The deeper your prayers echo in your own consciousness, the more audible they are to God.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
There is a story of a peasant girl who was passing through a farm while going to another village. There was a Muslim offering his prayers on his prayer-rug in the open. The law is that no one should cross the place where anyone is praying. When this girl returned from the village this man was still sitting there. He said, ‘O girl, now what terrible sin have you committed!’ ‘What did I do?’ asked she. ‘I was offering prayers here, and you passed over this place’. The girl asked, ‘What do you mean by offering prayers?’ ‘Thinking of God’, he replied. The girl said, ‘Yes? Were you thinking of God? I was thinking of my young man whom I was going to meet, and I did not see you. Then how did you see me while you were thinking of God?’
Prayer from the depth and prayer from the surface are two prayers. One can utter what Christ has called ‘vain repetitions’ — just repeating the prayer; one does not fix one’s mind on the meaning of the prayer. If the depth of one’s heart has heard the prayer, God has heard it.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
God is in the depths of consciousness. Now the Message of God, being the Message of God, has employed such prayers as would make this a reality in one. The idea of words not carrying life is foreign to Sufism. Sufism is the philosophy of life, so its words must be living words. While it is not wrong to petition God, the training in Sufism enables one to pray in a practical manner to attain to Success. Saum, Salat, Khatum, and all prayers that have been included in any portion of the Sufi Message given by Hazrat Inayat Khan are valuable beyond conception.
If it be supposed that one might petition God without these prayers, it is not wrong, but if one be a lover of another, the lover does not ask the beloved to assume tasks which the lover might do by oneself. Therefore, for the purpose of attainment it is preferable to practice meditation or concentration and not to petition God. We should rather pray by saying, “Use us for the purpose that Thy Wisdom chooses,” and “Give sustenance to our bodies, hearts, and souls.” Such a prayer combined with Darood, meditation, and concentration will serve every need of humanity.