Evagrius on Prayer | Swami Sarvapriyananda

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“Do not pray for the fulfillment of your wishes, for they may not accord with the will of God. But pray as you have been taught, saying: Thy will be done in me (cf. Luke 22:42). Always entreat Him in this way – that His will be done. For He desires what is good and profitable for you, whereas you do not always ask for this.” – Evagrius Ponticus.

Swami Sarvapriyananda speaks on Evagrius’s teachings on prayer.

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30 thoughts on “Evagrius on Prayer | Swami Sarvapriyananda”

  8. 38:00
    “We want to want it.”
    .. And that’s how I feel about consummate love. I want more to be God and the world my own sadistic pleasure, in which I may sit far, far above and sacrifice my son, betraying him and enjoying the goodness of his pain, as I pontificate on my being the same as he.

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  10. When the Lord stabilizes his barbed penis into those who refuse to sin, He will be needed to rescue us from His punishment he afflicts upon those who need to be rewarded. He needs to be rewarded through them.

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  12. Advaita Vedanta has great similarity with Buddhism. But Hindu monks are trying to find its similarity with Christianity. It is a kind of inferiority complex among Hindus. The dharma religions should come together and the Hindu monks should try to pursue this instead of finding common cause with Christians as they will keep on converting poor people in India

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  16. I am really grateful to Vedanta Society , Shri Ramkrishna, Swami Vivekanand and all other scholars and Monks who has simplified the ancient knowledge for common people. Could you please also explain Shiva Rudraksham meaning from Advaitya vedanta point of view?

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  17. You all forever want to be told what to do. Learn to live independently, learn to adapt to the uncertainties of life. You came with a body…when you leave there won't even be a body. What are you really running after? Why can't you just be? Effing monkeys, gleefully ignorant of your journey, jumping away from one branch to another.

    Listen to your inner self, it knows the answer. Shun everything else. How do we manage to do anything when we carry so much load? Remember the story of a tea being poured into the cup? Learn to be loyal to yourself first before you take up responsibilities of others. Do you know what you want? Life is a biggest teacher out there and is teaching you every single day. Why go look for any gurus? Your inner self knows the answer, just quiet down enough to listen to it. Stop being a monkey.

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  20. Pranam Swamiji! Thats all fine what you said but as long as there is no object of meditation i.e. an experienced, how can there be the split of an experiencer i.e. devotee and devoted? How can one pray to one who has no form or who is in no way relatable where an interaction is possible? If such be the case then the dissolution of the triplet is the only way and any devotion done to such an entity which is personal and yet not relatable in any manner is unscientific and impossible. Only an understanding of Vedanta can give one an understanding of how to proceed and such emotional act of surrendering to a personal and yet formless God makes no sense. The act of prayer instantly presupposes an entity prayed to, and if the one prayed to is formless, then who is praying to whom and what for? If one prays he inevitably creates or fancies an entity apart from himself i.e. the prayed and so He is not formless anymore and he himself drops down to the level of form but as his object of meditation is formless, so he constantly struggles to suppress his mind mechanically and is stucj between form and formless. Even if he succeeds, when the intensity of mental suppression comes down all the impure elements of the mind get re-awakened and he falls down eventually. But the yogic meditation on formless Ishvara is the constant act of recollecting one's absolute oneness with Him and so there is no split between himself and the Other as he contemplates on non-difference all the time. Thus, it is not prayer. Whereas in prayer, one wants something from God even if it is to be one with Him. That very want prevents him to attain oneness. Thus, it is impossible to attain to oneness with Divinity through prayer and attain liberation, though temporary peaceful states may be attained which is often mistaken as liberation, but is not. Meditation which includes japa is the only way and there is no other way where there is absolute oneness and liberation from samsara.

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  24. Prayers help to focus on concentration.
    Otherwise to become a sage it requires more than that.. Luck/ God's grace that happened to Sri Ramakrishna / Sri Ramana.
    I wish Swami come across Tamil wisdom through the books liike Thirumoolar/ Manikavasagar. The latter's book Thiruvasagam was translated in to English by the Christian theologean Rev Pope wo i also translated the famous Tamil book Thirukkural into English .

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