APOPHATIC PRAYER

Apophatic prayer entails being present with God without images or words.  God without content.  Apophatic prayer is emptying the mind of all words and ideas and simply resting in the presence of God.

Apophatic prayer can be praying a prayer-word, such as a mantra, as in Vedanta.  When person becomes a devotee of Vedanta he is given a mantra by his guru, a secret word that he keeps for his lifetime.  By praying his mantra, he takes the focus of attention off himself.

When one prays a mantra he is not concerned with success, only with being faithful to the discipline of detaching himself from self-centeredness.  The process is constant, having no stages by which it can be measured.  It is only what he notices in his daily life that assures him that something is happening.

Centering prayer in Christianity is similarly apophatic.