If You Think So..

 I have a real feeling that prayer and mantra work only if you believe that they do. But what makes a person 'believe' in the power of prayer and mantra? Is it the 'will' to believe, or is there something more subtle going on in a person's ability to believe? These are interesting questions that are worth investigating and researching. But I have a sense that surrender, confidence, and curiosity play key roles in the power of prayer and mantra.
   Surrender is one quality which I quite admire in people who are devoted to prayer and chanting rituals. I found that many people who chant in the group practices in the Buddhist centre I attend tend to have such a deep emotional connection, which arises from the profound compassion that one has toward sentient beings. Although I tend to have a more 'dry' disposition when it comes to these things, I think that the key part is to yield to the prayer or mantra as though it were the only thing available in one's life. It's in the sense of surrender and relaxing in the moment that the simple word can have a great amount of power. There is a trust there, but it often comes from not having too much expectation or hope in anything else. In the classic book Varieties of Religious Experience, William James has chronicled many examples of people who come to a religious devotion not from striving to do so, but more from a sense of 'giving in' to something that is higher than the self. The paradox of surrender is that it brings a person closer to a state of sincere devotion than someone who is only striving to attain a sense of self as a 'spiritual being'.
   Confidence seems to naturally arise after one has surrendered fully to prayer or mantra. I think this confidence is more like a raft than an edifice. It is about not about holding onto something but feeling safe and grounded in what's sustaining your momentary awareness. If a person believes that who they are praying to is millions of light years away, how are they going to feel when praying? Most likely, they will feel disconnected and lack confidence. For this reason, it seems best to trust that the prayer is being directed at one's own heart, and the compassion that naturally resides there.
     Curiosity is needed to weather the storms between connection and disconnection. Curiosity is similar to the presentation of love that is found in Plato's Symposium (particularly in the section on Diotima), because it mediates between oneself and a loved or admired object. Through curiosity, I am attracted to a process of moving toward something, but also in all my relationships (close or distant) to some loved being. Without curiosity, there is no way to really find meaningful ways to connect when it is hard to connect or when there is a dryness in spiritual practice.
    I don't expect people to always feel connected to their spiritual lives. Doubt can play a key part in the tides of a spiritual practice, and having doubt can actually become a way of strengthening one's faith in the end. It's important to even embrace disconnection as a vital process which often brings a person into a more genuine connection with their spiritual practice and personal life. If one doesn't embrace periods of doubt and despair, they miss a golden opportunity to deepen their reasons to have a spiritual practice in the first place.