Like meditation, prayer too is above religion May 10, 2021, 7:39 AM IST ‘More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.’ – Alfred Tennyson In these precarious times when life is on the precipice and so precarious that anything might happen at any moment, the beleaguered mankind turns to god and resorts to fervent prayers. A handful of hardcore atheists may snigger at this. But years ago I remember reading, ‘A prayer has nothing to do with theism or atheism. It’s even beyond spirituality. A prayer, like universal morality, is non-theistic. It’s a gesture of thankfulness, not necessarily directed towards anyone or any specific or esoteric object.’ Persian Sufi poet Fariduddin Attar called a prayer: ‘Nisdaa’boon khud-shafi’ – self-cleansing soliloquy.