What is prayer ?

First of all, TRUE prayer is not meant to please the ‘god’ for some kind of fulfillment. The main purpose of prayer is to make ‘you’ evolve or to grow within.  Charles Darwin speaks of the ‘evolution of the physical forms’ but the religions speak of another form of ‘evolution’ the ‘evolution of the inner self’ and exactly here the ‘prayer’ comes into play.

Usually people pray the ‘god’ for fulfillment of desires of various sorts, but it is mainly meant for the growth of the ‘soul’, the inner self. But, this kind of prayer [with desires] is very primitive and of course it is the starting point of prayer and nothing wrong in it. This kind of prayer, along with fulfilling the desires gives maturity to the individual concerned but, to a very lesser degree.

But, when the devotee is praying for ‘nothing’ or ‘seeking the god alone’ then it is of the highest type of prayer and naturally it has more impact on the devotee pushing him on the ladder of life, it makes him/her evolve faster, it make his/her soul to bloom sooner. This is the main motive behind all sorts of prayers and spiritual practices – to grow within. On the periphery it might look like ‘pleasing the god’ and the like – but deep down it [the prayer] makes you grow, takes you to the level of god and hence, you could see the god too, i.e., the prayer makes you ‘evolve’ or it elevates you to the level of the ‘god’ and thereby you could see or talk to your ‘god’ too when you are matured enough. This is just like bees flocking around a flower when the ‘bud’ has bloomed enough. Only for this ‘inner’ blooming the ‘prayer’ is meant for but, of course it could serve many other purposes too like fulfilling desires, curing the diseases, bestowing wealth, giving power or knowledge or many other things of this sort including ‘vision’ of your chosen ‘god’.

  

All the spiritual practices are meant only for this purpose whatever they might be but of course, on the periphery they might look different. Meditation, idolatry, singing hymns, fasting, eastern ‘yoga’ and myriad others – in fact, all are meant to fulfill this purpose of life – to elevate the inner self or help evolve the inner self.