Aspiration and Prayer

Many people confuse aspiration with prayer. They are however, actually two different things, and while they may support one another when they align, it is not necessary that aspiration lead to prayer. Aspiration refers to the inner state of consciousness that arises from the psychic being in a spontaneous movement of directed focus on some form of growth, development or realisation. Aspiration does not require belief in a supreme deity, although, again, it may coincide with such a belief. Prayer on the other hand, requires belief in some being, person, or entity to which one offers the prayer. In most cases, prayer is connected to the ego, particularly when it is asking for some specific result. Prayer may be formulated in such a way to minimize the ego-involvement, but by its very nature, the individual is creating by prayer a relationship to a greater being and asking for some type of result to occur.

A disciple asks: “What is the difference between prayer and aspiration?”

The Mother replies: “Prayer is a much more external thing, generally about a precise fact, and always formulated for it is the formula that makes the prayer. One may have an aspiration and transcribe it as a prayer, but aspiration goes beyond prayer in every way. It is much closer and much more, as it were, self-forgetful, living only in the thing one wants to be or do, and the offering of all that one wants to do to the Divine….”

“To be clearer, we may say that prayer is always formulated in words; but the words may have different values according to the state in which they are formulated. Prayer is a formulated thing and one may aspire. But it is difficult to pray without praying to someone. For instance, those who have a conception of the universe from which they have more or less dirven out the idea of the Divine (there are many people of this kind; this idea troubles them — the idea that there is someone who knows all, can do everything and who is so formidably greater than they that there can be no comparison; that’s a bit troublesome for their amour-propre; so they try to make a world without the Divine), these people evidently cannot pray, for to whom would they pray? Unless they pray to themselves, which is not the custom! But one can aspire for something without having any faith in the Divine. There are people who do not believe in the existence of a God, but who have faith in progress. They have the idea that the world is in constant progress and that this progress will go on indefinitely without stopping, towards an ever greater betterment. Well, these people can have a very great aspiration for progress, and they don’t even need any idea of a divine existence for that. Aspiration necessarily implies a faith but not necessarily faith in a divine being; whilst prayer cannot exist if it is not addressed to a divine being. And pray to what? One does not pray to something that has no personality! One prays to someone who can hear us. If there is nobody to hear us, how could one pray? Hence, if one prays, this means that, even when one doesn’t acknowledge it, one has faith in somebody infinitely higher than us, infinitely more powerful, who can change our destiny and change us also, if one prays so as to be heard. That is the essential difference.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Growing Within: The Psychology of Inner Development, Chapter III Growth of Consciousness Basic Requisites, pp. 36-37