Praying the Desire
By offering a desire as a prayer, we pray infinite words in a finite time.
When we’re angry, our thoughts change.
Instead of thinking about whatever interests us in life, we think “I’m mad at Bob, he really did me wrong and such and such…”
Anger produces angry thoughts, and they continue as long as we’re angry.
When we calm down or get distracted, our thoughts change back to non-angry ones.
The same happens with desire.
When we desire something, that desire creates an endless loop of thoughts about it. If we pray with our words only, we may never run out of words, as long as we still have desire. That desire might simply produce an infinite amount of words to pray, in the same way an angry mood produces an infinite amount of angry thoughts.
But if we offer that desire itself to God, perhaps it’s as if we’d prayed that entire infinity of verbal prayers produced by the desire. By offering the desire as the prayer, it seems we pray an infinity of words in a finite amount of time.
Here’s what “praying the desire” feels like to me:
Instead of fighting the desire or trying to make it go away, refrain from resisting its presence within you. Remain open to the sensation of desiring, holding the intention of offering it to God, and you may feel the desire leave your body — a gently flowing current, like steam rising from a hot dish. If you let the full amount of the desire leave your body in this way, you’ll be left feeling peaceful about it, with an intuition of “completeness,” a sense that you’ve prayed all that you need to about this issue.