PRAYER
Prayer as Surrender, Not Effort
Prayer is a surrender, not a mental effort or act of will. It involves abandoning oneself completely to the feeling of the wish fulfilled. If a prayer is not…
Step by step
- Identify the wish fulfilled.
- Abandon yourself to the feeling of the wish fulfilled.
- Avoid mental effort or acts of will.
- Allow the feeling to fill your mind effortlessly.
Related ideas
SurrenderNo effortWish fulfilledReceptivenessIntuition
Radio Lectures
Prayer is a surrender, not a mental effort or act of will. It involves abandoning oneself completely to the feeling of the wish fulfilled. If a prayer is not answered, it is often due to too much effort. The key is to make no effort, allowing one to intuitively fall into the correct attitude.
This statement that prayer means getting into action mentally and holding the attention upon the idea of the wish fulfilled until it fills the mind and crowds all other ideas out of the consciousness, does not mean that prayer is a mental effort – an act of will. On the contrary, prayer is to be contrasted with an act of will. Prayer is a surrender. It means abandoning oneself to the feeling of the wish fulfilled. If prayer brings no response – there is something wrong with the prayer and the fault lies generally in too much effort. Serious confusion arises insofar as men identify the state of prayer with an act of will, instead of contrasting it with an act of will. The sovereign rule is to make no effort, and if this is observed, you will intuitively fall into the right attitude.
Effective prayer is a state of receptive abandonment to the desired reality, rather than a forceful exertion of will. It's about allowing the feeling of fulfillment to permeate consciousness effortlessly.