Prayer ¹⁰

I pray. I pray to become God’s perfect instrument. I pray to God to free me from the little “I” and to make me the big “I”, the universal “I”. The little “I” tells me what it can do for me. It tells me that it can destroy the world or bring the whole world to my feet. The universal “I” tells me that I am of God and for God. It tells me that I am all love for God the Creator and for God the Creation.

I pray. I pray to God to act through me and for me. When I act for myself, I create constant problems, untold problems. But when God acts in and through me, it is all divine achievement, fulfilling achievement.

I pray to God to choose for me. When I choose, I choose desire unconsciously or consciously. Then there comes a time when I consciously treasure desire, imperfection, limitation and bondage. I consciously want to remain in the finite and wallow in the pleasures of ignorance. But when God chooses for me, He chooses aspiration, the inner cry. This inner mounting flame takes me high, higher, highest and then brings me down to offer my realisation-fruit to aspiring humanity. When God chooses for me, He chooses Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. Infinity, Eternity and Immortality — these are only vague terms for those who do not aspire. But for those who aspire, these are living realities in the very heart of the seeker’s aspiration.

I pray to God to make me one with suffering humanity. I pray to God to make me one with aspiring humanity. I pray to God to make me one with illumined humanity.

When I pray to God to make me one with suffering humanity, it is because the physical in me is at last seeing the truth that there is no end to suffering in the unenlightened physical consciousness. When I expand my physical consciousness, I share and thus lighten the burden of the suffering earth.

But now suffering humanity does not want to remain forever in its deplorable condition, so it begins to aspire. When it aspires, I have a free access to its aspiration, for when I expand my psychic consciousness, I become one with aspiring humanity. Then, when suffering has been ended by aspiration, when humanity is flying with the wings of aspiration, it enters into the world of illumined humanity. It is here, when we become part and parcel of illumined humanity, that we discover the meaning of life.

When I pray, I converse with God. I tell God that I need Him. God tells me, “My son, you need Me now. But I always needed you, I need you now, and I shall always need you.” Then God asks, “Son, why do you need Me?” I reply, “Father, I need You because with You I am safe, with You I am happy; without You I am unsafe, without You I am unhappy.” God says, “Son, I needed you to become My Dream-Boat. I need you to become My ever-flowing Life-River. I shall need you to become the Golden Shore of My ever-transcending Beyond.”

When I pray loudly, my prayer is not soulful, and I cannot hear the faint Voice of God. But when I pray in silence, when I pray soulfully, I hear God’s powerful Voice clearly and most significantly. When I pray to God out of fear, my fearful prayer does not reach God’s door. But when I pray to God with love, my prayer reaches God’s very Heart. And my loving prayer places me at the very Feet of God, my eternal Haven.

My prayer is a magnet and God’s Concern is another magnet. When I pray, my magnet-prayer reaches the Highest and pulls God down into the very breath of my earthly consciousness. At that time, God offers me what He eternally is: Immortality’s Smile. And when God’s Concern-magnet pulls me up, I give Him what I have always been: inner cry, the inner cry of millennia.

When I reach the Highest on the strength of my prayer, God makes me His Dream-fulfilling Reality. When God comes down and feeds my heart on the strength of His unconditional Compassion, He makes me His Dream-fulfilled Reality. It is our reciprocal self-giving that makes us inseparably one. Through my prayer, I offer to God all that I have and all that I am: ignorance. And through His Compassion, God offers to me what He has and what He is: Peace, Light and Divinity’s ever-flowing Bliss.

In the Western world, we use the vehicle of prayer to reach the Highest. In the Eastern world, especially in India, we use the vehicle of meditation. Both are of paramount importance; both are of equal value. Prayer and meditation will give us the same result provided they are both soulful. But we have to know what actually happens when we pray, and what actually happens when we meditate, even though the result is the same. When we pray, we feel that God is the listener, and we are the talker. We cry from within, and God listens to our cry and consoles us. Our prayer is our conversation with God. But when we meditate, we empty our minds and purify our hearts and become receptivity itself. At that time, God the Guest, the eternal Guest, enters into us and sits on the throne of our hearts. When this happens, God talks and we listen. In this way the conversation is always perfect. In prayer, we talk and God listens; and in meditation, God talks and we listen. Let us pray; God is bound to listen to our prayers, our inner cry. Let us meditate; we are bound to listen to God’s Voice, His inner Voice.

Prayer tells us that we are for God, for Him alone. Meditation tells us that we are of God, of Him alone. It was through the power of meditation, the soul’s meditation, that the soul came down into the physical world. And now the soul will go back to its own transcendental Height by offering its prayer. The soul becomes one with earth-bound prayer, and this earth-bound prayer eventually grows into Heaven-free realisation.

Let us pray; God is listening to us. Let us meditate; we shall hear God’s Voice. When we pray, God becomes our Beloved Supreme and we His eternal Lover. When we meditate, we become God’s Beloved and He our Divine Lover Supreme.