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Insightful prayer

CHENNAI : It is human nature to turn to God only in times of distress when it becomes clear that it is not possible to overcome the situation with human ingenuity. The objective of prayer in most cases is to elicit divine grace to overcome the vicissitudes of life as it is a rare individual who can face them with equanimity of mind. But there are exceptions to every rule. The Bhagavata Purana, which begins with the aftermath of the Mahabharata war, has an insightful prayer by Kunti when Lord Krishna went to take leave of the Pandavas. He had just saved Abhimanyu's child (Pareekshit), growing in Uttara's womb then, from the burning missile discharged by Ashwatthama with the intention of exterminating the lineage of the Pandavas.

In their discourse, Damal Sri Ramakrishnan and Srimathi Perundevi Seshadri said it was a moment of reckoning for the Pandavas, which made Kunti recall Lord Krishna's acts of grace that had enabled them to surmount the setbacks and persecution by Duryodana throughout their lives. With overwhelming gratitude she recalled His gracious intervention in crises and prayed, "May calamities befall us at every step through eternity, O Teacher of the world; for it is in adversity alone that we are blessed with Your sight, which eliminates the possibility of our seeing another birth. A man whose birth, power, learning and affluence only serve to swell his pride is unable even to utter Your name, You being open to the perception of only those who have nothing to call their own."

It may seem odd that a devotee would pray for sorrows but Kunti's raison d'être was different. She wanted the Lord's company all the time and also the mental disposition to remember Him. As it is human nature to attribute the cause of success to oneself, and forget the Lord during happy occasions, her reasoning must have been that prosperity only distanced one from God and hence she did not want it. Narayana Bhattatiri also wonders in his hymn Narayaneeyam why when the Lord who is so difficult to realise had become accessible in image form at Guruvayur, people run after worldly objects.

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