Prayer: Verbal Form of
Spiritual Experience

Prayer is a discovery. When a person discovers his helplessness and the power of prayer, he is so greatly moved that the words that spontaneously spring to his lips is prayer. Prayer gives verbal shape to spiritual experiences, and, thus, internal feelings find external expression. The effect of prayer relates not to words but to one who prays and to his internal feelings. For instance, prayer happens spontaneously when a person ponders upon or thinks about God’s blessings and that God in giving him the whole life support system, has acted unilaterally.

On thinking of these things, he remembers the period after death since what he has received in this world has been given to him in order to put him to the test. What will happen in the phase after death is entirely in the hands of God. On the one hand, he discovers his helplessness and on the other, he discovers God’s power. Then, thinking about all these things he becomes agitated and these words come to his lips, “O God, by Your grace, extend Your blessings from this world to the next world.”

          There is prayer and then there is what goes before prayer. The real prayer is uttered when there has been a prior spiritual experience. Man thinks of his Creator, of his Lord. As a result of this deep thinking, spiritual activity is engendered within his heart and mind. His inner state, entering a revolutionary phase, becomes excited and he starts experiencing spiritual realities. He starts feeling that, at an internal level, contact with higher realities has been established and when this non-verbal feeling in his inner self finds expression in words, that is prayer or dua.