In Bhakti-sādhana, the practice of cultivating an inner life of devotion, we commonly say that devotional service consists of nine different activities: hearing, chanting, remembering, serving, worshiping, obeying, maintaining friendship, surrendering, and praying.
But why do we pray? Who do we pray to? What do we pray for?
To pray is most often understood as addressing a request to some supernatural being—a request that cannot be satisfied by mundane means. Either the request is beyond our material reach, or directly impossible. Our expectation in praying is that the request will be granted by some agency beyond our knowledge, beyond our experience, beyond our control.
But in a more traditional language, ‘to pray’ means ‘to request’. I might pray that the lift waits for me, I might pray for more chips with my sandwich, I might pray for the patience of my students, I might even pray for a sunny day.
As different as they are, both the spiritual and mundane practices of prayer have a similar mood: they begin in surrender, in the humbleness of admitting that we are powerless before a question. They open a door to an other, another power, another ability or another soul, to solve the problem. And, they depend on the mercy of the other.
Spiritual practices of all kinds make use of prayer. In Bhakti, prayer has at least three functions.
First, it is a way of establishing a connection with the Divine. One of the unique features of Bhakti is that it offers a pathway to understanding our personal experiences in direct relation to the heart of the Divine. If it is true, as we believe, that our hearts live in an eternal quest to love the Divine (prema), it is because that is the same quest that Kṛṣṇa is on when He assumes—in the form of Caitanya Mahāprabhu—the mood of Rādhā in order that He Himself may experience the love of the Divine. Prayer is a means to this Divine experience.
Second, prayer is a means of expressing the secret life of the soul. Prayer is a confidential language, not the one spoken by the mind, rather the one that gives meaning for the soul. It is a way to break, or at least soften, our everyday attachment to the material distractions our mundane lives in order to dwell in the eternal reality of the soul. This reality cannot be thought, it can only be felt.
Finally, prayer is a means of purifying our hearts. By realising both the love that lies abundantly and naturally in our hearts, and its natural connection with the love-seeking heart of the Divine, we are able to cast away our false ego—our illusion that fickle thoughts, distracting impressions, and inviting sensations that traverse our mind–are the only things that bring meaning to life.
In this way, prayer—understood in the most naive and simple way as letting our heart speak—embraces all the aspects of Bhakti practice. As a realisation of the place of our innermost thoughts in the unity of being, it is Brahman. As an experience of ourselves as part and parcel of the Divine, it is Paramātma. And as a personal invitation to see our desire for love as part of God’s desire to love, it is Bhagavan.
When we pray, we speak as children. Children have no doubt—and they are right—that all talking is talking to God. All speech that flows from a pure heart, a heart not cluttered by material coverings, is itself divine already.
A true prayer does not say something new and original. Rather, it reveals the truth that was already lying in waiting. With that revelation comes happiness, the bliss that God rains on those devotees who have let their inner love flow to Him by letting it flow to all souls.
In other words, to pray is to share. But it is not to share some secret message that we have saved in order to whisper it in the ear of God. Instead, it is the opening of our hearts to what is already divine—namely, the flawless flow of love to RādhāMohan, and the realisation of the bliss we are naturally able to cause Him, and to bring to others.