The Evolution of Prayer

91:4.1No prayer can be eth­i­cal when the pe­ti­tioner seeks for self­ish ad­van­tage over his fel­lows. Self­ish and ma­te­ri­al­is­tic pray­ing is in­com­pat­i­ble with the eth­i­cal re­li­gions which are pred­i­cated on un­selfish and di­vine love. All such un­eth­i­cal pray­ing re­verts to the prim­i­tive lev­els of pseudo magic and is un­wor­thy of ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tions and en­light­ened re­li­gions. Self­ish pray­ing trans­gresses the spirit of all ethics founded on lov­ing jus­tice.

91:4.2Prayer must never be so pros­ti­tuted as to be­come a sub­sti­tute for ac­tion. All eth­i­cal prayer is a stim­u­lus to ac­tion and a guide to the pro­gres­sive striv­ing for ide­al­is­tic goals of super­self-at­tain­ment.

91:4.3In all your pray­ing be fair; do not ex­pect God to show par­tial­ity, to love you more than his other chil­dren, your friends, neigh­bors, even en­e­mies. But the prayer of the nat­u­ral or evolved re­li­gions is not at first eth­i­cal, as it is in the later re­vealed re­li­gions. All pray­ing, whether in­di­vid­ual or com­mu­nal, may be ei­ther ego­is­tic or al­tru­is­tic. That is, the prayer may be cen­tered upon the self or upon oth­ers. When the prayer seeks noth­ing for the one who prays nor any­thing for his fel­lows, then such at­ti­tudes of the soul tend to the lev­els of true wor­ship. Ego­is­tic prayers in­volve con­fes­sions and pe­ti­tions and of­ten con­sist in re­quests for ma­te­rial fa­vors. Prayer is some­what more eth­i­cal when it deals with for­give­ness and seeks wis­dom for en­hanced self-con­trol.

91:4.4While the non­selfish type of prayer is strength­en­ing and com­fort­ing, ma­te­ri­al­is­tic pray­ing is des­tined to bring dis­ap­point­ment and dis­il­lu­sion­ment as ad­vanc­ing sci­en­tific dis­cov­er­ies demon­strate that man lives in a phys­i­cal uni­verse of law and or­der. The child­hood of an in­di­vid­ual or a race is char­ac­ter­ized by prim­i­tive, self­ish, and ma­te­ri­al­is­tic pray­ing. And, to a cer­tain ex­tent, all such pe­ti­tions are ef­fi­ca­cious in that they un­vary­ingly lead to those ef­forts and ex­er­tions which are con­trib­u­tory to achiev­ing the an­swers to such prayers. The real prayer of faith al­ways con­tributes to the aug­men­ta­tion of the tech­nique of liv­ing, even if such pe­ti­tions are not wor­thy of spir­i­tual rec­og­ni­tion. But the spir­i­tu­ally ad­vanced per­son should ex­er­cise great cau­tion in at­tempt­ing to dis­cour­age the prim­i­tive or im­ma­ture mind re­gard­ing such prayers.

91:4.5Re­mem­ber, even if prayer does not change God, it very of­ten ef­fects great and last­ing changes in the one who prays in faith and con­fi­dent ex­pec­ta­tion. Prayer has been the an­ces­tor of much peace of mind, cheer­ful­ness, calm­ness, cour­age, self-mas­tery, and fair-mind­ed­ness in the men and women of the evolv­ing races.