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The Limits and the Effectivity of Prayer · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  When we reflect on what we mean by prayer and what expectations
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  we have for it, we can determine both the limits and the uses of
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  prayer in navigating our way through life and obtaining
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  results aligned with our aspirations.
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  In the USA, it is common for people to send thoughts and
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  prayers for those subject to Mass school shootings, for
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  instance, when they have little or no interest whatsoever in
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  actually addressing the underlying causes and doing
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  anything at all to mitigate the problem.
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  In this case, the prayers are empty and are simply meant to
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  brush aside any real examination of the causes and remedies.
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  This is obviously not an actual instance of prayer, and the lack
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  of effectivity in preventing further math school shootings
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  cannot be chalked up as a failure of prayer, but as more a
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  matter of the failure to convert the prayer into an effective
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  energizing of action to support the prayer.
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  So what is prayer and what meaningful role can it and does
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  it play in our lives? Those who believe in rigid
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  determinism do not accept that prayer has any real or
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  significant role because everything is already fixed and
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  established and prayer is not going to change things.
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  Those who believe in the operation of random chance or a
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  machinery of nature also do not believe in the efficacy of
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  prayer, as without some higher being capable of hearing the
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  prayer and intervening in that machinery, the act of prayer is
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  simply an empty gesture to a non living machine.
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  Some people perceive the universe to be the result of an
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  impersonal existence. Others perceive there is a
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  being, a divine person manifesting through the
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  creation. Prayer can be accepted by either
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  of these groups. For those who see the impersonal
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  side of the creation, prayer can be understood as an act of
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  focusing and tuning to the vibratory pattern that aligns
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  them with the manifesting force of the universe.
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  For those who see the personal side of the creation, prayer can
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  be understood as aligning the individual being with the
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  universal being and thereby taking on the aspect of that
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  personal being as it carries out its intention in the universe.
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  We come then to the question of prayers as wish fulfillment.
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  We pray to God for money, relationships, success, and
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  career, for passing tests, for some other personal desire, or
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  to cure an illness or ward off bad results or situations.
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  While there can be some underlying truth in such an
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  action, inasmuch as there is a tuning of the being to a
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  vibratory force that may help in a situation, it is clearly not
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  likely that there is a God who resides at the other end of a
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  prayer switchboard and who grants requests through personal
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  intervention at the request of an individual.
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  It is in this regard, when looking at whether prayer brings
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  about an active intervention in a specific life or event, that
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  skeptics of prayer tend to point out that rarely can one see any
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  type of result that would justify even a possible
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  intervention result. The more an individual aligns
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  himself with the deepest and highest parts of the being, and
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  thereby with the divine intention in the manifested
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  universe, the more chance there is that prayer will act as a
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  method of alignment and see its fulfillment.
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  To the extent that an individual praise for some kind of personal
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  benefit separated from that universal direction,
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  disappointment is the most likely result.
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  It is not God's role, so to speak, to provide one with a
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  winning lottery number. To the extent that prayer
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  expects God to do everything and does not bring about any form of
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  action or focus by the praying individual, there is little
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  likelihood of any noticeable benefit.
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  All the thoughts and prayers for school shootings have not yet
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  solved the problem nor prevented any such event from recurring on
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  a consistent basis, because no concrete action has followed up
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  as a result of those prayers, Trior Ovindo writes quote.
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  The efficacy of prayer is often doubted and prayer itself
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  supposed to be a thing irrational and necessarily
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  superfluous and ineffective. It is true that the universal
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  will executes always its aim and cannot be deflected by egoistic
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  propitiation and entreaty. It is true that the transcendent
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  who expresses himself in the universal order, that, being
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  omniscient, his larger knowledge must foresee the thing to be
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  done, and it does not need direction or stimulation by
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  human thought, and that the individual's desires are not and
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  cannot be in any world order, the true determining factor.
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  But neither is that order or the execution of the universal will
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  altogether affected by mechanical law, but by powers
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  and forces of which, for human life at least, human will,
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  aspiration and faith are not among the least important.
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  Prayer is only a particular form given to that will, aspiration
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  and faith. Its forms are very often crude
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  and not only childlike, which is in itself no defect, but
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  childish. But still it has a real power
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  and significance. Its power and sense is to put
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  the will, aspiration, and faith of man into touch with the
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  Divine will, as that of a conscious being, with whom we
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  can enter into conscious and living relations.
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  For our will and aspiration can act either by our own strength
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  and endeavour, which can no doubt be made a thing great and
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  effective, whether for lower or higher purposes.
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  And there are plenty of disciplines which put it forward
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  as the one force to be used. Or it can act in dependence
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  upon, and with subordination too, the Divine or the Universal
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  will. And this latter way again, may
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  either look upon that will as responsive indeed to our
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  aspiration, but almost mechanically by a sort of law of
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  energy, or at any rate quite impersonally.
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  Or else it may look upon it as responding consciously to the
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  divine aspiration and faith of the human soul and consciously
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  bringing to it the help, the guidance, the protection and
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  fruition demanded. End Quote.
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  Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Powers within Chapter 9,
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  Aspiration and Prayer, pages 83 to 84.