‘Now comes the most important aspect of prayer. Pray because you truly love The One you are praying to, thus pray with true love. Imagine if your loved one were to tell you that he or she loves you as a mere formality. There is no love involved, it’s just a duty. Would you want such kind of affirmation of love? I don’t think so. Imagine your child were to come and tell you a hundred and eight times a day . . . ‘I love you, I love you, I love you . . .’ as a mere duty and formality, a to-do list. Would you want such an affirmation of such words? No. You would rather have your loved one tell you just once a day, ‘I truly love you’ . . . wouldn’t that be much better? That is why it is not for how long we pray but with what feeling we pray, beta. Yes, if you can pray with true feeling for however long we could pray with love and devotion that would be divine and sublime. It is not how much we pray but with what kind of love we pray. It is not how complicated the prayer is, but how simple and childlike our prayer and the way we pray is.’

‘So, our prayers need to be said with love. We need to truly love The One. It should come forth from love and gratitude. Not come forth from words and a sense of responsibility and formality. Just as we don’t want our loved ones to work out a deal with us or we don’t want our loved ones to treat us as a financial account or be with us because of what we can give them or how we can protect them, the same way, we too need to pray coming forth only from love and gratitude. We want our loved ones to love us because they truly love us and respect the fact that sometimes we shall have to refuse them certain things, even though we can easily afford giving them what they seek, because we know it is not for their highest good. Thus, we too need to pray having faith in Their highest wisdom. We need to pray with pure love, not as a barter system, not for doing business, not as a to-do list.’