Quality of Prayer !

Once Mohammed asked a young man to go with him to pray.

The young man could not avoid it,
because Mohammed had asked him – just as you cannot avoid something if I ask you to do it!

In the morning he went with Mohammed. Mohammed stood there and prayed, and the young man also stood and began to murmur something.

He could only murmur.
Mohammed became very uneasy and thought, ”I made a mistake in bringing this man here.

” But now there was no way out of it. After praying, they left. It was morning and people were still in their beds.

The young man said to Mohammed, ”Sir, what will happen to these people? Though this is the time
for prayer they are still in their beds. What do you think of them? Will they go to hell?”

Mohammed replied, ”I do not know where they will go, but I shall have to go back to the mosque.”

The man asked, ”What has happened to you?”
Mohammed said, ”My first prayer has become useless –

I have harmed you. Before offering prayers this morning at least you were humble; you did not consider these people sinful.

This is another harm done.
Please pardon me, and do not come to the mosque again.

Now I must go back again to pray, because now my first prayer is useless.

I have harmed you by bringing you to the mosque because now you have become more egoistic and vain.

The ego should be shattered by prayers,but yours has become stronger!”

Have you seen how proudly a man walks with a saffron mark and sandal paste on his forehead?

He behaves as if God has given him a special license.

Such people think they are God’s relatives,God’s family, God’s chosen ones. Now they will not rest content until they have condemned the
whole world to hell.

Man must be considered a very strange animal when he can become full of ego even through prayer.

There is no limit to his cunningness.

The essential quality of prayer is the abandonment, the death of the Ego.

OshO 💕
CHAPTER 19. TRANSFORMATION IS THE TEST
The Heartbeat of the Absolute