If you wish to find meaning in your life, cultivate the thought: “I wish to serve not only my own shortsighted immediate goal but to bring others meaning, help and happiness as well.” If such a thought is sincere, what better prayer could there be? What prayer of this sort would not be answered? (‘lecture 98’)

The universal stream of life brings harmony where disharmony existed, meaning where waste existed, fulfillment where frustration existed, pleasure supreme where pain and deprivation existed. But the courage and humility to be in total truth about the self must be cultivated and summoned — daily. “I am not afraid to look at whatever it is, even if it is something I do not want to see. I request the divine wisdom and power within me to help me to see what I most need to see, so that I can change as I need to change.” Make this your daily prayer and you will liberate the real self from its shackles and attain the blissful truth of the universe. (lecture 150)

The way to go about making a positive change is to want it; you must be willing to be in truth and to change. And you have to pray to the innermost divine functioning within your soul to make the change possible. Then you wait for the change to take place, in a trusting, confident, and patient way. This is the absolute prerequisite for change. When it does not even occur to you to assume this prayerful attitude and say, “I want to change, but my ego cannot do it. God will do it through me. I will make myself a willing, receptive channel for this to happen,” you are basically unwilling to change and/or are doubtful about the reality of the higher forces within you.
This confident, patient waiting, this assurance and trust that help will come when you are utterly willing to look at the truth, can be acquired. It is not a childish attitude that wants an authority to do it for you. Quite the contrary. This approach conciliates the attitudes of adult self-responsibility that takes action by facing the self; by wanting truth and change; by the willingness to expose hidden shame; and the receptive attitude in which the ego knows its own limitations. In this receptive attitude you let God into your soul from deep within yourself. You open up for it to happen. (lecture 183)