Why pray?
This is a question only for believers. A man who believes prays because he chooses to; a man who knows, prays because he must.
In a man who is aligned, prayer becomes spontaneous and even constant. Without alignment, prayer doesn’t know anything, including itself; and prayers must know themselves,They must arise from their own awareness, if they are to be real. In this way, they are the same as human beings.
The direction of a prayer can be determined by its length. Short prayers move towards God; long prayers, away from Him.
Prayer is a living thing that cannot be separated from the world or from God. In awareness, prayer is constant and eternal; its action is everywhere, and can't be avoided. If a man prays, and prays honestly, he does no more than give voice to that which already is. We cannot write true prayers, which are already there; at best, we unveil their existence in actions. Prayer constitutes the bridge that connects the Divine to the material; it represents movement between the transcendent and the immanent. As such, it is one of the qualities of God.
Until prayer acts by itself, all we do is prepare to pray. We can prepare with long prayers; but these distract us, because they immediately become entangled in our thoughts, rather than our action. Hence the essential brevity of true prayer, which consists of very short prayers, such as "Lord have mercy", or "Lamb of God." All spontaneous prayer is more or less of this nature.
Ultimately, we seek to be those who know of prayer that arises by itself; prayers that already exist, and have existed since the universe was first created. These are not the prayers of man, but the prayers of creation. Creation began to pray from the instant that it came into Being, and it never ceases to pray. Those who worship, those who want to pray, seek participation in this internal action. Once one knows the taste of it, one will never want to be left out. This is why the concept of prayer in the church is a perpetual one.
We might think we can divorce inner work from prayer, that somehow, there is a kind of inner work or self remembering that doesn't involve prayer, but there is no such thing. Everything in the world is either already prayer, or is trying to become prayer. So we can forget about remembering ourselves without prayer. The two are not different. It's a question of understanding what prayer is, not whether it is necessary.
Prayer is intact and inevitable; this means it is untouched and absolute. Untouched itself, and thus pure, it can touch on the Divine; and in fact it cannot be separated from it.
All material things must be rendered unto Ceasar, but prayer does not belong to this world, and is offered only to God. Insofar as it remains attached to this world, it cannot fulfill its objective. and the objective of prayer is not our own objective; the minute that prayer requires our own objectives, it is no longer pure. Prayer knows its own objective; it is objective.
There is a difference between attachment and acknowledgment; prayer can acknowledge this world, but our prayers must be unattached, unfettered, in their journey towards God.
Thy bounty infinite; thy truth eternal.
I respectfully hope you will take good care.