Following the Prayer

“I take a deep breath and begin: “Om Bhur Buvah Suvaha.” My mind sharpens, and I focus on the surroundings. What can I smell, hear, see, feel? The players get into position for the game to begin.”

Om Bhur Bhuvaḥ Suvaha
Tat-savitur Vareñyaṃ
Bhargo Devasya Dheemahi
Dhiyo Yonaḥ Prachodayāt

Before every soccer game, I say a small religious prayer, a quick, evocative moment of connection between myself and my religion, Hinduism. It’s a ritual I’ve done during soccer matches for as long as I can remember, and I’ve done it for almost every big moment. The weird thing is that I don’t always know why I end up doing it. Growing up in a Hindu household, these prayers were a huge part of my daily life. They were the first thing my parents did when they got ready in the morning, so it was something that I followed without question. Now, when I stand on a crowded soccer field, closing my eyes and putting my hands together at my chest to pray with my teammates and spectators all around, I sometimes wonder if this seems odd to others. Does this appear to others as an unnecessary or even meaningless ritual? To me, It is much more than that; even if I can’t consistently fully express the meaning behind my words, this small prayer serves as a calming force, a ritual that centers me just before the whistle. Still, the question remains: Why do I continue to pray even when I can’t fully explain it?

I take a deep breath and begin: “Om Bhur Buvah Suvaha.” My mind sharpens, and I focus on the surroundings. What can I smell, hear, see, feel? The players get into position for the game to begin. 

In Jhumpa Lahiri’s essay, “Why Italian?”, she uses a powerful metaphor about partial blindness that resonates deeply with my experiences with praying. Lahiri describes a sense of “semi-obscurity” when learning a new language, where she doesn’t fully grasp the intricacies or the exact meaning of every word. While I can recognize or understand a majority of the words in the prayers, the deeper meanings often change when they are combined with others. Therefore, I often lack a complete comprehension of the prayer. However, this blindness becomes a part of the experience: not a flaw that needs to be fixed, but rather a route toward meaning, much like Lahiri's discovery of Italian. This gets me back to the main question: Why do I keep praying, even when I don't fully understand?

In many ways, prayer is like walking through a fog. It is true that I cannot always see where I am headed or what the whole meaning of the prayer is, but at the end of the day I do trust that the prayer will guide me. This “partial blindness” is not a failure of understanding but is similar to navigating through fog, with faith that a path exists even if I cannot see it clearly. The ambiguity in the prayer is something that I have learned to cope with rather than change. My overall understanding may not be complete, but I continue because the act holds meaning well beyond the basic comprehension. Unlike fog, which will eventually clear and reveal what will lie ahead, the uncertainty in my prayer will remain as I continue. It offers me peace, even if I do not have all the answers. The prayer was never about fully knowing or understanding. It’s about finding the value in the unknown, in the fog. 

I close my eyes. “Tat-savitur Vareñyaṃ.” I can feel the negative energy leaving my body, filling my head with positive thoughts. The anxiety within my body, the stress, slowly washes away. The referees ask the goalkeepers of each team if they are ready to start play. 

I’ve realized that even though I may not always understand the exact words of the prayer, it still acts as an anchor for me. Taking a soccer game, for example, with all the noise, the pressure, and the insane amount of nerves surrounding me before the game starts, the prayer keeps me steadied and focused. The thing about anchors is that although everyone sees them for their base value, something that keeps a boat grounded, an anchor does much more than that. It doesn’t simply prevent drifting; anchors hold weight, and they sink into the depths, well beyond our sights, securing us into something unseen. The prayer is like this too; it reaches down into deep parts inside of me, grounding me even when I may not consciously realize it. It is a connection that goes beyond the words themselves. It is like through the prayer, I am finding something larger than myself: I am rediscovering my upbringing, my faith, and my identity. The anchor helps me find this, and holds me steady amid the chaos of the game. 

Everything seems so still. “Bhargo Devasya Dheemahi.” My mind is now calm, focused on the task at hand: winning the game. 

There are times when I approach the prayer with a sense of diffidence, unsure if it is necessary, uncertain if it even makes sense. Yet, I continue to do so anyway. Maybe it is because, like an anchor, the prayer keeps me from drifting far into an anxious state. But perhaps it is also because the weight of tradition and ritual anchors me to my past and sense of self. It keeps me tethered to something constant, something stable, as everything around me is in motion. During my last high school soccer game, the county final, it was by far the largest crowd I’ve ever played in front of, and my nerves were off the chart. I remember my stomach hurting like it's never done before. I couldn’t think straight, with thoughts running through my head: what if we lose and it's my fault? I couldn’t shake it. I closed my eyes. The prayer pulled me back into reality, grounding me in a stable place, just as my upbringing in Hinduism anchors me to my cultural and spiritual roots. 

Ultimately, I may never completely understand why such a small act of prayer holds such a large significance. But, you know what? Maybe that’s the point. My experience with prayer is a partial understanding, similar to Lahiri’s journey through Italian. For now, I’ll keep feeling my way through the fog, guided by something beyond my knowledge, and like an anchor, it will hold me in place, not just before the game but in deeper currents of my life. 

The whistle blows. “Dhiyo Yonaḥ Prachodayāt.” The game has begun, my mind is focused, I’m ready to play. I’m ready to win.