Reflections on Prayers and Meditations

The double identification. This prayer written as a contemplation during twilight reveals to us the secret of aspiration and giving with beautiful images for meditation.

Nestling in the heart of the Divine.

The transmutation of Love.

“May 29, 1914

O MY sweet Lord, those who are in Thy head, that is, to speak more intellectually, those who have identified their consciousness with the absolute Consciousness, those who have become Thy supreme Knowledge, can no longer have any love for Thee, since they are Thyself. They enjoy that infinite bliss characteristic of all awareness of Thy supreme Essence, but the devotion of the adorer who turns with ecstasy to that which is higher and above him can no longer exist. So, to him whose mission upon earth is to manifest Thy love, Thou teachest to have this pure and infinite love for all the manifested universe; the love which at first was made of adoration and admiration is transformed into a love all made of compassion and devotedness.

Oh, the divine splendour of Thy eternal Unity!
Oh, the infinite sweetness of Thy Beatitude!
Oh, the sovereign majesty of Thy Knowledge!
Thou art the Inconceivable, the Marvellous One!”

A prayer for the Earth.

“May 25, 1914

O DIVINE Master of love and purity, grant that in its least stages, its smallest activities, this instrument which wants to serve Thee worthily may be purified of all egoism, all error, all obscurity, so that nothing in it may impair, deform or stop Thy action. How many little recesses lie yet in shadow, far from the full light of Thy illumination: for these I ask the supreme happiness of this illumination.

Oh, to be the pure flawless crystal which lets Thy divine ray pass without obscuring, colouring or distorting it! — not from a desire for perfection but so that Thy work may be done as perfectly as possible.

And when I ask Thee this, the “I” which speaks to Thee is the entire Earth, aspiring to be this pure diamond, a perfect reflector of Thy supreme light. All the hearts of men beat within my heart, all their thoughts vibrate in my thought, the slightest aspiration of a docile animal or a modest plant unites with my formidable aspiration, and all this rises towards Thee, for the conquest of Thy love and light, scaling the summits of Being to attain Thee, ravish Thee from Thy motionless beatitude and make Thee penetrate the darkness of suffering to transform it into divine Joy, into sovereign Peace. And this violence is made of an infinite love which gives itself and a trustful serenity which smiles with the certitude of Thy perfect Unity.

O my sweet Master, Thou art the Triumpher and the Triumph, the Victor and the Victory!”

The triple identification.

“May 21, 1914

OUTSIDE all manifestation, in the immutable silence of Eternity, I am in Thee, O Lord, an unmoving beatitude. In that which, out of Thy puissance and marvellous light, forms the centre and reality of the atoms of matter I find Thee; thus without going out of Thy Presence I can disappear in Thy supreme consciousness or see Thee in the radiant particles of my being. And for the moment that is the plenitude of Thy life and Thy illumination.

I see Thee, I am Thyself, and between these two poles my intense love aspires towards Thee.”

The supreme love.

“May 23, 1914

O LORD, Thou of whom I would be constantly conscious and whom I would realise in the smallest cells of my being, Thou whom I would know as myself and see manifested in all things, Thou who art the sole reality, the sole cause and aim of existence, grant that my love for Thee may grow ever greater so that I may be all love, Thy love itself, and that, being Thy love, I may unite integrally with Thee. May this love grow more and more intense, complete, luminous, powerful; may this love become an irresistible urge towards Thee, the invincible means of manifesting Thee. May everything in this being become pure, profound, disinterested, divine love — from the unfathomable depths to the outermost substance. May the God with form who manifests in this aggregate be entirely moulded from Thy complete and sublime love, the love which is at once the source and the realisation of all knowledge; may thought be clarified, organised, enlightened, transformed by Thy love; may all the life-forces, solely impregnated by Thy love and moulded from it, draw from it irresistible purity and constant energy, power and rectitude. May this weakened intermediary being, take advantage of its weakness to reconstitute itself with elements entirely moulded from Thy love, and may this body, now a burning brazier, radiate Thy divine, impersonal, sublime and calm love from every pore. . . . May the brain be reconstituted by Thy love. Lastly, may Thy love overflow, flood, penetrate, transfigure, regenerate, animate all things, with the power, the splendour, the sweetness and force which are its very own. In Thy love is peace, in Thy love is joy, in Thy love is Thy servitor’s sovereign lever of work.

Thy love is vaster than the universe and more lasting than all the ages; it is infinite, eternal, it is Thyself. And it is Thyself I want to be and that I am, for such is Thy law, such is Thy will.”

We see here the essence of the yoga of Self Perfection.

‘May 18, 1914

THOU art the sole Reality, O Lord, Thou art Omnipotence and Eternity. And he who is united with Thee in the depths of his being becomes Thy Reality in its eternal and immutable omnipotence. But for others the command is, even while remaining in contact with Thee, to turn their eyes and activity towards the earth; such is the mission Thou hast given them. Here begins the difficulty, for everything depends upon the perfection of the various states of their being and, even after attaining the sublime identification, they must still work at perfecting the instrument which will manifest Thy divine Will. This is where the task becomes arduous. Everything seems to me mediocre, insufficient, neutral, almost inert in the present instrument which Thou makest me call “myself”; and the more I am united with Thee, the more do I realise the mediocrity of its faculties and its manifestation. Everything in it seems to me an incorrigible approximation. And if that cannot disturb me in any way, it is because the true self is lying at Thy feet or nestling in Thy heart or conscious with Thy eternal and immutable Consciousness, and looks at the whole manifestation with a smile of patient and understanding benevolence.’

We see here a complete identification of the Divine Mother with the infinity of Divine Love.

We see here the description of the state of Nothingness which prepares us for helping the Divine Manifestation.

The heart of the Divine.

“May 17, 1914

O LORD, deliver me from the mental influences which weigh upon me, so that, completely free, I may soar towards Thee.

O Thou, Universal Being, Supreme Unity in perceptible form, through an irresistible aspiration I nestled within Thy heart, then I was Thy heart itself, and I knew then that Thy heart is no other than the Child who plays and creates the worlds. Thou didst tell me, “One day thou wilt be my head but for the moment turn thy gaze towards the earth.” And on the earth now I am the joyful child who plays.

These were the two sentences I wrote yesterday by a kind of absolute necessity. The first, as though the power of the prayer would not be complete unless it were traced on paper. The second, as though the stability of the experience could not be had unless I unburdened my mind of it by noting it down in writing.”