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Section One PRAYER AND ASPIRATION (I) Prayers are of many kinds. There is a prayer, purely mechanical and physical, that is to say, merely words learnt by rote and repeated machine-like. It does not mean much and generally has only one effect, making the person calm who prays; if you repeat a prayer several times, it calms you in the end. There is a prayer which is a formula welling out spontaneously in order to give expression to something very precise which you ask for. You may pray for something, for some person; you may pray even for certain circumstances; you may pray for yourself also. Or you may pray to express your gratitude to the Divine for what He has done for you, for what you see in Him, for what you wish to do to Him in thankfulness. Evidently it is the highest kind of prayer, for it is not exclusively concerned with one's own self. It is of a great order, this prayer of thanksgiving. Page-3 It is the meeting ground of prayer and aspiration. Such prayers are the spontaneous formulation of an experience that has been lived; it pours out from within the being, as the expression of a deep realisation, a yearning to sing praises for this experience that has been granted, a desire that the experience may continue or be explained. All this is very near to aspiration. Again there is a prayer, spontaneous and disinterested, a great call as it were, a call for divine intercession. It is a very powerful thing. I have had innumerable examples of things being fulfilled instantaneously by prayers of this kind. It means a great faith, a great fervour, a great sincerity, also a great simplicity of heart — something that does not calculate, that does not arrange, that does not bargain, that does not give with the idea of a return. (2) You can pray in all domains. A prayer belongs to the domain in which you pray. Prayers may be purely physical, even material. They may be vital or mental or psychic or spiritual. Each one has its own character and its own value. Page-4 Prayer is a thing much more external than aspiration. It concerns generally a definite object and it is always formulated, for it is the formula itself that is the prayer. One can have an aspiration and transcribe it in a prayer, but if it is formulated in words, it is almost a movement of invocation. Aspiration goes beyond prayer on all sides. It is much more self-forgetful, living only in the thing that one wills to do or become, in the offering that one seeks to make to the Divine. Aspiration may come from any plane, but the centre lies in the psychic.
(3) You aspire for a certain state of being. You have, for example, discovered within you something which does not agree with your ideal, a movement of obscurity or ignorance, even perhaps a bad will, something which goes against what you want to realise. You do not formulate a vow in words but something rises up in you like a flame, an offering made of a living experience which asks for a greater, larger being, a being more and more clear and precise. The thing can be reproduced in words later on, when Page-5 one tries to remember and note down the experience. Aspiration bursts forth like a mounting flame bearing in itself the thing that one desires to become, to do or to have. I said "desires", but "aspires" is the right word, for it has neither the quality nor the form of a desire. It is truly a great flame of purifying will and it bears in its core what seeks to realise itself.
(4) You have, for example, done a thing which you regret to have done. That has unfortunate consequences and upsets things, involving also other persons. You do not know the reaction of others, but as for yourself you wish that what has been done should turn to good and if a fault has been committed it should be admitted and made an occasion for a greater progress, a greater discipline and a new ascent towards the Divine, for opening a door towards a future that you want to be clearer, more true and more intense. Then, the thing gathers like a force and rushes forth, mounts like a great ascending movement, sometimes without being formulated in the least, Page-6 without words, without expression, but like a flame. That is true aspiration. That can happen a hundred times, a thousand times every day, if you are in the state when you want to progress constantly, become more true, more integrally in harmony with what the Divine Will wants of you.
(5) It seems difficult to pray without praying to someone. There are people who have a conception of the universe from which they have driven out all notion of the Divine. There are many, I suppose, like that. It troubles them, the idea that there is something that knows all, is capable of all, and is superior to them in such a formidable manner that there is no comparison; it is troublesome to their self-love, so they try to make a world without the Divine. They certainly cannot pray. To whom would they pray—unless they pray to themselves, which is not the normal custom ? But one can aspire for something without having a faith in the Divine. One can have an aspiration for a condition, a knowledge, a realisation, a state of consciousness. You do aspire for something. There are people who have Page-7 no faith in the existence of God, but they have faith in progress; they believe that the world is progressing constantly and this progress will go on indefinitely without stop towards a better that will be always greater than the preceding better. Such people may indeed have a great aspiration, they need have no notion of a divine existence for that. Aspiration necessarily includes a faith, but it need not be a faith in the divine Being. Prayer, on the other hand, cannot exist unless it is addressed to a divine Being.
(6) What to pray unless one prays to some person for something. You pray to someone who can listen to you. If there is none to listen to you, how can you pray ? Therefore, if you pray, it means, even in case you do not admit it, you have a faith in something which is infinitely greater and infinitely more powerful than you and which can change your destiny and change yourself, provided you pray in a way that the prayer is heard. The intellectuals recognise aspiration and say that prayer is an inferior thing. The mystics Page-8 tell you that aspiration is all right, but if you wish to be heard and wish the Divine to hear, you must pray—and pray with the simplicity of a child, with a perfect candour, that is to say, perfect trust. "I have need of this or that"— whether a moral or material need—"I ask it of you—give me." "You gave me what I asked for. You have brought to my close touch experiences that were unknown and that are now wonders which I reach at will. I am infinitely grateful and I offer you this hymn of thanksgiving for your intervention."
(7) Instead of lighting a lamp and kneeling before it with folded hands, light a flame within your heart and then have a great aspiration towards something more beautiful, more true, more noble, better than anything you know. "I ask that tomorrow all the things that I do not know I may begin to know, all the things that I cannot do, I may begin to do, and every day more and more." Page-9 And if you are put in the presence of much misery in the world, if you have friends who are unhappy and relatives who suffer, if you have difficulties or anything whatsoever, ask: "May the entire consciousness altogether rise to that Perfection which shall manifest ! May all this ignorance that has made the world so unhappy change into an enlightened knowledge ! May this bad will be illumined and transformed into good will." And in proportion to what you are able to do, what you are able to understand, you wish with all your heart that it may be like that. It may take the form of a prayer, and you can ask—ask of what or whom ? Ask of that which knows, ask of that which is capable, ask of all that is better and stronger than yourself to give the help that it may be so. And how beautiful such prayers would be ! Page-10 |