A deep way of learning to pray is to try to live in the presence of God. We try in a relaxed way to become aware of the Divine Presence during our waking hours. We need the grace of quiet concentration and perseverance to develop this disposition. Gradually, awareness of God's presence becomes an underlying theme of our life, an undercurrent of our stream of consciousness that never leaves us totally. This silent orientation is more spiritual and less bound to images than other kinds of prayer... We try in inner quiet to grow in living faith in the conviction that Divine Love is alive and at work deep within us.
When we live superficially ... we are always outside ourselves, never quite 'with' ourselves, always divided and pulled in many directions ... we find ourselves doing many things that we do not really want to do, saying things we do not really mean, needing things we do not really need, exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning in our lives.
~ Thomas Merton from LOVE AND LIVING