What is the best way to pray for others?

First, before you even start praying, you should invoke the presence of the Supreme. When you invoke His presence, He will definitely come in a subtle form. You will not see Him in a human body, but you will be able to feel His presence. Inside God's presence, try to see and feel the person for whom you are praying. If you can invoke the Supreme's presence and feel inside His presence those for whom you are praying, that will be the most effective way of helping them through your prayer.

But before asking the Supreme through your prayer to help someone, first ask Him whether you are supposed to pray for that particular person. If you get a message or inner feeling that you should pray for that particular person, only then should you do it. Suppose somebody is very sick and you want to pray to God to cure him.

You have to know that perhaps God wants him to have this experience right now for his own inner development. You have to know that God has infinitely more love for that particular person than you or any other human being could possibly have. If you ask God to cure him, you may only be opposing God's Will. But if you pray for oneness with God's Will, then God may say, "You have become one with My Will. Now I will be happy if you ask me to cure the person."

How can we pray effectively?

To pray most effectively, your prayer should be outwardly inaudible, but you may form a sentence of a few words that will convince your aspiring mind. The heart is already aspiring, but the mind needs to aspire. So it is better for the prayer to take the form of words.

You may form the sentence by writing it on the tablet of your heart. Then try to see it there. Once the words are written, you can return many times to see them. If you want to repeat the sentence, good, but it is not necessary. When you repeat your prayer you have a choice. Either write it once on the tablet of your heart and read it again and again, or continuously write the same thing-whichever gives you more joy.

Sometimes I feel very sad when I come down from meditation.

The sadness that you feel is quite natural, because you were in a higher world and then you had to come back to the earthly level. At that time, the worries and problems of the world enter into you. But if you meditate sincerely for a few years, these problems will not stand in your way, because when you come down from your meditation, you will have tremendous peace, poise, joy and love for humanity.

Right now you have boundless love for your child. But after you have meditated for a few years, you will have even more love for your child, because you will feel the presence of God inside him. Right now you do not feel the presence of God inside your child all the time. If he is naughty or if he breaks something, then you do not think that God is operating inside him. At that time you are exasperated and you say, "No, no, this is not God; this is the devil incarnate." But there will come a time when you will see God inside your son all the time, no matter what he does or what he says. When you progress to that point, you will not feel drained when you come down from your meditation. On the contrary, even when you enter into the activities of ordinary life you will be able to maintain the same joy, delight, peace and poise.

When you are meditating you have to feel that you are climbing a tree. You are going up high, higher, highest to collect the mangoes and bring them down for distribution. But if you feel sad when you come down, that means you want to eat them all by yourself at the top of the tree. You don't want to bring them down and share them with others. So when you go up, always go up with joy; and when you come down, also come down with joy. When you go up, feel that it is for achievement of the highest; and when you come down from meditation, feel that it is for distribution.