The subject of prayer can be confusing. There are an endless variety of prayers; and human beings seem inclined to pray for just about anything they want, not seeing that their own desires are all going in the wrong direction.
There are a few — a very few — desires which go in the right direction. Maybe just two. But both of them are away from the self, and towards God. (One can know whether one's self is rightly sensed, and whether one's self-remembering is properly centered, by knowing whether one is interested in one's self or in God.)
The two prayers that are worthy in terms of a right inner direction are prayer for Presence and prayer for the strength to serve. The first prayer, a prayer to know God's Presence, is a prayer of opening the inner Being to the divine inflow of a heavenly presence. We should want to know God's Presence always and ever more within ourselves, and to submit to that Presence as the flower within us grows. This has nothing to do with our ordinary self, who we are, or how we are, but, rather, involves the growth of a higher entity within us, one that knows much better than we do what is necessary for life.
The second prayer, a prayer for the strength to serve, is a prayer aimed at being given the capacity to serve all others (vis a vis the fifth obligolnian striving.) We are born, first and foremost, not to serve our lives, but to act as vicegerents, that is, agents of a godly and divine Presence, in serving and supporting others.
This idea is confusing, because almost all of our outer life continually insists to us that we ought to be serving ourselves and our own interests. We don't see that the only
real interest we can actually have is an interest in receiving God's Presence; and that all other interests must of necessity flow from this. And we don't see that the service of others is the essential point of our lives, even though it ought to be glaringly obvious.
Service does not by default consist of
material service to others, that is, service to things, but of service to Being. This is another point those of exclusively worldly inclinations are woefully confused about. Giving people money or helping them fix external things can be done, of course; and there are instances where it should or even must be done. But above all, what we need to do is manifest our small — inevitably small — portion of the Presence of God, in so far as we may be Graced to receive it, and offer a support to others that supports their inner life, a positive affirmation of their Being.
So many destructive forces are flowing into mankind right now that individuals are confused and don't know what a positive affirmation of their own Being might be. So what is perhaps most important for individuals is to be supported so that they can gently come to a sense of themselves in which they lovingly value themselves — not selfishly, but in the context of bringing themselves into the Presence of God through their own inner action ( not having it inflicted by some imaginary set of laws or commands) — in such a way that they can help affirm others around them without being damaged themselves.
It is, after all, in this gentle and loving affirmation of others, in which our own interests are almost immaterial, that we discover a real meaning in life. In this context, material things become relatively unimportant; instead, it is the Presence of Being and its manifestation between each other that becomes the force that is most valued.
More on this later.
May your soul be filled with light.