E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Now N-terrorism
THERE is no exaggeration in External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh's assertion that the epicentre of international terrorism is located in Pakistan. It has been like this ever since the monster showed its presence in our part of the world. The situation has changed little since the September 11 terrorist strike on the symbols of the American military and economic might.

Employment on agenda
WHILE the Union Government has identified some 17,000 surplus jobs which can be axed as part of its downsizing drive, the Planning Commission’s special group on employment has set a target of creating 10 million jobs every year during the 10th Plan period (2002-07).

Russia+NATO=?
IT is doubtful whether anyone in the Ministry of External Affairs has bothered to study the ramifications for India of the formal launching of the NATO-Russia military alliance. All the members of NATO, including Mr George W. Bush and Mr Tony Blair and Russian President Vladimir Putin, put their signatures on the historic document amidst unprecedented security at the venue of the summit in Italy on Tuesday.

OPINION

Of diplomacy, rhetoric and terror
Ground reality matters most
Inder Malhotra
Yes, Mr Prime Minister, we ought to have given a “fitting reply” to the sponsors of cross-border terrorism on the very day of the dastardly attack on Indian Parliament, the sanctum sanctorum of the temple of democracy.

Opposition backs Narayanan for another term
Much to the discomfiture of the ruling BJP-led NDA, the Congress and the Left parties are backing Mr K.R. Narayanan for a second term as the President. The Leader of the Opposition, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, who called on him on Tuesday came away convinced that the First Citizen is not averse to continuing as the country’s constitutional head.

• Underplaying the war conundrum

• Al-Qaeda-gemstone connection

Power of prayer can make a difference
Satish K. Kapoor
Prayer is the language of the heart. It is a dialogue with the Divine. It is a supplication addressed to some natural object, personal god, godling, guru, pir, sage, tirthankara, bodhisattva or the Supreme Lord for the fulfilment of desires, spiritual communion, penitence or thanksgiving.

Improving liver cancer survival
Though not trumpeted in front-page headlines, cancer researchers using high-tech non-surgical treatments are drastically improving the odds of survival for patients with liver cancer.

EDITORIALS

Now N-terrorism

THERE is no exaggeration in External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh's assertion that the epicentre of international terrorism is located in Pakistan. It has been like this ever since the monster showed its presence in our part of the world. The situation has changed little since the September 11 terrorist strike on the symbols of the American military and economic might. The USA as the leader of the coalition against terrorism wrongly believed that the epicentre lay in Afghanistan. It was misled perhaps because of the visible presence of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network and its supporters in the ruling Taliban group there. The super power failed to come to grips with the reality even when Pakistan-sponsored terrorists struck at India's Parliament complex on December 13. Not only that. It made a serious mistake when Pakistan was accorded an undeserving honour by its inclusion in the anti-terrorism coalition, whatever the compulsions. The truth then was that Afghanistan under the Taliban was an extension of Pakistan. The destructive elements had their initial bases in that country which had been virtually controlling Afghanistan as one of its provinces through the Taliban for purposes of strategic depth. The original terrorist labs that existed in Pakistan or the occupied part of Kashmir were reactivated after the forces manning them got the impression that there would be no Afghanistan-type action against these networks. Their operations were Kashmir-centric at this stage, but could be turned against the interests of the USA and its allies in the coming months and years. India has been the most well-known victim of the monster for over two decades, but the world community never took it seriously. It got confused with the Pakistani propaganda that camouflaged cross-border terrorism as "moral, political and diplomatic support" to the "struggle for self-determination".

One could believe that the global community was getting nearer the truth when Gen Pervez Musharraf was forced to make certain commitments in his January 12 speech. But sufficient pressure was never brought to bear on him to show results at the ground level. World leaders are unnerved today because of the emergence of war clouds over the subcontinent's horizon jeopardising their strategic and politico-economic interests. But they are making a mistake again. Pakistan is openly providing proof of transforming cross-border terrorism into nuclear terrorism by not only threatening to use its "ultimate weapon" against India but also test-firing nuclear-capable anti-ballistic missiles at a time when the region is in the grip of a serious crisis. The super power and its allies are just silent spectators. Today India is sought to be terrorised with weapons of mass destruction. Tomorrow it may be some other country. So far as India is concerned, it is capable of defending its interests, and the enemy and its benefactors know it. This country cannot be cowed by gimmicks like Pakistan’s poor demonstration of its nuclear weapon delivery power. When India says, like a mature and responsible nation, that it will stick to its declared "no first use" policy in the face of any provocation, it is definitely sure of its capacity to punish the enemy in adequate measure. Mr Jaswant Singh is right. There is nothing in Pakistan's "antics" for India to get "greatly impressed". 

Employment on agenda

WHILE the Union Government has identified some 17,000 surplus jobs which can be axed as part of its downsizing drive, the Planning Commission’s special group on employment has set a target of creating 10 million jobs every year during the 10th Plan period (2002-07). While the group has told the government to undertake labour-intensive projects, government institutions and PSUs are getting technology savvy and shedding undesirable jobs. The Fifth Pay Commission, while recommending a substantial increase in salaries, had asked the government to sack at least 3,50,000 employees. After four years, the government has found only half of that number expendable. The apparently contradictory government policies actually indicate that jobs are moving from one area to another. The flabby administration is dropping jobs, while development activities like infrasrtucture building, road projects and housing are generating employment. The post-1991 economic reforms, it is widely believed, have led to a jobless growth. The latest NSSO figures, however, reveal that jobs have been increasing as fast as the workforce. Unfortunately, there is no organised mechanism to identify areas that need manpower and to what extent. There are no linkages with educational institutions to impart the required skills. The mismatch between demand and supply is a major reason for the alarming level of unemployment. There is not even a reliable record of the number of the unemployed in the country. That the employment exchanges do not give a correct picture is all too known.

The government role and jobs may be shrinking, but the Centre and the states cannot escape the responsibility for the grim unemployment situation. Before providing jobs, it is necessary to create a dependable, corruption-free mechanism to provide employment. What has happened in Punjab should not be allowed elsewhere to happen. To achieve the target of creating 50 million jobs in five years, the group on employment has identified areas where labour-intensive projects can be undertaken and also suggested far-reaching changes in policies relating to agriculture, food processing, small and medium units and khadi and village industries. Besides, there are non-traditional areas like information technology and biotechnology which will throw up future jobs. The manufacturing sector growth has slowed down while the services sector is set to boom. Tourism is another sector with huge possibilities of employment generation. Vast areas of land currently lying in neglect can be used for undertaking a mass-level afforestation drive and funds for such projects are not a problem. Hurdles with regard to self-employment projects have largely remained unaddressed. Officialdom discourages youth from undertaking any creative or risky ventures. There is no dearth of ideas, projects and funds in the country. The problem lies with the political leadership’s misplaced priorities. If development becomes the nation’s number one priority, the problem of unemployment will itself be taken care of.

Russia+NATO=?

IT is doubtful whether anyone in the Ministry of External Affairs has bothered to study the ramifications for India of the formal launching of the NATO-Russia military alliance. All the members of NATO, including Mr George W. Bush and Mr Tony Blair and Russian President Vladimir Putin, put their signatures on the historic document amidst unprecedented security at the venue of the summit in Italy on Tuesday. Neither did the Indian media nor External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh consider the development important enough to be brought up at the press conference that was called for explaining India's official response to General Pervez Musharraf's televised addressed on Monday. As far as the developed world is concerned, Russia and NATO signed an agreement, that heralds a new era of post-Cold War cooperation. Under the terms of the agreement Russia will have more authority than earlier. But it will use its position and authority as an important member of the new joint council for nudging Moscow closer to the West. Mr Putin is a hard-boiled realist who knows that without the help of the West the Russian economy will take ages to revive. A glimpse at the history of the birth and growth of NATO as the most powerful military alliance of a group of nations may help explain the significance of Tuesday's summit at a resort in Italy. NATO was born on April 4, 1949, as a joint mechanism for protecting member nations from the kind of military threat and trauma that visited most of Europe after World War II. That is why a divided Germany was not among the founding members of the organisation.

The birth of NATO also took care of the posturing of the Soviet Union and its East European allies during the Cold War era. To counter the influence of NATO the Soviet Union and its allies created the Warsaw Pact. However, the Soviet Union, with considerable help from America, collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions and the Warsaw Pact too was formally dissolved in 1991. There was debate on the raison d'etre of persisting with NATO even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany. However, in a unipolar world threat to global security from "other sources" was touted as the reason for keeping NATO alive. The new buzz word is global terrorism. Pray, what is the collective military might of the so-called "other sources" that made NATO include the former Soviet allies in East Europe in its list of members and now launch a Russia-NATO alliance? Is such an alliance necessary for fighting global terrorism - -a rootless form of causing global mayhem? It is inconceivable that the combined might of the new council can make China lose sleep. And the remaining countries are caught in the act of balancing the contradiction between reviving the economy and at the same time building their arsenal for protection against and from each other! India should be particularly more worried than other nations for the simple reason that it first lost the protection of the Soviet Union and now for all practical purposes of the economically weak yet militarily strong Russian republic. In the current round of tension it has been indirectly told that Washington is with Islamabad without appearing to be against Delhi. Indian foreign policy has remained stagnant for far too long. It is time for it to be reinvented keeping in mind the fast changing global reality, and the creation of the NATO-Russia joint council is one such development.

OPINION

Of diplomacy, rhetoric and terror
Ground reality matters most
Inder Malhotra

Yes, Mr Prime Minister, we ought to have given a “fitting reply” to the sponsors of cross-border terrorism on the very day of the dastardly attack on Indian Parliament, the sanctum sanctorum of the temple of democracy. We didn’t — for reasons good or bad. Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee attributes the inaction to advice (or should it be called pressure?) by the international community to “show restraint”. However, the pertinent point is whether it was necessary to announce all this from the mountaintops of Manali.

If the purpose was to convey to both Pakistan’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, and the world leaders that India’s patience is at an end, it could have been achieved without harking back to the failure on December 13. After all, nobody had breathed a word about it for nearly five months before the Prime Minister’s confessional declaration. Why do so now?

This, unfortunately, raises an even more disturbing question. After holding our hand in the wake of the shooting in Parliament’s precincts, had we been taken in by assurances of the USA and its allies that such an outrage would not be allowed to be repeated? If not, why did we not act at once after the horrific attack at Kaluchak by Pakistani nationals who brutally gunned down wives and children of Army men away from home on active duty? Was there no contingency plan for such an eventuality? Or was it the usual dithering at the hurried and hectic meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) that rendered the excellent contingency plan inoperative? The mess that is generally made in New Delhi in the name of national security would not bear too close a scrutiny.

Moreover, it is also a moot point whether decisive punitive action would automatically follow if something like Kaluchak or Chittisinghpura (that had coincided with President Bill Clinton’s visit to this country) takes place yet again in the near future.

The question is not rhetorical. General Musharraf’s much awaited and deeply disappointing speech on Monday night underscores this cruelly. His 25-minute ranting oration meant primarily for his domestic audience and incidentally for the international community, in fact, amounted to adding insult to injury.

Having disregarded his earlier, January 12, pledge to end the export of terrorism from Pakistani soil and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) with impunity for the last five months, the General obviously thinks that he can do so again. His brazen claim that no infiltration into Kashmir from the Pakistani side is taking place is an outstanding example of his effrontery.

He may dismiss Indian refutation of his absurd claim as self-serving, in support of “Indian war hysteria”. But what does he have to say about the clear and categorical statements by the governments of the USA, Britain, Russia, France and other countries that hold that the Pakistani infiltration “has not stopped and must be ended”? Mr Omar Abdullah has already raised this pertinent question. Surprisingly, his senior in the Foreign Office, Mr Jaswant Singh, chose to take his sweet time before “reacting” to General Musharraf’s diatribe against India, combined, of course, with the bland declaration that no one in Pakistan would be “allowed” to export terrorism anywhere.

More pertinent and more important than the Pakistani President’s raving rhetoric is what Mr George Bush, Mr Tony Blair, Gen Colin Powell, et al — who have been telling India to hold its hand until they can persuade General Musharraf to end cross-border terrorism — will say and do now.

From India’s point of view what matters are not words but deeds. It is the ground reality that would be decisive. If there is perceptible reduction in the infiltration of terrorists from across the LoC or the border, the situation in the subcontinent could yet take a positive turn. Otherwise, the consequences would be incalculable and the responsibility for these would be entirely Pakistan’s and its military ruler.

For further developments we have to wait and watch. But one thing is crystal clear. The already hectic and hot-paced diplomacy focused on the subcontinent will acquire an even more heightened tempo in the coming days. The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, is already in the subcontinent. The U S Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Richard Armitage, who understandably wields greater clout, will arrive on his heels.

In between these two visits both Mr Vajpayee and General Musharraf would be in Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan, for an international conference at which the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, will also be present. A statement by him, while strolling in the ornate corridors of Hermitage in St Petersburg, has conjured up visions of a mini-Tashkent, on the lines of the Tashkent Conference in January 1966. In the Uzbek city then, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Field Marshal Ayub Khan had met under the auspices of the Soviet Prime Minister, Alexi Kosygin, to negotiate a truce after the 1965 war. Mercifully, both Moscow and New Delhi have made it clear that Mr Putin will have bilateral talks with Atalji and the General separately and that no triangular meeting is planned.

Whatever the format of the intense diplomatic activity that is about to reach a crescendo, New Delhi will do well to realise that it would not be confined to ending Pakistan’s cross-border terrorism alone though that is the primary and immediate objective. But, as almost all the foreign interlocutors, present and potential, have indicated unmistakably, there is a link between the ending of cross-border terrorism and the corresponding Pakistani demand for a winding down of the massing of troops along the India-Pakistan divide since last January. Also on the Pakistani and international agenda is the revival of the ruptured India-Pakistan dialogue on all issues, including Kashmir.

New Delhi will be perfectly entitled to say that other issues can be discussed only when it is established that General Musharraf is indeed living up to his promise. Even so, pressures for “de-escalation” and dialogue will grow, not abate. And not to put too fine a point on it, let it also be understood that some nations would try to “internationalise” the Kashmir issue to the extent possible.

Mr Jack Straw has stated openly that the question “who would run Kashmir” has not been resolved so far. And his is not the only voice in favour of “foreign observers” being sent to Kashmir during the Kashmir assembly election due in September. Moreover, he has also envisaged the posting of foreign observers along the LoC. Even he would not be so foolhardy as to offer to “mediate” between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. But he and others are bound to step up their demand that the two South Asian neighbours should once again start the “process of dialogue” over Kashmir and other issues. In short, New Delhi has to be both skilful and innovative in shaping its negotiating strategy with Pakistan on the one hand (when the suitable atmosphere is created) and with the USA and other foreign powers on the other. The kind of slapdash diplomacy tried out at Agra last year simply would not do.

Having said this much on the substance of diplomatic and other challenges, let me briefly return to style. The Prime Minister’s Manali speech was not the only one in which his words were evidently not weighed sufficiently. This — and I say so with all due respect — is apparently becoming routine.

The process began with his speech during the UP Assembly poll when he told Muslim — wrongly, as it turned out — that his party, the BJP, would win even if they stuck to their resolve to vote against it. His spin-doctors took 36 hours to draft a “clarification” that did not help. By contrast his repeated confusion between Presidents Clinton and Lincoln was good for a laugh.

Far from being a laughing matter, his dismal speech at Goa — that negated all the noble thoughts he had voiced during his visit to Gujarat — was lamentable. None of the numerous clarifications issued over a long period later made any difference to the situation. On the contrary, things became worse when it was found that his overzealous aides had, in fact, doctored the “text” of his Goa speech made available to Parliament.

During his recent visit to Kashmir, the Prime Minister indulged in overblown rhetoric about the “final battle” one day and, using meteorological metaphor, spoke about the absence of “war clouds” from the horizon 24 hours later.

For the last four decades Atalji has been the finest and most effective parliamentarian in this country. Must he allow himself to be robbed of this great gift now?

IN THE NEWS

Opposition backs Narayanan for another term

Much to the discomfiture of the ruling BJP-led NDA, the Congress and the Left parties are backing Mr K.R. Narayanan for a second term as the President. The Leader of the Opposition, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, who called on him on Tuesday came away convinced that the First Citizen is not averse to continuing as the country’s constitutional head. Mr Narayanan has not given any inkling of the goings on in his mind as a lot depends whether he can emerge as a consensus candidate.

At same time, it is believed that Mr Narayanan as the country’s first Dalit President will not throw his hat in the ring in case there is a contest for the high office of President. The chances of a consensus emerging appears remote with the Sangh Parivar and some constituents of the NDA strongly opposing another term for Mr Narayanan.

Mr Ashwani Kumar, Rajya Sabha’s Congress MP from Punjab, who met the President, maintains that Mr Narayanan is in fine mettle. He says that the current situation in the country demands there is "no fractious election especially when the incumbent Head of State enjoys good health. Therefore, a consensus around Narayanan’s name is a distinct possibility".

He emphasised that the ruling establishment must forge a consensus in these difficult times especially as the democratic process is not inconsistent with the politics of consensus when it comes to the election of the President who represents the unity and conscience of the nation.

External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh was at his very best during his interface with mediapersons on Tuesday that Pakistan has been waging an intense proxy war against India. Cross-border terrorism, he declared had now assumed a nuclear dimension, in the wake of Pakistan President

General Pervez Musharraf’s televised address to his constituents on Monday evening. The Western powers including the USA and Britain needed to take note of it as their pressure on Gen Musharraf and Pakistan to end state sponsorship of terrorism has drawn a blank so far. Therefore, Gen Musharraf’s tall promises of January 12 have only amounted to posturing and gaining valuable time.

Mr Jaswant Singh emphatically told the Western powers and the international community to disabuse themselves that India is on the brink of waging war. On the contrary, Pakistan has waged a relentless proxy war of cross-border terrorism against India for nearly 15 years. Pakistan has now become the epicentre of terrorism which cannot be taken lightly by the international community. Terrorists training camps in Pakistan must be closed permanently. Without saying so in so many words, India is not averse to waiting another two to three weeks to see how the shuttle diplomacy in the subcontinent takes shape before unleashing its strategy. That will depend largely on Pakistan’s ISI not launching another Kaluchak type massacre.

Mr Jaswant Singh clearly carried the day in his own measured way without raising the ante that Western powers had to necessarily get their act right in dealing with the bellicose Gen Musharraf rather than India which has shown unparalleled restraint despite the tremendous odds.

Jaipur is known for tanzanite, the purple-blue gemstone, traded by the jewellers of Rajasthan’s capital city. It hit international headlines when Kate Winslet of "Titanic" fame wore it on the deck of the ship. However, doubts were raised on the gemstone’s "public integrity" when The Wall Street Journal claimed in an article that Al-Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden used the proceeds from the sale of tanzanite to fund his global terror network.

According to a report in TheEconomicTimes ( May 27, 2002), the International Coloured Gemstone Association (ICGA) has defended the "public integrity" of tanzanite. At an emergency meeting in Tucson in February last, the ICGA not only ridiculed the international boycott of the gemstone but also criticised the distortion in its trade.

The report quoting The Wall Street Journal says that close on the heels of an article in the American publication in November, 2001, traders, with anti-Arab sentiment, decided to boycott tanzanite business. Subsequently, some of the leading jewellery houses such as Zales, Tiffany and The QVCShoppingChannel withdrew tanzanite jewellery from their shelves.

Nearer home, the traders’ decision hit Jaipur’s jewellers hard inasmuch as they have reportedly lost business worth about Rs 200 crore. The Economic Times report says that the export of cut and polished stones from Jaipur dropped to Rs 560 crore in 2001-02 (till December) from over Rs 700 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

The Wall Street Journal article appeared soon after the visit of its now assassinated staffer Daniel Pearl to Jaipur with a view to investigating the Al Qaeda-tanzanite link. Even as the Al-Qaeda agents started financing the activities of their network from the proceeds of the sale of tanzanite, the attack on the World Trade Center towers on September 11 forced the USA to freeze the financial assets of Al-Qaeda throughout the world. Later, the USA traced the Al-Qaeda-tanzanite link to Aruca in Tanzania where the precious gemstone is extensively mined.

OF LIFE SUBLIME

Power of prayer can make a difference
Satish K. Kapoor

Prayer is the language of the heart. It is a dialogue with the Divine. It is a supplication addressed to some natural object, personal god, godling, guru, pir, sage, tirthankara, bodhisattva or the Supreme Lord for the fulfilment of desires, spiritual communion, penitence or thanksgiving. “There are moments,” wrote Victor Hugo, “when whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees”.

Prayer is to the soul what food is to the body. It is not a choice but a necessity. Man is feeble and fallible; he stumbles on the pathway of life and needs support, strength and sustenance which can be obtained only from a source higher than himself — the source of sources, the supreme reservoir of energy, the self-effulgent, omniscient Lord or any of His manifestations.

When one is sullen, prayer lights up hope. When one is stressful, prayer lends peace. When one is bewildered, prayer shows the way. When one loses the will to act, prayer gives confidence. When one is forlorn, prayer brings one near the Supreme Friend of all. If there is a void within, prayer fills it. To whomsoever one may pray, it reaches Him ultimately.

Sufi faqir Hazrat Shah put human beings into four categories: those who sought the pleasures of the world (namard); those who sought the paradise and comforts hereafter (mard); those who sought God as well as comforts hereafter (jawanmard) and those who sought God alone (fard). Although each prayed to God, those in the last category alone were blessed by the Divine Grace.

When prayer is made for some wordly gain (sakama) it cannot be of the highest quality as the motivating factor stands between man and God. But when it is made without purpose (nishkama) it establishes one in one’s real Being. In the tamasic form of prayer often goaded by anger, pride, jealousy and hatred, one solicits one’s welfare by harming others. In the rajasic form one seeks relief from the misery and hardships of life and asks for the Divine bounties without caring much for others. In the sattvic form one transcends the barriers of family, community, caste, creed and country, and wishes the welfare of all.

If prayer is done with lips alone it acquires mechanical overtones with the passage of time; if done with the mind it remains insular as the mind cannot be oblivious to the sense of “I” and “Mine”. But if it springs from the heart it leads one straight to the Supreme Reality. As the sadhaka advances on the spiritual path, prayer to an external object turns into a prayer to God within and subsequently, to God which envelopes all.

Prayer begins when one speaks to God and sublimates when God reciprocates. True prayer is not a matter of ritualistic observance, some traditional mode of invoking the Divine or a stereotyped repetition of words, howsoever sacred or meaningful, but an outpouring of the soul. It comes naturally as breathing and is as profound in its effect as the law of gravitation. It ensues from one’s being. The spiritual aspirant does not mutter sacred syllables penned by others; instead the Holy Word gushes out of him in moments of ecstasy and gets crystallised into the Gospel of a Jesus Christ or Mohammad, the mantras of a rishi or the songs of a Mira or Nanak.

The soul is pulled towards the higher realms of Existence from where descends the ever-vibrant music, anahat. One is consciously unconscious and unconsciously conscious. The Father (God) and the son (man) are dyed in the same hue (Sri Guru Granth Sahib, M5, Bhairo, page 1161). The supreme realisation makes Sarmads and Mansurs of history to exclaim An-al-Haq (“I am God”) or Aham Brahmasmi (“I am Brahma”) even at the cost of their lives. Such a state is described in the Bible thus: “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians, ii, 20).

As one awakes to this new state, the Divine nectar received through prayer is spilled in one’s day-to-day activities, and dispels worry and tension. One comes to know that He alone knows the best. No demand is made on Him for is He not already aware of our needs? Says Sri Guru Granth Sahib: Whether you are a swan, a crow or a crane, only His mercy is of any avail. If He so wills it He turns a crow into a swan. (M1, Sri Rag, Var, page 91).

In prayer one should have “a heart without words than words without a heart”. Whatever be the form of prayer, invocatory, petitionary, purificatory, illuminatory, personal collective or universal, it does not go unnoticed or unanswered if it is made regularly with full faith and devotion, with child-like simplicity and without debasing rituals and superstitions.

Prayer done by closing the eyes and ears of the mind and by surrendering oneself to God reaches Him immediately. Those who cry before the Lord with an open heart in their moments of aloneness can visualise his gracious form before their mental eyes and experience miracles. When Sant Namadeva prayed to Lord Vitthoba (Vishnu) for a glimpse of Him, the idol is said to have come to life and partook of his offerings. When Mira Bai entrenched her Lord’s form in her being, the poison served to her become nectar and the surreptitious gift of a snake turned into a garland. When Haridas, the musician Tansen’s preceptor, prayed fervently through song and dance, his disciples saw Lord Krishna playing on his flute right in front of them.

In day-to-day life, when a person exhausts all his intelligence, power and resources to resolve his dilemmas, prayer comes to his rescue. It awakens his sixth sense, makes him work the way he should, and guides him on the path he should choose or the methods he should adopt to reach his goal. Prayer opens the spiritual sight of man, wrote H.P. Blavatsky (Isis Unveiled, I) for prayer is desire, and desire develops into will. “The magnetic emanations proceeding from the body at every effort — whether mental or physical — produce self-magnetisation and ecstasy.”

While making prayer there should be no bargaining with God. To kneel down in prayer and yet to keep one’s ego up is grossly irreligious. Community prayers rendered at a high musical pitch disturb the old, the sick, the students preparing for their examinations and others, and need to be avoided. The one who prays to God should also love his creatures and abstain from physical, mental or verbal violence.

It is not possible for ordinary mortals to be in prayerful mood every moment of their life — to partake of His fragrance and energy with each incoming and outgoing breath, to feel his presence in every heart-beat and in every cell of one’s body, and to be able to realise that “All is He” (“Sab Gobind hai”) and that “I indeed am This” (“ahma eva idam”). Hence many religious traditions have specific times for prayer for the moral elevation of human beings. In Islam, for example, prayer is said five times a day — the morning prayer is called Salat-ul-Fazr, the early afternoon prayer, Salat-uz-Zuhr, the late afternoon prayer, Salat-ul-Asr, the sunset prayer, Salat-ul-Maghrib and the early night prayer, Salat-ul-Isha. Besides, there are two optional prayers said at late night, Salat-ul-lail, and at about breakfast time, Salat-ud-duha. The service on Friday takes the place of Salat-uz-Zuhr.

The Vedic tradition regards sandhya, the meeting point of two periods of time in the morning as well as in the evening as the best time for prayer because there is a special manifestation of cosmic force which vanishes soon after. Many yogis, saints and seers regard late night hours when the atmosphere is calm and quiet or early morning hours when one is fresh after sleep as most useful for prayer.

Prayer is power; it can bring about a mutation in man’s psyche by making him cosmocentric. Hence one should pray with utmost sincerity and verve. Once the human body realises its limitations and the mind its futile distractions, the soul craves for the elixir of immortality. Prayer then goes beyond the confines of time and holy places and acquires a comprehensive meaning. Prayer with body becomes service; prayer with mind becomes knowledge and prayer with the soul turns into Love, the Supreme Law of Existence.

“When the light of the soul blends

with the Universal light;

And the human mind co-mingles

with the mind of all things,

Then our petty being,

With its violence, doubt and sorrow disappears....

Blessed are they in whose hearts resideth the Lord.”

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Sri Rag, page 21

TRENDS & POINTERS

Improving liver cancer survival

Though not trumpeted in front-page headlines, cancer researchers using high-tech non-surgical treatments are drastically improving the odds of survival for patients with liver cancer.

Attacking the tumor with these high-tech approaches gives liver-cancer patients the chance to live long enough to receive a new liver without worrying that the disease has spread to other areas. UPI

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

That which God writes on thy forehead thou will come to it.

—The Koran.

* * *

—Sheikh Saadi, Gulistan