What is in a prayer? Persian mystic Hakin Sanai’s advice is, “Don’t pester the universe with your begging. Be thankful for all that has been bestowed upon you. Just ask for more opportunities to be grateful to the universe.”
A prayer is neither entreaty nor imploration, but it is a silent communication with the cosmos, or we might say a silent commune with one’s own self. True prayer is not something engaged in to please some “Supreme Being” far away in the firmament to get something; it is a meditative process that connects us with our inner Self. A prayer is not the relegation of self or abnegation of ego. Both are symbols of existence. So, there is no need to try to get rid of the self and ego. Sublimate them to that level so that God himself should ask, “What’s your wish?” according to Allama Iqbal, writes Sumit Paul. (The Speaking Tree, The Economic Times, November 21, 2025)
Theosophically, true prayer is Will prayer, which is not addressed to some extra-cosmic God with a request for fulfilment of a personal wish or desire. These purely verbal supplications can never reach the divine. In a true prayer, that which prays is the personal self, and that to which the prayer is addressed is the Divine nature or Individuality. Unless these two are consubstantial in nature, no communion can take place. Hence, in Will prayer, there is the need to purify the personal nature so as to bring it nearer to the individuality so that the prayer is answered. It is an unuttered prayer. In order to be answered or heard, a prayer should be pronounced mentally and by one who knows how to make himself heard in silence and must be addressed to one’s “Father-in Secret.” Then that prayer acts as a “philosopher’s stone” because of the intensity of the aspirations, transmuting finite thoughts and desires so as to be assimilable by the higher nature. In this the inner attitude is, “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” For a brief space of time the mind is unfettered and becomes one with the divine, and hence it is as if the potentialities and powers of the divine nature, in terms of will power, become available, and hence our thoughts and desires get translated into action. It is then no longer a prayer but a command.
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This article also appeared in The Theosophical Movement. For more articles published in this excellent magazine follow this link: https://www.ultindia.org/magazines/tm.html