DR. Advta prayer

My Guru teaches Advaita Vedanta. She also teaches prayer and asking God for help. She teaches multiple different attitudes of prayer, each useful and appropriate in its proper context.

One attitude is surrender-based prayer. In this, we let go of our ego and attachments. We don’t insist on getting what we want, because we can’t control that. Let go, and be like a child in our Mother’s lap. Tell Her our worries and ask for Her help, innocently and sincerely. This is a powerful form of devotional prayer.

What is the Advaita perspective on that? We and the Mother (and/or Father) are actually One. This kind of surrender helps to melt down our attachments and ego-reinforcements that comprise our individual identity, and help us to merge into the experience of Brahman via the Bhakti Marga.

Another attitude which she emphasizes is empowerment. Just the other day she said (reiterating very similar words she has said many times): “Many people seek happiness and strength from the external world alone. We are not candles dependent on others to be lit. We are the self-effulgent Sun. We are not helpless kittens; we are all powerful lions. We have infinite potential within us.” We are to understand that that to which we are praying is within us. God is within us; we are part of God. So prayer and asking for help are non-different from invoking our own innate nature to dispel the illusion of our ignorance and suffering.