) and put them together in the form of a small verse. He is the Eternal Formless Sagun Brahma.
ॐ सत्यं ज्ञानमनन्तं ब्रह्म |आनन्दरूपममृतं यद् विभाति ||
शान्तं शिवमद्वैतम् | शुद्धम् अपापविद्धम् ||
He is Creator, Protector and Giver of all happiness, the Life of all life and Fount of all good, from Whose grace we derive our body and mind, our intellect and strength, our wisdom and piety. He is the constant Protector of our body and mind from manifold disasters. He is the True, All-wise and Infinite Brahma, revealing Himself in Bliss and Immortality. He is Peace, Righteousness, the One above all.
He is the Store of Knowledge and of Truth, of Perfect Bliss and of Immortality, of Peace, of Piousness and of Purity. He is in unison with the universe. He is Unblemished by evil. All these qualities scale up to infinity in Him. God or Parabrahma is Formless and has the ten qualities, virtues, attributes, mentioned in this verse, scaled up to infinity. The purpose of Prayer of the Formless and Sagun, Virtuous God is to acquire these virtues within us. If the prayer has to serve this purpose, we must prepare ourselves with not just a clean body but also with a pure and clear mind.

Come, let us sing to His glory. Let us resolve to drive away the six enemies, the shad-ripus, from our mind. We all have, to more or less extent, the six enemies, kaam, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsar, within us. We must, at least partially, drive away these enemies so that there will be some space in our mind to accommodate at least a small part of these ten qualities, virtues of Formless God.

या हो करूनी निर्मल मन | करूं भगवंताचे भजन ||
जगदुद्धारक भवभयहारक | करी सकल सृष्टीचे पालन ||
विषयसागरी बळेचि बुडुनी | का भ्रमवावे आपुले मन ||
व्यर्थ अहंकृती मनी न धरूनी | करूं देहबुद्धीचे भंजन ||
सोडुनि मत्सरभाव मनीचा | करूं बंधुप्रीतीचे वर्धन ||
होऊनि नित्य लीन निरंतर | करूं प्रभूचे कौतुकवर्णन ||

How to purify the mind? For this, we must control our desire, must not become overambitious; we must learn to control anger. The true story of Sant Eknath is exemplary in this regard. One morning, after taking a bath in the river Godavari, Sant Eknath was returning home when a gambler waiting by the roadside spitted at him to enrage him. Eknath, however, didn’t utter a word and went back to the river and took bath again. On his return path the gambler spitted at him again, and once again Sant Eknath went back to the river Godavari for taking bath. This continued until noon, when the tired gambler asked why Eknath didn’t get angry. Eknath answered, “Both body and mind need to be clean while worshiping God. Spitting made my body dirty, and it was easy to clean it. But it would be difficult to clear my mind if I get angry.” The speechless man touched Sant Eknath’s feet. Sant Eknath was known as Shantibrahma. He had removed anger completely out of his mind. We come across many incidents where the career of people exerting excessive greed or ego got ruined. We have to remove greed and ego from our mind for getting a peaceful life. It is natural to get affected by shad-ripus some time or the other. We need strength to drive those away; and for that we have to pray to Omniscient God with full devotion and love. Bhagwad Geeta says :
तेषां सततयुक्तानां भजतां प्रीतिपूर्वकम् |
ददामि बुद्धियोगं तं येन मामुपयान्ति ते ||१०-१०||
(To those whose minds are always united with Me in loving devotion, I give the divine knowledge by which they can attain Me.)
Let us pray, therefore, Almighty God for attaining the Divine Knowledge. O Dear God, inspire us to be friend of all beings, and help us to become free from false ego. O Bhagawan, make us more tolerant, satisfied, self-controlled, equal towards happiness and distress. O Dear God, give us determination to be engaged in devotional service to You, with our mind and intellect concentrated on You. O Paramatman, keep our hearts free from all evil thoughts, make us diligent in righteous deeds. Fill us with love to think always of Your boundless glory and ultimately attain eternal union with You. O Dear God, inspire us to be always truthful, to be constant knowledge-seekers, to become peace-loving and tolerant human beings.

देई ज्ञान दिव्य ज्ञान | देई प्रीति शुद्ध प्रीति ||
तू मंगलालया | तू मंगलालया ||
धैर्य वीर्य देई | तितीक्षा संतोष देई ||
विवेक वैराग्य देई | दे तव चरणाश्रया ||

Children, you have just now heard a story of three princes and parrots. The take away from this story is: incorporate in our day-to-day behaviour the realization that God is everywhere. This is of utmost importance. Brahmo Samaj believes in ONE GOD Who is present everywhere. God is Truth, God is Happiness, God is Peace, God is Cleanliness; but He is Formless. Vedas and Upanishads say this very clearly. God created the universe. The universe remains in the present state because of Him; and in the end it will merge into Him. He is eternal, the Brahma.
Interestingly, the Kena Upanishad (२-३) says :
यस्यामतं तस्य मतं मतं यस्य न वेद सः |
अविज्ञातं विजानतां विज्ञातम् अविजानताम् ||
(One who thinks he has not understood Brahma, he has understood It; and one who thinks he has understood It, he has not understood It. Those who say, “we know Brahma”, they don’t know It, and those who say, “we don’t know Brahma”, they know It !) In short, Brahma is very difficult to understand. Brahma or God is beyond perception of our mind, our intellect and our speech. Without bathing oneself in the nectar emanating from devotion to God, no one can know Him.
भक्ती करो तभी जानो
Sant Tukaram says in one abhang that the identity of God is difficult to perceive by mind, intellect and speech. Hence he makes devotion – bhakti – as a measure. He measures the Infinite with the help of this unit of devotion – the bhakti . It is not possible to measure God by any other unit or means. God is neither attainable by performing physical acts such as yajna, tapa or yoga alone; nor can He be found even by obtaining knowledge. Sant Tukaram says further in this abhang “O God, accept my lovingly performed service the way I am performing it.”
Thus, the knowledge of God is not a result of intellectual gymnastics, but a consequence of divine grace. God bestows His grace upon those who unite their mind with Him in devotion.

मनवाचातीत तुझे हे स्वरूप | म्हणोनिया माप भक्ती केले ||
भक्तीचिया मापें मोजितो अनंता | इतराने तत्त्वता न मोजवे ||
योगयागतपे देवाचिया योगें | ज्ञानाचिया लागें न सांपडसी ||
तुका म्हणे आम्ही भोळ्या भावें सेवा | घ्यावी जी का देवा करितों ऐसी ||

Spinoza was a philosopher of Holland in the 17th century. Albert Einstein was in favour of the concept of God put forth by Spinoza. According to Spinoza’s theory, the whole universe is made of a “substance”. This substance pervades everything. Spinoza says, ” By God, I understand ‘a being’ absolutely infinite, that is, ‘a substance’ consisting of an infinity of attributes of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence.” Isn’t this ‘substance’ very close to the ‘Brahma’ ?

A natural corollary of the concept of all pervading Brahma is the principle “brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God” in which Brahmo Samaj believes. The actions endorsed by tenets of Brahmo Samaj can be formulated in the following five points, the Panchashil of Brahmo Samaj : *Humanize, *Equalize, *Spiritualize, *Have rational thinking / scientific temper, *Do righteous deeds.
This Panchashil is also reflected in the Constitution of India, Article 51A, Duties and Responsibilities of Citizens of India.

O Almighty God, inspire us to follow this Panchashil in our life.
“Bless us with an imperishable dispensation, by which knowledge becomes proactive and acts become knowledge based, by which millions of voices sing together that discrimination on the ground of caste, creed and religion goes away, by which Science bows down at the feet of Compassion, by which we understand that ‘humanism’ is the meaning of religion, respecting physical labour is pilgrimage, by which our hearts are filled with fearless pride of equality, by which we realise that salvation is in service to humanity, by which we are ready to take the test of alertness for justice, and by which ‘the entire universe is our family’ becomes a guiding principle for us.”
ज्ञान बनो कर्मशील कर्म ज्ञानवान |पुण्यमयी दे आम्हा अक्षर वरदान ||
जातिभेद वंशभेद धर्मभेद दूर |लाख लाख कंठांतुन हाच एक सूर |
करुणेच्या चरणांशी नत हो विज्ञान ||
माणुसकी धर्माचा अर्थ जाणतो |श्रमनिष्ठा हे पवित्र तीर्थ मानतो |
हृदयातुन समतेचा निर्भय अभिमान ||
सेवेतच मुक्ती ही मंगल दीक्षा |न्यायास्तव जागृति ही सत्वपरीक्षा |
” हे विश्वचि घर अमुचे” मंत्र हा महान ||
(Marathi poem by Mangesh Padgaonkar)

ॐ सर्वेऽपि सुखिनः सन्तु सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः |सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु न कश्चित् दुःखभाग् भवेत् ||

भवतु सब्ब मंगलम् | भवतु सब्ब मंगलम् ||

अन्यथा शरणं नास्ति त्वमेव शरणं मम |तस्मात् कारुण्यभावेन रक्ष मां परमेश्वर ||

|| ॐ ब्रह्मकृपा हि केवलम् ||
|| ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ||
|| हरिः ॐ ||