The efficacy of prayer is often doubted and prayer itself supposed to be a thing irrational and necessarily superfluous and ineffective. It is true that the universal will executes always its aim and cannot be deflected by egoistic propitiation and enreaty, it is true of the Transcendent who expresses himself in the universal order that being omniscient his larger knowledge must foresee the thing to be done and it does not need direction or The Godward Emotions stimulation by human thought and that the individual’s desires…continue
….are not and cannot be in any world-order the true determining factor. But neither is that order or the execution of the universal will altogether effected by mechanical Law, but by powers and forces of which for human life at least human will, aspiration and faith are not among the least important. Prayer is only a particular form given to that will, aspiration and faith. Its forms are very often crude and not only childlike, which is in itself no defect, but childish; but still it has a real power and significance. Its power and sense is to put the will, aspiration and faith of man into touch with the divine Will as that of a conscious Being with whom we can enter into conscious and living relations. For our will and aspiration can act either by our own strength and endeavour, which can no doubt be made a thing great and effective whether for lower or higher purposes, — and there are plenty of disciplines which put it forward as the one force to be used, — or it can act in dependence upon and with subordi nation to the divine or the universal Will. And this latter way again may either look upon that Will as responsive indeed to our aspiration, but almost mechanically, by a sort of law of energy, or at any rate quite impersonally, or else it may look upon it as responding consciously to the divine aspiration and faith of the human soul and consciously bringing to it the help, the guidance, the protection and fruition demanded, yogaks.emam˙ vahamyaham ¯
Alok Da’s Answer:
It means that on one side we say that ultimately it is the Divine Will that happens. So in that case are our prayers and aspiration, our hopes and efforts merely superfluous things? Do they make any difference at all to the Divine Will that has already decided upon a course of action? In other words, is there any real utility of prayer?
Sri Aurobindo says there is still the great utility of prayer since it is one of the means that the Divine uses to fulfil His Will. It is He who inspires us to pray and it is He who responds as if it was our prayer that helped. But in the process it builds a two way bridge between the human being and the Divine and through this process prepares us to receive what He has already decided to give. Besides it builds a living contact and relationship with the Divine which is one of the ways that the Divine enjoys this world, the delight of love bringing together two seemingly different elements which are, in the deepest sense always one.
One analogy is that of a king who has obviously decided that the kingdom will be passed on to his son. Yet he lets him go through rigorous training in gurukula and then earn the kingdom by merit or ask for it and the king gives it happily and willingly. Through prayers one grows in faith and devotion and humility and gratitude and other divine qualities while receiving what the Divine has already Willed in His Wisdom to grant. It also implies that not all prayers can be granted as it is not a mechanical system or like an ATM machine. This too the Divine uses to build in us patience, deeper faith, perseverence, fortitude, endurance, inner strength etc.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
