March I, 1914
IT is in oneself that there are all the obstacles, it is in oneself that there are all the difficulties, it is in oneself that there is all the darkness and ignorance. Even if we were to travel across the whole earth, bury ourselves in some solitary place, break with all our habits, lead the most ascetic life, still u some bond of illusion held back the consciousness far from Thy absolute consciousness, if some egoistic attachment deprived us of the integral communion With Thy divine Love, we should be no nearer to Thee! whatever might be the outer circumstances. Are there even circumstances more or less favourable? I doubt it is the idea we form of them which enables s to profit better or worse by the lessons they us. Page – 65 O Lord, I implore Thee! Grant that I may be perfectly conscious and master of the aggregate which constitutes this personality, so that I may be delivered from myself and that Thou alone mayst live and act through these multiple elements. To live in Love, by Love, for Love, indissolubly united to Thy highest manifestation…. Ever more of light, more of beauty, more of truth!
AS the day of departure draws near, I enter into a sort of calm collectedness; I turn with an affectionate seriousness towards all those thousand little trifles which surround us and which have silently played during so many years the part of faithful friends; I thank them with gratitude for all the charm they have been able to impart from the outside to our life; I wish, if they are destined to pass for a long or a brief period into other hands than ours, that those hands may be gentle to them and may feel all the respect that is due to what Thy divine Love, O Lord, has made to emerge from the dark inconscience of chaos. Then 1 turn towards the future, and my regard becomes still more grave. What it has in store for Page – 66 us I do not know and am not anxious to know; outer circumstances have no importance at all, I would only wish that it may be the beginning of a new inner period, in which, more detached from material things, we may be more conscious of Thy law and more solely consecrated to its manifestation; that it may be a period of a greater light, a greater love, a more perfect devotion to Thy cause. In a silent adoration I contemplate Thee.
IT is the last time, it may well be for long, that I write at this table, in this quiet room steeped in Thy Presence. For the next three days I shall probably not be able to write… It is in an inner concentration that I contemplate this page which, as it turns, vanishes into the dream of the past and I regard this other page, blank but in potentiality full of the dream of the future…And yet what a small thing it seems, childish and without importance, when looked at in the light of Thy eternity. The one thing important is to obey Thy law with love and joy. O Lord, grant that all in us may adore Thee and serve Thee. May all have Peace ! Page – 67
AFTER I had acutely suffered from their suffering,, I turned towards Thee in an attempt to heal it by infusing into it a little of the divine Love, source of all peace and happiness. We must not run away from suffering, we must not love and cultivate it either, we must learn how to go down deep enough in it to make it a lever which will have the power to force open the doors of the eternal consciousness and enter into the serenity of Thy unvarying oneness. Certainly this sentimental and physical attachment which produces a wrench when the bodies separate, is childish from a certain point of view, when we contemplate the impermanence of outer forms and the reality of Thy essential oneness; but on the other hand, is not this attachment, this personal affection, an unconscious effort of men to realise externally as far as possible, that fundamental oneness towards which they are ever tending without even being aware of it? And precisely for this reason, is not the suffering produced by the separation one of the most effective means of transcending this outer consciousness, of replacing this superficial attachment by the integral realisation of Thy eternal oneness? It was this that I wished for them all; it was this that I ardently willed for them, and it was for this that I, assured of Thy victory and certain of Thy triumph, confided to Thee their grief so that Thou mayst by illumining heal it. Page – 68 O Lord, grant that all this beauty of affection and tenderness may be transformed into a glorious knowledge. Grant that the best may come out of everything, and Thy happy Peace may reign over the earth.
On board the Kaga Maru, March 7, 1914
THOU wast with us yesterday as the most marvellous protection; Thou hast permitted Thy law to triumph even up to the most outer manifestation. Violence was answered by calm, brutality by the power of gentleness; and where there could have taken place an irreparable misfortune. Thy power was glorified. O Lord! with what fervent gratitude I saluted Thy presence. It was for me a sure sign that we would have the force to act, to think, to live in Thy name and for Thee; not only in "Mention and will, but effectively, in an integral realisation. This morning my prayer rises to Thee, always with the same aspiration: to live Thy love, to radiate my love, with such potency and effectiveness that all may feel fortified, regenerated and illumined by our contact. To have power to heal life, to relieve suffering, to generate peace »and calm confidence, to efface Aguish and replace it by the sense of the one happiness, the happiness that is founded in Page – 69 Thee and never fades… O Lord, O Marvellous Friend, O all-powerful Master, penetrate all our being, transfigure it till Thou alone livest in us and through us!
IN front of this calm sunrise which turned all within me into silence and peace, at the moment when I grew conscious of Thee and Thou alone wast living in me, O Lord, it seemed to me that I adopted all the inhabitants of this ship, and enveloped them in an equal love, and that so in each one of them something of Thy consciousness would awake. Not often had I felt so strongly Thy divine power, and Thy invincible light, and once again total was my confidence and unmixed my joyful surrender. O Thou who relievest all suffering and disperses! all ignorance, O Thou the supreme healer, be constantly present on this boat in the heart of those whom it shelters that once again Thy glory may be manifested!
March 9, 1914
THOSE who live for Thee and in Thee may change their physical surroundings, their habits, climate, "milieu," but everywhere they find the same atmosphere; Page – 70 they carry that atmosphere in themselves, in their thought constantly fixed on Thee. Everywhere they feel at home, for everywhere they are in Thy house. No longer do they marvel at the novelty, unexpectedness, picturesqueness of things and countries; for them, it is Thy Presence that is manifest in all and Thy unchangeable splendour which never leaves them, is apparent in the least grain of sand. The whole earth chants Thy praises; in spite of the obscurity, misery, ignorance, through it all, it is still the glory of Thy love which we perceive and with which we can commune ceaselessly everywhere. O Lord, my sweet Master, all this I constantly experience on this boat which seems to me a marvellous abode of peace, a temple sailing in Thy honour over the waves of the subconscient passivity which we have to conquer and awaken to the consciousness of Thy divine Presence. Blessed was the day when I came to know Thee» O Ineffable Eternity! Blessed among all days be that day when the earth at last awakened shall know Thee and shall live only for Thee’
March 1O, 1914
IN the silence of the night Thy Peace reigned over all things, in the silence of my heart Thy Peace Page – 71 reigns always, and when these two silences were united. Thy Peace was so powerful that no trouble of any kind could resist it. I then thought of all those who were watching over the ship to safeguard and protect our route, and in gratitude, I willed that Thy Peace should be born and live in their hearts; then I thought of all those who, confident and carefree, slept the sleep of inconscience, and, with solicitude for their miseries, pity for their latent suffering which would awake in them in their own waking, I willed that a little of Thy Peace might dwell in their hearts and bring to birth in them the life of the Spirit, the light which dispels ignorance. I then thought of all the dwellers of this vast sea, visible and invisible, and I willed that over them might be extended Thy Peace. I thought next of those whom we had left far away and whose affection is with us, and with a great tenderness, I willed for them Thy conscious and lasting Peace, the plenitude of Thy Peace proportioned to their capacity to receive it. Then I thought of all those to whom we are going, who are restless with childish preoccupations and fight for mean competitions of interest in ignorance and egoism; and ardently, in a great aspiration, for them I asked for the plenary light of Thy Peace. I next thought of all those whom we know, of all those whom we do not know, of all the life that is working itself out, of all that has changed its form, and all that is not yet in form, and for all that, and also for all of which I cannot think, for all that is present to my Page – 72 memory, and for all that I forget, in a great ingathering and mute adoration, I implored Thy Peace.
O LORD, my sole aspiration is to know Thee better and serve Thee better everyday. What do the outer circumstances matter? They appear to me everyday more vain and more illusory, and I take less and less interest in what will outwardly happen to us ; but I am more and more intensely interested in the only thing which appears to me important: to know Thee better in order to serve Thee better. All outer events must converge towards this goal, and towards it alone; and for that all depends upon the attitude we have towards them. To be constantly in search of Thee in. everything, to will to manifest Thee better in every circumstance, in this attitude is to be found supreme Peace, perfect serenity, true contentment. In it life blooms, widens, spreads out so magnificently, in such majestic surges that no storm can any more trouble it. O Lord, Thou art our safeguard, our only happiness? Thou art our resplendent light, our pure love, our hope and our force; Thou art our life, the reality of our being! With a respectful and joyous adoration I salute Thee. Page – 73
HOW many and different are the degrees of consciousness ! This word should be reserved for that which, in a being, is illumined by Thy Presence, identifies itself with Thee and participates in Thy absolute Consciousness, for that which has knowledge, which is " perfectly awakened," as says the Buddha. Outside this state, there are infinite degrees of consciousness descending down to the complete darkness, the veritable inconscience which may be a domain not yet touched by the light of Thy divine love (but that appears improbable in physical substance), or which is, by reason of some ignorance, outside, our individual region of perception. This is, however, only a way of speaking, and a very incomplete one at that; for at the moment when the being becomes aware of Thy presence and identifies itself with Thy consciousness, it is conscious in everything and everywhere. But the fugitive duration of this supreme consciousness can be explained only by the complexity of the elements of the being, by their inequality in the illumination and by the fact that they enter successively into activity. It is, moreover, by reason of this successive activity that little by little they can become aware of themselves as a result of their subjective and objective experiences (which comes to the same thing), that is to say, discover Thee in their unfathomable essence. Page – 74 The subconscient is the intermediate zone between precise perception and the total darkness of the ignorance; it is probable that the majority of beings,, even of human beings, live constantly in this subconscience; few emerge from it. This is the conquest that is to be made; for to be conscious in the true sense of the word, is to be Thou integrally; and is not that the very definition of the work to be accomplished, the mission to be fulfilled upon the earth? Deliver us, O Lord, from darkness; grant that we may be perfectly awakened. Sweet Master of Love, grant that my consciousness may be concentrated in Thee so that I may live only by the love and light and that love and light may radiate through me and awake in all on our passage; let this physical journey be a symbol of our action, and let us everywhere leave a trace of Thee like a trail of light and love. O divine Master, eternal Teacher, Thou livest in everything, in every being, and Thy love becomes evident even to the eyes of the most ignorant. Grant that all may be conscious of it in the depths of their being and that hatred may disappear for ever from their hearts. My ardent gratitude rises towards Thee like an untired chant. Page – 75
TN the unchanging solitude of the desert there is something of Thy majestic presence, and I understand why one of the best means of finding Thee has always been to retire into these immense plains of sand. But for one who knows Thee, Thou art everywhere, in everything, and no one thing appears to be more favourable than another for manifesting Thee; for all things that exist—and many others that are not yet—are necessary to express Thee. Everything, by the very fact of Thy divine intervention of love, is an effort of life towards Thee; and when our eyes are opened, we constantly perceive this effort. O Lord, my heart is athirst for Thee and my thought constantly seeks Thee. In a mute adoration I salute Thee.
MY thought is full of Thee, my heart is full, all my being is filled with Thy Presence, and peace goes on growing, producing the happiness, so characteristic and unmixed, of a calm serenity which seems as vast as the universe, as profound as the unfathomable depths that lead to Thee. O, These silent and pure nights in which my overflowing heart unites with Thy divine Love to penetrate Page – 76 into everything, embrace all life, illumine and regenerate all thought, purify all feeling, awaken in all being the consciousness of Thy marvellous Presence and of the ineffable peace which springs from it. Grant, O Lord, that this consciousness and this peace may go on growing in us, so that more and more we may become faithful intermediaries of Thy divine and single law.
AS soon as physical conditions are a little difficult and there results from them some unease, if we know how to surrender completely before Thy will, holding cheap life or death, health or illness, our integral being enters immediately into harmony with Thy law of love and life, and all physical indisposition ceases to give place to a well-being calm, deep and Peaceful. I have noticed that if we enter into an activity which requires a great physical endurance, what fatigues the most is the anticipation in advance of all the difficulties to which we shall be exposed. It is much wiser at every moment to look only at the difficulty of the present minute; this makes the effort easier because it is always proportionate to the sum of force, the resistance we command. The body is a marvellous Page – 77 instrument, it is our mind that does not know how to use it, and, instead of promoting its suppleness, its plasticity, puts into it a certain fixity arising from preconceived ideas and unfavourable suggestions. But the supreme science, O Lord, is to be united with Thee, to confide in Thee, to live in Thee, to be Thou, and then there is nothing that is impossible to the man manifesting Thy omnipotence. Lord, my aspiration rises towards Thee like a silent canticle, a mute adoration, and Thy divine Love illumines my heart. O divine Master, I salute Thee.
THOU art perfect knowledge and absolute consciousness. He who unites himself with Thee is —for the time of this union—omniscient. But even before he has attained to this stage, he who, in all the sincerity of his being, has given himself to Thee with all his conscious will, he who has resolved to make every effort to help in the manifestation and triumph of Thy divine law of Love in him and in the whole zone of his influence, sees everything change in his life and all circumstances begin to express Thy law and facilitate his consecration; for him it is always the best that happens; and if there is still in his intelligence some obscurity, some ignorant desire which Page – 78 sometimes prevents him from perceiving it immediately, he recognises sooner or later that a beneficent power seemed to protect him even against himself so as to secure for him the conditions most favourable to his blossoming and transfiguration, his integral conversion and utilisation. When we are conscious and convinced of this, we can no more have any cares about future circumstances and the turn taken by events, it is with a perfect serenity that we do at every moment what we think best, convinced that what will come of it will also be the best, even if it is not the result which, in our limited reasoning, we expected from it. That is why, O Lord, our heart is light and our thought at rest. That is why we turn towards Thee in all confidence and say peacefully: May Thy will be done, in it is realised the true harmony.
O LORD, eternal Teacher, Thou whom we can neither name nor understand, but whom we would realise more and more at every moment, enlighten the intelligence, illumine our hearts, transfigure the consciousness; may everybody awaken to the true life, escape from egoism and its train of sorrow and Page – 79 anguish, in order to take refuge in Thy divine and pure Love, source of all peace and all happiness. My heart so full of Thee seems to expand to infinity, and my intelligence wholly enlightened with Thy Presence shines like the purest diamond. Thou art the marvellous magician, he who transfigures everything, makes beauty emerge out of ugliness, light out of darkness, clear water out of mud, knowledge out of ignorance and kindness out of egoism. In Thee, by Thee, for Thee we live and Thy law is the supreme master of our life. May Thy will be done in every place, may Thy peace reign over the whole earth!
THOU art consciousness and light. Thou art peace — in the heart of all, divine love which transfigures, knowledge which triumphs over darkness. To feel Thee and aspire for Thee, we must have emerged from the immense sea- of the subconscient; we must have begun to crystallise, to define and so to know and then to give ourselves as that alone can give itself which belongs to itself. And how many efforts and struggles are needed to attain to this crystallisation, to come out of the amorphous middle state; and how many efforts and struggles again to give ourselves, to surrender, once the individuality is constituted. Page – 80 Few beings willingly consent to these efforts; then life with its brutality of the unforeseen compels men to make this endeavour against their will, because they cannot do otherwise. And little by little Thy work is accomplished inspite of all obstacles.
March 21, 1914
AS each morning my aspiration rises towards Thee, and in the silence of my satisfied heart, I ask that Thy law of Love may be expressed. Thy will manifested. And in advance I give my joyful and serene adhesion to the circumstances which are to translate this law and this will. O why be restless and demand that when oneself is concerned, things should go in a particular way and not in another! Why determine that such and such a set of circumstances shall be the best possible expression, and then throw oneself into a hard struggle so that these possibilities may be realised! Why not employ all one’s energy solely to will in the calm of an inner confidence, that it may be Thy law which triumphs everywhere and always over all difficulty, all darkness, all egoism! How the horizon widens as soon as we learn to take this attitude; how all cares cease and give place to an invariable illumination, to the omnipotence of disinterestedness! To will what Thou wiliest, O Lord, is to live constantly Page – 81 in communion with Thee, it is to be liberated from all contingencies, to escape from all narrowness, to fill our lungs with a pure and healthy air, to be rid of all useless fatigue, to be lightened of all cumbersome weight, in order to run with nimble steps towards the only goal which is worth attaining: the triumph of Thy divine Law! O Lord, with what a happy confidence I salute Thee this morning.
O LORD, divine Master of love, enlighten their consciousness and their hearts. They have made an effort to tend towards Thee, but their ignorance brought this about that it was probably not towards Thee that their prayers rose, and their false conceptions have barred the way to their aspiration. However, in Thy mercy Thou turnest all goodwill to account, and a flash of sincerity is enough to make Thy divine light take advantage of it for illumining the intelligence, to make Thy sublime love penetrate into the hearts of men and fill them with that pure and high benevolence which is one of the best expressions of Thy law. What I willed for them, with Thy will, at the moments when I could be in a true communion with Thee, grant that they may have received it on the day when, striving to forget external Page – 82 contingencies, they turned towards their noblest thought, towards their best feelings. May the supreme serenity of Thy sublime Presence awake in them.
IN my view the ideal state is that in which, constantly conscious with Thy Consciousness, we know at every moment, spontaneously, without any necessity of reflection, exactly what we should do to express in the best way Thy law. I know this state because I have been in it at certain moments, but very often the knowledge of the "how" is veiled by a mist of ignorance and we have to appeal to reflection which is not always a good counsellor; not to speak of all that we do every moment, without having time for reflection, being at the mercy of the inspiration of the moment. In what measure is it in conformity with or contrary to Thy law? All depends on the state of the subconscient, on what is active in it at the moment. Once the act is accomplished, if it has any importance, if we can look at it, analyse it, understand it, it serves as a lesson, Cables us to be aware of the motive force which has made us act, and so of something of that subconscient which still governs us and has to be mastered. Page – 83 It is impossible that in every terrestrial action there should not be a good and a bad side. Even the actions which best express the most divine law of Love contain in them something of the disorder and darkness inherent in the world as it is at present. Some men, those who are called pessimists, perceive almost solely the dark side of everything. The optimists, on the contrary, see only the side of beauty and harmony. And if it is ridiculous and ignorant to be an involuntary optimist, is it not a happy conquest to be made to become a voluntary optimist? In the eyes of the pessimists, whatever one does will be always bad, ignorant or egoistic; how could one satisfy them? It is an impossible enterprise. There is only one resource, it is to unite ourselves as perfectly as we can with the highest and purest light we can conceive of, to identify our consciousness as completely as possible with the absolute Consciousness, to strive to receive all inspiration from it alone, in order to facilitate as best we can its manifestation upon the earth, and, confident of its power, consider the events with serenity. Since everything is necessarily mixed in the present manifestation, it is- wisest to do our best, striving towards a higher and higher light, and to resign ourselves to the fact that absolute perfection is for the moment unrealisable. Still with what an ardour should we not always aspire towards this inaccessible perfection! Page – 84
THE result of all my reflections of yesterday is the confirmation that the only trouble I experience comes from the fear I have that I have not been or I am not perfectly identified with Thy law. And this trouble comes indeed from the fact that the identification is not complete, for if it were complete, I could not ask myself whether it was so or not, and on the other hand, I know by experience, all trouble would become impossible to me. But in the presence of an error or false step taken, the true thought we should have is not to say to ourselves: "I should have done better, I should have done this instead of that." But rather, "I was not sufficiently identified with the eternal Consciousness, I must strive to realise better this definitive and integral union." Yesterday afternoon, during the long hours of silent contemplation, I understood at last what true identification is with the thing we are thinking of. I have touched, so to say, this realisation, no longer by attaining a moral state, but simply by fixity and mastery of the thought. I understood that I needed long, very long hours of contemplation in order to be able to perfect this realisation. This is one of the things I expect from my journey to India, if, indeed. Thou regardest it as useful for Thy service,. o Lord. My progress is slow, very slow, but I hope that Page – 85 in compensation-it is lasting and secure against all fluctuation. Grant that I may accomplish my mission, that I may help in Thy integral manifestation.
SILENT and unseen as always, but all-powerful, Thy action has made itself felt, and in these souls that seemed to be so closed, a perception of Thy divine light has been awakened. I knew well that none could invoke Thy Presence in vain and if in the sincerity of our hearts we commune with Thee through no matter what organism, body or human collectivity, this organism, in spite of its ignorance, finds its unconsciousness wholly transformed. But when in one or several elements there is the conscious transformation, when the flame that smoulders under the ashes leaps out suddenly illumining all the being, then with joy we salute Thy sovereign action, testify once more to Thy invincible puissance and can hope that a new possibility of true happiness has been added to the others in mankind. O Lord, an ardent thanksgiving mounts from me towards Thee expressing the gratitude of this sorrowing humanity which Thou illuminest, transformest and glorifiest and givest to it the peace of Knowledge. Page – 86
SINCE our departure, more and more we can see in everything Thy divine intervention, everywhere Thy law is expressing itself, and it needs all my inner conviction that for it to be so is perfectly natural, to prevent my passing from marvelling to marvelling. At no moment do I seem to live outside of Thee and never have the horizons appeared to me more vast and the depths at once more luminous and more unfathomable. Grant, O Divine Teacher, that we may more and more, better and better, know and accomplish our mission upon the earth, that we may fully utilise all the energies that are in us, and that Thy sovereign Presence may become more and more perfectly manifested in the silent depths of our soul, in all our thoughts, all our feelings, all our actions. It seems to me almost strange that I am addressing Thee, so much it is Thou who livest and thinkest and lovest in me.
O THOU whom we must know, understand, realise, absolute Consciousness, eternal Law, Thou who guidest and enlightenest us, who determinest and Page – 87 inspirest, grant that these weak souls may be strengthened and those who are fearful may be reassured. To Thee I confide them, in the same way as I confide to Thee the destinies of all of us.
HOW in the presence of those who are integrally Thy servitors, of those who have arrived at the perfect consciousness of Thy presence, I perceive that I am still far, very far, from that which I would realise; and I know that what I conceive to be highest, noblest and purest is still dark and ignorant in comparison with that which I have to conceive. But this perception, far from being depressing, stimulates and strengthens- my aspiration, my energy, my will to triumph over all obstacles so as to be at last identified with Thy law and Thy work. Little by little the horizon becomes precise, the path becomes clear. And we advance to an ever greater certitude. It matters not if there are hundreds of beings plunged in the densest ignorance. He whom we saw yesterday is on earth: His presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, when Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth. Page – 88 O Lord, Divine Builder of this marvel, my heart overflows with joy and gratitude when I think of it, and my hope is boundless. My adoration surpasses all words and my reverence is silent. Page – 89 |