The Prayer that Baba Gave

At one of the sessions at the recent convention in Taupo, New Zealand, we were asked to discover the inner meaning of the words of a beautiful prayer that Baba gave us many years ago. To the great surprise of some of us, it was discovered that hardly anybody knew it. Nearly all Westerners know the ‘Our Father’ prayer, given by Jesus some 2,000 years ago. Even non-Westerners seem to have at least a nodding acquaintance with it. But even among Baba’s staunch devotees, few seem to know the prayers our present Avatar has given us. Of all the prayers He has given, this one is probably the most beautiful. As several people wanted me to put it in the newsletter, I give it here:

Oh Lord! Take my love and let it flow in fullness of devotion to Thee.
Oh Lord! Take my hands and let them work incessantly for Thee.
Oh Lord! Take my heart and let it be filled with overflowing love for Thee.
Oh Lord! Take my soul and let it be merged in one with Thee.
Oh Lord! Take my mind and thoughts and let them be in tune with Thee.
Oh Lord! Take my everything and let me be an instrument to work for Thee.

There is a feeling among some people that prayer is inferior to meditation as a means of contacting God, because most prayers are an ‘asking’, whereas meditation is seeking to experience God in oneness. There is certainly some truth in this if all one’s prayers are requests for worldly benefits; but prayers like the above one are in a very different category. This prayer is the expression of our desire to reach total surrender. It is also a statement of the ideal to which we aspire, and a promise of the way in which we want to live our lives.

There is also another important aspect to such prayers. If said every day, with full devotion and awareness of their meaning, they imprint themselves on our inner consciousness—our soul—and they slowly transform us. They can become an inner light that guides our life. They draw us, gently, into becoming an example of the true devotion expressed in the prayer. But, for that to happen, we have to be diligent in using the prayers as a tool for self-transformation. We must dwell mentally on the ideals expressed therein, and search for the inner implications of the words. Every word uttered by Baba has profound meaning, indeed, many levels of meaning; and we need to discover those meanings for ourselves, and allow them to work like a leaven in our inner consciousness.

Here are just a few of the meanings brought out during the break-out session at the convention.

Oh Lord! Take my love and let it flow in fullness of devotion to Thee.

We must ask ourselves what we mean by “fullness of devotion”. Do we mean joining our hands together in our prayer room and contemplating on Baba’s photo? Swami says, “Only by contemplating on God can one become God”, but He doesn’t mean just the outer form of God. This is obvious from His insistence on the importance of the Gayatri mantra. In that prayer, He wants us to contemplate on the fullness of God in His concretized form as creation (bhur), God as the vibration that sustains that creation (bhuva), and God as the infinite radiance (suvaha), the Paramatma [super soul], of which our own atma is an indissoluble part. Our contemplation should, therefore, result in our radiating the love that He is to all around us.

Oh Lord! Take my hands and let them work incessantly for Thee.

The word ‘incessantly’ is very revealing. He evidently doesn’t want us to take time off! If God is in everything and in everybody, working for Him obviously means being ever ready to serve—to serve Him in our family members, in the community at large and, indeed, in all living beings and creation itself. Service is love expressed in action.

Oh Lord! Take my heart and let it be filled with overflowing love for Thee.

‘Overflowing’—that, too, is a key to the inner meaning. God, who is love, keeps telling us that we are also embodiments of love, and He wants our love to overflow toward one and all. Bhagavan constantly reminds us that “Expansion is life; contraction is death”. Resentment, dislike, anger, hatred—these negative reactions to situations and people have a contracting effort on our souls. They strangle the life out of the divine spark of love in us. As the song says, we must ‘expand our hearts to encompass all.’

Oh Lord! Take my soul and let it be merged in one with Thee.

We often think that we can only merge with God once we are no longer in the body, but this is not so. We need to leave our attachment to the body, but that does not prevent us from walking around in it. If we can train ourselves to live in the moment, not constantly in the past or in the future, we will feel the constant presence of God. Baba says, “the present is omnipresent,” it is the Divine presence. If we walk always in that presence of God, our soul will be merged in that Divine presence. He wants us to aim at experiencing unity with Him, not just in the hereafter, but in the here and now. Indeed, unless we can achieve that oneness while still in the body, we are not yet ready to merge when we leave the body. As He says, “only like can merge with like.” It is a very high ideal that this prayer holds before our souls!

Oh Lord! Take my mind and thoughts and let them be in tune with Thee.

Yes—that wayward mind! We need to constantly ask ourselves, “Are my thoughts in tune with Baba’s teachings? Are they based on truth? Are they loving? Do they promote peace?” If we are mentally criticizing the actions of another, our thoughts are promoting discord, not peace. Even if we do not actually voice our criticism, the negative vibrations of our thoughts go out into the ether and pollute. Baba frequently tells us that our thoughts go out as vibrations that affect those around us. The more we can be in tune with God, the more our thoughts will become a harmonizing influence in the world. And, moreover, we ourselves will be at peace.

Oh Lord! Take my everything and let me be an instrument to work for Thee.

What could be more wonderful than having the honor of being an instrument that God can use for transforming the world? But an instrument does not say, ‘I want to do it this way, not that way.’ The hammer does not complain that the carpenter is using it merely for pulling out nails, instead of for hammering nice, fresh, shiny ones into the wood. Only the Master builder has the eventual plan in mind. We must be willing to be used as He wishes, and at whatever time He thinks best. That is surrender. I think we should all take a vow to learn this prayer by heart and to say it every day, every night. Let us make it a constant refrain in our daily life. When God gives us a prayer, He gives it for a purpose. Do not let us neglect His gift!

~Madeleine Guillemin
Source: Sathya Sai Baba Newsletter, New Zealand, Dec./Jan. 2004