Note: Prayer

[Bahasa Indonesia]
It’s been quite some time since I last attended Pak Arif’s quran study. I forgot how down to earth his teaching is. It was a gentle reminder to retrospect and evaluate my steps in life thus far.

The discussion that night was about prayer. A participant asked how we can ensure that our prayer does not backlash on us. Real prayer never does, Pak Arif said.

Al Qur'an said that “all things go back to God [as their source]” (for instance in 3:109). But have we really returned all things that we are or that we do to Him? I doubt it, at least in my case. We pray for what we desire, for what we think is good fur us.

We forget that each of us is here with specific role and function. We forget that there is a master plan in life. We forget to go back to God and ask, so what’s Your plan and how can I help?

We forget to obey God’s law, or if you prefer the law of nature, the karmic law, what goes around comes around. We forget to do good. We have what a friend called “the most unfortunate person syndrome” – we think life is full of problems and not blessings.

So here’s a tip from Pak Arif: from the time we wake up, remember God (or if you prefer, remember Love, remember the Higher being in us), be thankful of all the things that we have (even the simplest thing such as our sights and hearing), pray for protection from God, pray to ask God what His plan is and what we should do. Close the prayer with feeling of thankfulness, understanding how blessed we are with our live.

So that our life be guided and we can function as we all should be, which is to be a blessing to all.

Complete note of the study (in Indonesian) is here.