How could we pray better?
For that,
You might have to revise your notions on prayer somewhat radically.
Let me begin by telling you what I think prayer is not.
And maybe the best way to tell you that is by telling you a story.
There is this guy who comes to see a great Sufi master.
And he says to the master,
Master,
So great is my trust in God that I haven't even tied my camel to the post outside.
I have left it to the providence of God and the care of God.
And the Sufi master says,
Go out and tie that camel to the post,
You fool.
God cannot be bothered doing what you can do for yourself.
Pretty good,
Huh?
That is very important to keep in mind when we talk about prayer.
God cannot be bothered doing for you what you can do for yourself.
Reminded of the Jewish rabbi who had served God faithfully all his life.
And he said one day to God,
I have been a devout worshiper and I have kept the law as best I could.
And I've been a good Jew.
Now I'm old and I need some help.
Let me win the lottery.
Will help for my old age.
Well,
He prayed and he prayed and he prayed and he prayed.
And one month went by and two and three and five and a whole year went by and three years went by.
And the man in desperation one day said,
God,
Give me a break.
And God said,
Give me a break yourself.
Buy a ticket.
Well,
That's that will give you some idea what prayer is not.
Let me tell you what I think prayer is.
I'll tell it to you also in the form of a story.
There's this guy who invented fire.
And as soon as he invented the art of making fire,
He goes up to the north where you have these hill tribes shivering in the cold.
And he begins to teach them the art.
And he shows them the value of being able to be warm in the winter,
Cooking their food,
It would help with their buildings.
And they learned enthusiastically.
They had hardly learned it when he went somewhere else.
He didn't even give them time to thank him because he was a great man.
And you know,
Great people,
They're not bothered about being remembered.
They're not bothered about being thanked.
They want your good.
So he disappeared and he went to another tribe and he began to teach them to to make fire.
Well,
The people were enthusiastic,
But he began to get more and more popular.
And the priests feared that their own popularity would diminish.
So they decided to get rid of him.
So what did they they poisoned him.
And since there was a suspicion among the people that they had done this,
What they did was this.
They were very clever.
They made a portrait of the man.
They put it up there on the high altar of the temple.
And they got everyone to venerate the great inventor of fire.
And they had the instruments for making fire also placed on that main altar there.
And everybody would venerate it.
And they developed a whole rite and a whole liturgy for the veneration of the great inventor and the tools for making fire.
The veneration,
The worship went on decade after decade,
Century after century.
But there was no fire.
You want to know what prayer is?
Fire.
Where's the fire?
That's prayer.
That's prayer.
Anything you do to get the fire,
That's prayer.
You're praying for weeks and months and years.
No fire,
No prayer,
No prayer,
Plenty of goodwill,
No prayer.
Why do you call me Lord,
Lord and fail to do what I tell you?
And they will come to me and say,
Lord,
We worked miracles in your name.
And he'll say,
I don't know you,
Not interested.
Funny,
He was less interested in Lord,
Lord than we seem to be.
He was more interested in why don't you do what I tell you?
Now be careful about that.
Don't think that good works are necessarily prayer.
You know,
People will often quote the words of the Lord at the last judgment.
I was hungry and you gave me to eat.
I was thirsty and you gave me to drink.
Well,
There's someone else who says,
If I gave my body to be burned and all my goods to feed the poor and did not have love,
It is all worthless.
Remember?
So the deed itself isn't what would really be valuable because there are some good deeds that are really good.
There are other good deeds that are corrupt.
Meister Eckhart,
A great German mystic,
Puts it powerfully.
He says,
You should bother less about what you ought to do and think more about what you ought to be.
Because if your being were good,
Then your works would shine forth brightly.
So it's your being that needs to be transformed.
That's the fire.
How would you transform your being?
What would you do?
Nothing.
For your being to be transformed,
You need to see,
To see something which will change you.
You don't get changed by working on yourself.
Here in this country,
You're pretty famous for fixing things.
And that's a great gift.
When you try to fix persons,
You're likely to run into trouble.
You don't have to do anything.
You've got to see things in a new way.
The great George Fox put it so well.
He said when he had this tremendous experience,
This tremendous enlightenment or illumination,
He said the whole world was the same.
But it looked different.
It gave forth a different fragrance.
Change that comes about through seeing something.
The metanoia,
The repentance,
Repent for the kingdom of God has come.
Repentance doesn't mean crying for your sins.
Repentance means look at everything in a new way.
A change of mind,
A change of heart.
