What if whatever we see in the world that makes us feel confined or sorrowful, that has us angry, anxious, or rushing around is because of what we are? When we look at the world around us, it's easy to see there is beauty in nature, love among family, compassion in times of disaster; in truth, there are wonderful things all around us. But, when we look at the world that we've made, what do we see there? The truth is, that person we don't like running into -- that strained relationship, those unwanted moments -- none of it is outside of us. We meet and see ourselves wherever we go.
If we're fortunate, there comes a certain point where we recognize that the world of our making has become so wearisome that we can no longer afford to refuse what we know we see. We have played ourselves out. In such a moment of clarity, if we truly want a new self, to be reborn, our task is to reach a quiet state and to make a simple admission: "God, I don't like the world I've made. Can you help me?"
And it isn't that you are given a certain strength that then makes you a believer in yourself as someone who can create great things. The new "strength" that you feel flowing into you as you enter into relationship with the Divine is you leaving behind the level where you are identified with the weakness that made you a victim of everything you encountered, including your own thoughts. So, it's not growth the way you imagine seeing yourself growing. Real spiritual growth is a kind of passing: it is the old giving way to the new because you can no longer be what you once were. And in that quiet passing comes that Self which was always there before, which you are now at last communing with.
In fact, every single longing, every prayer we ever utter and reach for, always has to do with that Self, with Something within us; Something which is somehow felt to be just there beyond reach, and if only we could get through that door and stand there, all would be well. That's the spiritual path. It's within us. And we must make the journey. But to make the journey we have to start on the Way, and to start on the Way, we have to understand the request, the prayer that begins it. And to make the right request, we must understand that there are different kinds of prayer.
The first kind of prayer -- the one most commonly understood and practiced -- is when you are asking for what you want; when you are temporarily filled with -- and renewed by -- both the self making that request and the anticipation of what is requested. This is the only kind of prayer that most of us ever know, which is when something asks from yourself for something for yourself. Examples of this kind of prayer are as easy to produce as listening to your own thoughts tell you why you're unhappy with your life. "Please send me some money." "Please straighten out my problem." "Please arrange a happy ending for me." In this kind of prayer, you know what you want, as well as how that prayer ought to be happily answered.
But there is another kind of prayer. A special form of invocation exists that is virtually unknown in these days of ever-increasing ignorance of ourselves. This secret prayer is when you ask God to be in charge of your life without telling Him how to do it. This powerful kind of prayer develops within you in definite stages, but it begins with learning to ask the Almighty to help you help yourself see the truth about your life, even while knowing it will probably reveal something about you that you don't want to see. For instance, you might say silently in your heart: "Please, Almighty... show me what I need to see about myself." Or perhaps, "Blessed Mother... I'm so weary with all that I know to ask for. Please teach me, whatever the cost, to learn how to ask for something new."
The difference between these two distinct types of prayer is that in the first one you are in charge of what you think you must have to be happy. Here you are trying to light your own way; struggling daily to straighten out the darkened and crooked places in your life that lay both ahead of and behind you. The second kind of prayer is the one critical for real self-renewal. With this prayer you ask God to be in charge of your life; to give you not what you think you want, but what He knows you need in order to enlarge your relationship with Him. In this prayer you're not looking for anything for yourself outside of asking God to remove the veils from your eyes.
Learning to surrender yourself to this higher will begins with learning to see the need to surrender yourself. The whole of your new wish, this change in how you want to consciously change the way you've been approaching your life, is your agreement to discontinue yourself. This new willingness on your part for God's will to supplant your own invites His Life to pour into yours. In comes the water that renews your life. You find yourself more alive than when you were struggling to give yourself the life you hoped for. Perhaps better said, you find yourself newly alive.
