“Let Thy Will be done.”
– Jesus Christ
Our inner cry at once arises from our depths and descends from above. We know not where it comes from, or whither it will lead us. Prayer is our conscious endeavour to harness and control our inner cry, to put it to use, to give it name, voice, form, a role and direction, to employ it for our advantage.
And so we portion out the unknowable, uncontrollable, illimitable inner cry into our known, prescribed, confined framework of beliefs, rituals and apparent needs. We channel it into prayer. We pray.
The prayer that comes from our finite mind or vital quite often seeks something for ourself, giving voice to pre-conceived desires in service of our ego. In the fulfilment of these finite prayers, we miss our mark; our inner cry reveals the disappointment of our infinite soul, and bids our heart to take up a purer prayer.
Just as water will always eventually find its way to the sea, so our inner cry will eventually find its way around and beyond any restriction, control, language, beliefs or understanding we seek to clothe it in. The inner cry will always win: working its way through the finite to the infinite, through bondage to liberation, through the mind to the heart, control to surrender, through prayer to meditation, sound to silence.
The prayer of our heart yearns only to offer itself, devoid of desire, aspiring for a desireless confluence in the flow of our soul’s light and will. Rising from the heart, our inner cry casts off the finite ego-bonds. With the ultimate prayer, “Let Thy Will be done!” our inner cry unmasks itself, and its prayer-adventure is complete. Prayer surrenders to meditation. Our inner cry welcomes us to our new home.