Should we pray to God for things or just be content with what we have?

Podcast

Transcript

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so if we pray to God for something should we pray for a particular desire or just be content that others won’t have so many other things which I have so let me be content with what I have see to be conscious means to be desirous desire is a natural feature of consciousness so it’s not the problem is not desire themselves the problem is short sighted desires unhealthy desires and when we approach God praying is a way primarily to connect with God many people see praying as a as a cheaper way of shopping that is I pray to God and God will fulfill this well that’s underutilization of praying we see praying primarily as a means to connect with God and in that connection itself we will experience relief, we will experience strength we will experience clarity so we can desire but not demand that means we express our desire but we don’t make our relationship with God dependent on the fulfillment of that desire so God knows better than us what is best for us that’s why we can leave the fulfillment of the desire to God but we can definitely express if some desire is important for us we can express that asking a prayer itself is not a problem but making a relationship with God conditional to the fulfillment of the prayer that is a problem so I was in Atlanta one month ago so one person asked the same question if God is like our father then what’s wrong in asking Him for things I said there is nothing wrong in asking God for things but suppose you have a child and that child is staying somewhere in a hostel and that child calls you only when they need money and never else at one level you are happy that they are calling you at another level it is a very self-centered relationship so we call only when we need money, so like that if we approach God only when we need things and if we think that God doesn’t fulfill those things then why do I care about God when we are reducing our relationship with God to only the fulfillment of particular desires then it becomes a problem and sometimes God does fulfill our desires but in ways different from what we had thought, sometimes we may pray for a mango go to a forest, see a mango tree and pray for a mango and looking and looking and the mango is not falling but in the meanwhile from a neighborhood neighboring tree an apple has fallen so our hunger is fulfilled but as long as we are looking only for the mango we miss the apple so often there is a desire and there is a need underlying it the desire may not be fulfilled in the specific form but the need underlying it will be fulfilled so if we let the desire become a demand then our eyes become closed to other ways in which that underlying need is being fulfilled so if we open ourselves that we desire but we don’t make a demand then we stay open and we will be able to find out from other places that the desire is fulfilled and yes contentment is a virtue if we don’t if sometimes the desire is not fulfilled then we can surely look at those who don’t have any of the things which you already have and cultivate contentment but cultivating contentment does not mean being desireless it simply means that it simply means that we don’t let desires become the dominating force of our consciousness see when desires alone dominate our consciousness then they sentence us to perpetual dissatisfaction so we can have desires but we make sure that we also look at things which we have, look at the many things that are right in our life and cultivate satisfaction by that so satisfaction or contentment and desires both can be features of the consciousness if we are in charge of our inner world if we are not in charge of our inner world then we think that the desires will take control and then no matter how much we have we will not be contented does this answer your question?