Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.
Prayer doesn't work because someone out there is listening, it works because someone in here is listening. I've paid attention. I've pictured what I want to happen in my life. I've meditated extensively on my family, my future, my past actions and what did and didn't work for me about them.
The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief.
I dislike the frequent use of the word virtue, instead of righteousness, in the pulpit; in prayer or preaching before a Christian community, it sounds too much like pagan philosophy.
No effort is complete without prayer - without definite recognition that the best human endeavor is of no effect if it has not God's blessing behind it.
The life of a sannyasin should be a life of no expectations. And then every moment is such a bliss, such a benediction, because whatsoever God gives is so much. Then you always feel grateful. But your desires are so much that whatsoever God gives always looks so little; and you feel frustrated, and you feel complaints, and you cannot feel grateful. And without gratitude, there is no possibility of prayer arising in your heart. Gratitude is prayer.
Never in these long years have we offered any other prayer but this: Lord, grant to our people peace at home, and grant and preserve to them peace from the foreign foe!
Rapt into still communion that transcends The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, His mind was a thanksgiving to the power That made him; it was blessedness and love!
Riches I hold in light esteem, And love I laugh to scorn, And lust of fame was but a dream That vanished with the morn. And if I pray, the only prayer That moves my lips for me Is, 'Leave the heart that now I bear, And give me liberty!' Yes, as my swift days near their goal, 'Tis all that I implore - In life and death, a chainless soul, With courage to endure.