What is prayer?

As I was planning and discussing my next program on ‘Redefining Prayer’ with my 16 year old, he asked me to define prayer for him. It made me pause. I realised how difficult it is to say what prayer means. Two years ago, I had wanted to write a book on prayer traditions from around the world for children. I had found it very hard to begin the introduction to that book. How do you introduce prayer or speak about prayer to anyone? Children are an even more impossible task. Or so it felt. I dropped the project mid-way.

But in the past few years, there has been a shift in my own understanding of what prayer means. I realised my habit of communicating with an external master/Deity/Universe during my times of need or sometimes gratitude was built on centuries old belief of what Divine means. It was still placing the power and responsibility for my experience on something external that I believed could shift how I felt within. Because that is what we have been using prayer for, haven’t we?

I am sick and want to feel better, and so I pray. Someone I love is in pain, and I can’t bear to see that, and so I pray. I want something that I don’t have right now, and so I pray. Someone makes me feel an emotion that is uncomfortable and so I pray. I see others having something I don’t have and so I pray for it too. I experience a situation as challenging and so I pray for it to change. Basically, I have prayed for most of my life when I don’t like how I feel or when I can’t bear how I feel. I may attribute the reason I want to pray to myself, to some other person outside, or to some external situation. But the reason to pray has always been experienced as something that is wrong, incorrect, painful, and so I have prayed.

I still do that sometimes. Like a default habit. But most of the times now, I stop. I breathe and remind myself to accept whatever is. It is what it is. My feelings are what they are. The situation is what it is. God did not create anything bad. God cannot wish that we struggle and suffer to learn. The universe is a kind space. Every individual however cruel even he maybe, wants happiness and peace. I remember. I allow myself to feel this. To me, this is prayer.

A lot of the times, I also speak to Baba. Or lately even Jesus. I ask them to help me see the situation differently. Remind me of my own inner strength and light. I ask them to help the other person I see as suffering, struggling, or in a poor light as mean/rude/cruel, as complete beings. After all we are all whole and perfect. We are no different. To me, this speaking with a master is also prayer.

Sometimes I go quiet and feel my inner Self. The Divine within me, my inner Light to remind me of whatever needs remembering in the moment. I allow myself to feel my own strength. I feel the Truth within me. The unchanging me that needs nothing and is affected by nothing. That is also prayer.

I now feel prayer is not a transaction. Prayer is not even a process. Prayer to me feels like communication – a sharing of Truth, a remembering of Truth – sometimes with myself, sometimes with others. But its only when I remember it, that I can share it. Prayer is thus a return to sanity, peace, stillness. It allows a return to strength, faith and patience.

Prayer brings faith. We may use various tools to pray – songs, scripture, words, melody, silence, stillness, breath. It does not mater what tool we use. The important thing is to remember, that we don’t actually desire external change. We pray for an internal shift. Prayer calms the body-mind system enough to allow us to truly listen to the Universe. It allows us to trust the Universe, build a relationship with the Divine.

What is prayer? It is a tool to build a relationship with the Divine Self that resides in us, and around us in everything. It is a path we walk on to return to the peace which dwells within us, to feel the unchanging Truth inside.

Why do I pray? Because I value my peace and I don’t want to give it up for anyone or anything in this world. What about you? What is prayer to you? What is your prayer language, the way in which you speak to the Divine/Universe/God?