Spiritual Practices

Prayer

Spiritual Practice: When you pray, practice God's presence. Realize that this presence is right here, right now, hearing your words. After praying, sit still and feel God's response in your heart.

Spiritual Practice: Pray as a child of God. As God's children we have the divine birthright of love, joy, peace, abundance, and wisdom. Instead of repeating begging prayers, lovingly demand what is rightfully yours as a child of God.

Spiritual Practice: Ask God in prayer for what you need, realizing that by asking, you will receive. Keep praying and acting with faith until you do receive—whether an answer to a question, something material, a healing, or whatever—or until God makes it clear through your intuition that what you're asking for isn't right for you.

Spiritual Practice: Repeat your prayers mentally, over and over, so that your mind becomes calmer and more concentrated, lending power to your prayer. It's worth praying this way for the peace alone.

Spiritual Practice: Pray with a strong desire for what you want. The stronger your desire for a response, the more intense and concentrated will be your prayer, which in turn will speed up the time it takes to get a response. Keep on with a prayer until a response comes, however many days, weeks, or months it takes.

Spiritual Practice: Pray to whatever aspect of God appeals to you. As the Heavenly Father, as the Divine Mother, as an intimate friend, or as your beloved. Whatever aspect you choose, cultivate that relationship; make it real to you. Your prayer will be more meaningful.

Spiritual Practice: When you're expressing love to God in prayer, be sure to pray as if the words were coming straight from your heart. This helps to deepen your love for God, and to make prayer less mental and more heartfelt.

Spiritual Practice: Prayer doesn't have to be in words. When Saint Therese of Lisieux was asked what she said to God when she prayed, she replied, “I don't say anything. I just love him." Imagine an exchange of love from your heart to God and from God to your heart.

Spiritual Practice: Spend moments of silence during prayer in order to feel God's response. Pray and then let your mind be still, and feel. When your mind becomes restless, go back to your mental prayer, and again spend time being mentally still to allow a response to come to you.

Spiritual Practice: At the end of meditation, spend some time praying for others. Visualize them in God's light. After praying, rub your hands together briskly, feeling the energy build up in your hands. Then stretch your hands in front of you and chant “Om," sending that healing energy to those in need. (For the complete healing technique, go to www.yogananda-srf.org.)

Spiritual Practice: At the end of meditation, spend some time praying for world peace and harmony. Then raise your hands in front of you and chant “Om," sending that energy out to the world.

Spiritual Practice: Pray for the leaders of the world that they may make decisions based on the highest welfare of their countries and the world as a whole.