Why do we have a prayer room?

JAY SHREE POOJYASHREE SHREE AMMA
JAY MAHAN BRAHMASHREE GOPALAVALLIDASAR
JAY SHREE RADHEKRISHNA SATHSANG

Dear Readers,

Radhekrishna!

In this post, as promised, we will look at the second question

2. Why do we have a prayer room?

Most Indian homes have a prayer room or altar. A lamp is lit and the Lord worshipped each day. Other spiritual practices like japa - repetition of the Lord’s name, meditation, paaraayana - reading of the scriptures, prayers, and devotional singing etc are also done here. Special worship is done on auspicious occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, festivals and the like. Each member of the family - young or old - communes with and worships the Divine here.

Now why do we have a separate prayer room? Why cant we pray in the drawing room or the bed room? Let us know the answer for the same.

The Lord is the entire creation. He is therefore the true owner of the house we live in too. The prayer room is the Master room of the house. We are the earthly occupants of His property. This notion rids us of false pride and possessiveness.

The ideal attitude to take is to regard the Lord as the true owner of our homes and us as caretakers of His home. But if that is rather difficult, we could at least think of Him as a very welcome guest. Just as we would house an important guest in the best comfort, so too we felicitate the Lord’s presence in our homes by having a prayer room or altar, which is, at all times, kept clean and well-decorated.

We will continue with this same question with more details in the next post.

Section II: Information about Indian herbs

In this forthnight, the herb about which we will tell you is named Mirch i.e. Chili (Capsicum Annum in Latin).

1. It is a necessary ingredient of all Indian curries
2. It has a sharp pungent taste
3. Powdered chili applied to bite of dogs neutralizes the poison
4. The numbness of the body and hypothermia of cholera are relieved by it

That’s all we have for you in this post. Do lots and lots of chanting of the Radhekrishna namam and fill your lives with spiritual bliss.

Till the next post Radhekrishna!

Sarvam Guruvaarpanam