There are three components to prayer and praying:

• Belief or wishing to believe in God (OM)
• Loving or wishing to love God
• Praying

Belief or wishing to believe in God includes behaving as if there is an all powerful, all knowing, benign, wise, controlling Entity who has love for His creation.

Loving or wishing to love God includes loving or wishing to love the Mother Goddess and Her sons or daughters, for example of the Hindu pantheon.

Genuine prayer involves:

• Asking for nothing at all when talking to your God or thinking of Him/Her
• Or, asking for boons for others but not for oneself, where you do not directly or indirectly benefit
• Or, asking for things for yourself. Your God will give them to you, not necessarily immediately, but they will be tainted by your desire, just like the prayer. If you do not ask, God will give things to you just the same, but it will not be tainted by your desire.

The point here is that you have a right/duty to strive for happiness but that there is no need to ask for happiness. You have prior to your birth wished unhappiness on yourself, but God is doing all that is fair and just to bring you happiness. In other words as someone who believes or wishes to believe in God/a God, you need faith that He/She will give you what you need even if you do not ask. For a Hindu this applies not just to needs but also to desires (see: Happiness and Physical and Mental Desire) since it is part of the duty of a man or woman to satisfy their physical desires (consistently with dharma or right action and behaviour).