If I let the metaphor be simply a metaphor, I lose all the beauty, like saying the Greek gods were a primitive people's explanation of natural phenomena. I have seen this in several of your posts. I have 21 years of practice of Transcendental Meditation and have read some eastern philosophy, like everybody else. The mantra in TM is the vehicle to allow the mind to experience sublter levels of thought and to transcend thought. The practice is effortless, because the mind goes in the direction of increasing charm.
Effort only gets in the way and keeps the mind on the surface.
Experience of the transcendental field of Being cultures cosmic consciousness and higher states of consciousness. As for prayer, I get on my knees and think words. It's kind of moodmaking compared to meditating, but I try to stay open to suggestion, and this was suggested to me. Finally, I dig shiny and play a mean surf guitar ala Dick Dale on a '62 Mosrite.