“Ask, and You Shall Receive”

After Gurumayi told the story of the seven-year-old child wishing to “book darshan,” she gave another teaching about what this story illustrates.

Gurumayi said, “Ask, and you shall receive. We all know this. It is in every tradition. It is in the Hindu tradition, the Christian tradition, the Jewish tradition, the Muslim tradition. In every tradition, in every religion, the Truth is the same.”

When Gurumayi said this, it was like a light flicked on in my mind; this age-old wisdom became new again. I was generally familiar with the biblical passage from which this statement, “Ask, and you shall receive,” is derived. I had definitely come across this theme in the stories and scriptures I’d read about Lord Shiva. And I knew, from my studies and my conversations with others, that a similar sentiment is reflected in the texts of Islam and Judaism. But until Gurumayi spoke about it in satsang, I did not stop to appreciate the significance of this principle, this theme, occurring in all the major religious and spiritual traditions of the world.

What can we glean from the fact that no matter what tradition we choose to follow, our effort is considered vital? The Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the Qur’an, and countless scriptures of India all extol the benevolence of God. Yet they also make clear that the seeker must take that first step toward God. They must articulate what it is they wish for.

On the Siddha Yoga path, Gurumayi has taught extensively about the power of prayer—this profoundly sacred act of speaking to God, of supplicating God, of being in dialogue and communing with God. Prayer is a practice unto itself, one that fuses the intelligence of the mind with the innate knowing of the heart. A lot can go into making a prayer. It requires more than just prostrating before God and hoping that God will take care of the rest. It is also not about saying what we think is “right,” what sounds nice, or what we presume God wants to hear.

True prayer is a merging of our own soul with the supreme soul, the soul that is pulsing all around us. And to do this, we must first listen—to the footsteps of children, for example, or to the whistling wind against our windows. To the steady click of fingers on a computer keyboard and to the gurgling of soup on a heated stove. The pulse we are searching for is embedded in every sound—in the sounds we might consider mundane, and in those we take to be the very vibrations of divinity.

We still want to account for personal preference, though. Our bodies are unique. Our nervous systems have different sensitivities. Some sounds will be soothing to us, and others will grate on our nerves. I have found it useful—crucial, even—to learn what sounds I prefer and to limit my exposure to the noises I know will bother me. If we don’t know what our bodies like and don’t like, then how can we use these bodies to experience God? Conversely, if we do engage in this process with ourselves, if we learn what we prefer and what is good for us, then we allow ourselves this amazing possibility to touch the Divine.

Ultimately, there is only one sound that has emerged from the silence of this world, and it is this sound which reverberates in the wind and the waves and the drumbeat of our hearts. AUM, the primordial sound. When we listen for this sound, when we use our words to give voice to it, the prayers we make are imbued with its energy. They carry the power of AUM.

I do recognize that we might not always come from this place when we are praying. Sometimes we pray out of desperation, or fear, or even guilt. Sometimes we pray because we really want something. We do not need to get down on ourselves about this. Certainly we don’t need to compound whatever unease might have led us to pray in the first place with more guilt. As I wrote before, our prayers will still be answered. There’s a reason why Lord Shiva is called Varada, the giver of boons—why he is known as Shambhu, the bestower of happiness, and as Karunanidhi, the treasure-house of compassion.

What I understand, however, from Gurumayi’s teachings is that prayer can also be so much more. It can be more than the simple fulfillment of a desire. It can be a portal to the experience of God—and the words that then arise from that experience are in accord with God’s will. My mind goes to Gurumayi’s Message for 2026, and specifically its second line: “Observe! Uphold your dharma.” I find it so fascinating that observation is a precursor to upholding our dharma—that, to ascertain what our dharma is and to then fulfill it, a certain degree of awareness (of ourselves, of others, of our world) is first necessary.

Recently, I was swapping stories about prayer with a friend of mine in Shree Muktananda Ashram. We discovered that we have had similar experiences when coming before Bhagavan Nityananda to pray in his Temple. We will think really hard beforehand about what it is we want to ask for. We’ll find the perfect words to express our wishes. We might even memorize the words we want to say, so that when the time comes, we can bring them to mind easily. But then, when we arrive in Bade Baba’s presence—when we look upon his golden form and let his beneficent gaze fall upon us—the words that we had so carefully rehearsed just don’t emerge. Instead, other words arise, words that take us by surprise, but that perhaps more accurately convey what it is we are actually longing for.

This has happened to me often enough that I can’t help but laugh about it. At the same time, it makes me want to refine my approach to prayer. It makes me want to know myself better and to be honest with myself. I believe that in such honesty, in the truth that underlies the caprice of emotion and the occasional rigidity of our thinking, we gain access to that greater Truth which Gurumayi speaks of.

And when our prayers emerge from this space of Truth, there is no option but for them to manifest. “Ask, and you shall receive,” as the tenet goes. We are simply communicating what has to be. We are actualizing the possibility that has existed all this time, unformed in the ether until now. Not only that, what we are bringing into the world has staying power, and a benefit that reaches beyond ourselves. Yes, any desire can be fulfilled through prayer. But how long will we enjoy the satisfaction of that desire being met before the next and the next and the next desire take its place?

It has been my experience that a prayer made from the heart bears endless fruit. It lives on. It becomes a kind of talisman, magnifying auspiciousness for the person praying and for everyone whose lives are touched, directly and indirectly, by their prayer. I am reminded of this iconic quotation by the great saint Sai Baba of Shirdi, one that I’ve heard Gurumayi repeat many times: “I give people what they want in the hope that one day they will want what I have to give.”¹

So now, I wish to ask you—Are you someone who finds it useful to pray and to offer your prayers? If so, then would you please share: How have you experienced the power of prayer in your life?