Praying This Way, She Can Now At Last Say…

She said to herself, “I’ve now had enough

Of rituals, long prayers and other such stuff.

All of it now seems such a big strain,

A terrible burden on my tender brain.

Every word prayed is an expense of energy,

This might greatly disturb my inner synergy.

And so, I think I must now greatly reduce

The number of words that in prayer I use.”

And then a great idea came to her mind:

‘Listening to God’ as prayer she did find.

No one had ever before told her of this.

Her concept of prayer had been amiss.

Not knowing prayer as dialogical conversation.

She hadn’t heard of prayer as a two-way relation,

Thinking prayer to be just her alone speaking,

Asking God for things, and for His help seeking.

This is what for her prayer had been:

Repeating set words to a god unseen,

Reciting many lines with great fervor,

Hoping thereby to win God’s favour,

Said in a language she didn't understand,

This being a tongue from some distant land.

Her prayers were words written by ancient men,

She knew but little of their where and when.

Reciting their words was the way, she was told,

To make God happy and for His grace to unfold.

She had been trained very diligently

To repeat these words most carefully.

But finally, one day, to herself she said,

“No more by others do I want to be led.

I’ll pray the way that resonates best with me.

If God accepts this or not, I will wait and see.”

How would you like it if you had a friend

With whom daily you did much time spend,

Who the same lines would monotonously repeat

Every time the two of you happened to meet,

And not only this, but that also

Alone would speak, and on and on go,

Not allowing you to put in even one little word,

As if only he should speak and also be heard,

Being unconcerned if you had anything to say?

Well, this is really how she once would pray.

Prayer was for her like magical words to repeat

At fixed intervals each day, a mechanical feat,

Not knowing prayer wasn’t reciting words mere,

But also listening to what she needed to hear:

To what the Divine wanted to her say,

To the guidance God wanted to convey.

 She couldn’t be blamed, for no one had ever told

Her about listening to God’s Voice unfold.

Everyone she knew thought prayer to be

A wordy incantation, like some magical key,

Words to please God, to entreat and to charm,

To bring good fortune and stave off harm.

In fact, not a single soul she knew had ever heard

Of prayer other than repetition of many a word.

None of them knew that God, too, could speak

To us ‘mere mortals’, humans sinful and weak.

Were they to be told God is constantly speaking,

And for us to hear Him He is always seeking,

That God is the most garrulous being that can be,

That in fact, the greatest chatterbox of all is He,

They’d say in horror, “This just can’t be true!

Don’t you dare blaspheme God, fie on you!”

Prayer into a burdensome duty people had made,

Offered to a distant deity, severe and staid.

They piously proclaimed, loud and clear,

Perhaps wanting the whole world to hear:

“There’s just one way of prayer God will accept—

Ours—the only way to offer Him respect.”

A single prayer missed by being tired or lazy

They claimed would drive God angrily crazy.

But their false claims she could now clearly see

Were simply a product of some extreme vanity.

She was sure this wasn’t something God had said,

It was all just a lie on which people had been fed.

They made prayer an exercise very complicated.

Soon, it became a thing that she really hated

(Though she never voiced this feeling of hers,

Fearing God’s wrath and other people’s jeers).

One day, she got fed up with prayer so wordy,

It exhausted her greatly, turning her dizzy,

She could no longer believe those who dared say

That theirs alone was the right way to pray.

She knew that such claims were just a cruel hoax

To control the minds and purses of gullible folks.

No longer willing to be taken by them for a ride,

She set their prayer methods completely aside.

With God in her own way she would converse,

To way they commanded being now fully averse.

Of prayer as a bundle of words she was freed,

From the notion of prayer as an irksome deed,

As something that one should not dare cease

In order to avoid God’s wrath and Him please:

For that was what prayer was, she'd been told

By the 'pious' who'd trapped her in their fold,

Claiming they knew best what prayer all was,

Saying they knew much about God and His laws.

"No more," she declared, "of all this nonsense.

I now firmly refuse to pray this way hence.

Enough of this devilry I have had,

If I take anymore, I'll really go mad!"

A way of prayer most easy she then did find,

A delight to her heart and light on the mind.

Taking Inner Voice Listening prayer to be,

From wordy prayers and rites she was set free.

Discovering the Inner Voice, she resolved to pray

In just the manner this Voice of God might say.

That prayer can be so simple she hardly believed,

Until from heavy rituals she was finally relieved.

With God within her she could directly relate,

Instead doing what 'experts' might dictate.

Prayer’s no longer for her some mere recitation

Of word-laden verses done with much hesitation.

No longer to some ‘holy’ men does she turn

To pray for her for a fee after she did learn

That everyone’s got access to God that’s equal,

By listening to His Voice which is in all people.

Now coming to know prayer in a different way,

As listening to what to her God wants to say,

And so, her praying is now not as before,

No longer is it a strain or onerous chore.

Rather, she now greatly delights in it,

Relishing the silence in which she does sit,

Listening to what the Inner Voice might say

To her as It guides her through her day.

Now that her prayer is Inner Voice chatting

—Listening to God and to Him speaking—

She can easily pray now within her own home,

Finding for this no need elsewhere to roam.

She can hear God’s Voice wherever she might be,

Doing as It guides without paying a priestly fee.

And so, to pray, to no ‘holy’ place she now goes,

Because God’s within her she now clearly knows.

Why, she asks, seek God in some other, far place

When she can meet Him within her, face-to-face?

She’s happy she’s now praying her own way,

Deciding herself what in prayer to do and say.

She can speak to God of her joys and her woes,

And listen in silence to the guidance He shows,

The Inner Voice guides her when she’s confused,

And It shares in her delight when she’s amused.

She asks It to guide her for things big and small,

And help at times when she feels she might fall.

She then carefully listens to what It will say,

Knowing It’ll show her just the right way.

The Inner Voice tells her, “Do this”, “Go there”,

Doing what it says is now part of her prayer.

When “I am with you” the Voice makes her hear,

These four words drive away all of her fear.

Praying with the Inner Voice she now loves to do.

It requires little effort, and it is great fun, too,

She loves to tell others of prayer as being this,

Thinking it too precious for anyone to miss.

She’s now discovered prayer as a friendly chat

Between two friends—really as simple as that.

Listening to God within her to her speaking,

And whenever she wants His help seeking:

Praying this way, she can now at last say:

“For the first time ever, I just love to pray!”