Is prayer a pointless or worthwhile pursuit?

This was originally posted as a "viewpoint" at Aeon Conversations

There are moments in our lives when this avowed disdain for such “self-centred” prayers unravels and sounds like mere intellectual flimflam. This is when reason either deserts us or enervates us with its passionless logic.

Entrance to Naiku, Inner Shrine (Shinto), Ise Jingu, Japan (Credit: Author)

t Teresa of Avila once explained the various levels of prayer she undertook on her way to divine union. From the bottom level of prayers of devotion and supplication she moved to the next one where her mind gave “a simple consent to become the prisoner of God.” At a higher level, the saint was “drunk with love” and concerned only with the thoughts of God. At the last stage, the saint achieves mystical union with God. In other words, we may begin with prayers for “selfish” reasons and mundane worldly concerns. As we grow spiritually, we lose this obsession with the self and in the end achieve oneness with the Godhead.

Another way to look at this progression is as a movement away from theism - where God is charged with maintaining this world and hence can be called on to resolve our quotidian worries - to deism where God simply exists.

Praying to God for success in career or for more personal wealth and happiness appears therefore so trivial. Shouldn’t we stop bothering God with such minutiae?

Image Credit: CCO Public Domain via Pixabay

But there are moments in our lives when this avowed disdain for such “self-centred” prayers unravels and sounds like mere intellectual flimflam. This is when reason either deserts us or enervates us with its passionless logic. Say for instance someone close to us is dying of terminal cancer and the patient is given only a couple of months to live. (It would appear that some families have experienced more than their fair share of such trauma.) When the end is still a month or two away, we pray to God for a miracle cure. But when it peters down to mere days, then too we pray to God: but this time perhaps for the end to come and for the suffering to cease. We may endlessly question and wonder if God exists. But we seem to feel the need for prayer even in the face of such doubt. And this is both when hope is still possible or when despair is at the gate.

The Argentine-Canadian writer, Alberto Manguel, recalled the story of a former elder of the Theresienstadt ghetto who was condemned to death by the Nazis. When the SS Lieutenant came to take him to his execution and the elder was not ready (as he was busy praying), the officer began screaming at the elder. But the elder simply ignored him, ensured that he completed his prayer, gave his prayer shawl to another inmate and then told the Lieutenant, “I am ready.”