Today prayer has turned into a form of beggary- a never-ending lost of demands to be fulfilled, or a charge-sheet against God, listing out all the injustices meted out to us.
Mere begging is not prayer. In the process of prayer, one invokes the Higher, surrenders weaknesses, and develops faith that the goal can be accomplished. When the Higher is thus invoked, we give up our limitations. What follows seems like a miracle- the impossible is achieved.
It is not that God does it for us; He facilitates what has to be achieved.
Here ‘God’ should be understood as everything that is divine in us, everything that is mighty in the universe, everything from which this universe has come. “The universe is a cosmos, not a chaos,” declared Pujya Gurudev.
We may not believe in any religion or theories of God; one may not ascribe a particular form or name to that Power, but we know there has to be a Higher Power that pulsates and guides this universe.
To attune oneself to that Higher Power in whatever way possible; visualized in whatever form, is invocation- true prayer.
(Excerpt from Doubts Dispelled- QnA with Swami Swaroopananda.)