Kithu Dana Pubuduwa is described as a movement of prayer. The basic training for a life of prayer and the conduct of personal prayer is given through the two day retreat named “School of Prayer”. The Talk Seven of the Initiation Talks is the substance of the School of Prayer. It is a fact that we cannot pray. It is only Jesus Christ who can pray to God the Father. Therefore, the purpose of our life of prayer is to unite with the prayer of Jesus Christ. The reward we thus receive is the experience of God's love as a divine son or daughter. Christ experienced God's love through His prayer. In our sonship we also begin to be filled with the love of God the Father through Christ His Son. During the School of Prayer we are constantly reminded of the importance of the thirst to experience God's love.
Also we are directed to begin our prayer through the “emptying” experience flowing through the fourth initiation talk and to use the exercise of focusing on the five senses to claim the experience of inner silence and emptiness. Through this we are directed towards a life of awareness to the Holy Spirit. (From 1996 onwards we became conscious of a new meaning to our emptying. Which is that the deepest meaning of emptying is the filling through the Holy Spirit)
The second step in prayer is the truth of “encountering Christ through unity” which comes through the teaching of the second initiation talk based on Mathew 18:19-20. Through the School of Prayer the St. Paul's experience of encountering Christ is also touched upon. That is the experience of the glorified Christ, Christ manifested as the body of Christ in the Community, the Cosmic Christ and Christ in the blessed Sacrament.
In this way for those who enter into the life of the renewal personal prayer is very important. Each person reserves a time each day for personal prayer in their life. Thus they experience the love of God each day as a son or daughter. It is the Holy Spirit Who constantly directs (Romans 8:26) a person for this purpose. The personal prayer which is directed by the School of Prayer makes us experience our sonship, directs us also to experience Communitarian sonship.
This retreat is done in deep silence. Most of the time in those two day is spent in exercises directed at experiencing silence. Therefore to facilitate this atmosphere of silence the School of Prayer is conducted in one of our centers like the Sri Prasansaramaya, Sri Kristhu Dharmaramaya and Sri Ramyaramaya. In these places during the retreat the participants are taught and directed to engage in 'Samatha' bhavana and 'Sakman' bhavana. The participants are thus given the opportunity to enter into a life of renewed prayer experience.