How To Pray

Prayer is an element of religious practice greatly dispute....,either adhered to faithfully or denied outright.Those who use prayer as an argument against the existence of an intelligent God,or of any God, claim that prayers would be logically reasonable and efficient if God existed. They are careful to point out that 75% of the prayers are unanswered or seemingly denied.

         I am a firm believer in prayer, and you can be too if you will give prayer the proper opportunity to demonstrate it efficacy . There are many things we wrongly accuse of being inefficient , and refuse to accept after only a few attempts to use or demonstrate them. The truth is that it is our own inefficiency and our own ignorance that are responsible .Under the circumstance, i wonder that so many prayers are unanswered .


      The understanding of what prayers really are, and how to use them , is so lacking in the average individual that it is really surprising that one out a thousand brings any result at all. In churches, certain formulated prayers are used, spoken by those seem more interested in flowery eloquence than in actual prayer. Jesus taught his disciple how to pray, and the correct version of his instructions and the sample he gave to the world are different from the prayers uttered by those have strayed from the fundamental mysticism of prayer.


      Prayer is based upon the assumption that God is omnipotent , present everywhere, and willing to grant our petitions. That is all the assumption or foundation we need for prayers; but i think you will agree that the average person has in mind a few more.  Most have in mind not only that God is omnipotent,omnipresent and merciful, but also that with all His attunement with the He created,God is still ignorant of their want and needs,and completely unacquainted with what they require in life!

       Here is the great mistake. To go into prayer with the belief that God does not know what you need or what is the best for you and that you must tell Him and explain what it is you want,is to make a serious mistake.

                            Assuming too Much
Looking at it from a purely reasonable and sensible point of view, does it not seem peculiar for a person to kneel and petition God not to take the life of one just injured in an accident? To pray to God at such a time and almost command Him not to allow life to leave the body of that person or not to allow certain condition to manifest is to assume the we, with our finite understanding,know better that God whether certain things should happen or not.

       If the person has been injured and is about to die and God does not prevent it,why should we assume that God will change His mind about the transition and allow the person to live just because we have petition to save the person's life? Think of two persons on opposite sides, each praying to God for strength to be the victor in a war between them. If God is to decide the outcome of the conflict, is it not better to assume that His judgment of conditions and principle involved will be sufficient to pick the proper one to be answered satisfactorily ...., or both cannot be victors .

          The mystic knows that any prayer or petition based upon the assumption that God or the Cosmic does not know what is the best, and must be advised or receive recommendation or suggestions, is wasted and futile. In fact, it is a reflection upon the Divine intelligence and reaches no higher than the level of our personal ambitions. Certainly, such a prayer cannot be uttered in sincerity and cannot find cosmic approval. It is doomed to die or lack response from the very moment it is conceived .

          To the mystic therefore, prayer is meeting of minds, It is not an occasion for personal petitioning but for spiritual communion. It is a time when the soul and the deepest inner part of each of us sacredly,sincerely and quietly speak to God, expressing the wishes or our hearts and minds. Any thought that our human conception of our needs must be outlined in details, or that advice or recommendation must be given, would be so inconsistent with the true, prayerful attitude that it would militate against proper prayer, and prevent any realization of what we wish .

                           Desire for Blessings

Therefore, prayer should be an expression of a desire for a blessing . Have i any right to come before God, as i do in prayer, and demand, or even plead, that long life be given because i desire it and have come to the conclusion that i should have it ? Is that not concluding that God may not have thought about given me long life or may have decided otherwise, and I wish to change His mind and decree? Is it not a preclusion of the very effect i wish to create in the consciousness of God?

          Have i any right to come before Creator of all and say that i want this or that in a manner which indicates that i have decided upon such things, or ask that the Divine Mind accept my understanding in place of its own?  I am sure that if we thought of approaching the king of a country or the president of a nation, whose blessing have been bestowed upon us in the past and under whose bounty we have enjoyed much, we should approach prayer very differently .

         If we had enjoyed many blessing at the of a king and were permitted to come before him for few moment's communion, we should probably find ourselves uttering, first of all, words of thankfulness fro what we had.... adding that if it pleased the king, we would be happy to continue to enjoy the same blessing or possibly more. Not one of us would think of petitioning for specific blessing without first having expressed a profound thankfulness for what we had already enjoyed, and without stating that, although we still desired to have a continuance of royal gifts, we had no right to ask for more.

           How many of us pray in this attitude? How many of us cleanse our hand of debt by thanking God for each individual blessing throughout the day? It is said, as rule of law, that you cannot go into court and ask justice unless evidence of having done justice to others indicates that you are deserving of it for yourself. How do you approach God in your prayers?

                        Prayer For Forgiveness

It is true that the sinners and the one whose hand and soul are darkened with evil may approach God like the one who is sinless and perfect. But such a sinner must first seek in the mercy of God , the forgiveness which cannot be granted in any human court. His first prayer must be one of repentance and regret, with a plea for divine grace, so that he may stand before God purified and worthy of further blessings.

           We are all sinners to some degree, and to make sure that we come before God worthy of blessings,our first petition should be for forgiveness and grace, accompanied with a sincere expression of appreciation for the blessings already enjoyed. If we approach God in this manner, it is more than likely that we will be so impressed with the magnificence of our lot in life and the sublimity of the divine benedictions already enjoyed that we shall forget the less consequential things for which we intended to ask. It is also likely that if we review our live for the past 24 hours and judge ourselves rightly, we shall come to realize that we are undeserving of further blessing.... having already received far more that we hope to compensate for or even deserve .

     Our sinfulness may principally consist of omissions. The gift and blessing of life, with consciousness and the full activity of all our faculties . carries with it an obligation of service in the name of God to the benefit of humanity . If we have enjoyed blessings without having returned some service or devoted some of our powers and faculties to the benefit of others, we are sinful , even though we may have committed no overt act nor violated any cosmic command .

                                                  Pray With Humility
We must be sure that we have earned and obeyed before we can rightfully expect our prayers to be even considered. There must be no hypocrisy in heart or mind, no self-deception or aggrandisement . There need be no humiliation, for the greatness and goodness of God within place us beyond humiliation if we rightly contemplate our relationship with God. But there should be humility of spirit, simplicity of mind, honesty of heart.

                Our prayers should be expression of desire for continued blessings with the thought, "thy will, not mine,"uppermost in our minds.The simple expression of " may it please the father that health return to my body," is a more contrite , honest and worthy petition than on that demands or suggests that God change the law now in operation , set aside certain specific conditions, and establish others simply because this is our desire and our conclusion .

                 The vainglorious one who has concluded that he or she above other should be victorious , should not pray for victory but that God should grant victory to the one most deserving and worthy. Not only should the will of God be the granted what they deserve and true need, whether they have prayed or neglected to do so, prayer should never be selfish and personal to the degree that it excludes others, especially those more in sorrow and need than the petitioner .

                            Think of Others
i like to think of prayer as the rare privilege of a personal interview with the king of kings, the lord of hosts. And i like to think that i have been given the opportunity of asking our blessing or making one plea at this interview. It must be the thing that i myself would grant to the world and all in it if i were the king.
     
             When i meditate upon what plea i shall make, i am often impressed with the fact that there is nothing that i want nearly so much as the things wanted by multitudes of others. If only one plea can be made and one blessing granted, i must be honest enough to ask that other be granted that which they pray for, rather than myself .

           While each occasion may be a privileged interview whereby we come into personal communion with the Ruler of the Universe , we may have such communion many times a day. This is the greatest blessing and gift outside of life itself; yet few appreciate it is time of peace, health and happiness.  They take advantage of it only in times of sorrow, tribulation and pain .

              Learn how to pray and make prayer a real communion and an outpouring of your mind in pureness and humbleness. It is one of the most perfect instance of cosmic contact. To the mystic, it is a transcendental moment of his earthly existence .