What Prayer is not
May 29, 2006: A lot of people try to change their lives by numerologically altering their names, consulting tarot-card readers, wearing special gemstones on their fingers, chanting special mantras, wearing a taveez from Ajmer-baba etc. In other words, they try to intervene in the karmic process of their lives. I feel it is somehow “wrong” to seek to tinker with your life in any manner. My analogy is: God gives us a car and entrusts us with the job of becoming careful, skillful drivers. He keeps for himself the job of traffic administration, as well as road and vehicle maintenance. Apart from periodically checking the oil-levels and tyre-treads, we should not concern ourselves too closely with internal mechanisms, because it distracts us from our main job of learning to be good drivers! If we sincerely feel that our life is somehow out-of-sync, and we have a bad feeling about things, the remedy is not to try to contact our guardian angel, spiritual guide, ...