Are greetings prayers in disguise?
When an agnostic friend of mine wished me a happy new year this morning, I texted back, “Thank you! Best wishes and prayers”. He replied with a smirking emoji, “Only wishes are accepted.” I responded, “All wishes are prayers in disguise. No proselytizing intended.”
One of the innate characteristics of the human mind is that it’s hard-wired to wish for good things and worry over bad things. For all the brouhaha over future-proofing, it’s the unpredictability of the future that adds excitement and novelty to our lives. In the theatre of life, we are more of spectators than managers. We would rather enjoy episodes of our life dramatically unfolding before our eyes than plan the entire story down to the details and carefully choreograph every sequence in advance. In other words, when it comes to the future, it’s the bliss of ignorance and uncertainty, rather than the swagger of knowledge and certainty, that imparts beauty and adds thrill to our existence. Even while mostly remaining in an optimistic mood hoping for the best, we are occasionally concerned that the story might take a tragic turn any time. We need to be cautiously optimistic, rather than overly bullish or hopelessly pessimistic. A healthy combination of hope and caution serves as an effective guard rail against falling prey to doom and gloom or self-destructive pride.
Even the most self-assured and meticulous planners among us have to subject their actions to the vagaries of an unknown future before knowing the full merit and impact of their actions. Whatever we label that state or period of uncertainty, it is in that realm of the unknown where our plans and actions are incubated before hatching into their more meaningful and matured versions. This period of uncertainty precedes the birth and development of people, ideas, institutions, relationships, families, careers, businesses, etc. Each and every investment we make, from the seeds we bury beneath the soil to the shares of Fortune 500 companies we buy, has to go through this period of gestation. We wish that everything will turn out as planned and smooth and nothing untoward will happen.
As long as this pall of uncertainty shrouds everything related to the future, we continue to wish for a ‘prosperous future ahead’ while growing concerned about all sorts of bad things. And in every expression of wish and concern, there is an unmistakable element of invoking someone or something beyond our control to interfere on our behalf. That is why even when an agnostic friend of you wishes you a happy new year or a non-believing colleague bids you a safe journey or enjoyable weekend, he/she is unknowingly invoking that unknown force or phenomenon to interfere on your behalf. Whenever we wish for something to happen or not to happen or for the situation to turn favourable for us, we are entreating someone’s help, even though we don’t have the intention to do so.
That means the human mind is in a constant state of prayer whenever it wishes for something or fears about something. It seems spirituality is all about deepening our prayers, and probably one way to achieve it is to refine our wishes and fears and channel them into sustainable spiritual assets.
