Question: When we pray, should we pray for inner tranquility, or what?

Sri Chinmoy: When one sincerely prays to God one can pray for tranquility or some other divine quality. For the beginner-seeker, it is always advisable to pray to God to make him genuine, sincere, devoted, soulful and so forth. But his prayers must not be repeated mechanically. They have to come from the inmost recesses of his heart. He has to feel each time he prays that he is climbing up a rung on the ladder of his inner evolution. But the highest type of prayer is to pray to become a surrendered instrument of God. When one becomes a divine instrument, he feels that he does nothing; it is God who does everything in and through him.

When a beginner-seeker prays, we can say that his prayer has a kind of innocent motive. He prays to God for a certain boon because he feels that if he does not have this quality or thing, then he will not be a receptive channel and he will not be able to realise or manifest God. But when he becomes a little more advanced, the seeker becomes unconditional. He always prays for God to make him what He would like to make him. He does not ask God even to make him a surrendered or perfect instrument. He prays to God only to fulfil Himself in His own way. If God wants him to remain imperfect, he won’t mind. He only wants God to be pleased in His own way. If the seeker’s prayer is to please God in His own way, then God will naturally make him perfect at His choice Hour and in His own way. God is bound to make him perfect eventually, because God will not manifest Himself in and through an imperfect instrument.