Sincere prayer to God requires only honest feeling and recognition of the supreme controller, nothing more.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.9.12 — August 18, 1968, Montreal 680818SB-MONTREAL [44:49 Minutes] Prabhupāda: govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi [Bs. 5.31] [I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, round whose neck is swinging a garland of flowers beautified with the moon-locket, whose two hands are adorned with the flute and jeweled ornaments, who always revels in pastimes of love, whose graceful threefold-bending form of Śyāmasundara is eternally manifest.] Thank you very much. tasmād ahaṁ vigata-viklava īśvarasya sarvātmanā mahi gṛṇāmi yathā manīsam nīco 'jayā guṇa-visargam anupraviṣṭaḥ pūyeta yena hi pumān anuvarṇitena [SB 7.9.12] [Therefore, although I was born in a demoniac family, I may without a doubt offer prayers to the Lord with full endeavor, as far as my intelligence allows. Anyone who has been forced by ignorance to enter the material world may be purified of material life if he offers prayers to the Lord and hears the Lord's glories.] So the prayer... For offering prayer to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, you do not require any high qualification. It doesn't matter.
You can offer your prayer from any standard of life. Not that you have to become a very learned man, very scholarly man, and you have to present your prayers in a very nicely selected words so that poetry, rhetoric, prosody, everything is there, metaphor. Nothing required. Simply you have to express your feelings. So what is that real feeling?
One must be aware of his position; then one can express his feeling. Feeling... Feeling should be very sincere and automatic. And what is our position?
That has been taught by Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Caitanya Mahāprabhu teaches us how to pray. He says in His prayer, na dhanaṁ na janaṁ na sundarīṁ kavitāṁ vā jagadīśa kāmaye [Cc. Antya 20.29, Śikṣāṣṭaka 4]. [O almighty Lord, I have no desire to accumulate wealth, nor do I desire beautiful women, nor do I want any number of followers. I only want Your causeless devotional service, birth after birth.] Jagadīśa: "O my Lord of the universe." Jagat-īśa. Jagat means universe and īśa means Lord. So it does not matter whether you are Hindu or Muslim or Christian or anyone. It does not matter. But you must know that there is a supreme controller of this universe.
How can you deny it? Therefore this word has been used very nicely by Caitanya Mahāprabhu: jagadīśa. Jaya jagadīśa hare. It is universal.
Now if you think that "My father is jagadīśa," that is your conviction, but jagadīśa is..., meaning the Supreme—no controller there. Everyone is controlled. As soon as you see that somebody is controlled, he cannot be the Supreme. So to find out the jagadīśa... The Brahma-saṁhitā gives us information who is jagadīśa.
And who is that jagadīśa, or the Supreme? The Brahmā says, īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ [Bs. 5.1]. [Kṛṣṇa who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal blissful spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the prime cause of all causes.] Jagadīśa, īśa, the same word, īśvara. Īśa means controller. So every one of us is controller to some extent. If somebody has nothing to control, he keeps one cat or dog to control: "My dear cat, please come here." He is thinking, "I am controller." And sometimes we find the dog controls the master. Actually, nobody is controller; everyone is controlled. But we forget the situation.