The basis for any form of prayer is not one's helplessness; it is the acknowledgment of one's helplessness. Prayer is born naturally when I realize my helplessness and also recognize the source of all power, all knowledge. When I am helpless, I seek help from any person I can. When the helplessness is in terms of my incapacity to let go of my past or to let the future happen without my being apprehensive, then outside help from a person like myself is of no use. I go to the source from where such help is possible. I invoke the Lord in prayer.
Realizing that I am a victim of my own past, I cannot but be apprehensive about the future. I become worried and frightened. If everything is in order, I need not pray. All prayers have their fulfillment in keeping everything in order. When I surrender to the Lord, I actually deliver myself to the order that is the Lord. My past then becomes a part of the meaningful order of my personal life. The future unfolds itself in keeping with the same order, an order that includes my previous karma.
All's well that ends well. Past mistakes become meaningful as long as they have made me wiser. To acknowledge my helplessness is itself a great step towards recognizing the order. I acknowledge my past and neutralize it in my present life.
As a child I had no will of my own. I was in the hands of my parents, teachers and other adult members of the society. As a child, my knowledge was limited, my perception was vague, I was helpless and insecure. The conclusions I made then about the world and myself formed the basis for my interpretation of the events to come, which, in turn, tend to confirm my old conclusions. Thus, I become a victim of my own past. Whom should I blame for this perpetual helplessness of mine? I should blame neither the world nor myself, for to blame is to retain the past. If I was a victim of the behavior of my elders, by blaming them now I continue to be a victim. I understand that I have to eliminate all forms of blaming in order to be free of my past. But I find it very difficult to do without the Lord's help.
O Lord, help me. Help me accept gracefully what I cannot change. Let me be free of blaming anyone, including myself. I cannot blame myself for what happened to me. Nor can I blame others because they themselves have others to blame.
Blaming means that I want to change the past. But the past cannot be changed; it must be accepted as it was. I let go of my resentment, anger, and dissatisfaction about the past. O Lord, perhaps what I went through was meant to happen. Perhaps it was all in order as it has led me to prayer.
All the years of pain, struggle and groping seem to have paid off, because I pray and by this prayer everything has become meaningful. My pain, my past, has resulted in my coming to you to seek help, your intervention, to make me accept what I cannot change.
I do not want to bury the past, nor do I want to forget the past. I just want to accept the past, gracefully. I even begin to see an order in all of this. So, Lord, please help me accept gracefully what I cannot change.


--Swami Dayananda