Prayers for 2026

1 January 2026: Greetings from Bhopal

Last night, went to bed at 10.00 PM as usual. No year-end partying. How very dull and boring! But the revellers at the nearby BAR, adjoining a hospital and dazzling with a million Chinese lights, had other plans. They ushered in the New Year with loud, prolonged, and raucous cracker-bursts. Jolted awake, checked the time. It was 11:55 PM!

Why herald the New Year with so much cacophony? Is the transition from 31 Dec to 1 Jan so momentous that it must be celebrated with lights, sound, and action? Drinks, dance, and binge-eating?

How about a little pause for thought?

A more expansive perspective of TIME?

Two Seconds on a Twelve-Hour Clock

A simple metaphor illustrates our place in Time.

(Image generated by Gemini AI)

Imagine that the entire 4.54-billion-year history of planet Earth is compressed into just twelve hours. No dates, no epochs, no footnotes—just a clock on the wall, steadily ticking.

On this clock, the Earth materialises at 12:00 noon: a violent, molten sphere battered by cosmic debris. For hours, nothing remotely resembling life exists. The planet cools, oceans form, continents drift like slow thoughts.

By about 9:00 pm, the first life appears—single-celled organisms floating quietly in ancient seas. They are humble, microscopic, and extraordinarily patient. For nearly three hours, life remains invisible to the naked eye. No forests, no fish, no birdsong—only bacteria slowly learning how to survive.

At around 10:30 pm, something revolutionary happens: oxygen begins to build up in the atmosphere. It is a biological accident that reshapes the planet.  

Only in the final hour does the Earth begin to look familiar. Plants creep onto land. Insects buzz. Amphibians crawl. Reptiles rise. Dinosaurs dominate the stage—but even they appear and vanish within the last twenty minutes.

Mammals emerge in the last ten minutes.

And then comes the moment that should give us pause.

Human ancestors arrive in the final five seconds.

Everything we call human civilization—language, agriculture, cities, scriptures, science, philosophy, art, and industry—fits into the last two seconds of this twelve-hour day.

Two seconds.

In those two seconds, we have told ourselves stories about gods and origins, written epics and constitutions, built empires and destroyed them.

We have carved caves, painted majestic murals on cave walls and ceilings, constructed magnificent abodes for gods and kings, composed songs and symphonies, and mapped the genome. We have learned how to heal—and how to annihilate. We have warmed the planet, polluted oceans, and driven countless species to extinction, all in the blink of geological time.

This perspective does not belittle human achievement. On the contrary, it makes it astonishing. What we have done in two seconds is miraculous.

But it also calls for humility.

We are not owners of the Earth, nor its divinely-ordained stewards. We are new arrivals—bright, clever, inventive, arrogant, conceited, noisy newcomers. The Earth did not wait for us, and it does not depend on us for its existence. If we disappear, the clock will keep ticking.

What does depend on us is the future of those next few seconds.

The danger lies not in our insignificance, but in our giant-size ego and misguided self-importance. When a species that arrived two seconds ago behaves as if it owns twelve hours, trouble is inevitable. Climate change, ecological collapse, and reckless technological power are symptoms of forgetting our place on that clock.

Perhaps this metaphor is best read not as a reprimand, but as an invitation—to rethink progress, to temper our arrogance with humility, to replace domination with responsibility.

If our entire story so far fits into two seconds, then wisdom demands that we spend the next seconds carefully. With restraint. With compassion. With a sense of proportion.

With remembrance of forgotten prayers.

Universal Prayers

When we reflect on the core prayers from different traditions, we note how very similar they are, and how little they argue or quarrel with one another. These prayers do not demand allegiance to a prescribed faith, or ritualistic worship of designated deities or icons. They invoke peace, prosperity, health, and happiness for all - not limited to the human species and encompassing all of creation including the inanimate world.

Upanishadic prayer:

सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः
सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः ।
सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु
मा कश्चिद् दुःखभाग्भवेत् ॥
May everyone be happy. May everyone be healthy. May everyone see goodness. May no one suffer.

A Shanti mantra with the quiet hope that everyone, without exception, is blessed with fulfilment and joy.  

---

Buddhist prayer

The Buddha’s teaching offers this prayer:

सब्बे सत्ता सुखी होन्तु
सब्बे सत्ता अवेराः होन्तु
सब्बे सत्ता अनिघाः होन्तु
May all beings be happy. May they be free from hostility and suffering.

Jainism

परस्परोपग्रहो जीवानाम्

All living beings are connected. All life supports other life.

Christianity

The Bible has a line that reads less like a creed and more like timeless human advice:

“What does the Lord require of you
but to do justice,
to love kindness,
and to walk humbly?”
(Micah 6:8)

Islam

The Qur’an has a brief yet powerful supplication:
“O God, guide us to the straight path.”

Sikhism

Every Ardas concludes with a moving invocation: sarbatt da bhala.

May peace and prosperity come to one and all.

What is significant about these prayers is that none of them demands a prescibed faith as an essential condition for human goodness and virtue. They do not ask us to agree, convert, or conform. They simply remind us that happiness is shared, suffering is shared, and so is responsibility.

As we step into 2026, perhaps we may remember to carry with us: a little less noise, a little more listening; a little less anger, a little more forgiveness; a little less hatred, a little more compassion; a little less greed, a little more generosity.

Different faiths, different tongues—
but one quiet, persistent hope:
that we may all live with dignity, peace, and a bit of joy.

Sarvesham Svastirbhavatu.

***