The Prayer Theory

Over the last year in India, I have frequently met lots of family members, family friends, friends' parents, grandparents and just generally run into a lot many more people than I used to in the US.

Its a great thing.

What even cooler - is the complete lack of inhibition they display in tackling sensitive and seemingly personal parts of my life.

I often resent the intrusion but also love it at the same time depending on the source.

So the top 3 prayer reasons I've gotten from those around me in the last 2 years in India are as follows:

1. Pray to God that you get married soon

2. Pray to God that you find a good job

3. Pray to God that you get a good husband

Note: These may also come with a variant that says "I'll pray to God that you find a good job" so on and so forth.

It got me thinking really hard about the act of praying.

The reality - of my life atleast (and one which it took me a long time to realize) is that I am born with things that I would say over 90% of the world prays for.

So when I stand at a traffic signal - with half a dozen little kids in torn clothes, bare feet, running noses, hunger pangs and smiles to spare .. am I really going to fold my hands and pray that "I get married soon" or what ?

Seriously - what kind of a moron does that make me. The worst kind.

I'm not wasting a good prayer.

I think God has a funnel approach to evaulating prayers that we make.

If you pray for 5 things.

Yeah - in my Theory, God waits till Sunday evening and evaluates prayers on a weekly basis.

By the time your prayers, make it through the dust and the pollution and the clouds, out into space and into heaven. Theres only about a half of them that have survived the long journey.

Some may even go as far to say that the ozone layer has been depleted by too many prayers for too many unnecessary things "God Please let Sachin bat a 100 today" .."God, Please let there be no traffic on the day to work today" "God, please let me get good marks" and so on.

Now there are a 3 of them left.

A billion people in only India. 6.8 Billion in the world. Say 20% of them are atheists.

That brings the sample size to 5.4 Billion.

Now say that another 20% - Do not pray at all. They believe in God but dont pray randomly - so the probability that one of them will be praying at the exact same time as you is say 0.25

So you sample size is 80% of 5.4 and a fourth of 20% of 5.4

Which is about 4.5 Billion people.

So on any given sunday - God receives 4.5 Billion * 3 prayers to attend to.

13.5 Billion prayers.

Now, there might be some that might say, theres different Gods based on different religions - so divide that number. By 4 or 5 of whatyoumay.

Thats still a whole darn lot of prayers for all the cumulative Gods of the world.

Can you imagine - God floating on a silver cloud, Logs on to his computer (wonder if its a Mac?)

and opens his inbox to find 13.5 Billion prayers in it.

Plus those from the week before that he did not get around too.

Now the first thing, he does is eliminate the non-unique prayers.

Very database oriented.

Sort on primary key which is the person and delete non unique subject lines.

Say thats half of them. Assuming that I prayed for a good job on Monday and on Thursday and so did most people.

Wow - still has over 6 Billion prayers left.

Now he says, whats a smart way to sort this. Hmm. What all has happened in the world last week. Forest Fires in Australia, Continental Plane Crash in the US, Sri Lankan Army marches ahead in war, Suicide Bomber in half a dozen places. Lots of crisises.

Lets get to those first.

After he does those groups. He says. Let me also do the countrys where theres drought, famine, floods and which are poor and impoverished in general.

Now lets look at the people that are ill, handicapped, homeless, orphaned etc.

Now lets look at all the people related to all the groups above who will also be in anguish.

He's left with 3 Billion prayers at the end of this.

Wow. Thats a lot of work. Kit Kat Break Banta hai.

Post dinner, he says, this is a good time to take a look at everyone else. But he goes to bed at midnight. So he can only get to 1 Billion of those prayers.

Now the prayers take more time to process - because they get more complicated and need to be evaluated against everything else thats going on in that person's life, what he's done in the past, karma counter, Gods own plan for that person and so on and so forth.

Whats the probability that on any given sunday - my one prayer about " Please let my zit go away by the party tomorrow night" ( And yes, I have shamelessly prayed for this before in my life) ..actually reaches him ?

I can imagine him sitting on his computer and shaking his head in disgust.

Is that really the one prayer that I want him to grant ?

Given the probability that it may be weeks, months even that I'm able to get his attention.

Probably Not.

So here is my thought process around praying

-Use my prayer to say Thanks. As in life, I may not get another chance to say it

-Pray for others around me. Knowing the funnel approach and odds involved, some could certainly use the help.

-Pray for good health. Nothing can be a substitute for it.

-Pray for my parents. They brought me into the world.

-Pray for my family. I am what I am because of them.

-Pray for world peace.

-Pray for the ability to make good decisions and for the strength to accept mistakes and move on (This is what I call a complicated concatenated prayer that requires intense processing)

- Pray that I may lead a meaningful life

Its actually pretty hard to do exactly this. I cant say I'm entirely successful at it. But I want to be. Badly. Its requires a harsh honest look at my life and perspective - which weather permitting can be hard to come by.

I want to be smart about praying.

I once read that our prayers do not end up changing our lives. They end up changing us.

I hope I choose mine wisely.

Amen