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Prayer in Hinduism


Prayer or worship is considered to be an integral part of the Hindu religion. The chanting of mantras is the most popular form of worship in Hinduism. Yoga and meditation are also considered as a form of devotional service towards the Lord. The adjacent picture represents the Om sign, which is a sign of peace.

The Vedas are a collection of liturgy (mantras, hymns)

The Hindu devotional Bhakti movements emphasizes repetitive prayer. Stemming from the universal Soul or Brahman, prayer is focused on the personal forms of God, such as Shiva, Vishnu, or Vishnu's Avatars, Rama and Krishna.

Before the process of ritual, before the invoking of different deities for the fulfillment of various needs, came the human aspiration to the highest truth, the foundational monism of Hinduism, pertaining ultimately to the one Brahman. Brahman, which summarily can be called the unknowable, true, infinite and blissful Divine Ground, is the source and being of all existence from which the cosmos springs. This is the essence of the Vedic system. The following prayer was part and parcel of all the Vedic ceremonies and continues to be invoked even today in Hindu temples all over India and other countries around the world, and exemplifies this essence:

The Gayatri mantra is Hinduism's most representative prayer. Many Hindus recite it on a daily basis, not only contemplating its straightforward meaning, but also dwelling on and imbibing its sound, regarded to be pregnant with spiritual meaning. For this reason nearly all Hindu prayers and mantras are sung. The Gayatri was first recorded in the Rig Veda (iii, 62, 10) which was composed in Sanskrit about 1500b - 2500 years ago, and by some reports, the mantra may have been chanted for many generations before that.

Described in the Bhagavad Gita Bhakti Yoga is the path of love and devotion. On Bhakti Yoga:


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