Are prayers really meningless?

You can do a  lot.

Your puzzlement is due to Sansaric fog clouding your mind and is understandable.

Let me take this into two parts.

One – Why are prayers meaningless?

“Your word “belief” itself is a red flag.

Beliefs are only concepts – products of the human mind, and the mind believes them to be the truth (the belief that prayers work ),” I said.

But –

“Belief is not knowledge.” “ Beliefs can be challenged; knowledge ( of the truth ) cannot. ” I said.

“ Mind can believe anything and achieve a lot, but when it comes to taking you to the consciousness, it is useless.

It itself is the biggest obstacle.”

“In a subtle form, all prayers are expectations, and it doesn’t matter whether they are meant for you or others.

And expectations mean the mind is trying to control the future, which is not under its control. That’s the fallacy of the mind.

The future is under the domain of the consciousness, not ours. “

“So, prayers are futile exercises at best.”’I said.

Two – What else can we do instead of prayer?

If someone’s suffering bothers you that much, instead of praying for a better outcome, that is the best time for you to MEDITATE deeply on the transientness of human life ( which includes your own life also ).

We never learn from life events.

When a child is born, we get lost in celebration, but we never meditate over this beautiful miracle of life, where a thriving life has sprung out of Shunyata ( nothingness ).

How did that happen? Does this miracle make us humble? No.

Instead, we boast and show off, “This is my son !! ) – that’s all.

When someone’s death is approaching, all we do is, suffer and pray.

But we never wonder how a thriving, living, talking human being disappears into vast mystical nothingness, where he came from.
Isn’t that a miracle, also?

And

What is this nothingness?

It took seeing only one day of suffering for Gautama, the prince, to set out on a journey to find the cure for human suffering, and he did, and he became Buddha.

He didn’t sit down next to the suffering person, suffer with him and pray – as we do.

Every suffering in your life has the potential to open the gates of heaven for us and become a Buddha, but we miss out every time.

Prevailing praying culture has decimated chances for so many human personalities from becoming Buddha over thousands of years.

No – realize this.

Whole Sansar is sleeping in a big slumber, don’t stay asleep with them.

Wake up – and BE A BUDDHA.

If you have to pray, find Him first within you, and then you wouldn’t have to pray, prayer will arise from your bosom, and that’s the only genuine prayer.

Whatever actions we do in Sansar, if the Sansar ( which includes your Ego ) is in mind, we are lost in Sansar.

The same actions, if performed with consciousness in mind ( He is the actor, and we are a vehicle only ), then you can glide over the Sansar smoothly.

But you have to KNOW the consciousness first.

It took Buddha to see only one death to realize the nature of the whole Sansar to be impermanent.

He always said, “Taste an ocean from anywhere. It will taste salty. It is its nature.

You don’t have to drink the whole ocean to prove that it is salty.”

Buddha’s focus always was to go down to the essential nature of things.

That is the art of spirituality – to grasp the nature of things – the essence.

A simple technique – For example.

Go to a supermarket.

Walk by the aisle where all various sodas are being displayed.

One who is a typical Sansari will pass by very slowly, paying attention closely to all the different sodas – Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Sunkist, etc.

He will analyze each one for its flavors and will keep going back and forth, based on his likes and dislikes, as to which one will give him maximum pleasure.

Vs.

A Sanyasi will pass by the same aisle very quickly, knowing that “ It is all sugar, and I don’t consume sugar, period.”

He has understood the nature of the sodas – “sugar” and “tantalizing the senses,” and he passes by them in a breeze.

Same way, knowing the impermanence of nature, even once, should give us a jolt and wake us up to start looking for the permanent.

The knower of the impermanence is permanent.

Meditate on it.