Good morning friends
A few days ago, I was listening to an Osho discourse. Osho was asked his opinion about prayer. In response to this question, Osho narrated a story.
The story goes like this : A ship was sailing home after visiting many countries. It was near the home town when there was a huge storm in the sea. Strong winds were blowing and the ship started swaying from side to side. It looked like the ship would sink any moment and all the passengers would be drowned. In this ship was a rich merchant who was coming back from a business trip, carrying with him a lot of gold and diamonds and other treasures. He fell to his knees and started praying fervently to God, as was everyone else. He prayed to God “ Oh God, please save me. If I can return home safely, I will give you my mansion.”
The palatial mansion that this merchant owned was so beautiful that even the king of the country wanted to buy it; but so far, he had not sold it to anyone. Now, when he was looking at death in face, he offered this mansion to God .
Miraculously, within a few moments, the storm stopped suddenly and every thing was quiet. The ship was stable
once again and started sailing home.
Now the merchant started feeling a little sorry. He thought to himself, “I should have waited a little longer. I was in a hurry unnecessarily. The storm would have stopped anyway. Now I have promised my mansion to God.” But then he said to himself, “I am a businessman, I will find a way out of this.”
The next day he announced that there was an auction to sell his palatial mansion. Many kings and queens and rich people gathered near the mansion. They were surprised to find a cat tied to one of the pillars of the mansion. The merchant announced that whoever wants to buy the mansion has to buy the cat also. Both the things go together. You cannot buy just the mansion. And then he announced the price of the mansion and the cat. The cat would cost one million rupees while the mansion would be just one rupee. But of course, the condition was that you have to buy them both together.
The king of the country agreed for this deal and bought the cat and the mansion. Later he asked the merchant about this oddity. The merchant told him about the prayer and said, “I had promised God that I would donate him my mansion. Now I can donate the one rupee which I have got from the sale of the mansion to God and keep the 1 million from the sale of the cat for myself. I know how to do my business.”
This story is a real eye opener, isn’t it ?
Osho says, for the majority of people, prayer is a business. Prayer is bargaining. People tell God, if you give me this, I will give you this in return. There is no real sense of gratitude in almost all the prayers that are happening all over the world.
In the same story, Osho has talked about how a saint in the same ship behaved differently during the crisis. But more about that tomorrow.
In the meantime, I hope that we train ourselves to not look upon prayer as a business.
Love,
Anjali Bhatawdekar
