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Kabira Khara Bazaar Mein,
Mange Sabki Khair.
Na Kahu Se Dosti,
Na Kahu Se Bair.

Kabir says – PRAYER IS AN EXPERIENCE OF RESURRECTION, A REBIRTH, the birth of a new vision, a new dimension, a new way of looking at things, and a new way of being. Prayer is not something that you do: prayer is something that you become. It is a state of being. It has nothing to do with the words that you utter in the temples, mosques, churches. It is a silent dialogue with existence. It is to be in tune with the total with the whole. To fall in harmony with the whole is prayer .

The experience is so enormous that it is impossible to be exact about it. It is indefinable. All definitions fall short. Each definition says something about it, but only something. Much remains unsaid.

And prayer is such a vast experience that it contains contradictions. So one can say: Prayer is silence – and he is right, absolutely right. And another can say: Prayer is a dialogue – and he is right too, because prayer is a dialogue in silence. Now, dialogue and silence seem to be contradictory. In dialogue you speak, in silence you hear. In dialogue you communicate, in silence you are simply there – there is nothing to say.

Both the definitions are true. Those who say prayer is a dialogue – Christians say that, Jews say that, Hindus say that – they are right. But they are talking only about one fragment of the enormous experience called prayer. Buddhists say: There is no dialogue. Jainism says: There is no dialogue – because there is no ‘I’ and no ‘thou.’ There is absolute silence. They are also right, but then it is very difficult to be exact about prayer.

It HAS to remain vague. It has to remain incomprehensible. You can have only glimpses of it, fleeting glimpses, but you cannot have the whole of prayer in your hands. It can’t be reduced to a simple definition. Just as science gives definitions, religion cannot give them. You ask science: science is exact. You ask ”What is water?” and it says ”H2O.” So simple! Nothing is left behind H2O – all is said, because water is an object. It can be analyzed.

Prayer is subjectivity. It is not an object that can be analyzed. In fact, you cannot show your prayer to anybody. And if somebody insists that “I don’t see any prayer in you,” you cannot prove it either. It is like love – less like water, more like love. That’s why Jesus says: God is love. Love is also indefinable.

Always remember one thing: there are things below you and there are things above you. Things that are below you, you can be exact about them. Things that are above you, you cannot be exact about them. They are bigger than you. When prayer exists, it is not that prayer exists in you – on the contrary, YOU EXIST IN PRAYER. Prayer is higher than you. You just vibrate in that enormous dimension, that plenitude.

But we have been taught, to be exact about everything. That has destroyed many beautiful values in life, that constant desire to be exact. And if you cannot be exact about something, then the mind tries to deny it.