Whispering Wednesday

Hari OM

While preparing the next set of shlokas for study on Tuesdays, beginning as we did yesterday with the waking prayer, it will become necessary to look at 'shaucham'. Cleanliness, after all, is said to be next to Godliness!

शौचम् / shaucham actually translates as 'purification'. The concept, then, is not that we simply bathe (स्नानम् / snaanam), but that in the washing of the body we also concentrate on clearing out our minds and flattening the ego. This is done through the prayers of remembrance of the greater cosmos, such as will be viewed over the next few 'text-days.' 

Which, following the 'whisper,' brings us to "prayer" and the oft thought question, 'why are we bothering?'

source-Google Images

Prayer is often looked at purely as an intercession between ourselves and some higher authority - generally referred to as "God." However, there does not actually have to be someone receiving the calls we put into the ether. The purpose of prayer is to rid ourselves of our worries, to open ourselves to the possibilities that will present themselves to us and to surrender our egos... perhaps that last ought to go first! If we are seeking a deep voice to echo back with an answer, we haven't quite attuned ourselves to the purpose of spiritual connection, I would venture to say.

Surrendering the ego, though, clears us to the reception of what comes toward us on any given day. If we are thinking clearly and are unburdened due to our prayers, we are more likely to be open to all the things that come our way and - within those, if we listen deeply - we may hear that very voice from within us that we hoped for...