Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on September 25, 2011.
Swami Avikarananda explores the nature of prayer through personal reminiscence and the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Jesus. He begins with his own early skepticism, shaped by a strict Catholic upbringing in which the Lord’s Prayer was often repeated mechanically and prayer seemed mainly a way to ask for things. Later, confronted with the suffering of a troubled neighbor, he found himself moved to pray selflessly, and noticed how such prayer humbled and transformed his own mind. Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer, he emphasizes Jesus’ teaching that prayer should be simple, sincere, and hidden in the “closet” of the heart, not performed for display or to bargain with God.
Placing this in a Vedantic context, the Swami explains Sri Ramakrishna’s view that all genuine paths can lead to the same God and that prayer matures from requests for worldly help into longing for God alone. He shares Chaitanya’s famous prayer of humility and love, and describes the various devotional relationships to God—as mother, father, child, friend, master, and beloved—highlighting Ramakrishna’s own ideal of childlike dependence on the Divine Mother. Through the kitten parable and Ramakrishna’s “I am the machine, Thou art the Operator” prayer, he shows how deep prayer leads to complete reliance on God. The talk concludes with an incident from Swami Vivekananda’s life illustrating expansive, selfless prayer for all beings, and with the insight that true “unceasing prayer” is when our thoughts, words, and actions naturally embody compassion and remembrance of God.
