Deep Prayers

The deeper your prayers echo in your own consciousness,

the more audible they are to God.

There is a story of a peasant girl who was passing through a farm while going to another village. There was a person offering his prayers 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.