Prayer is not sending in an order and expecting it to be fulfilled. Prayer is attuning yourself to the life of the world, to love, the force that moves the sun and the moon and the stars.
The grosser consciousness depends heavily on particles of matter. The subtler consciousness is more independent -- it does not depend so much on the brain. Luminance, radiance, imminence -- the three states of subtle mind -- all of these disappear in the clear Light, the innermost consciousness.