How Prayer Works

G. I. Gurdjieff

Most ancient prayers have nothing in common with petitions; they are, as it were, ‘recapitulations’. By repeating them aloud or to himself, a man endeavors to experience what is in them – their content – with his mind and feeling, concentrating and reflecting on the real sense of each word – what it really means to him, how he can understand it. In this way, many ideas will become connected in his thinking and many thoughts relating to the words of the prayer will pass through his mind. And then it is precisely these thoughts which can do for him what he asks God to do.

Quoted in: A Recapitulation of the Lord's Prayer