What is Prayer?

* Taken from the blog lazyyogi.org

"The common understanding of prayer involves you talking or communicating with something else, something more powerful, with the intent of getting something out of it, receiving something you don’t already have.

As many self-proclaimed free thinkers and atheists have pointed out, this is little different than talking to an imaginary friend with the hope that it will somehow solve your problems or create miracles.

If you ask me, both perspectives are pretty useless.

Prayer is an ancient and timeless technology. You have prayed before, even if it wasn’t under the pretense of prayer. It is a natural happening that overtakes us in very special moments. But it is up to us to allow those moments to go from being special to absolutely ordinary in the most beautiful way.

Prayer is about listening, not speaking. When you pray, you connect with the larger picture. You connect not as a small piece of a large puzzle but rather as a piece that contains the whole. Everything is in You and You are in Everything. Prayer is the remembrance of this basic truth.
For prayer you need to become a receiver. You need to empty yourself so that the divine may fill you."

(...)

Experiment praying before going to sleep...

So many things happen throughout the course of a day. Every day someone new is trying to condition you. New experiences are trying to condition you. Everything is trying to tell you who you are. And you are so desperate to know who you are that you are willing to listen.

Before going to sleep, silence the voices of the world. And then silence your own voice. Sit somewhere that feels right to you and enter Stillness. Let your existence shine through you. Let Existence shine into you.

There is nowhere to go, nothing to become, nothing to attain. Give gratitude to the opportunity to appreciate this moment.

Then go to sleep. :)