The meaning of prayer

The meaning of prayer               

Niyyat is the determination of heart and its attention and tendency of spirit toward God. It means that the prayer wants to traverse a way which starts from the purification of entity and release from people’s right and separation from moral obscenities and it finishes to the satisfaction and contentment of God. In fact, the prayer wants to consider the prayer as a tool for reaching to the divine morality and bring his knowledge, action, work, endeavor, determination and belief to the magnificent position of Khalifatollah.

It’s clear that everyone has an intention and target for the doing of his action, a prayer also should say his prayer for God and specifies him as his target, and by the help of this action he should decide to bring himself toward the peak of reality and to the boundary of excellence and according to the words of holy Quran that has been mentioned at the end of Sura Kahf, one should succeed to be close to God and immerse in the sea of his mercifulness by doing good deeds (that the prayer is the most important sample of good deeds) and also by denying all invalid deities and internal and external idols.

If such a will and determination go along with the prayer to its end, that prayer will hold back the prayer from all vices and immoralities and makes a spiritual and divine being out of mankind who wholeheartedly cares about the rights of God and others. Actually if a person say the prayer but doesn’t heartily accept the realities of prayer , the realties which are the belief of God’s oneness and his ownership and management of whole universe, his unlimited forgiveness and kindness, the obligation of expressing gratitude to him, believing in hereafter, being surrender to the essence of his all attributes, the necessity of requesting for his help in all parts of life, the necessity of obeying from messengers and Imams and refusing the conditions and behaviors of heterodox and aberrant people. Undoubtedly without being inspired by these realities, the prayer hasn’t made the decision of prayer and hasn’t entered in the zone of prayer and in fact, he has ignored all efforts of messengers and grandees and has oppressed himself and others.

And if a prayer sincerely accepts these realities, and at the beginning of his prayers, he regards these verities in his will and decides to accomplish the realities of prayer in his life, his spirit and entity and mind and heart gradually will be prepared to accept all realities of prayer and after a while, he will be the source of truth and container of actualities.

Imam Sadegh (God bless him) said about wills: “the owner of sincere will is the owner of healthy heart."[1]

It means that a pure and utter will which is the source of Gods’ blessings, comes out from a pure heart, a heart that isn’t in the restriction of satanic temptations. The purity of will has its origin in the separation from some moral obscenities like greed, stinginess, arrogance, envy, haughtiness, duplicity, grudge and … the reason of will’s purity is the sincerity of intention and volition.

God has said in holy Quran:

" يَوْمَ لَا يَنفَعُ مَالٌ وَلَا بَنُونَ ﴿٨٨﴾ إِلَّا مَنْ أَتَى اللَّـهَ بِقَلْبٍ سَلِيمٍ ﴿٨٩﴾ "[2]

 "The Day when there will not benefit [anyone] wealth or children (88) But only one who comes to Allah with a sound heart." (89"

Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “the will of a believer is better than his action.”[3]

The philosophy of the words is this that “will” is the root of an action, so if the root of something be healthy, so its results in the healthiness of other subgroups and if the root doesn’t be healthy, then the action will be dispossessed from the healthiness. And also Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “the value of actions depends on the wills and the computations of everyone’s actions rely on the computation of his will.”[4]

When the will of a servant in all of his actions and movements belongs to God, then he can show the reality of slavery and the effects of worship from himself, and if it doesn’t, he is neglector and according to the words of holy Quran, neglectors are similar to animals.[5] Imam (God bless him) continues his utterance about the chapter of will in this manner: “will arise from heart. If a heart would be the house of light and cleanliness, it will be close to the purity of will, and if a heart be far from certainty and faith and believe and the brightness of divine states, it’s difficult to appear the pure will in this heart.”

So a prayer should cleanse the house of his heart from the darkness and blackness and Satanic temptations so that he can bring his heart and will toward the mighty God. Imam Sadegh (God bless him) said: “the owners of pure will are fighting against the wrong requests of their entity, and shyness is one of the greatest effects of pure will, because one who has specified God as the target of his actions and merges his inside and outside for God, by having pure will, he shies to paying no respect to the right of God as he deserves.”[6]

The owner of pure will lives in discomfort to provide the comfort of others. Because one who says his prayer for God and do all of his actions for him, should adorn himself with purities and expel all obscenities from himself and beside to this will, he must pay attention to the rights of others, and that’s why he the discomfort himself to comfort others, and by regarding the rights of God and his creatures, one can be qualified to being close to mighty God.