Prayers And Meditations

 

Contents

 

Pre Contents

 

publisher's note

                                                                                                                                                         

1912

November 2

November 3

November 19

November 26

November 28

December 2

December 3

December 5

December 7

December 10

December 11

 

 

1913

February 5

March 13

June 18

August 2

August 17

November 28

February 8

May 11

June 27

August 8

October 7

November 29

February 10

June 15

July 21

August 15

November 22

December 13

February 12

June 17

July 23

August 16

November 25

December 16

         

December 29

1914

 

January

January 1

January 2

January 3

January 4

January 5

January 6

January 7

January 8

January 9

January 10

January 11

January 12

January 13

January 19

January 24

January 29

January 30

January 31

 

 

February

February 1

February 8

February 12

 February 16

February 21

February 27

February 2

February 9

February 13

February 17

February 22

 

February 5

February 10

February 14

February 19

February 23

 

February 7

February 11

February 15

February 20

February 25

 

May

 

 

June

June1

June 9

June 15

June 18

June 22

June 26

June 2

June 11

June 14

June 19

June 23

June 27

June 3

June 12

June 16

June 20

June 24

June 28

June 4

June 13

June 17

June 21

June 25

June 29

 

       

June 30

 

 

July

July 1

July 7

July 12

July 17

July 22

July 31

July 4

July 8

July 13

July 18

July 23

 

July 5

July 10

July 15

July 19

July 25

 

July 6

July 11

July 16

July 21

July 27

 

 

August

August 2

August 6

August 13

August 20

August 26

August 31

August 3

August 8

August 16

August 21

August 27

 

August 4

August 9

August 17

August 24

August 28

 

August 5

August 11

August 18

August 25

August 29

 

 

September

September 1

September 6

September 13

September 17

September 24

September 30

September 4

September 9

September 14

September 20

September 25

 

September 5

September 10

September 16

September 22

September 28

 

 

October

October 5

October 6

October 7

October 8

October 10

October 11

October 12

October 14

October 16

October 17

October 23

October 25

 

 

November

November 3

November 8

November 9

November 10

November 15

November 16

November 17

November 20

November 21

 

 

 

December

December 4

December 10

December 12

December 15

December 22

 

1915

January 2

January 18

March 3

March 8

July 31

November 26

January 11

January 24

March 4

April 19

November 2

 

January 17

February 15

March 7

May 24

November 7

 

 

1916

January 15

November 28

December 8

December 14

December 25

December 30

January 22

December 4

December 9

December 20

December 26

 

January 23

December 5

December 10

December 21

December 27

 

June 7

December 7

December 12

December 24

December 29

 

 

1917

January 4

January 10

January 25

March 31

April 10

A few days later

January 5

January 14

January 29

April 1

April 28

October 15

January 6

January 19

March 27

April 7

July 13

November 25

January 8

January 23

March 30

April 9

September 24

 

 

1918 - 1937

July 12, 1918

October 10, 1918

June 22, 1920

December 28, 1928

October 23, 1937

October 10, 1918

September 3, 1919

May 6, 1927

November 24, 1931

 

 

Appendix

Bibliographical Note

Prayers and Meditations

 

November 2, 1912

 

      Although my whole being is in theory consecrated to Thee, O Sublime Master, who art the life, the light and the love in all things, I still find it hard to carry out this consecration in detail. It has taken me several weeks to learn that the reason for this written meditation, its justification, lies in the very fact of addressing it daily to Thee. In this way I shall put into material shape each day a little of the conversation I have so often with Thee; I shall make my confession to Thee as well as it may be; not because I think I can tell Thee anything – for Thou art Thyself everything, but our artificial and exterior way of seeing and understanding is, if it may be so said, foreign to Thee, opposed to Thy nature. Still by turning towards Thee, by immersing myself in Thy light at the moment when I consider these things, little by little I shall see them more like what they really are, – until the day when, having made myself one in identity with Thee, I shall no more have anything to say to Thee, for then I shall be Thou. This is the goal that I would reach; towards this victory all my efforts will tend more and more. I aspire for the day when I can no longer say “I”, for I shall be Thou.

    How many times a day, still, I act without my action being consecrated to Thee; I at once become aware of  

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it by an indefinable uneasiness which is translated in the sensibility of my body by a pang in my heart. I then make my action objective to myself and it seems to me ridiculous, childish or blameworthy; I deplore it, for a moment I am sad, until I dive into Thee and, there losing myself with a child's confidence, await from Thee the inspiration and strength needed to set right the error in me and around me, – two things that are one; for I have now a constant and precise perception of the universal unity determining an absolute interdependence of all actions.  

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November 3, 1912 *

 

      Let Thy Light be in me like a Fire that makes all alive; let Thy divine Love penetrate me. I aspire with all my being for Thy reign as sovereign and master of my mind and heart and body; let them be Thy docile instruments and Thy faithful servitors.  

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November 19, 1912 *

 

      I SAID yesterday to that young Englishman who is seeking for Thee with so sincere a desire, that I had definitively found Thee, that the Union was constant. Such is indeed the state of which I am conscious. All my thoughts go towards Thee, all my acts are consecrated to Thee; Thy Presence is for me an absolute, immutable, invariable fact, and Thy Peace dwells constantly in my heart. Yet I know that this state of union is poor and precarious compared with that which it will become possible for me to realise tomorrow, and I am as yet far, no doubt very far, from that identification in which I shall totally lose the notion of the “I”, of that “I”, which I still use in order to express myself, but which is each time a constraint, like a term unfit to express the thought that is seeking for expression. It seems to me indispensable for human communication, but all depends on what this “I” manifests; and how many times already, when I pronounce it, it is Thou who speakest in me, for I have lost the sense of separativity.

    But all this is still in embryo and will continue to grow towards perfection. What an appeasing assurance there is in this serene confidence in Thy All-Might!  

    Thou art all, everywhere, and in all, and this body which acts is Thy own body, just as is the visible universe in its entirety; it is Thou who breathest, thinkest and lovest in this substance which, being Thyself, desires to be Thy willing servant.  

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November 26, 1912 *

 

      What a hymn of thanksgiving should I not be raising at each moment unto Thee! Everywhere and in everything around me Thou revealest Thyself and in me Thy Will and Consciousness express themselves always more and more clearly even to the point of my having almost entirely lost the gross illusion of “me” and “mine”. If a few shadows, a few flaws can be seen in the great Light which manifests Thee, how shall they bear for long the marvellous brightness of Thy resplendent Love? This morning, the consciousness that I had of the way Thou art fashioning this being which was “I” can be roughly represented by a great diamond cut with regular geometrical facets, a diamond in its cohesion, firmness, pure limpidity, transparency, but a brilliant and radiant flame in its intense ever-progressive life. But it was something more, something better than all that, for nearly all sensation inner and outer was exceeded and that image only presented itself to my mind as I returned to conscious contact with the outer world.

    It is Thou that makest the experience fertile, Thou who renderest life progressive, Thou who compellest the darkness to vanish in an instant before the Light, Thou who givest to Love all its power, Thou who everywhere raisest up matter in this ardent and wonderful aspiration, in this sublime thirst for Eternity.

    Thou everywhere and always; nothing but Thou in the essence and in the manifestation.  

    O Shadow and Illusion, dissolve! O Suffering, fade and disappear! Lord Supreme, art Thou not there?

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November 28, 1912 *

 

      The outer life, the activity of each day and each instant, is it not the indispensable complement of our hours of meditation and contemplation? And is not the proportion of time given to each the exact image of the proportion which exists between the amount of effort to be made for the preparation and realisation? For meditation, contemplation, Union is the result obtained – the flower that blooms; the daily activity is the anvil on which all the elements must pass and repass in order to be purified, refined, made supple and ripe for the illumination which contemplation gives to them. All these elements must be thus passed one after the other through the crucible before outer activity becomes needless for the integral development. Then is this activity turned into the means to manifest Thee so as to awaken the other centres of consciousness to the same dual work of  the forge and the illumination. Therefore are pride and satisfaction with oneself the worst of all obstacles. Very modestly we must take advantage of all the minute opportunities offered to knead and purify some of the innumerable elements, to make them supple, to make them impersonal, to teach them forgetfulness of self and abnegation and devotion and kindness and gentleness; and when all these modes of being have become habitual to them, then are they ready to participate in the Contemplation, and to identify themselves with Thee in the supreme Concentration.

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That is why it seems to me that the work must be long and slow even for the best and that striking conversions cannot be integral. They change the orientation of the being, they put it definitively on the straight path; but truly to attain the goal none can escape the need of innumerable experiences of every kind and every instant.

    ...O Supreme Master who shinest in my being and each thing, let Thy Light be manifest and the reign of Thy Peace come for all.  

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December 2, 1912 *

 

      So long as one element of the being, one movement of the thought is still subjected to outside influences, not solely under Thine, it cannot be said that the true Union is realised; there is still the horrible mixture without order and light, – for that element, that movement is a world, a world of disorder and darkness, as is the entire earth in the material world, as is the material world in the entire universe.  

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December 3, 1912 *

 

      Last night I had the experience of the effectivity of confident surrender to Thy guidance; when it is needful that something should be known, one knows it, and the more passive the mind to Thy illumination, the clearer and the more adequate is its expression.

    I listened to Thee as Thou spokest in me, and I would have liked to write down what Thou saidst so that the formula in all its precision might not be lost, – for now I should not be able to repeat what was said. Then I thought that this care for conservation was again an insulting lack of confidence towards Thee, for Thou canst make of me all that I need to be, and in the measure in which my attitude allows Thee to act on me and in me, Thy omnipotence has no limits. To know that at each instant what must be surely is, as perfectly as is possible, for all those who know how to see Thee in everything and everywhere! No more fear, no more uneasiness, no more anguish; nothing but a perfect Serenity, an absolute Confidence, a supreme unwavering Peace.  

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December 5, 1912 *

 

      In Peace and Silence the Eternal manifests; allow nothing to disturb you and the Eternal will manifest; have perfect equality in face of all and the Eternal will be there....Yes, we should not put too much intensity, too much effort into our seeking for Thee; the effort and intensity become a veil in front of Thee; we must not desire to see Thee, for that is still a mental agitation which obscures Thy Eternal Presence; it is in the most complete Peace, Serenity and Equality that all is Thou even as Thou art all, and the least vibration in this perfectly pure and calm atmosphere is an obstacle to Thy manifestation. No haste, no inquietude, no tension, Thou, nothing but Thou, without any analysis or any objectivising, and Thou art there without a possible doubt, for all becomes a Holy Peace and a Sacred Silence.

    And that is better than all the meditations in the world.  

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December 7, 1912 *

 

      Like a flame that burns in silence, like a perfume that rises straight upward without wavering, my love goes to Thee; and like the child who does not reason and has no care, I trust myself to Thee that Thy Will may be done, that Thy Light may manifest, Thy Peace radiate, Thy Love cover the world. When Thou willest I shall be in Thee, Thyself, and there shall be no more any distinction; I await that blessed hour without impatience of any kind, letting myself flow irresistibly toward it as a peaceful stream flows toward the boundless ocean.

    Thy Peace is in me, and in that Peace I see Thee alone present in everything, with the calm of Eternity.  

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December 10, 1912 *

 

      O Supreme Master, Eternal Teacher, it has been once more granted me to verify the unequalled effectivity of a full confidence in Thy leading. Thy Light was manifested through my mouth yesterday and it met no resistance in me; the instrument was willing, supple, keen of edge.

    It is Thou who art the doer in each thing and each being, and he who is near enough to Thee to see Thee in all actions without exception, will know how to transform each act into a benediction.

    To abide always in Thee is the one thing that matters, always and ever more and more in Thee, beyond illusions and the deceptions of the senses, not drawing back from action, refusing it, rejecting it – a struggle useless and pernicious – but living Thee alone in the act whatever it may be, ever and always Thee; then the illusion is dispelled, the falsehoods of the senses vanish, the bond of consequences is broken, all is transformed into a manifestation of the glory of Thy Eternal Presence.  

So let it be. Amen. 

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December 11, 1912 *

 

      I await, without haste, without inquietude, the tearing of another veil, the Union made more complete. I know that the veil is formed of a whole mass of small imperfections, of attachments without number.... How shall all these disappear? Slowly, as the result of countless small efforts and a vigilance not faltering even for a moment, or suddenly, through a great illumination of Thy All-Puissant Love? I know not, I do not even put to myself the question; I wait, keeping watch as best I can, in the certitude that nothing exists save Thy Will, that Thou alone art the doer and I am the instrument; and when the instrument is ready for a completer manifestation, the manifestation will quite naturally take place.

    Already there is heard from behind the veil the wordless symphony of gladness that reveals Thy sublime Presence.  

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