Now the prayer is not addressed to anybody in particular. It is not even addressed to God, so how can it be addressed to the Christian God? It is unaddressed. It is simply an overflow of joy, thankfulness, gratitude – gratitude to the whole, to the total. It is a kind of thankfulness. Now it will not matter much what words you use, or whether you use words at all. Silence will do, sometimes gibberish will do – what Christians call “talking in tongues” – that will do. That will be far better. Sometimes just enjoying sounds like a small child – “ga ga” – that will do.

The whole question is of the prayerful attitude, the inner quality of prayer, that you are surrendered, that you are no more separate from the whole. Now this remedy cannot be imposed from the outside, otherwise you will be simply doing empty postures, empty gestures – perfect from the outside and not at all breathing from the inside, not at all vital and alive.

Prayer is a state, not a ritual. Prayer is a state of inner silence, humbleness, love, gratitude, surrender, let-go. It has nothing to do with the outer formulations of it. But all remedies come from the outside. And people go on changing remedies. One fails, they immediately jump to another; that fails, they go on – from one guru to another guru, from one remedy to another remedy, from one scripture to another scripture, from one temple to another temple – they go on and on. And not seeing real fact: that no remedy is possible, that no remedy exists, that to search for the remedy is to search in vain. And why? – because remedies are imposed from the outside either by somebody else or by yourself. And whatsoever is imposed from the outside is an intrusion, interference on your natural being – intrusion on your natural self. They are manipulations. That creates three selves where previously there was only one self. Previously there was only one ego. If you use some remedy, there will be three egos. You have multiplied the problem, you have made it more difficult. Now it will be far more impossible for you to get out of it. And if you bring another remedy, you will have nine egos instead of three. Each remedy will bring three egos instead of one.

People have used many remedies, and they have become many egos. Mahavira has used the right word for it. He calls man bahuchittavan – polypsychic; man is not one mind but many minds. And that is the research of the modern psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, psychologist, too. Man is polypsychic. It is not one ego that you are carrying inside, you are carrying many egos. Egos upon egos – they are standing in a queue, they are surrounding you from every side, they are like a crowd. You are lost in the crowd, you don’t know who you are, because there are so many pretenders around you who say “This is you. I am you. Where are you looking? I am your self.” Every desire, every fragment of your mind claims to be the master, and that’s how your slavery is created.

Each remedy brings three egos into your being instead of one. How does it happen? In accepting a remedy you become the one who you are plus the one who is helping you become other than the one who you are, plus the one who you hope to become. The one that you were, now the goal that you-want to become egoless, and the remedy, the help that you are using to try and pull yourself towards the goal: you are divided in three. And this division is not going to help, it will confuse you, it will make you more and more dull, insensitive, insane, neurotic, schizophrenic.