Prayer

The real prayer to the Lord is submitting ourselves to the Lord. What is prayer, as it is ordinarily understood? Our mind creates desires, and we are praying to the Lord to fulfil those desires. We are not explaining to our mind to adjust to the will of the Lord, but we are trying to explain to the Lord to adjust to the wishes of our mind. Actually, we are a slave of the mind and not of the Lord. We have to become a slave of the Lord, and then there is really nothing to pray for. We are just to submit to what he wants us to do. We should pray to him to give us strength to face gracefully and boldly whatever he wants us to go through.

When we are devoted to the Lord, naturally he is not unmindful of what we need. For example, if a maid works in your house and she does beautiful work, is always willing and pleasant about it and never asks you for anything, then you always feel like giving her something, without her asking. You are so appreciative of what she does and of her attitude that you want to give her something, more than if she had asked for it. If another maid does not work well or even if she works well but is always grumbling and asking for something, you do not feel like giving her anything, and you would even like to dismiss her.

Generally, we pray to the Lord for worldly possessions – health, wealth, and prosperity for ourselves and our loved ones. In the first place, we do not know what is best for us, much less for anyone else. Many things are received from the Lord after praying for four or five years, and perhaps we have to kneel in prayer for another ten years to petition him to relieve us of the very things that we had been praying for. When we ask, we do not know what is good for us. When we do not know what is good for us, why not submit to him? He will give us what is best for us.
_{Maharaj Charan Singh, Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}