There are only two ways to pray, the prayer that asks for something, which is the petitioner, or the affirmative, stating something. And between these two ways, there is a substantial difference.
True prayer, entirely pure and authentic, is not petitionary, it is simply affirmative; it asks for nothing, it just states a great reality.
Petitionary prayer is fundamentally egocentric - while affirmative prayer is essentially theocentric. In this higher stage of spiritual experience, a man goes beyond the Self and is lost in God; emigrates from the profane individual and immigrates in the great Universal Whole. In the affirmative prayer, the phenomenon of extinction happens, because in it the man loses the objective consciousness of the tyrannical ego and is diluted in the subjective consciousness of the Creator.
In this total self-emptying and intense plenitude in God, which the mystic experiences as divine drunkenness, a man identifies himself with the Reality and silently says: Hallowed be your name ... Your kingdom come ... Your will be done ...
This affirmative prayer supposes a constant and unalterable experience of the omnipresent Reality, that is at the same time everywhere and that penetrates everything, and in the dimension of this way of praying, any request, however altruistic, would be impossible and absurd. Who would ask? What would ask for? Both the subject's consciousness and the object's notion are missing because this polarity is the creation of the physical-mental ego-consciousness, which, at this level, does not work.
Once my consciousness sank into the ocean of Universal Consciousness - how could I be so morally demeaning, so decadent as to ask for something? Even the closest thing to me, like my ego, which has ceased to exist - and with it ceases to exist, the most distant from me, the objects of the external world.
It is, therefore, evident that man immersed in affirmative prayer is unable to ask God for something, and this is not out of virtuosity, but out of great comprehension and wisdom, since his only desire is the growing identification with Infinite Reality.
“Your kingdom come ...”
“Your will be done ...”
However, each one must pray at the level of his conscience at the moment, without pride or presumption. The full realization of the level someone lives is the best preparation for ascending to a higher level.
Conformity and non-conformity - this is the great law of evolution. Man must fully conform to the level of his evolution at the moment, and at the same time not conform so that he finds ultimate satisfaction in that non-conformity. If he does not conform to what he has, he will be swallowed mercilessly by the environment in a permanent struggle, entering into stagnation and death.
The reason why we cannot understand how prayer act is that understanding represents something individual, one-sided, not comprehensive, whereas prayer itself has to do with the cosmic order, with the great Universal Whole. Understanding is subjective, not real, fragmented; to comprehend, to arrest, to fully embrace is to experience prayer in its plenitude, reaching the greatest stage of contemplation, where there is the maximum expansion of consciousness, where man, at the height of this phenomenon, reaches the zenith of his universality, in full communion with the Divine, in the third heaven, in a reality beyond the natural stage of awakening the senses or the mind, as shown by the paintings of Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross, or of Saint Peter, by Guido Reni, or the sculpture of Saint Teresa in ecstasy, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
For this reason, the benefit of prayer is certain, but the way it works is uncertain, and will never be certain, according to the analytical intellect. Prayer will never be the subject of an investigation or scientific technique.
The world of phenomena still cannot, or can ever comprehend the rational world of intuitive reason, free from subordination to selfish instincts, despite this world of intuitive reason, dominating the world of phenomena.
Through prayer, man first enters into himself, into Reality; from there he takes to the outside world, taking the light from within and transfiguring with it all things in the external world.
Thanks to this complete identification with Reality, affirmative prayer acquires or rather receives, a total comprehension of Reality, which is Cosmic Wisdom, wisdom which, until that date, was hidden from him.
The preliminary requirement and the indispensable condition of this higher stage of experience is not only charity, in an ethical sense, but an unrestricted reverence and loyalty to all forms of life. This constant and spontaneous affirmation of all forms of life, which are the radiations of Universal Life, creates in the soul a climate of profound peace, a complete absence of anxiety, and, for this reason, joy and bliss that only those who have submerged in that ocean of Reality, knows it.
For the man identified with Reality, fear no longer exists and cannot exist because fear presupposes inferiority, which is born out of ignorance because that man is wise.
This divine experience, which is the ripe fruit of prayer makes man free, and therefore omnipotent.
The peripherally dispersed man returns, through prayer, to his divine centre, and that feeling united with God gives him unspeakable security and happiness because all dualism causes insecurity and unhappiness.
Through prayer, man turns away from the pluralism of the objective and uncertain world and approaches the monism of the subjective and certain world. The result of this departure from chaos is not monotony, but harmony. But only the true initiated knows what harmony is; for the profane man, it is just a beautiful word or an amazing ideal.
True, affirmative prayer makes man taste the divinity inherent in him because he crossed the border of his own conscience where he and the Father are the same ones.
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