The Art of Prayer: Beyond Petition to Union
- Avit Bansal
- Sep 18, 2025
- 13 min read
Introduction
When most people hear the word prayer, they imagine bowing before an external power, pleading, asking, or bargaining. They picture themselves lowering their head, folding their hands, closing their eyes, and sending their desires outward, hoping for some response, some favor, some approval from a force they consider greater than themselves. Look it up in the dictionary: prayer is defined as a petition addressed to a deity, a supplication, a request. From childhood, we are taught this version of prayer, this idea that to receive blessings, protection, guidance, or fulfillment, we must humble ourselves, offer something, make promises, and place our hope entirely in the hands of an external power.
We grow up with the belief that prayer is a form of pleading, a transaction in which our devotion, our words, or our actions act as currency to gain something outside ourselves. Every act of prayer becomes entwined with expectation, desire, and dependency. We are conditioned to think that if we are good enough, if we follow the rules, if we show enough faith, then the universe or God will respond. Otherwise, we are left feeling incomplete, inadequate, or unworthy.
But what if all of this misses the true essence of prayer? What if prayer was never meant to be a petition, a request, or a plea to something outside of us? What if its real purpose is far greater than asking or begging? What if, instead of lowering ourselves, prayer was meant to awaken a profound recognition—the recognition of the eternal Self that already resides within us, a Self that is whole, complete, and infinitely capable?
This is the forgotten art of prayer. It is not about exchange, transaction, or favor. It is not about pleading or hoping for something to arrive from beyond. Its purpose is to draw attention inward, to align with the consciousness that already holds the fulfillment, love, provision, and wholeness we seek. In this understanding, prayer ceases to be an act of insufficiency and becomes a declaration of completeness. It is no longer a reach outward, but a turning inward. It is no longer about lack, but about recognition. It is not a moment of asking, it is the awakening to what already is.
The Misunderstood Business of Prayer
For centuries, humanity has approached prayer as if it were a visit to a bank, a formal transaction rather than an intimate communion. The temple, mosque, or church becomes a place of exchange, a stage for petitioning, where we enter with our hearts full of requests and our minds brimming with hope, as if our desires were applications awaiting approval from an invisible official seated somewhere beyond our sight. We bow, we kneel, we fold our hands, and we speak our petitions, believing that the act of asking itself holds power.
The inner dialogue of this transactional prayer often sounds familiar: If you bless me, I will praise you. If you deliver me from this problem, I will offer something in return. If you give me what I want, I will dedicate myself, I will serve, I will obey. Each promise, each plea, each vow is a calculation, a subtle negotiation, a silent contract written in the language of faith and devotion.
But this is not prayer. This is business clothed in spiritual garments, a contract masquerading as communion. It is a transaction, complete with implicit interest, obligations, and expectations. And like all contracts, it binds rather than frees. It leaves the supplicant feeling indebted, inadequate, and never truly liberated.
No wonder so many spend their entire lives in this pattern, praying with sincerity yet never finding the transformation they seek. They kneel with reverence, yet rise with the same burdens, the same doubts, the same fears. They give what little they have, yet feel emptier still. They fill their days with requests, offerings, and rituals, yet continue to live in a state of lack.
What the world calls prayer is, in truth, often little more than bargaining with shadows, negotiating with absence, hoping that what is outside oneself will grant fulfillment that can only arise from within. This misunderstanding has persisted for centuries, shaping countless lives, creating patterns of dependence, fear, and endless striving, while obscuring the profound truth: that the power, the answer, and the fulfillment have always been within.
The Forgotten Meaning of Prayer
True prayer was never meant to reduce you to a beggar before the universe. It was never designed to make you grovel for crumbs of mercy or seek favor from some external source. Its original meaning is far greater, far deeper, and far more transformative than we have been led to believe. Prayer was meant to remind you of something essential: that what you seek, what you long for, what you call your deepest desires, already lives within you. It has always been there, quietly waiting for your recognition.
The Bible itself delivers this radical instruction with clarity that leaves no room for misunderstanding:
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”(Mark 11:24)
Notice carefully what it does not say. It does not say, “Believe that one day you might receive it.” It does not say, “Perhaps you will have it if you continue to hope and wait.” It says, believe that you have received it. The tense is complete. The act is already finished. Prayer, in its truest sense, is not a request for something absent. It is the recognition of what is already present.
Thousands of years before this was written, the Katha Upanishad echoed the same profound truth:
“The Self, smaller than the small, greater than the great, is hidden in the heart of every creature.”(Katha Upanishad 2.1.12)
Here lies the revelation that has been obscured by centuries of misunderstanding. The eternal Self is not distant. It is not somewhere “out there” beyond reach. It resides in your very being, waiting for recognition. It is the seed, the source, and the truth of all your desires and all your experiences.
Across cultures, across traditions, across centuries, the same message resonates: prayer is not a request. Prayer is recognition. Prayer is the union with the eternal Self. It is a turning inward, a deep acknowledgment of your own completeness. It is not about bowing, pleading, bargaining, or hoping. It is about knowing, feeling, and inhabiting the reality of what you already are and what already exists within you.
When understood in this way, prayer becomes radically different from anything most people experience. It is no longer an act of dependence; it is an act of empowerment. No longer a cry into the void, it is a recognition of the fullness that has always been present. No longer a transaction with the universe, it is the intimate communion with your own being. And in that recognition, everything outside aligns effortlessly with what has already been fulfilled within.
Why Transactional Prayer Fails
Look at the world today. Millions of people pray every single day. They fast, they sacrifice, they weep, they repeat words with deep devotion and intensity. They light candles, chant mantras, recite sacred texts, and perform rituals passed down through generations. And yet, hunger persists. Suffering persists. Loneliness persists. Illness persists. Misfortune persists. Why is this so?
The reason is simple, though often overlooked: the world outside is not the source of reality. What you see, what you touch, what you hope for, these are only reflections of your inner state. Your outer life is a mirror of your awareness, your consciousness, your inner condition. Life does not respond to petitions alone; it responds to the state of being from which those petitions arise.
When prayer is approached as a petition, as a transaction, it reinforces the very lack one is trying to escape. Every plea carries an unspoken confession: I do not yet have. Every bargain whispers: I am incomplete until you give me something. The moment you bow, beg, or offer in hope of favor, you are silently agreeing to live in incompleteness. That state, unwittingly, becomes the foundation from which life grows, and life can only reflect what is already established within.
This is why so many prayers, no matter how passionate, appear to fail. Not because the divine is cruel or indifferent. Not because the universe withholds. But because the prayer itself arises from separation, from a consciousness of lack. Begging cannot produce abundance. Petition cannot bring wholeness. A prayer rooted in incompleteness can only return incompleteness.
Consider this carefully. Millions of prayers are offered daily, requests for health, for wealth, for love, for success. People kneel, they cry, they hope with every fiber of their being. And yet the same struggles persist. They work harder, give more, sacrifice endlessly, and hope against hope. Their prayers, though sincere, remain trapped in the energy of wanting, needing, and lacking.
Transactional prayer fails because it is founded on the illusion that the source of fulfillment exists outside. It is as if one were to look for water in the ocean while ignoring the reservoir within oneself. One searches, begs, bargains, and sacrifices, yet the abundance is already present in the inner being. The outer actions, no matter how fervent, cannot override the state of consciousness from which they arise.
Prayer cannot contradict itself. A plea born from lack will only reinforce lack. A request steeped in fear will only amplify fear. The moment you recognize this, a subtle but profound truth emerges: true prayer is not about asking, begging, or seeking. True prayer is about recognition. It is about union. It is about embodying the state of what you desire before it manifests in the external world.
When this truth is understood and lived, the world outside ceases to dictate your inner peace. Your fulfillment no longer depends on outcomes, circumstances, or external approval. You awaken to the principle that life reflects what you are being inwardly. In that state, prayers no longer fail because there are no longer prayers in the sense of requests. There is only the acknowledgment of what is already true.
Transactional prayer fails because it is a plea to what is seen as separate. True prayer succeeds because it arises from what is already whole within you. It is the conscious recognition that everything sought already resides in the Self, waiting only to be assumed.
Prayer as Union: The True Art
True prayer is not asking. True prayer is not words repeated mindlessly or spoken with desperation. True prayer is not waiting for something outside to deliver what you lack. True prayer is not a transaction, a plea, or a petition.
True prayer is assuming. True prayer is being. True prayer is recognition.
It is the inward journey where the mind ceases its restless search and finally remembers what consciousness already knows to be true. It is the quiet, almost sacred, act of dwelling in the state of the wish fulfilled, the subtle courage of feeling now what you once thought belonged to tomorrow.
In this way of prayer, you no longer beg for love, because you live in the awareness that you are already loved. You no longer plead for provision, because you rest in the truth that all is already provided. You no longer ask for healing, because you embody wholeness in the present moment.
The outer world, which is nothing but the mirror of your inner consciousness, begins to rearrange itself. Circumstances, relationships, opportunities, and events align effortlessly with the state you dwell in inwardly. The manifestation is not forced. It is inevitable. Life cannot resist the projection of a consciousness fully immersed in its own fulfilled state.
True prayer is not a set of techniques, nor a recitation of formulas. It is a living experience, a way of being. It requires courage, patience, and the willingness to see that the source of all your desires is not outside of you, never was, and never will be. It asks you to step into a higher awareness, to dwell in a state that defies the evidence of your senses, and to trust the unseen law that consciousness creates reality.
To pray as union is to stop looking outside for answers, for validation, or for blessings. It is to understand that the Self, the eternal being within, already contains all. This is why scriptures across centuries and cultures speak of the Self as infinite, complete, and perfect. When you recognize this truth, prayer becomes no longer a request, but a quiet celebration of what already is.
It is here, in this profound inward journey, that true freedom arises. Freedom from need, freedom from lack, freedom from dependence on external forces. Prayer becomes communion, not commerce. It becomes a rising, not a bowing. It becomes the silent declaration: I am already the fulfillment of my desire.
And in that recognition, the world answers—not in obligation, not in chance, but as the natural reflection of the consciousness that knows itself as whole.
Living the Forgotten Art of Prayer
How can we practice true prayer? Not as a technique or a ritual, not as a performance or a show for the world, but as a living state of being—an inward return to our own awareness.
Withdraw from appearances
Close your eyes to the evidence of the senses. Stop demanding that the world prove anything to you. Do not wait for signs, confirmations, or outcomes from outside. Let the distractions of daily life fade. The world, as it appears, is only a reflection of your inner state. When you withdraw your attention from appearances, you open the door to the truth that lies within.
Assume the state
Feel now what you desire as if it were already real. Do not think of it as a future possibility or a distant hope. Let the end result be present within your consciousness. The moment you truly assume the state of your fulfilled desire, the mind begins to align with it. This assumption is not pretending. It is the recognition of what consciousness already knows.
Dwell there
Stay. Rest. Do not rush. Allow this state to become natural to you, as effortless as breathing. Let it saturate your thoughts, your feelings, and your being. Prayer is not a fleeting thought or a momentary wish. It is a sustained awareness. The longer you dwell, the more your consciousness integrates this reality, making it the foundation from which your life flows.
Live from it
Let your choices, actions, and words emerge naturally from this inner conviction that what you desire is already yours. Life should no longer feel like a struggle, a series of negotiations, or a continuous pursuit of approval. When you live from the awareness of the fulfilled state, every movement, decision, and interaction aligns effortlessly with the reality you have assumed.
This is not fantasy, wishful thinking, or imagination without purpose. This is the living essence of scripture. This is the wisdom the mystics have practiced for centuries. This is the hidden root of transformation, waiting quietly within every human being.
True prayer is not about lowering yourself, begging, or offering in exchange for blessings. It is about rising. It is about reclaiming your dignity. It is about returning to the inner sanctuary of your being where all desire, all fulfillment, and all wholeness already exist.
When you practice prayer as union rather than petition, you step into a profound liberation. You are no longer at the mercy of the world or the whims of chance. You are free to be the source of your own life, the origin of your own joy, and the witness of your own fulfillment.
Why This Matters Today
In our modern age, we are surrounded by endless techniques, rituals, and external validations. We are taught to seek approval, to chase results, to measure success by what the world reflects back to us. In this environment, prayer is often misunderstood, reduced to another task on a checklist, another method for asking and hoping.
Rediscovering the original meaning of prayer is not just spiritual, it is liberating. It frees you from the lifelong habit of approaching life as a debtor standing before a banker, begging for a favor, hoping that some external force will finally grant you what you lack. Prayer, in its true essence, restores your dignity. It reminds you that the key to transformation has always been within your own awareness.
This matters not only to spiritual seekers but to anyone longing for a fuller, freer, more authentic life. Whether you call it God, Self, consciousness, or simply the awareness of your own being, the principle remains the same: what you are aware of being, you inevitably express. The inner state is not abstract—it is causative. It shapes every experience, every interaction, every circumstance of your life.
When prayer is understood as union rather than petition, it becomes the bridge between who you are and who you were always meant to be. It is not about religion or conformity to doctrine. It is about reality itself, the reality that exists within you, waiting to be recognized, felt, and lived.
Living from this understanding shifts everything. You no longer measure your worth by external circumstances. You no longer wait for signs, miracles, or validation from the outside world. Instead, you claim the freedom to exist from the inner state of fulfillment, wholeness, and power that is already yours. You act from awareness, not lack; from presence, not hope; from union, not separation.
This is why the practice of prayer as union matters today more than ever. In a world obsessed with results, techniques, and appearances, returning to the heart of prayer is a reclamation of your own authority, your own creative power, and your own life. It is the recognition that you are not a supplicant, you are the source.
Prayer as union is not a spiritual exercise, it is the reality of living fully, freely, and profoundly in alignment with your true self.
Conclusion
You were never meant to live as a beggar of blessings, endlessly seeking approval or favors from an external source. You were meant to live as the embodiment of what you seek, fully aware that all power, all fulfillment, and all love reside within you.
Prayer is not a petition. It is not bowing or pleading. It is recognition. It is not separation. It is union. It is not something for tomorrow. It is now, in this very moment, accessible and alive within your own being.
So tonight, when you close your eyes, do not bow in desperation or whisper pleas into the universe. Instead, recognize. Do not request. Assume. Do not lower yourself in humility; rise in remembrance. Feel your inner state of completion and wholeness. Say to yourself with quiet certainty: I am.
When you pray in this way, everything shifts. Your consciousness shapes reality. Your inner state, no longer a reflection of lack or hope, becomes the creative force through which your life is lived. The world outside, which is only ever a mirror, responds naturally to the awareness you maintain within.
This is the art of prayer. The inward journey of recognition, the acknowledgment of your own sufficiency, the communion with the eternal Self. It is not about asking, pleading, or bargaining. It is about becoming the conscious source from which all desires flow, and in that state, the universe aligns effortlessly with your being.
Let this be your practice tonight, tomorrow, and every day: close your eyes, rise in your own presence, dwell in the awareness of having what you seek, and live from the recognition that it is already yours.
If this resonates with you and you wish to live fully from the state where abundance, clarity, and alignment are natural, I invite you to explore deeper teachings through my podcast, my book Possible: Dream the Impossible, and personal one-to-one mentoring. This journey is not about chasing another technique or checklist. It is about remembering who you have always been and consciously inhabiting the state that shapes your reality from within.
My Best,
Avit Bansal
|Manifestation Guide & Life Coach|
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