The Business of Prayer

Since yest tht I have put in my visa application, all around me started don’t get tensed n pray to god and ask him to give you the study permit.. so just this my view point so hope everyone who reads it gets the message across..

A famous Sufi story is that a ship is coming back to its home country. It is full of businessmen coming home. Suddenly the ocean goes mad, and the ship is on the verge of sinking. Everybody starts praying. But there was a Sufi who was simply sitting there, not praying.

People became angry; they said, “You are a religious man, wearing the green robe of a Sufi. What kind of a Sufi are you? You should have been the first one to pray. And we are not religious people; we are just businessmen but we are offering God, ‘we will give you this, we will give you that. Just save us.’ why are you not praying?”

He said, “You have already said it: because I am not a businessman. If he wants to finish us all, good. If he wants to save us, good. It is his business. I am in total agreement with him. Why should I pray? Prayer means some disagreement; something is happening which you don’t want to happen. You want God to interfere, to stop it.”

On board was the most wealthy, most famous man of the country and he was coming with millions of diamonds and precious stones. He had a beautiful palace in the town - a most beautiful marble palace. When the ship was almost sunk, the man shouted to God, “Listen, I give that palace to you, just save me!” and as it happened, the winds disappeared, the ocean became calm and the ship was saved. They reached the bank.

Now the rich man was in great difficulty because of what he had said. He said to the Sufi, “Perhaps you were right just to keep quite. If I had followed you, I would not have lost my palace. But I am a businessman and I will find a way.” And he found a way.

The next day he put up his palace for auction. He informed all the nearby kingdoms, whoever interested. Many kings and rich people came; everybody was interested. They were all puzzled to see that just in front of the palace, there was a cat chained to a marble pillar. The rich man came out and said, “This palace and the cat, both are up for auction together. The price of the cat is one million dollars and the price of the palace, one dollar.”

The king of the country said, “Yes, I will give you the price, but please tell me , what is the secret of this cat and the palace?’

And he said, “No secret – I just got into trouble because of a prayer. I have told god that ‘I will give you the palace.’ The cat, one million dollars – I will keep. And the palace: one dollar – that will go to the God’s fund.”

Prayer is just the effort to persuade God to do things according to you. And it is absolutely your imagination. In the first place, you don’t know God. You don’t know his likes and dislikes. This is a poor state of affairs, and this is happening all over the world. But as for me I have known n realized tht I believe in god and I hv got all tht I deserved sometimes n something more thn I deserved… so I just like god n life the way it is !