Prayer...

It is according to the extent of our consciousness of prayer that our prayer
reaches God.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

Our follies and errors are natural; but when we defend ourselves, making virtues
of our shortcomings and trying to hide our errors, it is as if we nurtured our
errors, trying to make them grow. The only real method of growth is to judge
ourselves constantly and to see where we fail; then in prayer to ask for pardon
and right guidance.

Man often thinks that, as God is the Knower of the heart there can be no need of
any recital or gesture in prayer; but that it would surely be sufficient if he
were to sit in the silence and think of God. But this is not so; it is according
to the extent of a man's consciousness of prayer that this prayer reaches God.
If your body is still and only your mind is working, it means that part of your
being is in prayer and part not; for man has both mind and body, so that the
complete being must be praying.

But an inquiring mind will ask, 'If God is within man, then all our troubles and
difficulties, our feelings and our attitudes towards Him and also our faults,
are known to Him. So what need is there to express them in prayer?' It is like
saying, 'Because I love a certain person, why should I show it?' Expression is
the nature of life. When every part of man's mind and body expresses his
feeling, his thought, his aspiration, then it produces its full effect.