DIVINE PRAYER SERVICE

(Conducted on 23-02-2025 at the online monthly Upasana of Delhi Brahmo Samaj)

Namaskar! Let us begin the prayer by reciting a verse in salutation to the All pervasive God.
ॐ देवोऽग्नौ योप्सु यो विश्वं भुवनमाविवेश |
य ओषधीषु यो वनस्पतिषु तस्मै देवाय नमो नमः||
This verse from Shwetashwatar Upanishad is very popular in Brahmo Samaj. Its literary meaning goes like this : We salute again and again the God who is in the fire, who is in the water, who is in the herb, who is in the biggest forest tree, who has entered into the whole universe.

It can be seen that the all pervading principle called “Brahma” in Vedas is also referred to as “God”.

Let us recite an Abhang by Saint Tukaram:
कासियाने पूजा करू केशिराजा | हाचि संदेह माझा फेडी आता ||१||
उसके न्हाणू तरी स्वरूपही तुझे | तेथे काय माझे वेचे देवा ||२||
गंधाचा सुगंध पुष्पाचा परिमळ | तेथे मी दुर्बळ काय वाहू ||३||
वाहू दक्षिणा तरी धातू नारायण | ब्रह्म तेचि अन्न दुजे काही ||४||
गाता तू ओंकार टाळी नादेश्वर | नाचावया थार नाही कोठे ||५||
फळदाता तूच तांबूल अक्षता | तरी काय आता वाहो तुज ||६||
तुका म्हणे मज अवघे तुझे नाम | धूप दीप नारायण हरि ||७||
Saint Tukaram says in this Abhang that he is confused as to how to worship God. Conventionally an idol of God is worshipped by first bathing with water and then adorning with sandalwood paste and fragrant flowers. This is followed by offering betel leaf, metallic currency coin, rice grains and some fruits and food items. Lamp and incense sticks are lit in front of the idol. Bhajan is sung and dance is also performed in praise. Tukaram is aware of all these traditional rituals observed in idol worship; but his presumption is that anything offered to God must first belong to the worshipper himself. This basic presumption puts Tukaram in confusion. He realises that God dwells in water, so how can God be bathed in water in which He is dwelling? God dwells in the fragrance of sandal paste and flowers; so Tukaram finds himself too weak to find something of his own to adorn God with. On thinking of offering currency coin to God he realises that God dwells in the metal. On thinking of offering food items to God he realises that food itself is Poornabrahma. He also realises that fruits, betel leaves, rice grains are all God given. When he tries to sing in praise of God, he realises that the origin of music – the Omkar – is God, and the origin of rhythm is also God. On trying to dance for God he realises that the land on which he dances is God and therefore there is no place for him to dance. Then the revelation comes to him that the only way to worship God is to remember him.

The ब्रह्मस्वरूप God is formless yet virtue full – निराकार सगुण ब्रह्म. Maharshi Devendra Narh Tagore on deep study of Upanishads compiled the virtues – attributes of Brahma in a small verse which has become the मूलमंत्र of Brahmo Samaj. It goes like this :

ॐ सत्यं ज्ञानम् अनन्तं ब्रह्म | आनन्दरूपम् अमृतं यद् विभाति || शान्तं शिवम् अद्वैतम् | शुद्धम् अपापविद्धम् ||

The ब्रह्मस्वरूप God is Truth. God is Knowledge. God is Infinite with neither origin nor end. God is Peace. God is the Epitome of Sacredness. God is in unison with the created universe – अद्वैत. God is Purity and is untarnished by sin.

O Parabrahma Parameshwar! You are the Truth Infinite. You are ‘Satya’ – the One who is always – ‘Satat’ – there, ‘Nitya’ – Eternal. We pray to You to help us to be truthful always, and honest always in our life. O Parabrahma Parameshwar! You are the Bliss and Love Infinite. We pray to You to inspire us to seek Your presence in all the others and inspire us to love all. O Paramatman! You are Knowledge Infinite. We pray to You to inspire us to strive for acquiring knowledge and use it for the welfare of the society and objects in the universe, in general, the nature, created by You.

O Parampita Parameshwar! We are your creation. You dwell within us; but it takes very long for us to realise this. All Your attributes also dwell within us, in an incipient state though. From the moment we are born, however, Your attributes within us start becoming obscure due to encroaching the six groups of enemies – अरिषड्वर्गा: – namely, काम – desire, क्रोध – anger, लोभ – temptation, मोह – illusion, मद – ego, मात्सर्य – jealousy. You have left it to us whether to nurture Your attributes dwelling in us or to succumb to the six enemies. We pray to You – our Savior – to enlighten us with your presence within us, and help us to drive away the six enemies from our minds, and lead us to the righteous path. असतो मा सद्गमय – Lead us untruth to truth. तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय – Take us away from the darkness of ignorance and lead us to the light of knowledge.

God has given man an extraordinary gift – the intellect, unlike any other animal on the earth. A byproduct of intellect is the ability of man to acquire profound knowledge. The learned sages of ancient India differentiated knowledge into two categories – knowledge of God – ज्ञान and knowledge about the world – विज्ञान – science. When we observe the world, the nature around us, we find that nature follows certain rules. For example, everyday the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west. All rivers originate high in mountains, flow downward and meet the sea at the lowest reference level on the earth surface. Plants grow in the direction of light. A wheat seed on germination produces only wheat plant which in turn produces wheat seeds. Apart from these simple rules observable to everyone, scientists have discovered many more rules operating in nature with the help of their intellect and man-made devices. Science and technology harness the discovered rules of nature for further progress. The rules or the laws of nature, however, are not created by science and technology. Consider, for example, the gravitational law. Science has discovered that a gravitational force of attraction, F, operates between two objects with masses M-1 and M-2 separated by distance R is given by the expression F = G × M-1 × M-2 ÷ R square. Science, however, does not have any explanation as to why there is an R square and not an R cube or R square root in the expression. There is an R square and that’s it! It’s a law. Noone can question it. Nature or world is full of such rules or laws operating within it and controlling various processes occurring naturally.

Is it not amazing?

The laws of nature are nothing but the knowledge filled in nature.

Combining these two things, the natural inference drawn by our intellect that laws of nature are the knowledge filled in nature and knowledge is one of the attributes of formless virtueful all pervading God we reach an outcome logically which says that “The knowledge filled in nature in the form of laws of nature is the formless virtueful God dwelling in nature in the form of one of His attribute called knowledge.” Extending this logic it can be said that science explores the attribute “knowledge” of the formless virtueful God.

Man is found to harness science for achieving worldly pleasures and also for causing destruction. In doing so many is ignoring the real message of science. If we look into various disciplines of science with a different perspective, all of them will appear to give the same message that everything in this universe is bound together by a common thread. A common principle flows through the entire universe. Biology tells us that bodies of all the different living organisms are made of the smallest living units called cells with the same general structure for all. Chemistry tells us that all the different animate and inanimate objects in the universe are ultimately made of about hundred different atoms which are different combinations of primarily only three different elementary particles. Physics describes a large number of laws of nature, and also discovers their interconnectedness; and is progressing to discover a unifying theory from which all the laws of physics emerge as special cases.

Our country celebrates the month of February as Science Month (28 th February as Science Day). Presently various scientific institutions are organising Science Programmes for the public at large. Science stands for reasoning power, rational approach. Science has progressed over the last few centuries because of the rational approach in interpreting the correct observations made. Combining this rational approach of science with its unifying message will make science a perfect boon for humanity.

O Parabrahma Parameshwar! O Epitome of Knowledge! We pray to You to help us acquire knowledge, inspire us to recognise the unifying message of science and ignite our minds with the determination to apply science and technology for the welfare of humanity and for conservation of the nature You created and You dwell in. Bless us. Bless us. Bless us.

|| ॐ ब्रह्मकृपा हि केवलम् ||