Many philosophic students do not realize the importance of prayer and are genuinely surprised when counsel is given to preface their meditations with a few minutes of humble worship. Some protest that they do not know to What or to Whom to pray; that God as the Absolute Principle is incapable of intercommunication, whilst God as the popular dispenser of boons and woes is a mere fiction of priests and clerics. They seem to think that those who have started practising mystical exercises--and certainly those who have commenced philosophic studies--have no further need for prayer. They could not be more mistaken.
The positive gains from each stage of the Quest are never lost. Those of religion are preserved in the mystical stage, and must not be rejected; those of mysticism are retained in the third and higher degree of philosophy. Naturally, the individual advances to higher conceptions of prayer, but that is not to say he advances beyond its practice altogether. Such an atheistic attitude could never be sanctioned. Sincere prayer is a necessity and a delight to the earnest student.
To return to those who are still wondering to What or Whom they should address their prayers: it is suggested they offer them in the direction of That in whose existence they presumably do believe--their own Higher "I."
-- Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life > Chapter 2 : Prayer > # 26
