Prayers and Meditations
of
The Mother

Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
Pondicherry
1954

PUBLISHER:

SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM

PONDICHERRY

All Rights Reserved

First Edition … 1941

Second Edition (Enlarged) … 1948

Third Edition … 1954

IMPRIMERIE DE SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM

PONDICHÉRRY

PRINTED IN INDIA

Table of Contents

Title Page

1912

November

November 2, 1912

November 3, 1912

November 19, 1912

November 26, 1912

November 28, 1912

December

December 2, 1912

December 3, 1912

December 5, 1912

December 7, 1912

December 10, 1912

December 11, 1912

1913

February

February 5, 1913

February 8, 1913

February 10, 1913

February 12, 1913

March

March 13, 1913

May

May 11, 1913

June

June 15, 1913

June 17, 1913

June 18, 1913

June 27, 1913

July

July 21, 1913

July 23, 1913

August

August 2, 1913

August 8, 1913

August 15, 1913

August 16, 1913

August 17, 1913

October

October 7, 1913

November

November 22, 1913

November 25, 1913

November 28, 1913

November 29, 1913

December

December 13, 1913

December 16, 1913

December 29, 1913

1914

January

January 1, 1914

January 2, 1914

January 3, 1914

January 4, 1914

January 5, 1914

January 6, 1914

January 7, 1914

January 8, 1914

January 9, 1914

January 10, 1914

January 11, 1914

January 12, 1914

January 13, 1914

January 19, 1914

January 24, 1914

January 29, 1914

January 30, 1914

January 31, 1914

February

February 1, 1914

February 2, 1914

February 5, 1914

February 7, 1914

February 8, 1914

February 9, 1914

February 10, 1914

February 11, 1914

February 12, 1914

February 13, 1914

February 14, 1914

February 15, 1914

February 16, 1914

February 17, 1914

February 19, 1914

February 20, 1914

February 21, 1914

February 22, 1914

February 23, 1914

February 25-26, 1914

February 27, 1914

March

March 1, 1914

March 3, 1914

March 4, 1914

Geneva, March 6, 1914

On board the Kaga Marou, March 7, 1914

March 8, 1914

March 9, 1914

March 10, 1914

March 12, 1914

March 13, 1914

March 14, 1914

March 15, 1914

March 17, 1914

March 18, 1914

March 19, 1914

March 20, 1914

March 21, 1914

March 22, 1914

March 23, 1914

March 24, 1914

March 25, 1914

March 28, 1914

Pondicherry, March 29, 1914

March 30, 1914

April

April 1, 1914

April 2, 1914

April 3, 1914

April 4, 1914

April 7, 1914

April 8, 1914

April 10, 1914

Karikal, April 13, 1914

Pondicherry, April 17, 1914

April 18, 1914

April 19, 1914

April 20, 1914

April 23, 1914

April 28, 1914

May

May 2, 1914

May 3, 1914

May 4, 1914

May 9, 1914

May 10, 1914

May 12, 1914

May 13, 1914

May 15, 1914

May 16, 1914

May 17, 1914

May 18, 1914

May 19, 1914

May 20, 1914

May 21, 1914

May 22, 1914

May 23, 1914

May 24, 1914

May 25, 1914

May 26, 1914

May 27, 1914

May 28, 1914

May 29, 1914

May 31, 1914

June

June 1, 1914

June 2, 1914

June 3, 1914

June 4, 1914

June 9, 1914

June 11, 1914

June 12, 1914

June 13, 1914

June 14, 1914

June 15, 1914

June 16, 1914

June 17, 1914

June 18, 1914

June 19, 1914

June 20, 1914

June 21, 1914

June 22, 1914

June 23, 1914

June 24, 1914

June 25, 1914

June 26, 1914

June 27, 1914

June 28, 1914

June 29, 1914

June 30, 1914

July

July 1, 1914

July 4, 1914

July 5, 1914

July 6, 1914

July 7, 1914

July 8, 1914

July 10, 1914

July 11, 1914

July 12, 1914

July 13, 1914

July 15, 1914

July 16, 1914

July 17, 1914

July 18, 1914

July 19, 1914

July 21, 1914

July 22, 1914

July 23, 1914

July 25, 1914

July 27, 1914

July 31, 1914

August

August 2, 1914

August 3, 1914

August 4, 1914

August 5, 1914

August 6, 1914

August 8, 1914

August 9, 1914

August 11, 1914

August 13, 1914

August 16, 1914

August 17, 1914

August 18, 1914

August 20, 1914

August 21, 1914

August 24, 1914

August 25, 1914

August 26, 1914

August 27, 1914

August 28, 1914

August 29, 1914

August 31, 1914

September

September 1, 1914

September 4, 1914

September 5, 1914

September 6, 1914

September 9, 1914

September 10, 1914

September 13, 1914

September 14, 1914

September 16, 1914

September 17, 1914

September 20, 1914

September 22, 1914

September 24, 1914

September 25, 1914

September 28, 1914

September 30, 1914

October

October 5, 1914

October 6, 1914

October 7, 1914

October 8, 1914

October 10, 1914

October 11, 1914

October 12, 1914

October 14, 1914

October 16, 1914

October 17, 1914

October 23, 1914

October 25, 1914

November

November 3, 1914

November 8, 1914

November 9, 1914

November 10, 1914

November 15, 1914

November 16, 1914

November 17, 1914

November 20, 1914

November 21, 1914

December

December 4, 1914

December 10, 1914

December 12, 1914

December 15, 1914

December 22, 1914

1915

January

January 2, 1915

January 11, 1915

January 17, 1915

January 18, 1915

January 24, 1915

February

February 15, 1915

March

March 3, 1915; On board the Kamo Maru.

March 4, 1915

March 7, 1915

March 8, 1915

April

Lunel, April 19, 1915

May

May 24, 1915

July

Marsillargues, July 31, 1915

November

Paris, November 2, 1915

November 7, 1915, 3 O’clock.

November 26, 1915

1916

January

January 15, 1916

January 22, 1916

January 23, 1916

June

Tokio, June 7, 1916

November

November 28, 1916

December

December 4, 1916

December 5, 1916

December 7, 1916

December 8, 1916

December 9, 1916

December 10, 1916

December 12, 1916

December 14, 1916

December 20, 1916

December 21, 1916

December 24, 1916

December 25, 1916

December 26, 1916

December 27, 1916

December 29, 1916

December 30, 1916

1917

January

January 4, 1917

January 5, 1917

January 6, 1917

January 8, 1917

January 10, 1917

January 14, 1917

January 19, 1917

January 23, 1917

January 25, 1917

January 29, 1917

March

March 27, 1917

March 30, 1917

March 31, 1917

April

April 1, 1917

April 7, 1917

April 9, 1917

April 10, 1917

April 28, 1917

July

Akakura, July 13, 1917

September

September 24, 1917

October

October 15, 1917

November

November 25, 1917

1918-1937

July 12, 1918

October 10, 1918

Oiwaké, September 3, 1919

Pondicherry, June 22, 1920

May 6, 1927

December 28, 1928

November 24, 1931

October 23, 1937

1912

November

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 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.

November 3, 1912

THY Light is in me like a vivifiying fire and Thy divine Love penetrates me: I aspire with all my being that Thou mayest reign as sovereign Lord in this body whose will is to become Thy docile instrument and Thy faithful servant.

November 19, 1912

I SAID yesterday to that 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.

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!

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 re-pass 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. 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.

December

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.

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.

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.

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 wiliest 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.

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!

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 as 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.

1913

February

February 5, 1913

THY voice is heard as a melodious chant in the stillness of my heart, and is translated in my head by words which are inadequate and yet replete with Thee. And these words are addressed to the Earth and say to her: “Poor sorrowful Earth, remember that I am present in thee and lose not hope; each effort, each grief, each joy and each pang, each call of thy heart, each aspiration of thy soul, each renewal of thy seasons, all, all without exception, what seems to thee sorrowful and what seems to thee joyous, what seems to thee ugly and what seems to thee beautiful, all infallibly lead thee towards me, who am endless Peace, shadowless Light, perfect Harmony, Certitude, Rest and Supreme Blessedness.”

Hearken, O Earth, to the sublime voice that arises.

Hearken and take new courage.

February 8, 1913

O LORD, Thou art my refuge and my blessing, my strength, my health, my hope, and my courage. Thou art supreme Peace, unalloyed Joy, perfect Serenity. My whole being prostrates before Thee in a gratitude beyond measure and a ceaseless worship; and that worship goes up from my heart and my mind towards Thee like the pure smoke of incense of the perfumes of India.

Let me be Thy herald among men, so that all who are ready may taste the beatitude that Thou grantest me in Thy infinite Mercy, and let Thy Peace reign upon earth.

February 10, 1913

MY being goes up to Thee in thanksgiving, not because Thou usest this weak and imperfect body to manifest Thyself, but because Thou dost manifest Thyself, and that is the Splendour of splendours, the Joy of joys, the Marvel of marvels. All who seek Thee with ardour should understand that Thou art there whenever there is need of Thee; and if they could have the supreme faith to give up seeking Thee, but rather to await Thee, at each moment putting themselves integrally at Thy service, Thou wouldst be there whenever there was need of Thee; and is there not always need of Thee with us, whatever may be the different, and often unexpected, forms of Thy manifestation?

Let Thy glory be proclaimed,

Let life be sanctified by it,

Let it transform men’s hearts,

Let Thy Peace reign on earth.

February 12, 1913

AS soon as all effort disappears from a manifestation, it becomes very simple, with the simplicity of a flower opening, manifesting its beauty and spreading its fragrance without clamour or vehement gesture. And in this simplicity lies the greatest power, the power which is least mixed and least gives rise to harmful reactions. The power of the vital should be mistrusted, it is a tempter on the path of the work, and there is always a risk of falling into its trap, for it gives you the taste of immediate results; and, in our first eagerness to do the work well, we let ourselves be carried away to make use of this power. But very soon it deflects all our action from the right course and introduces a seed of illusion and death into what we do.

Simplicity, simplicity! How sweet is the purity of Thy Presence!

March

March 13, 1913

LET the pure perfume of sanctification burn always, rising higher and higher, and straighter and straighter, like the ceaseless prayer of the integral being, desiring to unite with Thee so as to manifest Thee.

May

May 11, 1913

As soon as I have no longer any material responsibilities, all thoughts about these things flee far away from me, and I am solely and entirely occupied with Thee and Thy service. Then, in that perfect peace and serenity, I unite my will to Thine, and in that integral silence I listen to Thy truth and hear its expression.

It is by becoming conscious of Thy will and identifying ours with Thine that there is found the secret of true liberty and all-puissance, the secret of the regeneration of forces and the transfiguration of the being.

To be constantly and integrally at one with Thee is to have the assurance that we shall overcome every obstacle and triumph over all difficulties, both within and without.

O Lord, Lord, a boundless joy fills my heart, songs of gladness surge through my head in marvellous waves, and in the full confidence of Thy certain triumph, I find a sovereign Peace and an invincible Power. Thou fillest my being, Thou animatest it, Thou settest in motion its hidden springs, Thou illuminest its understanding, Thou intensifiest its life, Thou increasest tenfold its love; and I no longer know whether the universe is I or I the universe, whether Thou art in me or I am in Thee; Thou alone art and all is Thou; and the streams of Thy infinite grace fill and overflow the world.

Sing, O lands, sing, O peoples, sing, O men,

The Divine Harmony is there.

June

June 15, 1913

EVEN he who might have arrived at perfect contemplation in silence and solitude, could only have done so by extracting himself from his body, by making an abstraction of himself; and thus the substance of which the body is constituted would remain as impure, as imperfect as before, since he would have abandoned it to itself; by a misguided mysticism, by the attraction of supraphysical splendours, by the egoistic desire of being united with Thee for his personal satisfaction, he would have turned his back upon the reason of his earthly existence, he would have refused cowardlike to accomplish his mission to redeem and purify Matter. To know that a part of our being is perfectly pure, to commune with that purity, to be identified with it, can be useful only if we subsequently utilise this knowledge for hastening the earthly transfiguration, for accomplishing Thy sublime work.

June 17, 1913

GRANT, O Lord, that I may be like a fire that illumines and warms, like a fountain that takes away thirst, like a tree that shelters and protects… men are so unhappy, so ignorant, they need so much to be helped.

My confidence in Thee, my inner certitude grow from day to day; and from day to day also I feel Thy love more living in my heart, Thy light at once brighter and more soft; and more and more I fail to make a distinction between Thy work and my life, between my personality and the whole earth.

Lord, Lord, Thy splendour is infinite, Thy Truth is marvellous; and Thy all-powerful Love will save the world.

June 18, 1913

TO turn towards Thee, unite with Thee, live in Thee and for Thee, is supreme happiness, unmixed joy, immutable peace; it is to breathe infinity, to soar in eternity, no longer feel one’s limits, escape from Time and Space. Why do men flee from these boons as though they fear them? What a strange thing is ignorance, that source of all suffering! How miserable that obscurity which keeps men away from the very thing which would bring them happiness and subjects them to this painful school of ordinary existence fashioned entirely from struggle and suffering!

June 27, 1913

THY voice is so modest, impartial, sublime in its patience and its mercy that it does not make itself heard with any authority, any potency of will; it is like a cool, soft and pure breeze; it is like a crystalline murmur that imparts a note of harmony to a discordant concert. Only for him who knows how to listen to that note, how to breathe that breeze, it contains such a treasure of beauty and such a perfume of pure serenity and noble grandeur, that all extravagant illusions vanish or are transformed into a joyful acceptance of the marvellous truth that has been glimpsed.

July

July 21, 1913

YET what patience is needed! How imperceptible the stages of progress!.…

Oh! how I call Thee from the very depths of my heart, True Light, Sublime Love, Divine Master who art the source of our light and of our living, our guide and our protector, the Soul of our soul and the Life of our life, the Reason of our being, the supreme Knowledge, the immutable Peace!

July 23, 1913

O LORD, O inconceivable Splendour, may Thy Beauty overflow the earth, may Thy Love be kindled in all hearts and the reign of Thy Peace be upon all.

A chant grave and profound, smiling and subtle, rises from my heart, and I do not know whether this chant travels from me towards Thee or from Thee towards me or whether Thou, I and the whole universe are this marvellous chant of which I have now become conscious….There is certainly no more Thou, nor I, nor any separate and distinct universe: there is an immense harmony, sublime and infinite, which is everything and of which everything will become conscious one day. It is the harmony of limitless Love, Love victor over all suffering and every obscurity. By this law of Love, Thy Law, I would live more and more totally; to it I give myself without reserve.

And my being exults in an ineffable Peace.

August

August 2, 1913

AS I cast a glance this morning on the month which is about to begin, asking myself what was the best means of serving Thee, I heard the small inner voice like a murmur in the silence, and it said this to me: “See, how small is the importance of external circumstances. Why strain and stiffen in the effort to realise thy conception of the Truth? Be more supple, more confident. The only thing thou hast to do is not to let thyself be troubled by anything. To torment oneself about doing good brings about as bad results as bad will. It is in the calm of deep waters that lies the sole possibility of True Service.”

And this reply was so luminous and so pure, it carried in it such an effective reality that the state described was communicated without any difficulty. I seemed to myself to be floating in the calm of deep waters; I understood; I saw clearly the attitude which was the best; and I have only to ask Thee, O Sublime Master, Supreme Instructor, to give me the strength and the clairvoyance necessary to maintain myself constantly in this state.

“Child, trouble not thyself, silence, peace, peace.”

August 8, 1913

O SWEET harmony dwelling in all things, sweet harmony filling my heart, manifest thyself in the most outward forms of life, in every feeling, in every thought, in every act.

All appears to me beautiful, harmonious, silent, in spite of the din outside. And in this silence, it is Thou, O Lord, whom I see; and I so perceive Thee that I can only express this perception as that of a constant smile. In truth, the essence of the impression that is felt in the presence of the most sweet, the most calm, the most compassionate smile, has a feeble analogy with what I feel when I so perceive Thee.

May Thy Peace be with all.

August 15, 1913

IN this falling dusk, Thy Peace becomes more deep and sweet and Thy Voice more clearly perceived in the silence which fills my being.

O Divine Master, for Thee is our life, our thought, our love, all our being. Take back possession of Thy own; for Thou art ourselves in our real being.

August 16, 1913

O LOVE, Divine Love, Thou fillest my being and overflowest to every side. I am Thyself and Thou art I, and I see Thee in every being, in every thing, from the slightest passing breeze to the radiant Sun that illumines us and is Thy symbol.

O Thou whom I cannot understand, in the silence of the purest devotion I adore Thee.

August 17, 1913

O LORD, Master of our life, let us soar up high, very high, far above all care of the preservation of the body. Nothing can be more humiliating, nothing more depressing than these thoughts turned always towards the preservation of the body, this preoccupation with health, with our subsistence, with the frame-work of our life. How trivial are these things, a thin smoke dissolved by a simple breath, vanishing like mirage before a single thought turned towards Thee.

Liberate those who live in this slavery, even as those who live in slavery to their passions. These obstacles on the path that leads towards Thee are at once terrible and puerile; terrible to those who are still subjected to them, puerile to one who has passed beyond them.

How inexpressible is the utter sense of relief, the delicious lightness we feel when we are disembarrassed of all this anxious care for ourself, for our life, for our health, for our satisfactions and even for our progress.

This relief, this liberation Thou hast granted to me, O Divine Master, Life of my life. Light of my light, Thou who ever teachest me the lesson of love and hast made me know the reason of my existence.

It is Thou who livest in me and Thou alone; and why should I be preoccupied with myself and what may happen to me? Without Thee the dust constituting this body which is striving to manifest Thee, would be dispersed shapeless and inconscient; without Thee this sensibility which opens to us a relation with all these other centres of manifestation, would vanish in an obscure inertia; without Thee this thought which animates and throws its light on the synthesis would be diffuse, toneless, unrealised; without Thee the sublime love which vivifies, which coordinates, which animates and gives a warmth to all, would remain an unawakened possibility. Without Thee all is inert, brute or inconscient. Thou art all that illumines and enchants us, our sole reason for existing and our whole aim. Is that not enough to cure us of all personal thoughts and to make us unfurl our wings and soar above the contingencies of the material life, so that we can fly up into Thy divine atmosphere with the power to return as messengers to the earth and announce the glorious tidings of Thy Advent which is near?

O Divine Master, Sublime Friend, Marvellous Teacher, in a fecund silence, I salute Thee.

October

October 7, 1913

THIS return, after three months of absence, to the house which is consecrated to Thee, O Lord, has been an occasion for two experiences. The first is that in my outer being, my surface consciousness, I have no longer any feeling that I am in my own house or the owner of anything at all. I am a stranger in a foreign land, much more of a stranger here than in an open field among the trees; and I smile, now that I have learnt what I did not know before, I smile at the idea of the feeling of being the “mistress of the house” which I had before my departure; it was necessary that all pride should be broken, crushed, trampled down definitively, so that I may at last be capable of understanding, seeing and feeling things as they are. I offered Thee this dwelling, O Lord, as if it was possible for me to possess anything and so make of it an offering to Thee. All is Thine, O Lord, it is Thou who placest everything at our disposal; but how great is our blindness when we imagine that we can be the owners of anything! I am a visitor here as everywhere else, Thy messenger and Thy servant upon earth, a stranger among men, and yet the very soul of their life and the love in their hearts.

In the second place, the whole atmosphere of the house is charged with a religious gravity; here one descends immediately into the depths; meditation is more gathered-in and more serious; dispersion disappears and gives place to concentration; and I feel this concentration literally descending from my head to enter into my heart, and my heart seems to reach greater depths than my head. It is as if for three months I had been loving with my head and that now only I begin to love with my heart; and this brings with it an incomparable gravity and sweetness of feeling.

A new door has opened in my being and an immensity has appeared before me!

I cross the threshold with devotion, feeling hardly worthy yet to enter upon this hidden path veiled from the sight and, as though, invisibly luminous within.

All is changed, all is new; the old garbs have dropped and the new-born child half-opens its eyes to the light of the dawn.

November

November 22, 1913

A FEW minutes passed in silence before Thee are worth centuries of felicity....

Grant, O Lord, that all shadows may be dispersed and that, more and more, I may become Thy faithful servant in constancy and in serenity; may my heart be before Thee pure like a pure crystal, so that all of it may reflect Thee.

How sweet it is to be before Thee in silence….

November 25, 1913

THE greatest enemy of a silent contemplation turned towards Thee is certainly this constant subconscient registering of the multitude of phenomena with which we are put into contact. So long as we are occupied with cerebral activity, our conscious thought veils for us this excessive activity of our subconscient reception of things; quite a portion of our sensibility, and not perhaps the smallest, plays the role of a cinematographic apparatus without our knowledge and indeed to our detriment. It is only when we silence our active thought, which is comparatively easy to do, that we find surging from all sides the multitude of little subconscient notations which often drown us in their overflowing stream. This is why it happens, as soon as we try to enter into the silence of deep contemplation, that we are assailed by innumerable thoughts — if thoughts they can be called — which do not in the least interest us, do not represent for us any action of desire, any conscious attachment, but which only prove to us our inability to control the receptivity, we might say, mechanical, of our subconscient. A considerable labour is needed to silence all these useless noises, to stop this tiresome succession of images, to purify our minds from these thousand little cumbersome and valueless nullities. And it means so much time unprofitably lost, a terrible waste.

What is the remedy? In their simplistic way, some ascetic disciplines preconize solitude and inaction: to shelter the subconscient from all possibility of any registration; this appears to me a child’s remedy, for it leaves the ascetic at the mercy of the first surprise; and when he thinks he is perfectly master of himself, if one day, he wishes to come back among his fellows to help them, his subconscient so long deprived of its receptive activity, is sure to abandon itself to it with an intensity greater than ever as soon as it gets the smallest opportunity.

There is certainly another remedy. Which? Undoubtedly we must learn how to control our subconscient as we control our conscious thought. The means for arriving at that are numerous. A regular introspection in the manner of the Buddhists and a systematic analysis of one’s dreams — almost always constructed with this subconscient registration — form part of the method to be discovered. But there is certainly something more rapidly effective....

O Lord, Eternal Master, it is Thou who wilt be the Teacher, the Inspirer; Thou who wilt teach me what I should do; so that I can, after an indispensable application to my own case, make others profit by what Thou wilt have taught me.

With a loving and confident devotion, I salute Thee.

November 28, 1913

IN that calm of collected contemplation which precedes the break of day, more than at any other moment, my thought rises towards Thee, O Lord of our being, in an ardent prayer.

May this day which is about to begin bring to earth and to men a little more of pure light and true peace; may Thy manifestation be more complete and Thy sweet law better recognised; may something higher, nobler, truer be revealed to mankind; may there spread a vaster and deeper love so that the wounds and the pain may be healed; and may this first ray of the sun which is about to dawn be an announcer of joy and harmony, the symbol of the glorious splendour hidden in the essence of life.

O Divine Master, grant that this day may be for us an opening to a completer consecration to Thy law, a more integral self-giving to Thy work, a more total forgetfulness of self, a greater illumination, a purer love; grant that in a communion with Thee ever deeper and more constant, we may unite always more, so that we may be Thy worthy servitors. Remove from us all egoism and mean pride, all covetousness and obscurity, so that all aflame with Thy divine love, we may be Thy torches in the world.

A silent canticle rises from my heart like the white smoke of the perfumes of the East.

And with the serenity of a perfect surrender, I salute Thee in the light of this rising day.

November 29, 1913

WHY all this noise, all this movement, this vain and hollow agitation; why this whirlwind sweeping men away like a swarm of flies caught in a storm? How sad is the spectacle of all this energy wasted, all these efforts lost. When will they cease from dancing like puppets at the end of threads held they know not by whom or by what? When will they take the time to sit and draw inwards, to collect themselves and open that inner door which hides from them Thy priceless treasures, Thy infinite boons?….

How painful and miserable seems to me their life of ignorance and obscurity, their life of foolish agitation and profitless dissipation, when a single spark of Thy sublime light, a single drop of Thy divine love can transform this suffering into an ocean of joy!

O Lord, my prayer rises towards Thee: may they know at last Thy peace and that calm and irresistible power which springs from an immutable serenity — appanage of those whose eyes have been opened and who can contemplate Thee in the enkindled core of their being.

But the hour of Thy manifestation has come.

And canticles of joy will soon break out from every side.

I bow down religiously before the solemnity of that hour.

December

December 13, 1913

ENLIGHTEN me, O Lord, grant that I may not be mistaken. Grant that the infinite respect, the utmost devotion, the love so intense and profound with which I approach Thee may be irradiating, convincing, contagious, and that they may be awakened in the hearts of all.

O Lord, Eternal Master, Thou art my Light and my Peace; guide my steps, open my eyes, enlighten my heart, and direct me on the paths which lead straight towards Thee.

O Lord, Lord, grant that I may have no other will than Thine and that all my acts be an expression of Thy divine law.

A great light bathes me all over, and I am no longer conscious of anything else than Thee….

Peace, peace, peace on all the earth.

December 16, 1913

LOVE pure and disinterested, Thy love in so far as we can perceive and manifest it, is the only key that can open the hearts seeking for Thee. Those who follow the path of the intellect can have a conception very high and very true; they can conceive the true life, the life one with Thee, but they do not know it; they have no inner experience of that life and they are unaware of any contact with Thee. These, who have an intellectual knowledge and who have shut themselves up for action in a construction which appears to them the best, are the most difficult of all to convert; one finds it harder to awaken in them the consciousness of the Divine than in any other being of good-will. It is love alone that can accomplish this miracle, for love opens all doors, pierces through all walls, crosses beyond all obstacles. And a little of true love does more than the finest speeches.

O Lord, let this pure flower of love blossom in me so that it may make fragrant all who approach us and its perfume sanctify them.

In this love are found peace and joy, the source of all strength and realisation. It is the infallible physician, the supreme consoler; it is the conqueror, the sovereign teacher.

O Lord, my sweet Master, whom I adore in silence and to whom I am wholly consecrated, who governest my life, inflame my heart with Thy pure love, so that it may burn like a fiery brazier, consuming all imperfections and transforming into a comforting warmth and radiating light the dead wood of egoism and the black coal of ignorance.

Lord, I turn towards Thee with a devotion at once joyful and grave and I implore Thee:

May Thy love be manifested,

May Thy reign come,

May Thy peace govern the world.

December 29, 1913

O LORD, grant that this collective convention of the end of the year may be for us an opportunity for finishing at once with the whole mass of ties and attachments, illusions and weaknesses that have no longer any reason for existence in our life. We must at each moment shake off the past like falling dust, so that it may not soil the virgin path which, also at each moment, opens before us.

May our errors, recognised and repaired within us, be no longer anything else than vain mirages incapable of producing any consequences, and may we, setting our foot firmly on all that should no more be, on all ignorances, all obscurities, all egoisms, boldly take our flight towards larger horizons and an intenser light, a more perfect compassion, a more disinterested love… towards Thee.

I salute Thee, O Lord, Master of all life and I would proclaim Thy reign upon earth.

1914

January

January 1, 1914

TO Thee, Supreme Dispenser of all boons, to Thee who justifiest life by making it pure, beautify and good, to Thee, Master of our destinies and goal of our aspirations, was consecrated the first minute of this new year.

May it be wholly glorified by this consecration; may those who hope to attain Thee seek Thee in the right way; may those who seek Thee find Thee, and may those who suffer without knowing where lies the remedy feel Thy life piercing little by little the hard crust of their obscure consciousness.

I bow down with a deep devotion and limitless gratitude before Thy beneficent splendour; in the name of the earth, I thank Thee for manifesting Thyself; in her name, I implore Thee that Thou mayst manifest ever more, in an uninterrupted increase of Light and Love.

Be the Sovereign Master of our thoughts, our feelings and our acts.

Thou art the reality of our being, the sole Reality.

Outside Thee all is falsehood and illusion, all is mournful obscurity.

In Thee is life, light and joy.

In Thee is the sovereign Peace.

January 2, 1914

THIS marvellous silence manifests Thee, in spite of the folly of human agitation, — the immutable and constant silence so living in every thing that one has only to listen in order to hear it, in opposition to all that is futile noise, vain agitation, useless dispersion of energies. Let it flower in our being as a generator of light and peace, and let its power radiate on all in beneficent waves.

Thou art the savour of all life and the reason of all activity, the goal of our thoughts.

January 3, 1914

IT is always good to look within ourselves from time to time and see that we are nothing and can do nothing, but we must then turn our look towards Thee, knowing that Thou art all and that Thou canst do all.

Thou art the life of our life and

the light of our being,

Thou art the master of our destiny.

January 4, 1914

THE tide of material thoughts lies always in wait for the least weakness and if we relax our vigilance even for a moment, if we are negligent, to however small an extent, it rushes forward and invades us from all sides, submerging sometimes under its heavy flood the result of innumerable efforts. Then the being enters into a sort of torpor, its physical needs of food and sleep increase, its intelligence is obscured, its inner vision is veiled, and in spite of its feeling little real interest in these superficial activities, they occupy it almost exclusively. This condition is very troublesome and fatiguing, for nothing is more fatiguing than thoughts about material things, and the wearied mind suffers like a caged bird unable to spread its wings yet aspiring for the power to take its free flight.

But perhaps in this condition there is a utility which I do not see. In any case, I do not struggle at all; and like a child in the arms of its mother, like a fervent disciple at the feet of his master, I confide in Thee and surrender myself to Thy guidance, sure of Thy victory.

January 5, 1914

I HAVE been sitting since a long time before this blank page unable to make up my mind to write, all in me being so mediocre, without value or savour, hopelessly commonplace. Not a single idea in my head, not one feeling in my heart, a complete indifference towards everything and an insurmountable dullness.

How can such a condition be of any use?

I am a veritable zero in the world.

For the rest, all that has no importance. And provided Thy work is accomplished, Thy manifestation takes place and the earth becomes more and more Thy harmonious and fruitful kingdom, it matters little whether I accomplish the Work or not.

And as it is sure that it will be done, I should have no reason to trouble myself even if I felt so disposed. From the depths up to the outermost surface all this, my being, is but a little dust; it is only natural that it should be scattered to the winds without leaving a trace.

January 6, 1914

THOU art the sole goal of my life and the centre of my aspiration, the pivot of my thoughts, the key of my synthesis; and as Thou art beyond all sensation, all feeling and all thought, Thou art the living but ineffable experience, the Reality lived in the depths of the being but untranslatable into our poor words; and it is because the human mind is powerless to reduce Thee to a formula, that some — with a little disdain — treat as “sentiment” the knowledge which it is possible to have of Thee, but which is certainly as far from sentiment it is from thought. So long as we have not attained to this supreme knowledge, we have no solid base and no enduring center for a mental and emotional synthesis, and all other intellectual construction cannot but be arbitrary, artificial and futile.

Thou art, in so far as we can perceive Thee, eternal silence and perfect peace.

Thou art all the perfection that we have to acquire, all the marvels that are to be realised, all the splendour that is to be manifested.

And all our words are only the prattle of children when we venture to speak of Thee.

In silence is the greatest respect.

January 7, 1914

GIVE peace and light to them all, O Lord, open their blinded eyes and their obscured understanding, calm their useless torments and futile cares. Turn their regard away from themselves and give them the joy of consecration to Thy work without calculation or mental reserve. Let Thy beauty blossom in everything, awaken Thy love in all hearts, so that Thy eternally progressive order may be realised upon earth and Thy harmony spread till the day when all will be Thyself in perfect purity and peace.

Oh! may all tears be dried, all sufferings relieved, all anguish disappear, and may a calm serenity dwell in the hearts of men and a potent certitude strengthen their mind. May Thy life circulate in all as a regenerating flood and may all turn towards Thee to draw in this contemplation energy for every victory.

January 8, 1914

LET us shun the paths which are too easy and without effort, those paths which engender in us the illusion that we have arrived; let us shun the negligence which opens the door to every fall; let us shun the complacent self-admiration which leads towards every abyss. We must learn that whatever our struggles, whatever even our victories, compared with the path still to be traversed what we have already travelled is nothing, and that all are equal — infinitesimal particle of dust or the same divine stars — in face of Eternity.

But Thou art the conqueror of all obstacles, the Light which illumines all ignorance, the Love which overcomes all pride. And no error can persist before Thee.

January 9, 1914

O LORD, unseizable reality, Thou who constantly escapest before our conquering advance even though it is effective, and who wilt always be the Unknown in spite of all that we shall learn to know of Thee, in spite of all that we shall have ravished from Thy eternal mystery, we would, with a complete and constant effort, combining the multiple paths which lead towards Thee, advance like a rising and indomitable flood, breaking all obstacles, crossing all barriers, lifting all veils, dispersing all clouds, piercing all darknesses, advance towards Thee, always towards Thee with a movement so powerful, so irresistible, that a whole multitude will be swept on behind us, and the earth conscious of Thy new and eternal Presence will understand at last what are her true ends, and live in the harmony and peace of Thy sovereign realisation.

Teach us ever more,

Enlighten us more and more,

Dispel our ignorance,

Illumine our minds,

Transfigure our hearts,

and give us that Love which never fades and make Thy sweet law blossom in every being.

We are Thine to all eternity.

January 10, 1914

MY aspiration rises towards Thee always the same in its form, infantile and almost commonplace in its simplicity, but my call is more and more ardent, and behind the maladroit words, there is all the fervour of my concentrated will. And I implore Thee, O Lord, in spite of the naïveté of this expression which so lacks all intellectuality, I implore Thee for more light, more purity, more true sincerity and love, and that for all, for the multitude which constitutes what I call my being, and for the multitude which constitutes the universal being; I implore Thee, knowing however that to implore is quite useless, since it is we alone, in our ignorance and ill-will, who can be an obstacle to Thy glorious and total manifestation, but something infantile in me finds a support in this mental attitude; I implore Thee that the peace of Thy reign may spread, upon earth.

O inaccessible summit which we scale incessantly without ever attaining to Thee, sole Reality of our being which we believe we have discovered only to find that Thou escapest us at once, marvellous state which we think we have seized but which leads us farther, and always farther, into depths and immensities ever-unexplored; none can say: “I have known Thee”, and yet all carry Thee in themselves, and in the silence of the soul can hear the echo of Thy voice; but this silence itself is progressive, and whatever may be the perfection of the union we have realised, so long as by our body we belong to the world of relativities, this union with Thee will be always capable of a greater perfection.

But all the words by which we speak of Thee are but a vain babbling. Grant that I may become

Thy faithful servitor.

January 11, 1914

AT every minute all the unforeseen, the unexpected, the unknown is before us, at every minute the universe is recreated in its totality and in each of its parts. And if we had a truly living faith, if we had that absolute certitude of Thy almighty power and Thy sole reality, Thy manifestation could at every minute be so evident that the whole universe would be transformed by it. But we are such slaves of all that surrounds us and has preceded us, we are so much determined by the whole mass of what is manifested, and our faith is so feeble that we are still incapable of serving as intermediaries in the great miracle of transfiguration… But, O Lord, I know that it will come one day. I know that a day will come when Thou wilt transform all those who approach us; Thou wilt transform them so radically that, totally liberated from the ties of the past, they will begin to live in Thee with a life quite new, a life solely made of Thee, of which Thou shalt be the sovereign Lord. And also all troubles will be transformed into serenity, all anguish into peace, all doubts into certitude, all ugliness into harmony, all egoisms into self-giving, all darknesses into light and all sufferings into unchanging happiness.

But art Thou not already accomplishing this glorious miracle? I see it everywhere blossoming around us!

Oh! divine law of love and beauty, supreme liberator, there is no obstacle to Thy power. It is only our blindness that deprives us of the fortifying spectacle of Thy constant victory.

My heart sings a hymn of gladness and my thought is illumined with joy.

Thy transcendent, Thy marvellous love is the sovereign Master of the world.

January 12, 1914

A TEACHING can be profitable only if it is perfectly sincere, that is to say, if it is lived at the time when it is imparted, and words often repeated, thoughts often expressed can no longer be sincere.

January 13, 1914

THOU hast passed over my life, O Lord, like a great wave of love, and when I was immersed in it, I knew in a way integral and intense that I had offered to Thee — when? I do not know, at no precise moment and, doubtless, always — my thoughts, my heart and my flesh in a living holocaust.

And in that great love which enveloped me, and in that consciousness of the renunciation made, there was an immense serenity vaster than the universe and a sweetness so intense and so full of an infinite compassion that a flow of tears came slowly from my eyes. Nothing could be farther removed at once from suffering and from happiness, it was an ineffable peace.

O Sublime Love, centre of our life, Marvel of marvels, I find Thee again at last and I live once again in Thee, but how much more powerfully, how much more consciously than before! How much better I know and understand Thee! Each time I find Thee again, my communion with Thee is more integral, more complete, more definitive.

O Presence of ineffable beauty, O thought of supreme redemption, sovereign power of salvation, with what joy all my being feels Thee living in itself, sole principle of its life and of all life, marvellous constructor of all thought, all will, all consciousness. Upon this world of illusion, this sombre nightmare, Thou hast bestowed Thy divine reality, and each atom of matter contains something of Thy absolute.

Thou art, Thou livest, Thou art radiant and reignest.

January 19, 1914

O LORD, divine Master of Love, Thou art the eternal victor, and those who put themselves in perfect accord with Thee, those who live only for Thee and by Thee cannot but win all the victories; for in Thee is the supreme force, the force of complete disinterestedness, of perfect clairvoyance, of sovereign kindness.

In Thee, by Thee, all is transfigured and glorified; in Thee is found the key of all mysteries and all powers. But we attain to Thee only if we desire nothing else than to live in Thee, to serve Thee, to make Thy divine work triumph more rapidly for the salvation of a greater number.

O Lord, Thou alone art real and all else is illusion; for when we live in Thee we see and understand all things, nothing escapes Thy perfect knowledge, but everything puts on another appearance; for all is Thou in essence, since all is the fruit of Thy work, of Thy magnanimous intervention, and in the most sinister darkness Thou hast lit a star!

May our devotion go on always increasing.

May our consecration go on always perfecting itself.

And mayst Thou who art already the real sovereign become in effect the sovereign of life.

January 24, 1914

O THOU who art the sole reality of our being, O sublime Master of love, Redeemer of life, let me have no longer any other consciousness than of Thee at every instant and in each being. When I do not live solely with Thy life, I agonise, I sink slowly towards extinction; for Thou art my only reason for existence, my one goal, my single support. I am like a timid bird not yet sure of its wings and hesitating to take its flight; let me soar to reach definitive identity with Thee.

January 29, 1914

IT is because of Thy presence in each being, O divine Master of love, that every man, even the most cruel, can be accessible to pity and that even the vilest respects, as if in spite of himself, honour and justice. It is Thou who from beyond all conventions and prejudices lightest with a special light, divine and pure, all that we are and all that we do, and showest us the difference between what we realise and what we could be.

Thou art the insuperable limit opposed to the excess of evil, to the darkness and the ill-will; Thou art the living hope in every heart of possible and future perfections.

To Thee all the fervour of my adoration.

Thou art the door, accessible to our conception, which leads towards unsuspected and inconceivable splendours, the splendours which will be progressively revealed to us.

January 30, 1914

ALL that is conscious in me belongs to Thee without restriction, and I shall strive to conquer little by little and always better the subconscient, the bed-rock still obscure.

Divine Master of love, eternal Teacher, Thou guidest our lives. It is in Thee alone and for Thee alone that we would live; enlighten our consciousness, guide our steps, and grant that we may do the maximum of what we can do, utilising all our energies solely to serve Thee.

January 31, 1914

MAY every morning our thought rise with fervour towards Thee, asking Thee what is the best we can do to manifest and serve Thee. May at each moment amid the many kinds of multiple choice which we can make and which, in spite of their apparent insignificance, are always of a great importance — since according to our decision we submit to one category of determinism or another — may at each moment our attitude be such that it may be Thy divine will which determines our choice and thus it may be Thou who givest the direction to all our life. According to the consciousness in which we are at the moment when we take a decision, we submit to the determinism of the order of the realities in which we are conscious; whence all the consequences, often unforeseen and unfortunate, contradictory to the general orientation of life and forming obstacles, sometimes terrible, which have afterwards to be surmounted. We would, therefore, O Lord, Divine Master of love, be conscious of Thee and Thee alone, be identified with Thy supreme law each time that we decide, each time we choose, so that it may be Thy Will which determines us; and our life may thus be effectively and integrally consecrated to Thee.

In Thy light we shall see, in Thy knowledge we shall know, in Thy will we shall realise.

February

February 1, 1914

I TURN towards Thee who art everywhere and within all and outside all, intimate essence of all and remote from all, centre of condensation for all energies, creator of conscious individualities: I turn towards Thee and salute Thee, O liberator of the worlds, and, identified with Thy divine love, I contemplate the earth and its creatures, this mass of substance put into forms perpetually destroyed and renewed, this swarming mass of aggregates which are dissolved as soon as constituted, of beings who imagine that they are conscient and permanent individualities and who are as ephemeral as a breath, always alike or almost the same, in their diversity, repeating indefinitely the same desires, the same tendencies, the same appetites, the same ignorant errors.

But from time to tune Thy sublime light shines in a being and radiates through him over the world, and then a little wisdom, a little knowledge, a little disinterested faith, heroism and compassion penetrates men’s hearts, transforms their minds and sets free a few elements from that sorrowful and implacable wheel of existence to which their blind ignorance subjects them.

But how much greater a splendour than all those that have gone before, how marvellous a glory and light would be needed to draw these beings out of the horrible aberration in which they are plunged by the life of cities and so-called civilisations! What a formidable and, at the same time, divinely sweet puissance would be needed to turn aside all these wills from the bitter struggle for their selfish, mean and foolish satisfactions, to snatch them from this vortex which hides death behind its treacherous glitter, and turn them towards Thy conquering harmony!

O Lord, eternal Master, enlighten us, guide our steps, show us the way towards the realisation of Thy law, towards the accomplishment of Thy work.

I adore Thee in silence and listen to Thee in a religious concentration.

February 2, 1914

O LORD, I would be a love so living that it can fill every solitude and assuage every sorrow.

O Lord, I cry to Thee: make me a burning brazier which consumes all suffering and transforms it into a glad light pouring its rays into the hearts of all!…

Grant my prayer: Transform me into a brazier of pure love and limitless compassion.

February 5, 1914

WHAT can be said except the same identical aspiration: the law of divine love, the purest expression of what we can conceive of Thee, must realise itself more and more upon the earth and triumph over all ignorant egoism; we must become more and more perfectly the faithful servants of that power of love and light, live in it and by it; it must be that alone which lives and acts in us.

O Lord, become the sovereign Master of our lives and dispel all the darknesses which can still prevent us from seeing and constantly communing with Thee.

Liberate us from all ignorance, liberate us from ourselves that we may open wide the doors of Thy glorious manifestation.

February 7, 1914

FOR him who is integrally united with Thee, and therefore constantly conscious of what most perfectly expresses Thee in act under given circumstances, no external rule is necessary. The principles of life are in sum nothing but makeshifts meant to diminish in the measure of the possible the ignorance of those who do not yet know Thee, and to remedy, as well as one can, the moments of blindness and obscurity of those who have only an intermittent contact with Thee.

To make rules for oneself and to make them as general, that is to say, as supple as possible, is good, but on condition that they are considered as no more than artificial lights which should be employed only when the full and natural light of the communion with Thee is lacking. Moreover, a constant revision of these rules is imperative; for they can only be the expression of a present knowledge and must necessarily gain by every increase, every improvement of knowledge.

That is why when meditating on the attitude which one should have towards all who approach us, so as not only to abstain from doing them any harm, but above all to strive to do them the greatest good possible — and that means to help them best in making the supreme discovery, the discovery of Thee in them — it seemed to me that no rule was vast and supple enough to adapt itself to Thy law; the sole true way was to be always in communion with Thee, so that any solution might be perfectly adapted to the infinite diversity of circumstances.

February 8, 1914

O LORD, sweet Master of love, Thou makest us emerge out of darkness that we may awake to consciousness, who deliverest us from suffering to make us commune in Thy eternal peace, every morning my aspiration rises ardently towards Thee and I implore that my being integrally awakened to the knowledge of Thee, may live only by Thee, in Thee and for Thee; I implore that more and more perfectly identified with Thee, I may become nothing else than Thou manifested in word and act; I implore that all those who approach us, all those who are connected with us, may awaken to the full knowledge of Thy divine presence, Thy sovereign law, and let themselves be definitively transformed by it; I implore that all men on earth may feel, in spite of their harsh suffering, and in it, the sublime consolation dawn of Thy light and Thy love and the marvellous relief of Thy peace; I implore that all substance more and more penetrated with Thy sovereign forces may less and less oppose to Thee the resistance of blind ignorance, and that triumphing over all obscurity, Thou mayst transfigure definitively, integrally, this world of struggle and anguish into a world of harmony and peace….

So that Thy law may be accomplished.

February 9, 1914

WHATEVER may be the names they give Thee, O Lord, the elite of humanity athirst for an absolute, ardently seek Thee. Even those who seem to move farthest away from Thee, even those who are solely occupied with themselves, are they not seeking an absolute in sensation, an absolute of satisfaction, and in spite of its vanity, that seeking also can one day lead towards Thee; Thou art too much in the centre, in the heart of everything for even the worst egoisms themselves not to be transformed by Thee into aspirations… The only thing which must be feared and shunned is the inertia of inconscience, of blind and heavy ignorance. That state is quite at the nethermost of the infinite ladder which leads to Thee. And all Thy effort consists in drawing the substance from this first obscurity so as to make it be born into consciousness. Passion itself is preferable to inconscience. We must therefore constantly march to the conquest of this universal bedrock of inconscience and making our organism the instrument, transform it little by little into luminous consciousness.

Oh! Lord, sweet Master of love. Thou whom I see so living, so conscious in all, I adore Thee with a limitless devotion.

February 10, 1914

WITH peace in the heart and light in the mind, we feel Thee, O Lord, so living in us that we await events with serenity, knowing that Thy way is everywhere since we carry it in our being, and that in all circumstances we can be heralds of Thy word and servant of Thy work.

With a calm and pure devotion we salute Thee and we recognise Thee as the only reality of our being.

February 11, 1914

AS soon as we rise above the perception of contingencies, as soon as we identify our consciousness with Thy supreme Consciousness, as soon as we thus enter into that consciousness which I cannot define otherwise than as absolute Knowledge, how all problems regarding what we should or should not do or concerning all the resolutions to be taken, appear easy, a little childish.

The only thing important from the standpoint of the eternal work, is to become conscious of Thee, to be identified with Thee and to maintain constantly this conscious identification. But in what concerns the best use to be made of our physical organism, Thy mode of manifestation upon earth, it is enough, when Thou alone art conscious in us, to turn our regard towards this body to know indisputably what is the thing it can do best, what is the activity which will employ most completely all its energies.

And without attaching any great importance to this activity, to this quite relative utilisation, we can take, without any difficulty, without any inner discussion, the decisions which, to the outer consciousness, appear most daring, most hazardous.

How all is simple to him who sees things from the height of Thy eternity!

I salute Thee, O Lord, with a glad and confident devotion. May the peace of Thy divine love be on all beings!

February 12, 1914

WHEN conscious with Thy supreme Consciousness, we consider all terrestrial circumstances we perceive all their relativity and we say, “Doing this or that has after all no great importance; yet such and such a way of action will be the best utilisation of such and such a faculty or temperament. All actions, whatever they may be, even the most contradictory in appearance, can be the expression of Thy law in the measure in which they are imbued with the consciousness of that law, which is not a law of practical application capable of being translated into principles or rules in the ordinary human consciousness, but which is a law of attitude, of a constant and general consciousness, something which is not at all expressed by formulas but which is lived.”

But as soon as we fall back into the ordinary consciousness, nothing should any longer be treated lightly, with indifference; the smallest circumstances, the smallest acts have a great importance and should be seriously considered; for we should at every moment strive to do that which will facilitate the identification of our consciousness with the eternal consciousness, and carefully avoid all that can be an obstacle to this identification. It is then that the rules of conduct having at their base a perfect personal disinterestedness should assume all their value.

With peace in the heart, light in the mind, hope of certitude in all my being, I salute Thee, O Lord, divine Master of eternal love.

Thou art our reason of existence and our goal.

February 13, 1914

IN the silence of an intense concentration I would unite my consciousness with Thy absolute consciousness, I would identify myself with Thee, O sovereign Lord of our being, divine Master of love, so that Thy law may become perceptible to us and clear and we may live only by it and for it.

How all is beautiful, great, simple and calm in the hours when my thought takes its flight towards Thee and unites with Thee! And from the day when it will be possible for us to maintain constantly this supreme clairvoyance, how we shall march in life with steps at once aerial and assured, above all obstacles and without any hesitation. For, I know by experience, all doubt, all hesitation ceases from the very moment in which we are conscious of Thy law, and if we clearly perceive the extreme relativity of all human action, we know at the same time, with exactitude and precision, what is, in relation to out body, to our means of acting, the action that is the least relative…and the obstacles as if by enchantment but very really disappear. All our efforts, O Lord, will henceforth tend more and more constantly towards the realisation of this marvellous state.

May the peace of Thy certitude awaken in all hearts!

February 14, 1914

PEACE, peace upon all the earth!

May all escape from the ordinary consciousness and be delivered from the attachment for material things; may they awake to the knowledge of Thy divine presence, unite themselves with Thy supreme Consciousness and taste the plenitude of peace that springs from it.

Lord, Thou art the sovereign Master of our being. Thy law is our law, and with all our strength we aspire to identify our consciousness with Thy eternal Consciousness, that we may accomplish Thy sublime work in each thing and at every moment.

Lord, deliver us from all care for contingencies; deliver us from the ordinary outlook on things. Grant that we may henceforth see only with Thy eyes and act only by Thy will. Transform us into living torches of Thy divine love.

With reverence, with devotion, in a joyful consecration of my whole being, I give myself, O Lord, to the fulfilment of Thy law.

Peace, peace upon all the earth!

February 15, 1914

O THOU, sole Reality, Light of our light and Life of our life, Love supreme, Saviour of the world, grant that more and more I may be perfectly awakened to the awareness of Thy constant presence. Let all my acts conform to Thy law; let there be no difference between my will and Thine. Extricate me from the illusory consciousness of my mind, from its world of phantasies; let me identify my consciousness with the Absolute Consciousness, for that art Thou.

Give me constancy in the will to attain the end, give me firmness and energy and the courage which shakes off all torpor and lassitude.

Give me the peace of perfect disinterestedness, the peace that makes Thy presence felt and Thy intervention effective, the peace that is ever victorious over all bad will and every obscurity.

Grant, I implore Thee, that all in my being may be identified with Thee and may I be nothing else than a flaming torch of love, one utterly awakened to Thy supreme action of love.

February 16, 1914

O SUPREME, sole Reality, true Consciousness, permanent Unity, sovereign repose of perfect light, with what intensity I aspire to be no more conscious of anything else than Thee, to be no more anything else than Thou. This incessant whirl of unreal personalities, this multiplicity, this complexity, this excessive inextricable confusion of conflicting thoughts, struggling tendencies, battling desires, appears to me more and more woeful. We must emerge out of this sea in fury, land on the serenity of Thy peaceful shore. Give me the energy of an indefatigable swimmer. I would conquer Thee, whatever may be the efforts necessary for that…O Lord, ignorance must be overthrown, illusion dispelled, and this sorrowful world must come out of its frightful nightmare, end its terrible dream, to awake at last to the consciousness of Thy sole Reality.

O immutable Peace, deliver men from ignorance; may Thy full and pure Light reign everywhere!

February 17, 1914

O LORD, how ardently my aspiration rises towards Thee: give us the full consciousness of Thy law, the constant perception of Thy will, so that our decision may be Thy decision and our life may be solely consecrated to Thy service and as perfect an expression as possible of Thy inspiration.

O Lord, dispel all darkness, all blindness, and may every one possess the calm certitude which is brought by Thy divine illumination!

February 19, 1914

O LORD, be always present in my thought! Not that I ask it of Thee, for I know that Thy Presence is constant and sovereign, I know that all that we see and all that escapes our sight is only what it is because of Thy marvellous intervention, because of Thy divine law of love; but I say and I say it again, I implore, in order to avoid forgetfulness and negligence.

O! To become Thy living love so completely as to transfigure and illumine everything; so completely as to generate in all peace and benevolent satisfaction.

O! To become Thy divine love clairvoyant and pure! O! To be that everywhere and always...

February 20, 1914

THE only thing important, the only thing that counts, is to will more and more to be identified with Thee, to unite our consciousness with Thy absolute Consciousness, to be more and more a peaceful, calm, disinterested, strong servitor of Thy sovereign law. Thy will of love.

O Lord, give me that peace of perfect disinterestedness, that peace which makes Thy Presence effective, Thy intervention efficacious, that peace which is ever victorious over all bad wills, over all darknesses.

O Lord, very humbly, I pray in order that I may be equal to the height of my task, that nothing in me, conscious or not, may betray Thee by neglecting to serve Thy sacred mission.

In a silent devotion, I salute Thee.....

February 21, 1914

EACH day, each moment, must be an occasion for a new and completer consecration; and not one of those enthusiastic and trepidant consecrations, overactive, full of the illusion of the work, but a profound and silent consecration which need not be apparent, but which penetrates and transfigures every action. Our mind, solitary and at peace, must rest always in Thee, and from this pure summit it must have the exact perception of realities, of the sole and eternal Reality, behind unstable and fugitive appearances.

O Lord, my heart is purified from trouble and anguish; it is firm and calm, and it sees Thee in everything; and whatever the outer actions, whatever the circumstances the future has in store for us, I know that Thou alone livest, that Thou alone art real in Thy immutable permanence, and it is in Thee that we live.

May there be peace upon all the earth.

February 22, 1914

WHEN I was a child — about the age of thirteen and for about a year — every night as soon as I was in bed, it seemed to me that I came out of my body and rose straight up above the house, then above the town, very high. I saw myself then clad in a magnificent golden robe, longer than myself; and as I rose, that robe lengthened, spreading in a circle around me to form, as it were, an immense roof over the town. Then I would see coming out from all sides men, women, children, old men, sick men, unhappy men; they gathered under the outspread robe, imploring help, recounting their miseries, their sufferings, their pains. In reply, the robe, supple and living, stretched out to them individually, and as soon as they touched it, they were consoled or healed, and entered back into their body happier and stronger than they had ever been before coming out of it. Nothing appeared to me more beautiful, nothing made me more happy; and all the activities of the day seemed to me dull and colourless, without real life, in comparison with this activity of the night which was for me the true life. Often as I thus rose, I would see on my left an old man, silent and immobile, who looked at me with a benevolent affection and encouraged me by his presence. This old man, dressed in a long robe of sombre violet, was the personification — I knew later — of him who is called the Man of Sorrows.

Now the profound experience, the almost ineffable reality is translated in my brain by other notions which I can define thus:

Many a time during the day and in the night it seems to me that I, — that is to say, my consciousness is wholly concentrated in my heart, which is no longer an organ, not even a feeling, but the divine Love, impersonal, eternal; being this Love, I feel myself living in the centre of everything upon the whole earth, and at the same time it seems to me that I am stretching out immense, infinite arms and enveloping with a limitless tenderness all beings clasped, grouped, nestled upon my breast vaster than the universe…. Words are poor and clumsy, O divine Master, and mental translations are always childish…. But my aspiration for Thee is constant, and, to tell the truth, it is very often Thyself and Thou alone who livest in this body, an imperfect means of Thy manifestation.

May all beings be happy in the peace of Thy illumination!

February 23, 1914

GRANT, O Lord, that we may be more and more conscious of Thy law; that is to say “one” with it in order to facilitate its manifestation in everything.

O Lord, grant that I may become master of my vagrant thoughts, that living in Thee, I may perceive life only through Thee, and that the illusion of the reality of Matter may come to an end, to be replaced by a perception conforming more to Thy eternal reality.

Let me live constantly in Thy divine Love, so that it may be that which lives in me and by me.

Grant that I may be a useful and clairvoyant collaboratrix and that all in me may promote the plenitude of Thy manifestation.

I know all my imperfections, my difficulties, my weaknesses, I feel where I am ignorant, but I put all my trust in Thee and I bow down before Thee with a silent devotion.

February 25-26, 1914

ONE who would serve Thee worthily should not be attached to anything, not even to the activities which enable him to commune more consciously with Thee…. But if, in consequence of a mass of circumstances, material things take a greater place in life than usual, we must know how not to let ourselves be absorbed by them, to keep in the depth of the heart the clear vision of Thy presence, and live constantly in that serene peace which nothing can trouble….

O to do everything seeing Thee alone everywhere, and thus to soar above the accomplished act, without any claim, which holds us prisoners to the earth, coming to burden the flight….

O Lord, grant that the offering I make of my being may be integral and effective.

With a respectful and loving devotion, I bow down before Thee, O ineffable Essence, inconceivable Reality, without the name.

February 27, 1914

O LORD, I foretaste the infinite happiness which is the share of those whose life is wholly consecrated to Thee. And this does not depend upon outer circumstances, but upon the state of the being and its more or less of illumination. A perfect consecration to Thy law cannot but bring about modifications in the mass of circumstances, but it is not they that allow and express this perfect consecration. I mean to say that it is not in given circumstances, always the same for all, that Thy law is manifested; for every one this manifestation is different according to his temperament, that is to say, according to the mission which is for the time being assigned to him in the physical life.

But what is invariable and general is the happy peace the luminous and immutable serenity of all those who are solely consecrated to Thee, who have no longer in them any darkness, any ignorance, any egoistic attachment, any bad will.

O may all awake to this divine peace.

March

March 1, 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 if 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; it is the idea we form of them which enables us to profit better or worse by the lessons they give us.

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!

March 3, 1914

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 I turn towards the future and my regard becomes still more grave. What it has in store for 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.

March 4, 1914

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!

Geneva, March 6, 1914

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 mightest by illumining heal it.

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 Marou, 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 intention 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 Thy 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 anguish and replace it by the sense of the one true happiness, the happiness that is founded in 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!

March 8, 1914

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 dispersest all ignorance, O Thou the supreme healer, be constantly present on this boat in the hearts 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; 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 10, 1914

IN the silence of the night Thy Peace reigned over all things, in the silence of my heart Thy Peace 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 memory, and for all that I forget, in a great ingathering and mute adoration, I implored Thy Peace.

March 12, 1914

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.

March 13, 1914

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.

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.

March 14, 1914

IN 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.

March 15, 1914

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 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.

March 17, 1914

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, giving place to an ease, 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 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.

March 18, 1914

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 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 sometimes prevents him from perceiving it immediately, he recognises it 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.

March 19, 1914

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 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!

March 20, 1914

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.

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 in spite 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 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.

March 22, 1914

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. On this day when, striving to forget external contingencies, they have turned towards their noblest thought, their best feelings, grant that they may receive what I willed for them with Thy will at the moments when I was in true communion with Thee.

May the supreme serenity of Thy sublime Presence awake in them.

March 23, 1914

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, enables 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.

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!

March 24, 1914

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 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.

March 25, 1914

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 to which Thou givest the peace of Knowledge.

March 28, 1914

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.

Pondicherry, March 29, 1914

O THOU whom we must know, understand, realise, absolute Consciousness, eternal Law, Thou who guidest and enlightenest us, who determinest and 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.

March 30, 1914

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.

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.

April

April 1, 1914

IT seems to me that we have entered into the heart of Thy sanctuary and become aware of Thy will itself. A great joy, a deep peace reign in me, and yet all my inner constructions have vanished like a vain dream, and I find myself now before Thy immensity, without any frame or system, like a being not yet individualised. All that past, in its external form, appears to me ridiculous and arbitrary, and yet I know that it was useful in its time.

But at present all is changed: a new stage has begun.

April 2, 1914

EVERYDAY, at the moment when I wish to write I am interrupted, as if the new period which is opening before us was a period of expansion rather than of concentration. It is in the activity of each moment that we must serve Thee and be identified with Thee, rather than in deep and mute contemplation or in written or unwritten meditation.

But my heart does not tire of singing to Thee a canticle and my thought is constantly full of Thee.

April 3, 1914

IT seems to me that I am being born into a new life and that all the methods and habits of the past can no longer be of any use. It seems to me that what was once a result is now only a preparation. I feel as if I had done nothing yet, as if I had not lived the spiritual life, as if I was only entering upon the way which leads to it; it seems to me that I know nothing, that I am incapable of formulating anything, that all experience is yet to commence. It is as if I was stripped of all my past, of my errors as well as my conquests, as if all that had disappeared to give place to one new-born whose whole existence has yet to take shape, who has no Karma, no experience it can profit by, but no error either which it must repair. My head is empty of all knowledge and all certitude, but also of all vain thought. I feel that if I can surrender without any resistance to this state, if I do not strive to know or understand, if I consent to be completely like a child, ignorant and candid, some new possibility will open before me. I know that I must now definitively give myself up and be like a page absolutely blank on which Thy thought, Thy will, O Lord, will be able to inscribe themselves freely, secure against all deformation.

An immense gratitude rises from my heart, I seem to have at last arrived at the threshold which I have so long sought.

Grant, O Lord, that I may be pure enough, impersonal enough, animated enough with Thy divine love, to be able to cross it definitively.

O, to belong to Thee, without any darkness of restriction!

April 4, 1914

O LORD, my adoration rises ardently towards Thee, all my being is like an aspiration, a flame which is consecrated to Thee.

O Lord, Lord, my sweet Master, it is Thou who livest and wiliest in me!

This body is Thy instrument; this will is Thy servant; this intelligence is Thy tool; and the whole is only Thyself.

April 7, 1914

WHAT is then my courage if I always try to avoid the fight? What is then my energy if I am instinctively afraid of the new effort to be made and try, without being aware of it, to go to sleep passively, counting upon the results of the past effort? To act I have to be compelled and my mute contemplation is partly made of laziness.…All that appears to me more and more clearly. All I have done up to the present seems to me to be nothing. The poverty and limitation of the instrument which I put at Thy service, O Lord, are evident to me, and I laugh a little sorrowfully at the idea that I could sometimes have a good opinion of my being, of its efforts and their results. This threshold of the true life which I am always thinking that I have attained is like a hope which is given to me but never a tangible realisation; it is the toy promised to a child, the reward held out before the weak.

When then shall I be a truly strong being entirely made of courage, energy, valour and calm perseverance; when shall I have forgotten my personality completely enough to be only an instrument solely moulded by the forces it has to manifest? When will there be no inertia mixed with my consciousness of unity; when with my feeling of divine love will there be no longer mixed any weakness?

O Lord, all thought seems dead in me, now that I have put these questions. I search for my conscious mind and find it no more; I search for my individuality and discover it nowhere; I search for my personal will and it is absent. I search for Thee and there is no word from Thee…. Silence, only silence.

I seem now to hear Thy voice: “Never hast thou been able to die integrally. Always something in thee has wished to know, to see, to understand. Surrender completely, learn how to disappear, break the last dam which separates thee from me; accomplish without reserve thy act of surrender.” Alas, O Lord, for a long time I have wanted to do it, but I have not been able. Now wilt Thou give me the power to do it?

O Lord, my sweet eternal Master, break this resistance which fills me with anguish…deliver me from myself!

April 8, 1914

O LORD, my thought is peaceful and my heart is at rest; I turn towards Thee with a deep devotion and limitless confidence; I know that Thy love is all-powerful and that Thy justice will reign upon the earth; I know that the hour is near when the last veil will be withdrawn and all iniquity disappear to give place to an era of peace and harmonious effort. O Lord, my mind drawn inward and my heart at peace approach Thee and all my being is filled with Thy divine Presence; grant that I may see only Thee in everything and that all may shine with Thy divine Light. Oh, may hatreds be appeased, rancours effaced, fears dispelled, suspicions abolished and malevolences overcome, and in this town, in this country, on this earth, may all hearts feel vibrating in them this sublime love, the source of all transfiguration.

O Lord, with what an ardent appeal I implore Thy love. Grant that my aspiration may be intense enough to awaken everywhere a like aspiration: Oh, may kindness, justice, peace reign as sovereign masters, may ignorant egoism be overcome, may darkness be suddenly illumined by Thy pure Light; may the blind see, may the deaf hear, may Thy law be proclaimed in every place and, in a union constantly progressive, in a harmony ever more perfect, may all, as a single being, stretch out their arms towards Thee to identify themselves with Thee and to manifest Thee upon the earth.

O Lord, with the mind drawn inward and the heart full of sun-light, I give myself to Thee without reserve and the “I” disappears in Thee!

April 10, 1914

SUDDENLY the veil was rent, the horizon was disclosed. Before the clear vision my whole being threw itself at Thy feet in a great outburst of gratitude. Yet in spite of this deep and integral joy, all was calm, all was peaceful with the peace of eternity.

I seem to have no more limits; there is no longer the perception of the body, no sensations, no feelings, no thoughts…. A clear, pure, tranquil immensity, penetrated with love and light, filled with an unspeakable beatitude, is all that is there, and that alone seems now to be myself, and this “myself” is so little the former “I”, selfish and limited, that I cannot tell if it is I or Thou, O Lord, sublime Master of our destinies.

It is as though all were energy, courage, force, will, infinite sweetness, incomparable compassion.

Even more forcibly than during these last days the past is dead and as though buried under the rays of a new life. The last glance that I have just thrown backward, as I read a few pages of this book, definitively convinced me of this death, and lightened of a great weight, I present myself before Thee, O my divine Master, with all the simplicity, all the nudity of a child….And still the only thing I perceive is that calm and pure immensity…. Lord, Thou hast answered my prayer, Thou hast granted me what I have asked from Thee; the “I” has disappeared, there is only a docile instrument put at Thy service, a centre of concentration and manifestation of Thy infinite and eternal rays; Thou hast taken my life and made it Thine; Thou hast taken my will and hast united it to Thine; Thou hast taken my love and identified it with Thine; Thou hast taken my thought and replaced it by Thy absolute Consciousness.

The body, marvelling, bows its forehead in the dust in mute and submissive adoration. And nothing else exists but Thou alone in the splendour of Thy immutable peace.

Karikal, April 13, 1914

ALL conspires to prevent me from remaining a being of habits, and in this new state, in the midst of these complex and unstable circumstances, I have never so completely lived Thy immutable peace, or rather the “I” has never so completely disappeared leaving Thy divine peace to live alone. All is beautiful, harmonious and calm, all is full of Thee. Thou shinest in the dazzling sun, Thou makest Thyself felt in the sweet breeze that blows, Thou makest Thyself manifest in our hearts and livest in all beings. There is no animal, no plant that does not speak to me of Thee and Thy name is written on all I look at.

O my sweet Lord, hast Thou at last granted that I should be wholly Thine and my consciousness definitively united with Thine? What have I done to merit so glorious a happiness? Nothing more than to desire it and will it with constancy, that is very little.

But, O Lord, since now it is Thy will and not mine that lives in me, Thou canst make this happiness profitable to all and make its reason of existence the giving to the greatest possible number of beings a perception of Thee.

O may all know Thee, love Thee, serve Thee; may all receive the supreme consecration!

O Love, divine Love, spread in the world, regenerate life, enlighten the intelligence, break down the dams of egoism, dispel the obstacle of ignorance and be the resplendent Master of the earth.

Pondicherry, April 17, 1914

O LORD, O almighty Master, sole Reality, grant that no error, no obscurity, no fatal ignorance may creep into my heart and my thought.

In action, the personality is the inevitable and indispensable intermediary of Thy will and Thy forces.

The stronger, the more complex, powerful, individualised and conscious is the personality, the more powerfully and usefully can the instrument serve. But, by reason of the very character of personality, it easily tends to be drawn into the fatal illusion of its separate existence and become little by little a screen between Thee and that on which Thou wiliest to act. Not at the beginning, in the manifestation, but in the transmission of the return; that is to say, instead of being, as a faithful servant, an intermediary who brings back to Thee exactly what is Thy due — the forces sent forth in reply to Thy action — there is a tendency in the personality to want to keep for itself a part of the forces, with this idea: “It is I who have done this or that, I who am thanked…” Pernicious illusion, obscure falsehood, now are you discovered and unmasked. That is the maleficent canker corroding the fruit of the action, falsifying all its results.

O Lord, O my sweet Master, sole Reality, dispel this feeling of the “I”. I have now understood that so long as there will be a manifested universe, the “I” will remain necessary for Thy manifestation; to dissolve, or even to diminish or weaken the “I”, is to deprive Thee of the means of manifestation, in whole or part. But what must be radically and definitively suppressed, is the illusory thought, the illusory feeling, the illusory sensation of the separate “I”. At no moment, in no circumstances must we forget that our “I” has no reality outside Thee.

O my sweet Master, my divine Lord, tear out from my heart this illusion that Thy servant may become pure and faithful, and faithfully and integrally bring back to Thee all that is Thy due. In silence let me contemplate and understand this supreme ignorance and dispel it for ever. Chase the shadow from my heart, and let Thy light reign in it, its uncontested sovereign.

April 18, 1914

YESTERDAY evening the last veil was almost rent, the last stronghold of the blind and ignorant personality seemed to be on the point of yielding; for the first time I thought I understood what is true impersonal service, and the obstacle which separated me from the integral realisation appeared to me very fragile, on the point of definitively disappearing. But the necessity of my outer duties tore me out of this beneficent and happy contemplation, and at the moment when I was obliged to return to the outer consciousness, the veil closed again and appears to me darker than ever. Why this fall into the inconscience of the night after so great a light?

O Lord, Lord, wilt Thou not let me escape at last from the ignorance and be one with Thee? Now that I have known and seen so well what must be the work upon the earth, shall I not be able to realise it? Am I then rivetted to the ignorance and illusion?

Why, why this night after so great and pure a light? All my being is strained in an agonising appeal!

O Lord, take pity on me!

April 19, 1914

THERE is a great difference between being active in an external action, even while keeping our thought constantly fixed on Thee, and entering into that perfect union with Thee which leads to what I have called “the absolute Consciousness, the true Omniscience, the Knowledge”. When we act, even with our thought fixed on Thee, we are like a blind man walking on the road, with a sense of the direction, but knowing nothing of the way he follows and of the precise manner in which he should walk on it so as to avoid neglecting anything. In the other case, on the contrary, there is the clear vision in the full light, the utilisation of the smallest opportunity, the plenitude of action, the maximum of result. And if the first attitude is indispensable before attaining to the other, we must not at any moment cease to work, to make an effort to attain to the perfect communion.

But my heart is at peace, my thought free from impatience, and I give myself to Thy will with the smiling confidence of a child.

May Thy peace reign over all.

April 20, 1914

AFTER I had hoped so much, after I had come to believe that my outer being was at last to become an instrument adapted to Thy ends, after the hope had come of being delivered at last from this ego, so cumbersome and obscure, I feel as far from the goal as before, as ignorant, as egoistic as I was before this great expectation. And once more the way rolls out interminable across the fields of inconscience. The sublime door is again closed and again I find myself on the threshold of the sanctuary without any power to enter. But I have learnt to regard everything smilingly with a tranquil heart. Only I ask Thee, O my divine Master, not to let me commit errors; even if the instrument is condemned again for a time to inconscience, grant that it may faithfully and docilely let itself be guided by Thy divine law.

I salute Thee, O Lord, with a profound and pure devotion. Oh! be the sovereign Master of all hearts.

April 23, 1914

ALL rules have vanished, the regularity of the discipline has disappeared, all effort has ceased; not by my own will, not, I think, by negligence either, but because the circumstances conspire to make it so. It seems to me that this inner will, always alert, which is like a steersman at the helm, has evaporated or fallen asleep, and my being is only something peacefully surrendered which lets itself be carried by the current. Up to the present, it seems to me that the course has been in a straight line, and I would keep the hope that it is Thou, O Lord, who guidest the current; but certainly if I have sinned sometimes by too great a rigidity, a lack of suppleness and spontaneity, it might well be that now I sin by a contrary excess. I have come to accept peacefully the state in which I am and to say to myself that Thou wilt vouchsafe to me the true, the absolute Consciousness when Thou thinkest fit.

I regard all this mobile world as a play which unrolls itself, and I take part in this play with the same energy and conviction as if I believed it to be real and important. All this is quite new. But what is sure is that never were my mind and heart so completely at rest. What will come of it I know not. But I trust to Thee, O Lord; Thou knowest best how to use and develop Thy instrument.

April 28, 1914

THOU art the Master of the world; Thy law unrolls itself before us with precision, and as I thought or rather Thou hadst made me understand before our departure from Paris, it is the best, that which could best serve Thy work in the world, that has happened.

In beatitude I have communed with Thy power which dominates darkness and error and shines like a marvellous and eternal dawn over the mud of the hypocritical force and its apparent success. All has been brought to light, we have taken a step forward towards the full light of sincerity, and it is this full light which will be the first stage of Thy reign upon the earth.

O Thou, inconceivable splendour, Thou, conqueror of all ignorance, victor over all egoism, Thou who illuminest our hearts and enlightenest our minds, Thou who art Knowledge, Love and Being, let me live constantly in the consciousness of Thy Unity, let me always conform to Thy Will.

With a respectful and silent devotion I salute Thee as the sovereign Lord of the world!

May

May 2, 1914

BEYOND all human conceptions, even the most marvellous, beyond all human feelings, even the most sublime, beyond the most magnificent aspirations and the purest elans, beyond Love, Knowledge and the Unity of the Being, I would enter into a constant communion with Thee, O Lord. Free from all trammels, I shall be Thyself; it will be Thou seeing the world through this body; it will be Thou acting in the world through this instrument.

In me is the calm serenity of perfect certitude.

May 3, 1914

O LOVE divine, Knowledge supreme, perfect Unity, at each moment of the day I call to Thee so that I may be nothing else but only Thou!

May the instrument serve Thee, conscious that it is an instrument, and may my whole consciousness be immersed in Thine and contemplate all things with Thy divine sight.

O Lord, Lord, grant that Thy sovereign Power may manifest; grant that Thy work may be done and Thy servitor solely consecrated to Thy service.

May the “I” disappear for ever, and the instrument alone live!

May 4, 1914

TO be immersed at once in Thee and in Thy work…. To be no longer a limited individual… to become the infinitude of Thy forces manifesting through a point… to be delivered from all trammels and all limitations…to rise above all restricting thought… to act and be beyond the act… to act through and for individuals but see only the oneness, the oneness of Thy Love, Thy Knowledge and Thy Being…. O my divine Master, eternal Teacher, Sole Reality, dissolve all the darkness of this aggregate which Thou hast formed for Thy service, Thy manifestation in the world. Realise in it that supreme Consciousness which will generate an identical consciousness everywhere.

Oh, to see no longer the appearances which change incessantly; to contemplate only Thy immutable oneness in everything and everywhere.

O Lord, all my being cries to Thee in an irresistible appeal; wouldst Thou not grant that I may become Thyself in my integral consciousness, since in fact I am Thou and Thou art I?

May 9, 1914

JUST at the moment when I felt the imperious need for the regular resumption of these notes to come out of this invading mental inertia, my physical organism sustained a defeat such as it had not known for several years, and for a few days all the forces of my body failed me; I saw in it a sign that I had made a mistake, that my spiritual energy had given way, that my vision of the all-powerful oneness had been obscured, that an evil suggestion had succeeded in troubling me in some way, and I bowed down before Thee, O Lord, my sweet Master, with humility, conscious that I was not yet ripe for the perfect identification with Thee. Something in this aggregate which constitutes the instrument I can put at Thy service is yet obscure and lacking in comprehension; something does not respond, as it ought, to Thy forces, deforms and obscures their manifestations.

A great problem presented itself before me and my illness covered it with its veil and prevented me from solving it. Now that I live again in the feeling of Thy Unity, the problem no longer appears to have any meaning and I do not understand it very well.

It seems to me that I have left something far behind me and that I am slowly awaking to a new life. I would wish that it may not be an illusion, and that the profound and smiling peace may return for ever.

O my divine Master, my love aspires after Thee more intensely than ever; let me be Thy living Love in the world and nothing but that! May all egoism, all limitations, all obscurity disappear; may my consciousness be identified with Thy Consciousness so that Thou alone mayst be the will acting through this fragile and transient instrument.

O my sweet Master, with what an ardour my love aspires for Thee.

Grant that I may be only Thy Divine Love and that in everything this Love may awake powerful and victorious.

Let me be like an immense mantle of love enveloping the whole earth, penetrating all hearts, murmuring to every ear Thy divine message of hope and peace.

O my divine Master, with what an ardour I aspire for Thee! Break these chains of darkness and error; dispel this ignorance, liberate, liberate me, make me see Thy light.

Break, break these chains…. I would understand, and I would be. That is to say, this “I” must be Thy “I” and there must be only one “I” in the world.

O Lord, grant my prayer, my supplication rises ardently towards Thee.

May 10, 1914

IT is Thy sweet joy, O Lord, that fills my heart; it is Thy silent peace that reigns over my mind. All is repose, force, concentration, light and serenity; and all that is without limits and without any division; is it only the earth or the whole world that lives in me, I know not, but it is Thou, O Lord, who dwellest in this consciousness and givest life to it; it is Thou who seest, Thou who knowest, Thou who doest. It is Thou alone whom I see everywhere, or rather there is no longer any “I”, all is one and this Oneness, it is Thou.

Glory to Thee, O Lord, Master of the world. Thou shinest in everything!

May 12, 1914

MORE and more it seems to me that we are in one of those periods of activity in which the fruit of past efforts becomes apparent, — a period in which we act according to Thy law in the measure in which it is the sovereign controller of our being, without having even the leisure to become conscious of the law.

This morning passing by a rapid experience from depth to depth, I was able, once again, as always, to identify my consciousness with Thine and to live no longer in aught but Thee; — indeed, it was Thou alone that wast living; but immediately Thy will pulled my consciousness towards the exterior, towards the work to be done, and Thou saidst to me, “Be the instrument of which I have need.” And is not this the last renunciation, to renounce identification with Thee, to renounce the sweet and pure joy of no longer distinguishing between Thee and me, the joy of knowing at each moment, not only with the intellect but by an integral experience, that Thou art the unique Reality and that all the rest is but appearance and illusion? That the exterior being should be the docile instrument which does not even need to be conscious of the will which moves it, is not doubtful; but why must I be almost entirely identified with the instrument and why should not the “I” be entirely merged in Thee and live Thy full and absolute Consciousness?

I ask, but I am not anxious about it. I know that all is according to Thy will, and with a pure adoration I trust myself joyously to Thy will. I shall be what Thou wouldst have me be, O Lord, conscient or inconscient, a simple instrument as is the body or a supreme knowledge as art Thou. O the sweet and peaceful joy when one can say that all is good and feel Thee at work in the world through all the elements which lend themselves to that transmission.

Thou art the sovereign Master of all, Thou art the Inaccessible, the Unknowable, the eternal and sublime Reality.

O marvellous Unity, I disappear in Thee!

May 13, 1914

THIS somnolence of my thought, O Lord, Thou wilt shake off so that I may have knowledge and understand the experience Thou hast given to my being. When something in me puts a question to Thee, always Thou repliest, and when it is necessary that I should know something, Thou teachest it to me, either directly or indirectly.

I see more and more that all impatient revolt, all haste would be useless; everything is organised slowly that I may serve Thee as I should. What is my place in this service? For a long time past I do not ask. What does it matter! Is it necessary to know whether one is at the centre or on the periphery? Provided that, entirely consecrated to Thee, living only for Thee and by Thee, I do better and better the work Thou givest me, all the rest has no importance at all. I would say more: provided Thy work is done in the world as well and as completely as it can be, what matters the individual or the group that realises this work?

O my sweet Master, in peace, serenity and equanimity, I give myself and I melt in Thee, my thought calm and tranquil, and my heart smiling; Thy work will be done, I know, and Thy victory is certain.

O my sweet Master, grant to all the sovereign boon of Thy illumination!

May 15, 1914

AS from a summit which has been attained, one discovers a vast horizon, so, O Lord, when one’s consciousness is identified with this intermediate realm between Thy unity and the manifested world, one participates at once in Thy Infinitude and the realisation of the world. It is as though one were at a centre in which the consciousness, wholly steeped in Thy effective Power, may direct the ray of Thy forces upon the lowest instrument moving centrally amidst its brother instruments. From the height of these transcendent regions, the unity of the physical substance is very evidently visible, and yet the body which serves as a particular instrument in the material realm, appears with a special precision and clearness like a more vigorous point in the midst of this whole, at once multiple and unique, in which the forces circulate equally.

This perception has not left me since yesterday. It has installed itself as something definitive, and all the outer activity which, in appearance, continues as usual, has taken the mechanical character of a marvellously articulated and animated toy moved from the height of its seat by my consciousness which is no longer individual but is still universal, and that means that it is not yet completely immersed in Thy Oneness. All the laws of the individual manifestation clearly appeared to me, but in a manner so synthetic, so global, so simultaneous, that it is impossible to express it in our ordinary language.

May 16, 1914

I WAS interrupted yesterday at the moment when I was trying to formulate the experience I had. And now all seems changed. That precise knowledge, that clairvoyance, has given place to a great love for Thee, O Lord, which has seized my whole being from the outer organism to the deepest consciousness, and all has prostrated itself at Thy feet in an ardent aspiration for a definitive identification with Thee, for an absorption in Thee. I implored with all the energy of which I was capable. And once more, at the moment when it seemed to me that my consciousness was going to disappear in Thine, at the moment when my whole being was nothing but a pure crystal reflecting Thy Presence, somebody came and interrupted my concentration.

Such is, indeed, the symbol of the existence Thou givest me as my share, and in which the outer utility, the work for all, holds a much greater place than the supreme realisation. All the circumstances of my life seem always to tell me on Thy behalf: “It is not by the supreme concentration that Thou wilt realise oneness, it is by the diffusion in all.” May Thy will be done, O Lord.

Now I clearly understand that union with Thee is not an end to be pursued, so far as this present individuality is concerned; it is a fact accomplished long since. And that is why Thou seemest to tell me always: “Do not revel in the ecstatic contemplation of this union, fulfil the mission I have confided to thee on the earth.”

And the individual work to be pursued simultaneously with the collective work is the awareness and possession of all the activities and all the regions of the being and the definitive establishment of the consciousness in that highest point which will allow at once the prescribed action and a constant communion with Thee. The joy of perfect union can come only when what has to be done has been done.

We must preach to all, first union, then work; but for those who have realised the union, each moment of their life must be an integral expression of Thy Will through them.

May 17, 1914

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

O Thou, Universal Being, Supreme Unity in perceptible form, by an irresistible aspiration I nestled in Thy heart, then I was Thy heart itself, and I know that Thy heart is no other than the child that plays and creates the worlds. Thou saidst to me, “One day thou wilt be my head, but for the moment turn thy look towards the earth.” And on the earth now I am the joyful child at play.

Such were the two sentences I wrote yesterday by a sort of absolute necessity. The first, as if the Power of the prayer would be complete only if it was written on paper. The second, as if the stability of the experience could be secured only when I should have relieved my brain from it by noting it in writing.

May 18, 1914

THOU art the sole Reality, O Lord, the Omnipotence and Eternity. And he who unites with Thee in the depths of his being, becomes Thy Reality in its eternal and immutable omnipotence. But for others, the order is, while remaining in contact with Thee, to turn their look and their activity towards the earth; such is the mission Thou hast given them. Then begins the difficulty, for all depends upon the perfection of the various states of their being, and they must, even after having attained to the sublime identification, still work for the perfectioning of the instrument which will manifest Thy divine Will. It is then that the task becomes arduous. All appears to me mediocre, insufficient, neutral, almost inert in the present instrument which Thou makest me call “I”; and the more I unite with Thee, the more I realise the mediocrity of its faculties and its manifestation. Everything in it seems to me to be an almost incorrigible à peu près. And if it cannot in any way trouble me, it is because the true “I” is lying at Thy feet, or nestled in Thy heart, or conscious of Thy eternal and immutable Consciousness, and regards the whole manifestation with the smile of a patient and understanding kindness.

May 19, 1914

THIS mental being which had, during the whole individual existence, the power of setting all the faculties in motion — deep devotion for Thee, infinite compassion for men, ardent aspiration for knowledge, effort towards perfection, — seems to be profoundly asleep and no longer to set anything in movement at all. All the individual faculties slumber and the consciousness is not yet awakened in the transcendental states; that is to say, its awakening in them is intermittent, and in between it is sleep. Something in this being aspires for solitude and absolute silence, for a certain time, so that it may come out of this unsatisfactory transition; and something else knows that Thy will is for this instrument to be consecrated to the service of all, even if that should be apparently harmful to its own perfectioning.

Something in this being tells Thee, O Lord:

“I know nothing,

I am nothing,

I can do nothing,

I am in the darkness of inconscience.”

And something else knows that it is Thyself and so is the supreme perfection.

What is going to come out of it? How is such a condition to come to an end? Is it inertia, is it true patience, I know not; but without any haste or desire, I lie down at Thy feet and wait.

May 20, 1914

FROM the height of that summit which is identification with Thy divine, infinite Love, Thou hast turned my look towards this complicated body which has to serve Thee as an instrument. And Thou hast said to me: “It is myself, seest thou not that my light shines in it?” And in fact I saw Thy divine Love, clad in intelligence, and then in force, constitute this body in its smallest cells and radiate in it to such a point that it became nothing else than a mass of millions of radiant sparks, which all made it manifest that they were Thou.

And now all darkness has disappeared, and Thou alone livest, in different worlds, under different forms, but with a life identical, immutable and eternal.

We must make this divine world of Thy immutable domain of pure love and indivisible oneness commune intimately with the divine world of all the other domains, up to the most material where Thou art the centre and the very constitution of each atom. To establish a bond of perfect consciousness between all these successive divine worlds is the sole means to live in Thee constantly and invariably, accomplishing integrally the mission Thou hast confided to the whole being in all its states of consciousness and all its modes of activity.

O my sweet Master, Thou hast rent asunder a new veil of my ignorance, and, without leaving my happy place in Thy eternal heart, I am at the same time in the imperceptible but infinite heart of each of the atoms which constitute this body.

Confirm this complete and perfect consciousness. Let me penetrate into all the details of its perfection, and may I, without leaving Thee at any moment, constantly climb up and down this infinite ladder, according to the necessities of the work Thou hast prescribed for me.

I am Thine and in Thee, I am Thyself, in the fullness of the eternal beatitude.

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.

May 22, 1914

WHEN we have discerned successively what is real from what is unreal in all the states of being and all the worlds of life, when we have arrived at the perfect and integral certitude of the sole Reality, we must turn our gaze from the heights of this supreme consciousness towards the individual aggregate which serves as the immediate instrument of Thy manifestation upon earth, and see in it nothing but Thee, our sole real existence. Thus each atom of this aggregate will be awakened to receive Thy sublime influence; the ignorance and the darkness will disappear not only from the central consciousness of the being but also from its most external mode of expression. It is only by the fulfilment, by the perfection of this labour of transfiguration that there can be manifested the plenitude of Thy Presence, Thy Light and Thy Love.

Lord, Thou makest me understand this truth ever more clearly; lead me step by step on that path. My whole being down to its smallest atom aspires for the perfect knowledge of Thy Presence and a complete union with it. Let every obstacle disappear, let Thy divine knowledge replace in every part the darkness of the ignorance. Even as Thou hast illumined the central consciousness, the will in the being, enlighten too this outermost substance. And let the whole individuality, from its first origin and essence to its last projection and most material body, be unified in a perfect realisation of Thy sole Reality.

Nothing is in the universe but Thy life, Thy light, Thy love.

Let everything become resplendent and transfigured by the knowledge of Thy Truth.

Thy divine love floods my being; Thy supreme light is shining in every cell; all exults because it knows Thee and because it is one with Thee.

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 reason and the sole aim of existence, grant that my love for Thee may go on increasing incessantly, so that I may become all love, Thy very love, and that being Thy love, I may unite integrally with Thee. May this love become more and more intense, complete, luminous, powerful; may this love be an irresistible élan towards Thee, an invincible means to manifest Thee. May all in this being become pure love, profound, disinterested, divine, from the unfathomable depths to the outermost substance. May the God in form who is manifesting in this aggregate, be wholly moulded of Thy complete and sublime love, that love which is at once the source and the realisation of all knowledge; may the thought be clarified, classified, enlightened, transformed by Thy love; may all the forces of my life, solely penetrated and moulded by Thy love, become irresistible purity and constant energy, power and rectitude. May this intermediary being, weakened, take advantage of its weakness to reconstitute itself with the elements which may be wholly moulded of Thy love, and may this body, becoming a burning brazier, radiate Thy divine, impersonal, sublime and calm love through all its pores…. May the brain be reconstituted by Thy love. Finally may Thy love overflow, inundate, penetrate, transfigure, regenerate, animate everything with the power, splendour, sweetness and force which are its very nature. In Thy love is peace, in Thy love is joy, in Thy love is the sovereign lever of work for Thy servitor.

Thy love is vaster than the universe and more enduring than the ages; it is infinite and eternal, it is Thyself. And it is Thyself that I would be and that I am, since such is Thy law and such Thy will.

May 24, 1914

O MY sweet Master, let me not be submerged by outer things. They have no interest, no savour for me. If I am busy with them, it is because it seems to me that such is Thy will and that the work must be accomplished integrally, down to the smallest details in action and in substance. But it is quite enough to turn our attention towards them and infuse Thy forces into them as much as possible. We must not allow them to take precedence of the true realities in our consciousness.

O my sweet Master, I aspire to Thee, to the knowledge of what Thou art, to identification with Thee. I ask for a love increasing, growing ever purer, ever vaster, ever more intense, and I find myself as if submerged in matter; is this Thy reply?

As Thou hast Thyself chosen to be submerged in Matter so as to awaken it little by little to consciousness, is this the result of a more perfect identification with Thee? Is this not Thy answer to me: “If Thou wouldst learn how to love truly, it is in this way that Thou must love…. in the darkness and the inconscience.

O my Lord, my sweet Master, Thou knowest that I belong to Thee and that always I will what Thou willest; but let not a doubt of what is Thy will be born in me. Enlighten me in whatever way in the immutable peace of the heart. Let me be submerged in darkness, if it is necessary, but let me at least know that it is Thou who willest it.

O Lord, in reply, I hear chant in my heart the hymn of the gladness of Thy divine and permanent Presence.

May 25, 1914

DIVINE Master of love and purity, grant that in its last stages, its smallest activities, this instrument which wishes to serve Thee worthily, may be purged of all egoism, of all error, of all obscurity, so that nothing in it may pervert, deform or stay Thy action. How many nooks are yet in the shadow, far from the full brightness of Thy illumination! For them I ask the supreme happiness of that illumination.

O to be a pure crystal without stain which allows Thy divine ray to pass without obscuring, colouring or deforming it! Not out of a desire for perfection, but that Thy work may be accomplished as perfectly as possible.

And when I ask this of Thee, the “I” which speaks to Thee is the whole earth, aspiring to be this pure diamond, perfect reflector of Thy supreme light. The hearts of all men beat in my heart, all their thoughts vibrate in my thoughts, the least aspiration of the docile animal or of the modest plant joins in my formidable aspiration, and all this lifts itself towards Thee, to the conquest of Thy love and light, scaling the peaks of the being to attain to Thee, to ravish Thee from Thy immobile beatitude and make Thee penetrate into the shadow of suffering so as to transform it into divine Joy, into sovereign Peace. And this violence is of an infinite love which gives itself and of a confident serenity which smiles in the certitude of Thy perfect Unity.

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

May 26, 1914

ON the surface is the storm, the sea is in turmoil, waves clash and leap one on another and break with a mighty uproar. But all the time, under this water in fury, are vast smiling expanses, peaceful and motionless. They look upon the surface agitation as an indispensable act; for matter has to be vigorously churned if it is to become capable of manifesting entirely the divine light. Behind the troubled appearance, behind the struggle and anguish of the conflict, the consciousness remains firm at its post; observing all the movements of the outer being, it intervenes only to rectify direction and position, so as not to allow the play to become too dramatic. This intervention is now firm and a little severe, now ironical, a call to order or a mockery, full always of a strong, gentle, peaceful and smiling benevolence.

In the silence I beheld Thy infinite and eternal beatitude.

Then softly a prayer rises towards Thee from what is still in the shadow and the struggle: “O sweet Master, O supreme Giver of illumination and purity, grant that all substance and every activity may be no more anything other than a constant manifestation of Thy divine love and Thy sovereign serenity.”

And in my heart is the song of gladness of Thy sublime magnificence.

May 27, 1914

IN each of the domains of the being, we must awaken the consciousness to the perfect existence, knowledge and beatitude. These three worlds or modes of the Divine are found in the physical reality as well as in the regions of Force and Light and those of impersonality, infinitude and eternity. When we enter fully conscious into the higher regions, it is easy, almost inevitable, to live this existence, this light and this beatitude. But what is very important, as also very difficult, is to awaken the being to this triple divine consciousness on the most material levels. This is the first point. Then we must find out the centre of all the divine worlds (probably in the intermediate world), from where we can unite the consciousness of these divine worlds, synthetise them and act simultaneously and in full knowledge in all the domains.

I know that there is a great gulf between these incomplete and imperfect explanations and the sublime reality which manifests Thee, O Lord. Thy splendour, Thy power and Thy magnificence, Thy incommensurable love are above all explanation and comment. But my intellect needs to represent things to itself in a manner at least schematic, in order to enable the most material parts of the being to put themselves as completely as possible in accord with Thy Will.

Nevertheless, it is in the deep silence of my mute and total adoration that I understand Thee best. For then who can say what loves, what is loved and what is the power of love in itself? All the three are but one in an infinite beatitude.

Give to all, O Lord, the boon of that incomparable beatitude.

May 28, 1914

THOU settest in motion, Thou stirrest, Thou churnest the innumerable elements of this world, so that from their primal darkness, their primitive chaos, they may be awakened to consciousness and to the full light of knowledge. And it is Thy supreme love that Thou usest for thus churning all these elements. And it is from Thy infinite, unfathomable heart that spring these inexhaustible torrents of love. Thy heart is my abode, Thy heart is the reality of my being. In Thy heart I have nestled and I have become Thy heart.

Peace, peace on all things.

May 29, 1914

O MY sweet Lord, those who are in Thy head, that is to say, 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 beatitude which is the mark of all entry of the consciousness into Thy supreme Essence, but the devotion of the worshipper who turns with ecstasy towards that which is above him can no longer exist. Then, to him whose mission on the earth is to manifest Thy love, Thou teachest to have a pure and infinite love for the whole manifested world; the love which was at first made of adoration and admiration is transformed into a love made all of compassion and devotedness.

O the divine splendour of Thy Eternal Oneness!

O the infinite sweetness of Thy Beatitude!

O the sovereign majesty of Thy Knowledge!

Thou art the Inconceivable, the Marvellous!

May 31, 1914

WHEN the sun had set in the indrawn quietude of the calm twilight, all my being prostrated itself before Thee, O Lord, in a mute adoration and complete surrender. Then I was the whole earth and the whole earth prostrated herself before Thee, imploring the benediction of Thy illumination and the beatitude of Thy love. O that kneeling of the earth in supplication towards Thee, then collected in itself in the silence of the night, awaiting, at once with patience and anxiety, the so longed-for illumination. If it is a sweetness to be Thy divine love at work in the world, it is as great a sweetness to be the infinite aspiration which rises towards that infinite love. And to be able to change thus, to be successively, almost simultaneously, that which receives and that which gives, that which transfigures and that which is transfigured, to be identified with the sorrowful darkness as with the all-powerful splendour, and, in this double identification, to discover the secret of Thy sovereign oneness, is it not a way of expressing, of fulfilling Thy supreme will?

O my sweet Master, my heart is a burning chapel, and Thou art permanently there as the sublimest of idols; thus Thy form appears to me, clad in magnificence, in the midst of the flames which consume my heart for Thee, and at the same time, in my head, I see Thee, I know Thee as the Inconceivable, the Unknowable, the Formless; and, in this double perception, this double knowledge, is found the plenitude of satisfaction.

June

June 1, 1914

O VICTORIOUS power of divine Love, Thou art the sovereign Master of this world, Thou art its creator and saviour; Thou hast made it arise from chaos, and now Thou leadest it towards its eternal ends.

There is nothing too humble in which Thou canst not be seen shining, no being too hostile in appearance to Thy will in which I do not feel Thee living, acting, radiating Thy light.

O my sweet Master, who art the very essence of this love, I am Thy heart, and the torrents of Thy love pass through my entire being in order to awaken Thy love in everything or rather to awaken everything to the consciousness of Thy love which animates all.

Those who recognise Thee not, those who know Thee not, those who try to turn away from Thy divine and sweet law, I take them in my arms of love, I cradle them on my heart of love, and I offer them to Thy divine blaze, so that penetrated with Thy miraculous emanations, they may be converted into Thy beatitude.

O Love, Thou penetratest and transfigurest all!

June 2, 1914

IN a silent and inward quietude, in a mute adoration, uniting myself with all this dark and sorrowful substance, I salute Thee, O Lord, as the divine saviour; I bless Thy love as the supreme liberator; I thank it for its innumerable boons, and I surrender myself to Thee, so that Thou mayst complete Thy work of perfectionment. Then I identify myself with Thy love and I am nothing but Thy inexhaustible love; I penetrate everything, living in the heart of each atom I kindle in it the fire that purifies and transfigures, the fire that is never extinguished, the messenger flame of Thy beatitude, which realises all perfections.

Then this love itself silently draws inwards, and turning towards Thee, unknowable splendour, awaits with ecstasy Thy New Manifestation.

June 3, 1914

NOW that the whole being is plunged more and more into a material activity and physical realisation which carries with it such a multitude of details I must think over and regulate, I appeal to Thee, O Lord, that my consciousness, thus turned towards outer things, may constantly preserve this communion with Thee, who art the source of all peace, all force and all beatitude.

O my sweet Master, Thyself work out my actions through the individual being in its integrality. Or rather do not let anything in this individual being forget at any moment that it is only an instrument — an illusion made real so that Thou mayst intervene in it — and that Thou alone livest and doest.

O the benediction of Thy immutable Presence.

June 4, 1914

O CONQUEROR of all obstacles, Thou wilt be in us the victory over all that would offer an impediment to the accomplishment of Thy divine law. Thou wilt dispel the darkness of ignorance and the black smoke of egoistic ill-will; Thou wilt dissolve the evil suggestions and fortify in us the pure and clear vision, the perspicacity which does not allow itself to be deceived by disintegrating thoughts and velleities of disorder.

O my sweet Master, Thy infinite love is the reality of our being; who can struggle against its omnipotent action? It penetrates all, passes through all obstacles, whether it is the inertia of a heavy ignorance or the resistance of an uncomprehending ill-will. O my sweet Master, through and by this love, Thou shinest in all things, and this splendour, becoming more and more powerful, will actively radiate over the whole earth and become perceptible to every consciousness.

Who can resist Thy divine power? Thou art the sole and supreme Reality!

My being gathers itself in a mute adoration and everything disappears that is not Thou.

June 9, 1914

O LORD, I am before Thee as an offering ablaze with the burning fire of divine union…

And that which is thus before Thee, is all the stones of this house and all that it contains, all those who cross its threshold and all those who see it, all those who are connected with it in one way or another and by close degrees the whole earth.

From this centre, this burning nucleus which is and will be more and more penetrated with Thy light and love, Thy forces will radiate over the whole earth, visibly and invisibly, in the hearts of men and in their thoughts.

Such is the certitude Thou givest me in reply to my aspiration for Thee.

An immense wave of love descends upon everything and penetrates all.

Peace, peace on all earth, victory, plenitude, marvel.

O beloved children, sorrowful and ignorant, and thou, O rebellious and violent Nature, open your hearts, tranquillise your force, it is the omnipotence of Love that is coming to you, it is the pure radiance of the light that is penetrating you. This human, this earthly hour is the most beautiful among all the hours. Let each, let all know it and enjoy the plenitude that is accorded.

O saddened hearts and anxious foreheads, foolish obscurity and ignorant ill-will, let your anguish be calmed and effaced.

This is the splendour of the new word that comes:

“I am here”.

June 11, 1914

EACH morning, O Lord, it is an innumerable salutation that rises towards Thee, the salutation of all the states of being and the multitude of their elements. And it is a daily consecration of all to the All, an appeal of ignorance and egoism to Thy light and love. And Thy reply comes constant and integrally perceived: all is light, all is love, ignorance and egoism are but vain phantoms which can be dissolved.

And over all spreads Thy sovereign Peace, Thy fecund calm.

June 12, 1914

O MY sweet Master, eternal splendour, I can but unite with Thee in silence and peace, saying, “Let Thy will be done in the details as in the whole.” Take possession of Thy kingdom, control all that revolts against Thee, heal the souls that know Thee not and the intellects that refuse to submit and to be consecrated to Thee. Awaken the slumbering energies, stimulate the courage, enlighten us, O Lord, show us the Way.

My heart is overflowing with a sovereign peace and my mind is calm and silent.

Deep behind all that is, all that will be, all that is not, is Thy divine and immutable smile.

June 13, 1914

WE must first conquer knowledge, that is to say, learn how to know Thee, to be united with Thee, and all means are good and can be employed to attain this end. But it would be a great mistake to think that all is done when this end is attained. All is done in principle, the victory is won theoretically, and those who have for their motive only the egoistic aspiration for their own salvation can be satisfied and can then live only in and for this communion, without any care for Thy manifestation.

But those whom Thou hast chosen as Thy representatives upon the earth cannot be satisfied with the result so obtained. To know Thee, first and before everything else, yes; but once the knowledge of Thee is acquired, there remains all the work of Thy manifestation; and then intervene the quality, force, complexity and perfection of that manifestation. Very often those who have known Thee, dazzled and transported with ecstasy by their knowledge, are content to see Thee for themselves and to express Thee as best or as worst they can in their outermost being. He who would be perfect in Thy manifestation cannot be satisfied with that; he must manifest Thee on all the planes, in all the states of the being, and thus draw from the knowledge he has acquired the greatest possible profit for the whole world.

Before the immensity of the programme, the whole being exults and sings to Thee a hymn of gladness.

All nature in full conscious activity, vibrating all over with Thy sovereign forces, responds to their inspiration and wills to be illumined and transfigured by them.

Thou art the Master of the world, the sole Reality.

June 14, 1914

IT is a veritable work of creation we have to do: to create new activities and new modes of being, so that this Force, unknown to the earth till now, may manifest in its plenitude. It is to this work of a bringing to birth that I have consecrated myself, O Lord, because it is this that Thou demandest from me. But since it is for this work that Thou hast chosen me, Thou must give me the means, that is to say, the knowledge necessary for its realisation. We shall unite our efforts; the whole individual being will concentrate itself in a constant appeal towards the knowledge of the way of manifestation of the Force, and Thou, supreme centre of the being, Thou wilt fully emanate the Force, so that it may penetrate, transfigure and surmount all obstacles. This is the pact Thou hast signed with the worlds of individual life. Thou hast made a promise, Thou hast sent into these worlds those able and that which is empowered to fulfil this promise. This now calls for Thy integral help, so that what has been promised may be realised.

There must take place in us the union of the two wills and the two currents, so that from their contact may be born the illuminating spark.

And since it has to be done, it will be done.

June 15, 1914

“LIE nestled in my heart and do not worry: what has to be done will be done. And it is just when you do without knowing it that it is done best”.

I am in Thy heart, O Lord, and nothing can take me away from it. And it is from the unfathomable depths of that heart, in the smiling peace of its beatitude, that I watch all the outer forms of Thy manifestation, striving, endeavouring to understand and manifest Thee better.

If the hour has come, as Thou lettest me know, for the new forms of Thy realisation, those forms must needs be born. Something in the being has a presentiment but does not yet know; so it makes an effort to adapt itself, to rise to the height of what Thou demandest of it. But that which is conscious of Thee and lives in Thy force, knows that this new form is but an infinitesimal advance in the infinite progression of Thy manifestation, and regards every form with the serenity of eternal plenitude.

And in this serenity is the very omnipotence of realisation.

We must know how to soar in an unshakable confidence; in the assured flight is the perfect knowledge.

June 16, 1914

LIKE a sun, Thy splendour descends upon the earth and Thy rays will illumine the world. All the elements which are pure enough, plastic enough, receptive enough to manifest the very splendour of the central fire group themselves. This is not at all arbitrary, and does not depend upon the will or the aspiration of one element or another, it depends upon what he is, independent of all individual decision. Thy splendour would radiate; that which is capable of manifesting it, manifests it, and these elements gather to reconstitute, as perfectly as possible in this world of division, the divine Centre which is to manifest.

In the wonder of this contemplation, the cells of the being exult; and seeing That which is, the integral substance enters into ecstasy. How to distinguish now this substance from Thyself? It is Thou completely, integrally, intensely in a perfect identification.

June 17, 1914

ALL that has been conceived and realised up to now is mediocre, commonplace, insufficient compared with what has to be. The perfections of the past have no longer any force at present. A new puissance is needed to transform the new powers and make them submit to Thy divine will. — “Ask and it shall be”, such is Thy constant reply. And now, O Lord, Thou must create in this being a constant, uninterrupted, intense, passionate aspiration in an unshakable serenity. Silence and peace are there: a constancy in the intensity must be born. Oh, Thy heart sings an hallelujah of gladness as if what Thou hast willed is in course of being realised….Let all these elements perish, so that from their ashes may emerge new elements adapted to the new manifestation.

O the immensity of Thy luminous Peace!

O the Omnipotence of Thy sovereign love!

And beyond all that can be thought, the ineffable splendour of what we can foresee. Give us the Thought, give us the Word, give us the Force.

Enter into the arena of the world, O new-born Unknown!

June 18, 1914

THE same will is ever at work. The Force is there, waiting till it can manifest itself: the new form must be discovered which will make possible the new manifestation. And no other than Thou, O Lord, can give this knowledge. It is for our integral being to make an effort, to ask, to aspire. But it is for Thee to respond by Illumination, Knowledge and Power.

O the canticle of joy of Thy victorious Presence.

June 19, 1914

FILL our hearts with the delight of Thy love.

Flood our minds with the splendour of Thy light.

Grant that we may manifest Thy Victory!

June 20, 1914

THOU must accomplish the work of transfiguration, Thou must show us the way to be followed and give us the power to follow it to the end.

O Thou, who art the source of all love and all light, whom we cannot know in Thy very self, but can more and more completely and perfectly manifest, whom we cannot reach by thought but can approach in a profound silence, to complete Thy immeasurable boons, Thou must come to our aid till we have won Thy victory.

Let that true love be born which allays all suffering; establish that unshakable peace in which lies the true power; give us the sovereign knowledge which dispels all darkness.

Up from the infinite depths even to this most external body, even in its smallest elements, Thou flowest, Thou livest, vibrating, setting all in motion, and the entire being is now one block, a multiplicity infinite and yet one coherent whole, animated by a single and formidable vibration: Thou.

June 21, 1914

TO be a mirror, at once passive and perfectly pure, turned at the same time towards outer and inner things, towards the results of the manifestation and the origin of the manifestation, so that the consequences may be presented to the directing will, and to be, in addition, the realising activity of that will — this is, approximately, what a human being should be… To combine the two attitudes, passive receptivity and realising activity, is precisely the thing most difficult to achieve. And it is this Thou attendest from us, O Lord, and since it is attended by Thee from us, there is no doubt that Thou wilt give us the means to realise it.

For what has to be will be, even more splendidly than we can imagine.

O may Thy love go on becoming more and more ample in the manifestation, ever more sublime, profound, vast.

June 22, 1914

WHAT has to be will be, what has to be done will be done.

What a calm certitude Thou hast put into my being, O Lord. Who or what will manifest Thee? Who can yet say?… Thou dwellest in all that makes an effort towards a completer and higher new manifestation. But the centre of the light is not yet manifested, because the centre of the manifestation is not yet perfectly adapted.

O divine Master, what has to be will be and it will perhaps be very different from what all expect.

But how to express certain silent secrets?

The force is there, in it is the self.

When and how will it surge out? When Thou wilt decide that the instrument is ready.

O the sweetness of Thy calm certitude, the power of Thy Peace.

June 23, 1914

THOU art the sovereign power of transformation, why shouldst Thou not act upon all those who are put in relation with Thee through us as intermediaries? We lack faith in Thy power. We always think that for this integral transformation to take place, men must will in their conscious thought; we forget that it is Thou who wiliest in them and that Thou canst will in such a way that all their being may be illumined... We doubt Thy power, O Lord, and that is why we become bad intermediaries and we veil the major part of its transforming force.

O give us this faith which we lack, this certitude in the detail which is wanting in us. Deliver us from the ordinary way of thinking and judging; grant that, living in the consciousness of Thy infinite love, we may see it at work at every moment and by being conscious of it we may put it in relation with the most material states of being…

O Lord, deliver us from all ignorance, give us the true faith.

June 24, 1914

FROM the point of view of the manifestation, the work to be continued on the earth, hierarchy is necessary. In this world which is still in disorder, can it be established without something arbitrary entering into it, that is to say, in perfect conformity with Thy law?… The witnessing being looks calm, indifferent, smiling at the play, the comedy which unrolls itself, awaiting circumstances with serenity, knowing that they are always only an imperfect translation of what should be.

But the religious being turns towards Thee, O Lord, in a great aspiration of love and implores Thy aid, so that it may be the best that is realised, that all the obstacles possible may be surmounted, all the darkness possible dispelled and all egoistic ill-will conquered. It is not the best in the circumstances of the present order which has to happen — for that happens always — it is these circumstances themselves that, by an effort greater than ever before, have to be transfigured, so that a new best in quality and quantity, an altogether exceptional best may be manifested.

So may it be.

*

* *

It is always wrong to try to judge of the future or even to foresee it in the light of the idea that we have of it, for this idea is the present, it is, in the very measure of its impersonality, a translation of the present inter-relations which inevitably are not the future inter-relations of all the elements of the terrestrial problem. To deduce future from the present circumstances is a mental activity of the order of reasoning, even if this deduction takes place in the subconscient and is translated in the being under the form of intuition; and reasoning is a human, that is to say, an individual faculty; the inspirations of the reason do not come from the infinite, the unlimited, the Divine. It is only in the All-Knowledge, it is only when we are at once That which knows, that which is to be known and the power of knowing that we can become conscious of all relations past, present and future; but in this state there is no longer any past, present and future, all eternally is. The order of manifestation of all these relations does not depend only on the supreme impulsion, on the divine Law, but also on the resistance opposed to that Law by the most external world; of the combination of the two the manifestation is born, and as far as it is possible for me to know at present, this combination is in a way indeterminate. It is in this that the play consists, the unforeseen of the play.

June 25, 1914

WHAT wisdom is there in wishing to be like this or like that? Why thus torment oneself? Art Thou not the supreme worker? Is it not our duty to be Thy docile instruments, and, when Thou puttest the instrument aside for a time, will it complain that Thou hast abandoned it because Thou art not putting it into action? Can it not consent to enjoy calm and repose after having enjoyed activity and struggle? We must be always vigilant, attentive to the least call, so that we may not be asleep or inert when Thou givest us a sign to act whether with the mind, the feelings or the body; but we should not confound this constant state of expectation and devoted goodwill with an anxious and unquiet agitation, a fear of not being this or that and of displeasing Thee, because we do not conform to what Thou hast attended from us.

Thy heart is the supreme shelter in which all care is appeased. O leave it wide open, so that all those who are tormented may find there the sovereign refuge.

Pierce this darkness, make the light surge out;

Quiet this storm, establish peace;

Calm this violence, let love reign;

Become the warrior, the conqueror of obstacles;

Win the victory.

June 26, 1914

I SALUTE Thee, O Lord, Master of the world. Give us the capacity to do the work without being attached to it, and to develop the powers of individual manifestation without living in the illusion of the personality. Fortify our vision of the reality, confirm our perception of unity, deliver us from all ignorance and darkness.

We do not ask for the perfection of the instrument, knowing, as we do, that in a world of relativities all perfection is relative: this instrument conceived for acting in this world, has, in order to be able to do it, to belong to this world; but the consciousness which animates it must be identified with Thine, it must be the universal and eternal consciousness, animating the diverse multitude of bodies.

O Lord, grant that we may rise above the ordinary forms of manifestation, so that Thou mayst find the instruments necessary for Thy new manifestation.

Let us not lose sight of the goal; grant that we may be always in union with Thy force, the force which the earth does not yet know and which Thou hast given us the mission to reveal to her.

In a deep inward concentration, all the modes of manifestation of the being consecrate themselves to the manifestation of Thee.

June 27, 1914

MY being is content with what Thou givest to it; what Thou demandest from it, it will do, without weakness, without vain modesty and without any useless ambition. What matters the place one occupies, the mission entrusted by Thee?… Is this not all to be entirely Thine, as perfectly as one can, without any care of any sort?

In this deep and unshakable confidence that Thy work will be done and that Thou hast created and chosen those who have to do it, why strain a useless energy to will what has already been realised? Thou hast given me, O Lord, the sovereign peace of this confidence; Thou hast accorded to me the incomparable boon of living in Thy love and by Thy love and of being Thy love more and more; and in this love is the complete and unchanging beatitude.

I address to Thee only one prayer, which I know to have been heard in advance: “Increase more and more the number of the elements, atoms or universes capable of living integrally in and by Thy love.”

Peace, peace on all the earth…

June 28, 1914

ALL nature salutes Thee, O Lord, and with arms raised and hands outstretched, she implores Thee. Not that she doubts Thy infinite generosity or thinks that she must ask in order to obtain; but it is her way of saluting and giving herself to Thee, for is this self-giving anything else than her readiness to receive? It is sweet to her to turn to Thee in prayer, though she knows that prayer is superfluous. But it is an ardent and happy adoration. And her feeling of devotion is satisfied without any harm done to the intellectual consciousness which knows Thee to be one with all and present in all.

But all veils must disappear and the light become complete in all hearts.

O Lord, in spite of the work and in it, give us the perfect calm of the spirit which makes possible the divine identification, the integral knowledge.

My love for Thee, O Lord, it is Thyself, and yet my love bows down religiously before Thee.

June 29, 1914

GIVE to all of them joy, peace and happiness… If they suffer, illumine their suffering and make it a means of transfiguration; grant to them the beatitude of Thy love and the peace of Thy unity; may their hearts feel vibrating in them Thy eternal Presence. They are all in me, O Lord, and I am in them, and as in place of the “I”, there is now only Thy sovereign love, they are all in Thy love and will be transfigured by it.

O Lord, my sweet Master, unknowable splendour, give them joy, peace and beatitude.

June 30, 1914

EACH activity in its own sphere accomplishing its special mission, without any disorder or confusion, one enveloping another, and all hierarchically arranged around a single centre: Thy will… What is most lacking in human beings is clarity and order; each element, each state of being, instead of fulfilling its function in harmony with all the others, wants to be all in itself, perfectly autonomous and independent. That, besides, is the ignorant error of the whole world, it is a global error repeating itself in millions and millions of examples. But to try, under the pretext that these activities are separate and disorderly, to suppress them in order to let Thy will alone subsist, although, in solitude, it would have no longer any reason for existence, would be an enterprise at once absurd and unrealisable. Certainly, it is easier to suppress than to organise; but a harmonious order is a realisation far superior to suppression. And even if the final end were a return to Non-Being, this return would appear to me possible only through the highest perfectioning of the being.

O my sweet Master, grant that they may feel Thy infinite tenderness and that, in the calm repose which is its gift, they may perceive and realise the supreme order of Thy law.

May Thy will which is all love and Thy Peace be manifested.

July

July 1, 1914

WE salute Thee, O Lord, with adoration and joy and we give ourselves to Thee in a gift constantly renewed, so that Thy will may be done on the earth and in all places in this world.

Turning towards Thee our thought is mute, but our heart exults, for Thou shinest in everything, and the smallest grain of sand can be an occasion for adoration.

We bow down before Thee, we unite with Thee, O Lord, in a love without limit and full of an ineffable beatitude.

O give to all this sovereign joy.

July 4, 1914

O SOVEREIGN Force, victorious Power, Purity, Beauty, Love supreme, allow the integrality of this being, the totality of this body to approach Thee solemnly and offer to Thee in a complete and humble surrender this means of manifestation perfectly given up to Thy will, if not perfectly ripe for this realisation.

With the calm and strong certitude that Thou wilt one day accomplish the expected miracle and fully manifest Thy sublime splendour, we turn towards Thee in a profound ecstasy and silently implore Thee.

Immensity, Infinitude, Wonder… Thou alone art and shinest in all things. The hour of Thy fulfilment is near. All Nature solemnly retires into a calm concentration.

And Thou repliest to her ardent appeal!

July 5, 1914

ALL that belongs to the outer and lower being which is still obscure, prostrates itself in a mute and fervent adoration, appealing with all its force to Thy purifying action which will make it fit to manifest Thee fully.

And in this adoration is found perfect silence and perfect beatitude.

Thou repliest mercifully to the appeal: “What has to be done shall be done. The necessary instruments shall be prepared. Make thy endeavour with calm, with certitude.”

July 6, 1914

WHAT a plenitude in the perception! The whole individual being, modest, humble, surrendered, adoring, calm and smiling, feels one with all, can make no differences of value; it is in perfect solidarity with all and with that all it kneels in front of Thee; and at the same time the formidable omnipotence of Thy Force is there; ready for manifestation, waiting, it is building the propitious hour, the favourable opportunity: it is there, the incomparable splendour of Thy victorious sovereignty.

The Force is there. Rejoice, you who wait and hope: the new manifestation is sure; the new manifestation is near.

The Force is there. All Nature exults and sings in joy, all Nature is in holiday. The Force is there.

Arise and live; rise and be illuminated; arise and battle for the transfiguration of all: The Force is there!

July 7, 1914

PEACE, peace over all earth…

Not the peace of an inconscient sleep or of a self-satisfied inertia, not the peace of a self-forgetful ignorance and an obscure and heavy indifference; but the peace of the omnipotent force, the peace of a perfect communion, the peace of an integral awakening, of the disappearance of all limitation and all darkness.

Why torment oneself and suffer; why this harsh struggle and this sorrowful revolt; why this vain violence; why this inconscient and heavy sleep? Wake up without fear, appease your conflicts, silence your disputes, open your eyes and your hearts: the Force is there; it is there divinely pure, luminous, powerful; it is there as a limitless love, as a sovereign power, as an undisputed reality, as an unmixed peace, as an uninterrupted beatitude, as the supreme Benediction; it is existence in itself, the boundless felicity of the infinite knowledge… and it is something more which cannot be said, but which is already active in the higher worlds beyond thought, as the power of sovereign transfiguration, and also in the inconscient depths of Matter as the Irresistible Healer.

Listen, listen, O thou who wouldst know.

Look, thou who wouldst see, contemplate and live: the Force is there!

July 8, 1914

O FORCE divine, supreme illuminator, listen to our prayer, do not go far from us, do not withdraw, help us to fight the good fight, fortify our strength for the struggle, give us the power for victory!

O my sweet Master, Thou whom I adore without being able to know Thee, Thou who I am without being able to realise Thee, all my conscious individuality prostrates itself before Thee and implores, in the name of the workers in their struggle, of the earth in its agony, of humanity in its suffering and of Nature in her endeavour, O my sweet Master, marvellous Unknowable, Dispenser of all boons, Thou who bringest light to birth out of darkness and force out of weakness, support our efforts, guide our steps, lead us to victory.

July 10, 1914

O THOU who eternally and immutably art and who givest Thy consent to Thy becoming in this world that Thou mayst bring to it a new Illumination, a new Impulsion, Thou art there, manifest Thyself more completely and more perfectly; the instrument has given itself and gives itself to Thee in an enthusiastic surrender, a total self-abandonment; Thou canst reduce it to dust or transform it into a sun, it will resist nothing that is Thy will; and in this surrender lies its true power, its beatitude.

But why dost Thou spare the animality of the body? Is it because time must be given to it to adapt itself to the marvellous complexity and the potent infinity of Thy Force? Is it Thy will that wishes to be gentle and patient, and not to precipitate anything but leave to the elements the leisure to adapt themselves?… I mean to say: is it better so or is it impossible otherwise? Is it a special incapacity which is magnanimously tolerated by Thee, or is it a general law which is an inevitable part of all that is to be transformed?

However, since it is so, it matters little what we think of it. The attitude alone is important: must we struggle against it, or must we accept it? And, it is Thou who dictatest the attitude, it is Thy Will which determines it at every moment. Why foresee and combine when it is enough to verify and fully adhere?

The working in the constitution of the physical cells is perceptible: penetrated by a considerable amount of force, they seem to expand and become lighter. But the brain is still heavy and asleep… I unite myself with this body, O divine Master, and I cry to Thee: “Do not spare me, act with Thy sovereign omnipotence; into me Thou hast put the will for a total transfiguration.”

July 11, 1914

THE whole physical being would wish to be dissolved and reconstituted in an adoration without limit. O Lord, Thou who hast come to touch Matter as the Messenger of the Supreme Power and Supreme Beatitude, Thou bringest to birth the conception of what the total realisation can be. And when the being has believed that it has been definitively invested with Thy sublime mandate, Thou withdrawest, giving it to understand that it was only a promise, an assurance of what can be. Alas, great is the imperfection of this Matter that we cannot retain Thee! O Lord, use Thy omnipotence, accomplish the miracle of Thy permanent Presence… Why spare us so much? We must either triumph or perish!

The Victory, the victory, the victory! We demand the victory of Transfiguration!

July 12, 1914

IN all the states of being, in all the modes of activity, in all things, in all worlds, one can meet Thee and be united with Thee, for Thou art everywhere and ever present. He who has met Thee in one activity of his being or in one world in the universe, says: “I have found Him” and seeks no more for anything else, he thinks he has arrived at the summit of human possibility. What a mistake! It is in all states, in all modes, in all things, in all worlds, in all elements that we have to discover Thee and be united with Thee; and if we leave out one element, however small it may be, the communion cannot be perfect, the realisation cannot be accomplished.

And that is why to find Thee is only the first step in an ascent that is infinite.

O sweet Master, sovereign Transfigurator, let all negligence and all lazy indolence cease, gather up all our energies in a sheaf and make of them a will, indomitable, irresistible.

O Light, Love, ineffable Force, all atoms cry to Thee that Thou mayst penetrate and transfigure them.

Give to all the supreme happiness of the communion!

July 13, 1914

PATIENCE, force, courage, calm and indomitable energy.

May the mind learn to be silent and not to want to profit immediately by the forces which come to us from Thee for the integral manifestation.

But why should the poorest, the most mediocre, the most imperfect element have been chosen for the expression of Thy will?

July 15, 1914

WHAT then, O Lord?

Whatever Thou wiliest, whatever Thou wiliest.

This instrument is weak and mediocre; Thou hast taught it that all activities were possible to it, that in all the potentialities of human action nothing was fundamentally foreign to it; but it is in intensity and in perfection alone that the Divine begins, and up to now Thou hast accorded to it no exceptional intensity, no true perfection… All is in a state of promise not yet individualised, but collective, and nothing is completely realised.

Why, O Lord?

Thou hast put in my heart this peace so total that it seems almost to be indifference, and says in an immensity of calm serenity:

Whatever Thou wiliest, whatever Thou wiliest.

July 16, 1914

SALUTATION of a silent and humble adoration.

I bow down before Thy glory, for it dominates me with all its splendour.

O let me dissolve at Thy feet, melt in Thee!

July 17, 1914

TERRESTRIAL realisations easily assume a great importance in our eyes, for they are proportioned to our external being, to this limited form which makes of us men. But what is a terrestrial realisation compared with Thee, in front of Thee? However perfect, however complete, however divine it may be, it is only an indiscernible moment in Thy eternity; and the results obtained by it, however powerful, however marvellous they may be, are but an imperceptible atom in the infinite advance towards Thee. It is this that Thy workers should never forget, otherwise they will become unfit to serve Thee.

O my sweet Master, what a childishness it is to think oneself responsible for anything and to wish to individualise Thy supreme and divine Will! Is it not enough to be united with Thy heart and live permanently in it? Then Thou takest all the responsibility, and Thy will works even without there being any need for us to know it… Only a realisation independent of all outer circumstances and unconfined by any attachment or understanding, however high it may be, is a true realisation, a realisation of value. And the only one which fulfils these conditions is to unite with Thee in a union tight, integral, definitive. As for the care of Thy transient and momentary manifestation, in a fugitive existence and in a passing world, it is Thou who must be responsible for it and do what is necessary for it to be, if Thou deemest it good.

O my sweet Master, sovereign Lord, Thou hast taken all my cares and hast left me only the Beatitude, the supreme ecstasy of Thy divine Communion.

July 18, 1914

TWO things remain unshakable amidst all the winds of tempest, even the most violent: the will that all may be happy with the true happiness, — Thy happiness; and the ardent desire to be perfectly united and identified with Thee… all the rest is perhaps still the result of an effort or a pretension, this is spontaneous and unshakable; and at the moment when the very ground seems to give way under my feet and all is crumbling down, this appears luminous, pure and calm, piercing all clouds, dispelling all darkness, surging up greater and stronger from all the ruin and carrying in itself Thy infinite Peace and Beatitude.

July 19, 1914

O LORD, Thou art the omnipotent Master of Thy own manifestation; grant that these instruments may escape from their too narrow frames, too fixed and mediocre limits. All the riches of human possibilities are needed to translate an atom of Thy infinite Force… Open the closed doors, set flowing the sealed fountains, and let Thy torrents of eloquence and beauty pour out over the world. Amplitude and majesty, nobility and grace, charm and grandeur, variety and puissance, all are needed, for it is the will of the Lord to manifest.

O my sweet Master, Thou art the sovereign Director of our destiny, Thou art the omnipotent Master of Thy own manifestation.

Thine are all this world, all these beings and all these atoms. Transfigure them and illumine.

July 21, 1914

THERE was no longer the body, no longer any sensation; there was only a column of light rising from the place where is ordinarily the base of the body up to the place where is ordinarily the head, to form there a disk of light like that of the moon; then from there the column went on rising up to very far above the head to break into an immense sun, dazzling and multi-coloured, from which fell a rain of golden light covering the whole earth.

Then slowly the column of light descended forming an oval of living light, awakening and setting in motion, each in a particular way, according to a special mode of vibration, the centres which were above the head, at the place of the head, the throat, the heart, in the middle of the belly, at the base of the spine and still lower. At the height of the knees, the ascending and the descending currents joined together and the circulation thus became in a way uninterrupted, enveloping the whole being with an immense oval of living light.

Then slowly the consciousness descended again from stage to stage, halting at every world, till the consciousness of the body came back. The resumption of the consciousness of the body was, if my memory is exact, the ninth stage. At this moment the body was still quite stiff and immobile.

July 22, 1914

THOU art all love, O Lord, and the light of Thy love is there deep down in all thought and in every heart. Achieve Thy work of transfiguration: illumine us. Open the doors still closed, widen the horizon, establish power, unify our beings and make us participators in Thy divine beatitude, so that we may help all to share in it. Let us conquer the last obstacles, inner and outer, and surmount the ultimate difficulties. An ardent and sincere prayer has never risen to Thee in vain; always in Thy munificence Thou respondest to every call and Thy mercy is infinite.

O Divine Master, let Thy light fall upon this chaos and a new world emerge from it. What is now preparing accomplish and let a new humanity be born which will be the perfect expression of Thy new sublime Law.

Nothing shall stop our élan; nothing shall tire our endeavour; resting upon Thee all our hopes and all our activities, strong in a complete submission to Thy supreme Will, we shall march to the conquest of Thy integral manifestation with the calm certitude of victory over all that would oppose it.

Salutation to Thee, O Master of the worlds who triumphest over every obscurity.

July 23, 1914

O LORD, Thou art all-powerful: become the fighter and win the victory. May Thy love dwell as the sovereign Master of our hearts and Thy Knowledge never leave our thoughts… Do not abandon us in impotence and darkness; shatter all limits, break all chains, dispel all illusions.

Our aspiration rises towards Thee as an ardent prayer.

July 25, 1914

AT daybreak, I sang the praise of this world where it is possible not only to desire Thee, but also to know Thee and even to become Thyself. And I wondered that some so ardently aspire to leave this universe and enter into another and perfect world.

Thou hast put so much contentment in my heart that it has become impossible for me not to be satisfied in all circumstances inner or outer. And yet something in my being aspires always towards more beauty, more light, more knowledge, more love, in short, towards a more conscious and constant relation with Thee…. But that too depends on Thy will and it is when it is Thy will that Thou wilt accord to me the total transfiguration.

July 27, 1914

GENTLY, humbly my prayer rises towards Thee, O Sweet Master, Thou who acceptest without debate or criticism all that offers itself to Thee; who givest and makest Thyself known to all without questioning whether they are worthy, and findest nothing too weak, too small, too modest, too insufficient to manifest Thee.

Let me lie down at Thy feet, merge into Thy heart, disappear in Thee, be blotted out in Thy beatitude; or rather be solely Thy servitor without pretending to anything else. I do not desire or aspire to anything more, I wish only to be Thy servitor.

July 31, 1914

IT seems to me that it is Thy will to make me pass successively through all the experiences that are generally put at the summit of a Yoga as its culmination and the proof of its perfect accomplishment. The experience is intense, complete, striking, carrying in it the knowledge of all its effects, all its consequences; it is conscious and willed, it comes out of a methodical effort and not by an unexpected chance; and yet it is always unique, like the milestones placed along a path and separated from each other by a long ribbon of road; and, moreover, these milestones which stake out the infinite ascent, are never alike; ever new, they appear to have no connection with one another…. Will a moment come when Thou wilt make this being cable of synthesising all these innumerable experiences so as to draw out of them a realisation new, more complete, more beautiful than all those gone through up to this day? I do not know. But Thou hast taught me not to regret the exceptional state after it has disappeared any more than I desired it before it came. I no longer see in it the sign of an instability in the progress made, but the proof of an advance which is pursued deliberately, without stopping any longer than is indispensable, for the diverse stages of the path.

Every time Thou teachest me a little more that the means of manifestation is limited only because we think it to be so, and that it can effectively share in Thy infinitude; every time something of Thy immensity is allied to the instrument which is its dwelling place, flinging wide the doors which open upon limitless horizons.

August

August 2, 1914

WHAT are these powerful gods whose hour of manifestation upon earth has come, if not the modes, various and perfectly accomplished, of Thy infinite action, O Thou Master of all things, who art Being and Non-Being and That which is beyond them, Marvellous Unknowable, our Sovereign Lord.

What are all these brilliant and multiple intellectual activities, these innumerable rays of the sun illumining, conceiving and fashioning all forms, if not one of the modes of being of Thy infinite Will, one of the means of Thy manifestation, O Thou who art Master of our destiny, Sole Unthinkable Reality, Sovereign Lord of all that is and all that still is not.

And what are all these mental powers and vital energies and material elements, if not Thyself in Thy most external form, Thy ultimate modes of expression and realisation, O Thou whom we adore devoutly and who escapest us on all sides even while penetrating, animating and directing us, Thou whom we cannot know nor define nor name, Thou whom we cannot seize nor embrace nor think and who are yet realised in the least of our actions.

And all this enormous universe is but an atom of Thy Eternal Will.

In the immensity of Thy effective Presence, all unfolds.

August 3, 1914

THIS morning the whole being is a mute adoration and the immensity of Thy love fills its soul.

The preparation and the work, the work and the preparation, alternate and interpenetrate to such an extent that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between them; and their combination constitutes Thy divine life upon earth. What we have to be, what we have to do: the perfectioning of Thy instrument and its utilisation go together; sometimes it is Thy will that it should enrich itself and grow, that it should open all its doors upon infinite horizons, unite itself with the God it can manifest, develop its power of conscious relations with the various worlds, and sometimes that, losing, so to say, the consciousness of itself, it should be only Thy force in action. And in the two together is found the supreme law of communion with Thy will.

This morning the whole being is a mute adoration and the immensity of Thy love fills its soul.

August 4, 1914

LORD, eternal Master!

Men, pushed by the conflict of forces, are making a sublime sacrifice, they are offering their lives in a sanguinary holocaust.

Lord, eternal Master, grant that it may not be in vain, that the inexhaustible torrents of Thy divine force may spread over the earth, penetrating into the troubled atmosphere, the struggling energies, all the violent chaos of the battling elements; and that the pure Light of Thy Knowledge and the inexhaustible love of Thy Benediction may fill the hearts of men, penetrate into their souls, illumine their consciousness and make to pour forth out of this obscurity, this sombre, terrible and powerful darkness the splendour of Thy majestic Presence!

My being is before Thee in an integral holocaust so that it may make their unconscious holocaust effective.

Accept this offering, reply to our call: Come!

August 5, 1914

ETERNAL Master, Thou art in all things as a vivifying breath, as a sweet peace, as a sun of luminous love, piercing all cloud and obscurity.

Grant that we may be Thy vivifying breath, Thy sweet peace, Thy luminous love upon the earth amongst our ignorant and sorrowful human brothers.

O divine Master, accept the offering of my integral holocaust so that Thy work may be done and the time may not pass in vain.

In a serene ecstasy I give myself to Thee that Thou mayst become again the Master of Thine own, the possessor of Thyself in each of the innumerable atoms and in the synthetic unity of the consciousness.

O divine Master, accept the offering of this integral holocaust so that the time may not have come in vain.

The whole being is transformed into the ardent flame of a sacrifice of pure love.

Become again the king of Thy kingdom, deliver the earth from the heavy weight which crushes her, the weight of her inert, ignorant and obscure ill-will.

O my sweet Master, my being burns with the ardent flame of the sacrifice of love; accept my offering so that the obstacle may be surmounted.

August 6, 1914

WHAT then are the defects and imperfections preventing the offering from being complete enough for Thee to welcome it or to find the holocaust worthy of Thy acceptance?… There are still limitations in this being, wilt Thou not break them?

O Lord, we know that it is a grave hour for the earth; those who can be Thy intermediaries with her to make arise out of the conflict a greater harmony, and out of the obscure ugliness a diviner beauty, must be ready to do it. O Lord, eternal Master, we implore Thee, respond to our endeavours, enlighten them, show us the way, give us the strength to break the inner resistances, to surmount all obstacles.

O my sweet Master, I prostrate myself at Thy feet and all my being cries to Thee in an ardent supplication… Deliver me from my personal impotence.

August 8, 1914

MY pen is silent…. This material world is so absorbing! Why let it hold so much place in our consciousness? Is it an impotence on our part or is it Thy Will?

O my sweet Master, I would live only in Thee, but Thou hast said that I must live for Thee, and while I thus live for Thee, my consciousness turns towards the external domains and it seems to me as if I were going away far from Thee.

I know that this is not at all exact; but there is still a resistance in the being which does not want to give way, a door which remains closed, a door of luminous intelligence which no effort has yet been able to open, and this terribly impoverishes Thy manifestation.

When wilt Thou decide that the hour has come for all this to disappear?

Monstrous forces have swept down upon the earth like a hurricane, they are dark and violent, powerful and blind. Give us the force, O Lord, to illumine them. Thy splendour must burst forth in them everywhere and transfigure their action: after their devastating passage they must leave behind them a divine seed.

O my divine Master, do not reject my offering. Make me worthy of being integrally Thine in the plenitude of the giving and of the manifestation.

August 9, 1914

LORD, we are before Thee that Thy will may be done. Remove from our thought all obstacles, all doubts, all weaknesses and limitations, all that veils our knowledge and obscures our understanding.

I am athirst for Thy consciousness, I am athirst for an integral union with Thee, not in inaction and in a flight away from physical activity, but in a complete, an absolute, a perfect accomplishment of Thy will.

The splendour of Thy supreme light must surge out from all this darkness that has swooped down upon he earth.

August 11, 1914

O MY sweet Master, enter in among all these thoughts in confusion, all these anguished hearts; light in them the fire of Thy divine Presence. The shadow cast by the earth has fallen back on her and she has been utterly shaken by it; but her shadow hid Thy changeless sun and now that it has collapsed upon this poor world making it tremble to its foundations and transforming it into a formidable chaos, wilt Thou not move once more upon the chaos with the will that there should be Light?

O Thou wonderful Unknown, Thou who hast not yet manifested Thyself, Thou who awaitest the auspicious hour and who hast sent us on earth to prepare Thy ways, all the elements of this being cry to Thee, “May Thy will be done,” and give themselves to Thee in a supreme and unconquerable élan.

Enfold this sorrowful earth with Thy puissant arms of mercy, impregnate her with the beneficent outflowing of Thy infinite love.

I am Thy puissant arms of mercy. I am the vast bosom of Thy limitless love… The arms have enfolded the sorrowful earth and tenderly press it to the generous heart: and slowly a kiss of supreme benediction settles on this atom in conflict: the kiss of the Mother that consoles and heals.

August 13, 1914

THE being stands before Thee, its arms lifted, its palms open in an ardent aspiration.

O Sweet Master, it is a Love more wonderful and formidable than any that has manifested up till this day, of which the earth has need; it is for this Love that she implores…. Who will be able or worthy to be its intermediary with her? Who? It matters little; but it must be done. O Lord, answer my call, accept this being as an offering, however modest its worth and whatever its limitations: Come.

More, always more; let the regenerating floods roll over the earth in beneficent waves. Transform and illumine. Accomplish this supreme miracle, so long looked for, of breaking these ignorant egoisms; awaken Thy sublime flame in each heart. Let us not become inert in a tranquil serenity. We must not take any rest till Thy new and sovereign Love is manifested.

Listen to our prayer; answer our call: Come.

August 16, 1914

FOR three days I waited with an ardent prayer, hoping to see new things… and all the obstacles surged up to veil, retard and deform Thy manifestation. And now we seem to be no nearer our goal than before.

O my sweet Master, why hast Thou asked me to leave my blessed place in Thy heart and return to the earth to attempt a realisation which everything seems to prove impossible?… What dost Thou expect from me that Thou hast torn me away from my divine and marvellous contemplation and plunged me again into this dark world in conflict?

When Thy force descends towards the Earth to manifest itself, each of the great Asuric beings who have resolved to be Thy servitors, but preserved the dominant and exclusive characteristic of their nature, wishes to draw it to himself alone so that he may distribute it to others afterwards; he always thinks that he should be the only or, in any case, the supreme intermediary, and that the relation of all the others with Thy Power cannot and should not be made except through his mediation. This melancholy meanness is more or less conscious, but it is always there, indefinitely retarding things. If, even for the greatest, it is impossible in the integral manifestation to escape from these lamentable limitations, why, O Lord, dost Thou impose on me the calvary of this narrowness?

If it is Thy will that it should be so, Thou must rend the last veil and Thy splendour in all its purity must come to transfigure the world!

Accomplish this miracle or let me retire in Thee.

August 17, 1914

ALL errors, all prejudices, all misunderstandings must disappear in this whirlwind of destruction which is sweeping away the past…. The light must become perfectly pure, free from all limitation, so that Thou canst manifest fully in it. Lord, Thou hast the power and Thou wilt realise this supreme miracle.

Into this consciousness. Thou hast put the certitude of victory!

August 18, 1914

LET me turn towards Thee in a profound and silent contemplation; let me put this integral being and its multiple activities at Thy feet as an offering; let me stop all the play of these forces, unify all these consciousnesses, so that one alone may persist, that which is capable of hearing Thy command and understanding it; let me plunge again into Thee as into a sovereignly beneficent sea, the sea which purifies from all ignorance. It seems to me that I have descended very low into an unfathomable abyss of doubt and darkness, that I am exiled from Thy eternal splendours; but I know that in this descent lies the possibility of a higher ascension which will enable me to embrace a vaster horizon and touch from a little closer range Thy infinite heavens. Thy light is there, stable and directing, shining without intermission in the depths of the abyss even as in the luminous splendours; and a serene confidence, a calm indifference, a tranquil certitude dwell in my consciousness in a way that is permanent… I am like a boat which has for a long time tasted the pleasures of the port and now unfurls its sails in spite of the dark clouds charged with storm and hiding the sun, to launch out into the great unknown, towards unknown shores and new countries.

I am Thine, O Lord, without restrictions and preferences; may Thy will be done in all its rigorous plentitude; all my being adheres to it which a joyful acceptance and a calm serenity.

I have no longer idea on the future: it is Thou who wilt gave birth to a new and more adequate conception of Thy law.

In a most perfect surrender and a most entire confidence I wait, Thy voice showing me Thy way.

August 20, 1914

TO see the goal, from a new angle which can usefully enlighten the others, we must constantly renew the experience of the inner discovery and rise to the extreme limit of our consciousness, without ever postulating in advance what will be the term of our journey.

But instinctively the mind remembers the impression it has received from one or more of the preceding contacts of its consciousness with the ultimate centre and it says to itself: “It is this which is found at the end of the path,” without taking into account the fact that the “this” of which he is thinking is only one of the innumerable ways of translating or even travestying that goal, and that intellectual conception should follow experience and not precede it.

To resume the way in a complete innocence as if we had never yet travelled upon it, that is the true purity and perfect sincerity, which permits of an uninterrupted progress, a growth and a perfectioning which is integral.

In spite of myself, in the silence of all thought, that is to say of all conscious formula, something in my being deeper than words, turns towards Thee, O ineffable Lord, in an ardent aspiration, making Thee an offering of all these activities, all these elements, all these modes of being and imploring for it all the supreme illumination.

O Thou whom I cannot think but whom I know with certitude!

August 21, 1914

O LORD, Lord, the whole earth is convulsed; she groans and suffers, she is in anguish… It must not be that all this suffering has fallen upon her in vain; grant that all this blood which has been poured out may produce a more rapid germination of all the seeds of beauty, light and love which have to flower and cover the earth with their rich harvest. From the depth of this abyss of darkness, the integral terrestrial being cries to Thee that Thou mayst give it air and light; it stifles, wilt Thou not come to its aid?

O Lord, what must we do to triumph?

Listen to us, for we must conquer at any cost. Break down all resistance: appear!

August 24, 1914

LORD, it is with a deeply moved gratitude that I approach Thee. Thou hast given me the first words of the knowledge so much longed for, and with this knowledge has come effectivity, real power an every domain of realisation.

It is only a beginning, it is not an accomplishment; but the path opens visible and straight, I have only to follow it; the veil has been rent in response to the modest but all-powerful effort of the days of obscurity. Grant that the route may be lit up in the same way for all, and that after we have seen clear in ourselves, there may not be any new difficulties for the knowledge to become conscious in others. In spite of all, the human being, however great he may be, is limited and must be so at least for a long time, by the very fact of his humanity; and even if he is in relation with the immensity, it is through the angle of his own personality that this immensity manifests itself to his external consciousness. It is very difficult for him not to have the perspective in some sort obliterated partially by his own point of view. But these last obstacles must be surmounted, definitely overthrown, so that they may not again arise. The way must be completely free, the knowledge that has been glimpsed firmly established. Thy grace is with us, Lord, and it never leaves us even when the appearances are dark; there is sometimes need of night to prepare a greater dawn. But perhaps this time Thou hast put us in front of a Dawn that does not cease!

Receive the offerings of our ardent gratitude and of our total surrender.

I knew that this book would end with the closing of a phase of the spiritual life. That indeed is what is actually happening.

The light has come, the way has opened; with a grateful salutation to the laborious past, we shall push forward on the new way widely opened by Thee before us.

On the threshold of this new field of a vaster and more conscious realisation, we bow before Thee, Lord, in a total surrender and adoration. We give ourselves to Thee without reserve.

Once again it is Thou who livest in us, and Thou alone. Thou hast become again the king of Thy kingdom, but a kingdom larger and more complete, a kingdom more worthy of Thy government.

August 25, 1914

LORD, may Thy will be done, may Thy work be accomplished. Fortify our devotion, increase our surrender and enlighten us on the path. We establish Thee as the supreme Master within us so that Thou mayst become the supreme Master of the whole earth.

Our words are still ignorant: illumine them.

Our aspiration is still imperfect: purify it.

Our action is still powerless: make it effective.

O Lord, this earth groans and suffers; chaos has made this world its abode.

The Darkness is so great that Thou alone canst dispel it. Come, manifest Thyself that Thy work may be accomplished.

August 26, 1914

O MY sweet Master, Lord of Bliss, all these worlds of bliss interpenetrating and completing one another are an immensity difficult to see in its ensemble. Give us the knowledge of these laws and the power of awakening the earth to the understanding and perception of this goal pursued so blindly.

In all things Thou art the unalloyed happiness, the blissful felicity…but this felicity is perfect only when it is integral from the most external manifestation to the most unfathomable depths.

O Lord, Thou hast placed me on the threshold of wonder, confirm me in this knowledge. Establish me in that centre of consciousness from which the actions will be nothing but an unmixed expression of Thy law.

In a powerful and mute adoration I wait.

August 27, 1914

TO be the divine love, love powerful, infinite, unfathomable, in every activity, in all the worlds of being — it is for this I cry to Thee, O Lord. Let me be consumed with this love divine, love powerful, infinite, unfathomable, in every activity, in all the worlds of being! Transmute me into that burning brazier so that all the atmosphere of earth may be purified with its flame.

O to be Thy Love infinitely.

August 28, 1914

LORD, eternal Master, my thought lies mute and powerless before Thee, but my heart calls to Thee; awaken all my being that it may wholly be for Thee the necessary instrument, the perfect servitor.

O to be Thou, infinitely, in everything, everywhere and always, absolute silence and absolute movement.

To be only the One containing all, contained in all…free from all limit and all blindness.

Supreme Victor, triumph over all obstacles.

August 29, 1914

OF what use would be man if he was not made to throw a bridge between That which eternally is, but is not manifested, and that which is manifested; between all the transcendences, all the splendours of the divine life and all the obscure and sorrowful ignorance of the material world? Man is the intermediary between That which has to be and that which is; he is a bridge thrown over the abyss, he is the great X as the cross, the quaternary link. His true abode, the effective seat of his consciousness should be in the intermediate world at the joining point of the four arms of the cross, where all the infinity of the Unknowable comes to take precise form for being projected into the multitudinous manifestation.

This centre is the seat of supreme love and perfect consciousness, of pure and total knowledge. Establish there, O Lord, those who can, who must and who will to serve Thee truly, so that Thy work may be done, the bridge may be definitively established and Thy forces may spread untiringly in the world.

August 31, 1914

IN this formidable disorder and terrible destruction can be seen a great working, a necessary toil preparing the earth for a new sowing which will rise in marvellous spikes of grain and give to the world the shining harvest of a new race…The vision is clear and precise, the plan of Thy divine law so plainly traced that peace has come back and installed itself as a sovereign in the hearts of the workers. There are no more doubts and hesitations, no longer any anguish or impatience. There is only the grand straight line of the work eternally accomplishing itself in spite of all, against all, despite all contrary appearances and illusory detours. These physical personalities, moments unseizable in the infinite Becoming, know that they will have made humanity take one further step, infallibly and without care for the inevitable results, whatever be the apparent momentary consequences: they unite themselves with Thee, O Master eternal, they unite themselves with Thee, O Mother universal, and in this double identity with That which is beyond and That which is all the manifestation, they taste the infinite joy of the perfect Certitude.

Peace, peace in all the world….

War is an appearance,

Turmoil is an illusion,

Peace is there, immutable peace.

Mother, sweet Mother who I am, Thou art at once the destroyer and the builder.

The whole universe lives in Thy breast with all its life innumerable and Thou livest in Thy immensity in the least of its atoms.

And the aspiration of Thy infinitude turns towards That which is not manifested to cry to it for a manifestation ever more complete and more perfect.

All Is, in one time, in a triple and clairvoyant total Consciousness, the Individual, the Universal, the Infinite.

September

September 1, 1914

O MOTHER Divine, with what fervour, what ardent love I came to Thee in Thy deepest consciousness, in Thy high status of sublime love and perfect felicity, and I nestled so close into Thy arms and loved Thee with so intense a love that I became altogether Thyself. Then in the silence of our mute ecstasy a voice from yet profounder depths arose and the voice said, “Turn towards those who have need of thy love.” All the grades of consciousness appeared, all the successive worlds. Some were splendid and luminous, well ordered and clear; there Knowledge was resplendent, Expression was harmonious and vast, Will was potent and invincible. Then the worlds darkened in a multiplicity more and more chaotic, the Energy became violent and the material world obscure and sorrowful. And when in our infinite love “we” perceived in its entirety the hideous suffering of the world of misery and ignorance, when “we” saw our children locked in a sombre struggle, flung upon each other by energies that had deviated from their true aim, “we” willed ardently that the light of Divine Love should be made manifest, a transfiguring force at the centre of these distracted elements… Then, that the Will might be yet more powerful and effective, “we” turned towards Thee, O unthinkable Supreme, and “we” implored Thy aid. And from the unsounded depths of the Unknown a reply came sublime and formidable and “we” knew that the earth was saved.

September 4, 1914

DARKNESS has descended upon earth, dense, violent, victorious… All is sorrow, panic and destruction in the physical world, and the splendour of the light of Thy love seems darkened by a veil of mourning…

O sweet Mother, I melt into Thee with an immense love, in an intense supplication to the Lord of all things, that He may show us our route, that He may trace the path of His work, so that we may walk boldly upon it.

Time presses: O Lord, the powers divine must come to the succour of the anguished earth.

O Mother, sweet Mother, Thou claspest all Thy children to the vastness of Thy breast and Thou envelopest them all with an equal love.

I have become the purifying fire of Thy love. O Lord, O silent Unthinkable, accept the holocaust of this brazier of love so that Thy reign may come. Thy light may triumph over darkness and over death.

Manifest Thy power. From day to day, from hour to hour we implore Thee: “O Lord, manifest Thy power.”

September 5, 1914

“TURN and face the danger!”, Thou hast said to me, “Why dost thou wish to turn thy look away or fly far from action, away from the fight, into a profound contemplation of Truth? It is its integral manifestation that has to be realised, it is its victory over all the obstacles of blind ignorance and obscure hostility. Look straight at the danger and it will vanish before the Power.”

O Lord, I have understood the weakness of this most external nature which is always ready to surrender to Matter and to escape, as a compensation, into a supreme intellectual and spiritual independence. But Thou expectest from us action, and action does not allow of such an attitude. It is not enough to triumph in the inner worlds, we must triumph even in the most material worlds. We must not run away from the difficulty or the obstacle because we have the power to do so by taking shelter in the consciousness where there are no longer any obstacles…. We must look the danger straight in the face, with a faith in Thy Omnipotence and Thy Omnipotence will triumph.

Give me integrally the heart of a fighter, O Lord, and Thy victory is sure.

“To conquer at any cost” must be the present motto. Not because we are attached to the work and its results, not because we are in need of such an action, not because we are incapable of escaping from all contingencies.

But because such is Thy command to us. But because the time has come for Thy triumph upon earth. But because Thou wiliest an integral victory.

And in an infinite love for the world… let us fight!

September 6, 1914

HIGHER, always higher! Let us never be satisfied with what is accomplished, let us not stop at any realisation, let us march always, without stopping, energetically, towards a more and more complete realisation, towards an ever higher and more total consciousness…. The victory of yesterday must be only a stepping stone to the victory of tomorrow, and the power of the morrow a weakness in comparison with the effectivity to come.

O divine Mother, Thy march is triumphal and uninterrupted. He who unites with Thee in an integral love journeys unceasingly towards vaster and vaster horizons, towards a completer and completer realisation, leaping from peak to peak in the splendour of Thy light, to the conquest of the marvellous secrets of the Unknown and their integral manifestation.

O divine Victor, all earth sings Thy praise and all forces will obey Thee.

For the Lord has said, “The hour has come.”

And all obstacles will be surmounted.

September 9, 1914

THE world is divided into two contrary forces which struggle for supremacy, and both are equally opposed to Thy law, O Lord; for Thou wiliest neither mortal stagnation nor blind destruction. It is in a constant, progressive and luminous transformation that Thou expresses Thyself; and it is this we have to establish on the earth if we would manifest Thy will.

Sometimes our impatience wants to know immediately the means of this manifestation. But our impatience is vain and receives no response. For the knowledge will come at the opportune moment, at the moment of action.

So it is with the thought at rest and the realising will, calm and strong that we await the sign Thou wilt give us.

September 10, 1914

THY love is like a rising tide, invading the whole being and over flooding all things. Lord, Thy love will penetrate into all hearts and generate in them the divine flame which cannot be extinguished, the divine beauty which cannot be marred, and, above all contrasts and contraries, it will establish in all that unchanging Bliss which is the supreme good.

Thy light is like a rising tide, invading the whole being and over flooding all things. Lord, Thy light will penetrate into all thoughts and generate in them the sovereign clarity which never wavers, the divine clairvoyance which is never mistaken, and, above all contrasts and contraries, it will establish in all the splendour of Thy knowledge, which is supreme wisdom.

Thy force is like a rising tide, invading the whole being and over flooding all things. Lord, Thy force will penetrate into all life and generate in it the effective power which never fails, the divine might which is invincible, and, above all contrasts and contraries, it will establish in all Thy mastering energy which is supreme Will.

September 13, 1914

WITH fervour I salute Thee, O divine Mother, and with deep feeling I identify myself with Thee. United with our divine Mother, I turn towards Thee, O Lord, and I salute Thee in a mute adoration; in an ardent aspiration I identify myself with Thee.

Then all becomes a marvellous Silence, Being is absorbed in Non-Being, all is suspended, held still and immutable…

How to express the inexpressible?…

September 14, 1914

THERE is no longer any I, any individuality, any personal limitations. There is only the immense universe, our sublime Mother, burning with the ardent fire of purification in Thy honour, O Lord, divine Master, sovereign Will, so that this Will may no longer meet with any obstacles in its realisation.

It is an immense canticle of fervent love and exultation that rises towards Thee, O Lord, and the whole earth in an ineffable ecstasy unites herself with Thee.

May Thy powerful breath feed the brazier, so that it may become more and more vast and formidable, and that all darkness and blind resistances may be absorbed, burned up, transfigured into Light in the marvellous flame of purification.

O the pacifying splendour of Thy purification!

September 16, 1914

LISTEN to the voice that rises, listen to the chant that mounts to salute Thy divine Dawn.

May the supreme law be accomplished; whether it is universal and eternal existence or re-absorption in the Non-Being, it matters little. Must we choose between the two? I cannot do it; in my consciousness there is no longer any preference and a single will persists: Thine, O Ineffable.

And the whole universe is no longer aught else than a more and more vast and harmonious chant arising to salute Thy divine Dawn.

September 17, 1914

NO longer can any impulse to action come from outside or from any particular world. It is Thou, O Lord, who settest all in motion from the depths of the being; it is Thy will that directs, Thy force that acts; and no longer on the limited field of a small individual consciousness, but on the universal field of a consciousness which, in each state of being, is united to all. And the being has at once the conscious perception of all the universal movements in their complexity, and even in their confusion, and the silent and perfect peace of Thy sovereign immutability.

September 20, 1914

MY pen is mute, for my thought is silent, but my heart aspires to Thee, O Lord, uniting Thee with our divine Mother in the same love, the same veneration. And through Thee the whole being strains towards the Ineffable and beyond the being, even beyond the silence, that unites with That.

September 22, 1914

O LORD, Thou who art on the threshold of the Unknowable, I salute Thee!

And is this not that Thou salutest Thyself, in the Unthinkable Essence of the Being, in its immeasurable depths and even to its most external realisations? For, the Being it is Thou, whatever its mode of existence, and the Unthinkable Eternal, that too is Thou in Thy essence. And this integral consciousness Thou hast made ours, so that we may be Thou, not only in the fact, but also in consciousness and effectivity. And thus all is an interchange and salutation full of love and joyous adoration in an ardent aspiration of our Mother towards Thee and an infinite and powerful response from Thee to our Mother, and finally of the totality of Thyself towards all that is not yet manifested, towards all the Unknowable which we shall know more and more, better and better, but which will ever remain the Unknowable.

In the absolute silence all is, now and eternally; in the universal manifestation all will be in a perpetual becoming.

In the perfection of the consciousness and the integral life, the being sings a canticle of gladness for That which at once is and eternally will be.

Hail to Thee, O Master of the world, art Thou not the intermediary between what is and what will be, being at the same time both what is and what will be?

O Marvellous immensity, at once perceptible and indefinable, in an integral illumination, I salute Thee.

September 24, 1914

HOW present Thou art amongst us, O beloved Mother! It seems as if Thou wouldst assure us of Thy complete support and show us that the Will which would manifest itself through us has found instruments capable of realising its Law by putting it into a complete accord with Thy present possibilities. And the things which appeared most difficult, most improbable, and perhaps even most impossible, become wholly realisable, since Thy Presence assures us that the material world itself is prepared to manifest the new form of the Will and the Law.

In the joyful plenitude of a perfect harmony I salute Thee — Thee and Thy works and Principle.

September 25, 1914

O DIVINE and adorable Mother, with Thy help what is there that is impossible? The hour of realisation is near and Thou hast assured us of Thy aid that we may accomplish integrally the supreme Will.

Thou hast accepted us as fit intermediaries between the unthinkable realities and the relativities of the physical world, and Thy constant presence in our midst is a token of Thy active collaboration.

The Lord has willed and Thou dost execute:

A new light shall break upon the earth,

A new world shall be born,

And the things that were announced shall be fulfilled.

September 28, 1914

MY pen is mute to chant Thy presence, O Lord; yet art Thou like a king who has taken entire possession of his kingdom. Thou art there, organising, putting all in place, developing and increasing every province. Thou awakenest those that were asleep. Thou makest active those that were sinking towards inertia; Thou art building a harmony out of the whole. A day will come when the harmony shall be achieved and all the country shall be, by its very life, the bearer of Thy word and Thy manifestation.

But meanwhile my pen is mute to chant Thy praise.

September 30, 1914

O LORD, Thou hast thrown down the barriers of thought and the realisation has appeared in all its amplitude. Not to forget any of its aspects, to carry on their accomplishment in a simultaneous movement, without neglecting any of them, not to allow any limitation, any restriction to intervene on the way and retard our advance, that is what Thou wilt help us to do by Thy supreme intervention. And all those who are Thyself, manifesting Thee in the perfection of some special activity, will also be our collaborators, since such is Thy Will.

Our Divine Mother is with us and has promised us identification with the supreme and total Consciousness, from the unfathomable depths to the most external world of sense. And in all these domains Agni assures us of the co-operation of his purifying flame, destroying the obstacles, kindling the energies, stimulating the will, so that the realisation may be hastened. Indra is with us to perfect the illumination in our knowledge, and the divine Soma has transformed us into his infinite, sovereign, marvellous love, that begets the supreme beatitudes.

O divine and sweet Mother, I salute Thee with a depth of feeling, rapt and ineffable, and a limitless confidence.

O splendid Agni, Thou who art so living in me, I call Thee, I invoke Thee that Thou mayst be still more living, that Thy brazier may become more immense, Thy flames more high and powerful, and that my whole being may no longer be aught else than an ardent conflagration, a purifying pyre.

O Indra, I revere Thee and admire, and I implore Thee that Thou mayst unite with me, that Thou mayst break down all the barriers of thought and bestow upon me the divine knowledge.

O Thou, sublime Love, to whom I have never given any other name, but who art so completely the essence of my being, Thou whom I feel vibrating and living in the least of my atoms, as in the infinite universe and beyond, Thou who breathest in every breath, who art at the heart of every action, who art the light of all good-will, who art hidden behind all sufferings, Thou for whom I cherish a limitless adoration which goes on intensifying itself, grant that, more and more legitimately, I may feel myself to be wholly Thou!

And Thou, O Lord, who art all that in one and yet much more, Thou sovereign Master, extreme limit of our thought, who standest for us on the threshold of the Unknown, let some new splendour surge out of that Unthinkable, some possibility of a higher and more integral realisation, so that Thy work may be accomplished and the universe may take one more step forward towards the sublime identification, the supreme manifestation.

And now my pen becomes mute and I adore Thee in silence.

October

October 5, 1914

IN the calm silence of Thy contemplation, O Divine Master, Nature is fortified and tempered anew. All principle of individuality is overpassed, she is plunged in Thy infinity that allows oneness to be realised in all domains without confusion, without disorder. The combined harmony of that which persists, that which progresses and that which eternally is, is little by little accomplished in an always more complex, more extended and more lofty equilibrium. And this interchange of the three modes of life allows the plenitude of the manifestation.

Many seek Thee at this hour in anguish and incertitude. May I be their mediator with Thee that Thy Light may illumine and Thy Peace soothe them.

My being is now only a point of support for Thy action and a centre for Thy consciousness. Where now are the limits, whither have fled the obstacles? Thou art the sovereign Lord of Thy kingdom.

October 6, 1914

O SWEET Mother, Thou must teach me to be Thyself integrally and constantly, entirely consecrated to giving a more and more perfect means of expression to That which wills to manifest itself.

All is calm and serene: no more struggle, no more anguish; the aspiration itself becomes sovereignly peaceful in its immensity, but without losing anything of its intensity; and by a curious opposition in the consciousness like the obverse and reverse of a medal, my being perceives at once the immutable serenity of the infinite Reality in which all eternally is without any possible change, and the ardent and rapid advance of all that unceasingly becomes in an uninterrupted progression….And both are equally true for Thee, O Lord.

October 7, 1914

OH, may the Light spread over all earth and Peace inhabit every heart!…Almost all know only the material life, heavy, inert, conservative, obscure; their vital forces are so tied to this physical form of existence that even when left to themselves and outside the body, they are still solely occupied with these material contingencies that are yet so harassing and painful…. Those in whom the mental life is awakened are restless, tormented, agitated, arbitrary, despotic. Caught altogether in the whirl of the renewals and transformations of which they dream, they are ready to destroy everything without knowledge of any foundation on which to construct, and so with their light made only of blinding flashes they increase yet more the confusion rather than help it to cease.

In all there lacks the unchanging peace of Thy sovereign contemplation and the calm vision of Thy immutable Eternity.

And with the infinite gratitude of the individual being to whom Thou hast accorded this surpassing grace, I implore Thee, O Lord, that under cover of the present turmoil, in the very heart of this extreme confusion, the miracle may be accomplished and that Thy law of supreme serenity and pure unchanging Light become visible to the perception of all and govern the earth in a humanity at last awakened to Thy consciousness.

O sweet Master, Thou hast heard my prayer, Thou wilt reply to my call.

October 8, 1914

THE joy present to us in activity is compensated and counterpoised by the perhaps still greater joy that we feel in withdrawal from all activity; when the two states alternate in the being or even when they are simultaneously conscious, the bliss becomes complete, for Thy plenitude, O Lord, is realised.

O divine Master, Thou hast given me the infinitude of divine contemplation and the perfect serenity of Thy Eternity, and by an identification with our divine Mother, the All-Fulfiller, Thou hast granted that I may participate in Her sovereign power of being at once conscious and active.

In the all-powerful bliss of Thy infinitude, I salute Thee!

October 10, 1914

MAY the offering of my being be constantly renewed and become more and more integral — the offering to the Supreme Reality which is Unthinkable and impossible to formulate, but which, in time, expresses itself eternally in a more and more complete and perfect manifestation. O Thou, whom I cannot name but whose will I perceive in the supreme silence and in a total surrender, let me be the representative of the whole earth, so that united with my consciousness, she may give herself to Thee without reserve.

Thou art the perfect peace, the marvellous accomplishment; Thou art all that the universe is, immutably, beyond time, and wills to be more and more in the consciousness of time and space. Thou art all that is in the infinite immobility and the divine hope of all that wills to be…O Lord, dispense to the world Thy unbelievable boons.

Peace, peace upon all the earth!

October 11, 1914

WHY this persistent impression with its tinge of uneasiness and expectancy? The being, wholly turned towards Thee, lives in the beatitude of the divine communion; all is calm, serene, strong, sovereignly peaceful; all is light in widened horizons, and, in a silent contemplation, devotion has become still more intense. What then is this sensation which is as if grafted on the being and looks like a warning to a consciousness insufficiently awakened in the material realm?

I ask, O Lord, and yet I know that if it is necessary for me to become aware of the reason of it, Thou hast already told it to me and it is only my incapacity that keeps from me the knowledge. Or else it is neither useful nor even helpful that I should know it, and in that case there will be no reply to my question.

But the peace is becoming still more sovereign, and it is in an infinite harmony that the being takes on its supreme amplitude.

O Lord, with what fervour I salute Thee!

October 12, 1914

IT was their pain and suffering that my physical being was feeling, O Lord. When will ignorance dissolve? When will sorrow cease? O Lord, grant that each element of the universe may become conscious of its principle of being and, instead of disappearing, transform itself; may the veils of egoistic blindness hiding Thee be removed, and mayst Thou appear resplendent in a total manifestation. All is there eternally in Thy absolute silence; but it is through an infinite progression that it is manifested in the whole consciousness.

October 14, 1914

MOTHER Divine, thou art with us; every day thou givest me the assurance and, closely united in an identity that grows more and more total, more and more constant, “we” turn to the Lord of the universe and to That which is beyond in a great aspiration towards the new Light. All the Earth is in our arms like a sick child who must be cured and for whom one has a special affection because of his very weakness. Cradled on the immensity of the eternal becomings, ourselves those becomings, we contemplate, hushed and glad, the eternity of the immobile Silence where all is realised in the perfect Consciousness and the immutable Existence, miraculous gate of all the unknown that is beyond.

Then is the veil torn, the inexpressible Glory uncovered, and, suffused with the ineffable Splendour, we turn back towards the world to bring it the glad tidings.

Lord, thou hast given me the happiness infinite….What being, what circumstances can have the power to take it away from me?

October 16, 1914

THY will is that I should be like a channel always open, always more wide, so that Thy forces may pour their abundance into the world… O Lord, may Thy will be done! Am I not Thy Will and Thy Consciousness in a supreme bliss?

And the being enlarges itself immeasurably to become as vast as the universe.

October 17, 1914

O DIVINE Mother, the obstacles will be surmounted and the enemies pacified. Thou wilt reign over all the earth with Thy sovereign love, and the consciousness of men will be full of the light of Thy serenity.

This is the promise.

October 23, 1914

O LORD, the whole being is ready and calls Thee that Thou mayst take possession of Thy own; of what use is an instrument if the Master will not use it? And whatever the mode of manifestation, it will be well, from the most modest, the most obscure, the most material, outwardly the most limited, to the most vast, the most brilliant, the most powerful and the most intellectual.

The whole being is ready and waits, in a passive silence, till Thou wiliest to manifest Thyself.

October 25, 1914

MY aspiration to Thee, O Lord, has taken the form of a beautiful rose, harmonious, full in bloom, rich in fragrance. I stretch it out to Thee with both arms in a gesture of offering and I ask of Thee: If my understanding is limited, widen it; if my knowledge is obscure, enlighten it; if my heart is empty of ardour, set it aflame; if my love is insignificant, make it intense; if my feelings are ignorant and egoistic, give them the full consciousness in the Truth. And the “I” which demands this of Thee, O Lord, is not a little personality lost amidst thousands of others. It is the whole earth that aspires to Thee in a movement full of fervour.

In the perfect silence of my contemplation all widens to infinity, and in the perfect peace of that silence Thou appearest in the resplendent glory of Thy Light.

November

November 3, 1914

FOR a long time, O Lord, my pen was silent….Yet Thou gavest me hours of unforgettable illumination, hours when the union between the most divine Consciousness and the most material had become perfect, hours when the identification of the individual being with the universal Mother and of the universal Mother with Thee was so complete that the individual consciousness perceived simultaneously its own existence, the life of the whole universe and Thy eternity beyond all change. Beatitude was at its height in an ineffable and infinite peace, consciousness was luminous and immeasurable, complex and yet single, and existence all-powerful and sovereign over death. And this is no longer a fugitive condition, attained after a long concentration and vanishing as soon as born; it is a condition that can last for long hours full of eternity, at once instantaneous and interminable, a condition which is produced at will, that is to say, it is a permanent condition with which the most external consciousness comes into contact when circumstances permit, when it is no longer occupied with a definite intellectual or material work. In all work, constantly, there is the perception of Thy invariable presence under Thy double form of Being and Non-Being, but it is as if behind a thin veil woven by the indispensable concentration upon the work that is being done; while during the hours of solitude, the being finds itself immediately enveloped in an atmosphere marvellously powerful, limpid, calm and divine; it merges in that atmosphere, and then there begins again the splendid life with all its amplitude, all its complexity and sublimity; the physical body is glorified, supple, vigorous, energetic; the mind is superbly active in its calm lucidity, directing and transmitting the forces of Thy divine Will; and the whole being exults in a limitless beatitude, a boundless love, a sovereign power, a perfect knowledge and an infinite consciousness….It is Thou and Thou alone who livest even in the least atom of the bodily substance itself.

Thus the solid foundations of Thy work upon the earth are made ready, the basements of the immense edifice are constructed; in every corner of the world one of Thy divine stones is laid by the power of the conscious and formative thought; and in the hour of realisation, the earth thus prepared will be ready to receive the sublime temple of Thy new and completer manifestation.

November 8, 1914

FOR the plenitude of Thy Light we invoke Thee, O Lord! Awaken in us the power to express Thee….

All is mute in the being as in a desert crypt; but in the heart of the shadow, in the bosom of the silence burns the lamp that can never be extinguished, the fire of an ardent aspiration to know Thee and totally to live Thee.

The nights follow the days, new dawns unweariedly succeed to past dawns, but always there mounts the scented flame that no storm-wind can force to vacillate. Higher it climbs and higher, and one day attains the vault still closed, the last obstacle opposing our union. And so pure, so erect, so proud is the flame that suddenly the obstacle is dissolved.

Then Thou appearest in all Thy splendour, in the dazzling force of Thy infinite glory; at Thy contact the flame changes into a column of light that chases the shadows away for ever.

And the Word leaps forth, a supreme revelation!

November 9, 1914

O LORD, we aspire to perfect consciousness.

The whole being is gathered like a closely tied wreath made of flowers, different but all perfectly harmonised together. The will was the hand that gathered the flowers and the string that tied the wreath and now too it is the will that lifts the wreath towards Thee as a scented offering. It is held up towards Thee unweariedly, unfalteringly.

November 10, 1914

O LORD, Thy Presence in me has become an unshakable rock and the whole being exults because it belongs to Thee without the least reserve, in a surrender general and complete.

O serene and immobile Consciousness, Thou watchest on the boundaries of the world like a sphinx of eternity. And yet to some Thou givest out Thy secret.

They can become Thy sovereign will which chooses without preference and executes without desire.

November 15, 1914

THE only thing important is the goal to be attained; the way matters little, and often it is preferable not to know it in advance. But what we must know is, if truly the moment of the divine action upon earth has come, and if the work conceived in the depths can be realised.

Of that, O Lord, Thou hast given us assurance, an assurance which has been accompanied by the most powerful promise which Nature, the universal Consciousness, can ever make…We have, therefore, the certitude that what has to be done will be done and that our present individual being is really called upon to collaborate in this glorious victory, in this new manifestation. What more must we know? Nothing. Is it not with the greatest confidence that we can look upon the formidable fight, the mass of adverse forces which, without knowing it, serve eventually the realisation of Thy plan? It would be wrong on our part to be disquieted because it is not given to us to know how it serves Thy plan, and by what means Thou wilt triumph over all resistance; for Thy triumph is so perfect that every obstacle, every ill-will, every hatred rising against Thee is a promise of a vaster and still completer victory.

By the sum of the resistance one can measure the scope Thou wouldst give to the action of so much of Thy pure forces as are coming to be manifested upon the earth. What opposes is precisely that on which it is the mission of those forces to act; it is the darkest hatred which must be touched and transformed into luminous peace.

If the human individual whom Thou hast chosen as Thy centre of action and Thy intermediary meets with few obstacles, little misunderstanding and hatred, it would mean that the mission Thou hast entrusted to it is limited and one of no great intensity. It is in the narrow circle of a goodwill already prepared that he will act and not on the mass of the chaotic and confused terrestrial substance.

O divine Master, let all of us share this knowledge which Thou hast given me, so that the peace of conviction may reign in our hearts, and that we may, in the calm of Thy sovereign certitude, face, with our heads held high, all that, unconsciously attracted towards the transfiguration, precipitates itself into a blind ignorance, thinking that it will be able to destroy the Transfiguring Love.

November 16, 1914

THOU art like the wind upon the sea, driving the barque back to the shore till it is loaded with all the goods necessary for a long voyage. Thou wouldst not have us embark carelessly. Thy servitors must be ready for every eventuality, must be capable of responding to every call, satisfying every need.

November 17, 1914

ALAS, sublime Mother, what must be Thy patience! Each time that Thy conscious will attempts to manifest itself to repair the errors, to hasten the uncertain advance of the individual led astray by his own illusion of knowledge, to trace the sure path and furnish him with the strength to walk on it without stumbling, almost always he repels Thee as a fastidious and ill-informed counsellor. He is willing to love Thee in theory with a vague and inconsistent love, but his proud mind refuses Thee its confidence and prefers to wander alone rather than advance guided by Thee.

And Thou repliest, ever smiling in Thy tireless benevolence: “This intellectual faculty which makes man vain and leads him into error, is the very faculty which can also, once enlightened and purified, lead him farther, higher, than the universal nature, to the direct and conscious communion with the Lord of us all, He who is beyond all manifestation. This dividing intelligence which enables him to separate himself from me, enables him also to scale the heights to be climbed, without his advance being enchained and retarded by the totality of the universe which in its immensity and complexity cannot achieve so prompt an ascent.”

O Divine Mother, always Thy words comfort and bless, soothe and illumine, and Thy generous hand lifts a fold of the veil which hides the infinite knowledge.

How calm, noble and pure is the splendour of Thy perfect contemplation!

November 20, 1914

O LORD, how I would be before Thee always like a page perfectly blank, so that Thy will may be inscribed in me without any difficulty or mixture.

The very memory of the past experiences has sometimes to be swept away from the thought that it may not impede this work of perpetual reconstruction which, alone in the world of relativities permits of Thy perfect manifestation.

Often we cling to that which was, afraid of losing the result of a precious experience, of giving up a vast and high consciousness and falling again into an inferior state.

And yet, what can he fear who is Thine? Can he not walk, his soul expanding and his brow illumined, upon the path Thou tracest for him, whatever it may be, even if it is altogether incomprehensible to his limited reason?

O Lord, break these old frames of thought, abolish the past experiences, dissolve the conscious synthesis, if Thou deemest that this is needed, so that Thy work may be accomplished better and better and Thy service may be perfected upon earth.

November 21, 1914

LORD, Thou hast given me Thy Power that Thy Peace and Joy may reign over the world.

And this being is no longer anything else than an embrace of peace enveloping the whole earth, an ocean of joy overflowing all.

O thou who art full of hatred, rancour will be effaced from thy heart, as the sea effaces the imprints upon the sand.

You who feed on vengeance, peace will enter into your hearts, as it enters into the soul of the child rocked by its mother.

For the divine universal Mother has turned her regard upon the earth and blessed it.

December

December 4, 1914

AFTER long days of silence, wholly occupied with external work, it has at last been given to me to resume these pages and continue with Thee, O Lord, this conversation which is so sweet to me.

But Thou hast broken all my habits, for Thou wouldst prepare me for a liberation from all mental form. Some mental forms, more particularly powerful or adapted to the temperament, are sure guides to sovereign experiences. But once the experiences are made, Thy will is that they should be free in themselves from the slavery of any mental form, however high or pure it may be, so that they can express themselves in the new form which is the most true, that is to say, the most in conformity with the experience.

Then Thou hast broken all my thought-forms and I found myself before Thee destitute of all mental construction, as ignorant in this respect as the child that has just been born; and in the darkness of this void was recovered the sovereign peace of Something which is not expressed in words, but which Is. And I wait without impatience and fear for Thee to construct again, from the heart of the unfathomable depths, the intellectual form which will appear to Thee the most suited to manifest Thee in this instrument moulded of submission and ardent faith.

And before this immense night full of promise, I feel, more than I have ever felt before, infinitely free and vast.

And in the supreme beatitude, I thank Thee, O Lord, for the marvellous favour Thou has bestowed upon me: that of being before Thee like a child that has just been born!

December 10, 1914

LISTEN, O Lord,…in the silence of a profound inwardness, my prayer rises ardently towards Thee.

Is it not a great folly to identify oneself with a form of thought, a mental construction, however vast and powerful it may be, to such an extent as to make it the vital centre of one’s being, one’s experience and activity? Truth is eternally outside all that we can think or say of it. To try to find an expression, the most conformable and best adapted to this truth, is certainly a work useful or even indispensable for the integrality of one’s own development and the development of the whole of humanity, but one must always feel free in front of this expression, keep one’s centre of consciousness above it, in the reality which, in spite of the greatness, beauty and perfection of a mental formula, will always elude all formula. The world is not what we think it to be. The importance of the idea we have of it lies in its result on our attitude towards action; and this attitude can depend on an inspiration much more profound, true and unchanging than that which comes from a mental construction, however powerful it may be. To feel in oneself the will to translate for men the eternal Truth in a form more complete, higher, more exact than all the forms that have preceded it, is good; but on the condition that we do not identify our “I” with this work to such an extent as to become its slave and lose in the face of it all independence and self-control. It is an activity and nothing more, whatever may be its importance from the earthly point of view; but we must not forget that it is, like all activities, relative, and we should not let it trouble our profound peace and the changeless calm which alone enables the divine forces to manifest themselves through us without deformation.

O Lord, my prayer is not formulated, but it is heard by Thee.

December 12, 1914

AT every moment we must know how to lose everything in order to gain everything, to shed the past as a dead body and be reborn into a greater plenitude….It is thus that expresses itself the constant aspiration of the inner being which, turned towards Thee, would reflect Thee as in an ever purer and purer mirror; and Thy immutable Beatitude is translated in it by an impelling force of progress of an incomparable intensity; and this force is transformed in the most external being into a calm and assured will which no obstacle can overthrow.

O divine Master, with what an ardent love I am Thy servant! With what a pure, immobile and infinite joy I am Thyself in all that is beyond all formed existence!

And the two consciousnesses become one in an unequalled plenitude.

December 15, 1914

LORD, Thou hast given me peace in strength, serenity in action and an unchanging happiness in the midst of all circumstances.

December 22, 1914

IT is for the Truth, O Lord, that I implore Thee.

Restore to activity this mind which made itself dumb that it might surrender to Thee; give to it the knowledge of Thy will.

It was receptive and allowed all possibilities to take form in it; then to put a stop to the conflict of their contrary tendencies, it refused to admit these importunate visitors; it said, “I do not need to live an active life, to know what is Thy will, O Lord, provided that I let the ray of Thy eternal light pass through me without deforming it.” Even so it was done; the will became submissive, straight-forward, precise and strong. But now Thy will is that the mind should know, and Thou hast said to it, “Awake and be conscious of the Truth.” The mind responded with joy and now it turns towards the resplendent sun of sovereign Truth, calling it into itself in order to manifest it.

It is Thy will to throw down all barriers, one after another, for the being to put on the integral amplitude of all its possibilities of manifestation.

Let all earthly desires assemble in me, O Lord, that Thou mayst consider them, and Thy will apply itself in a way, precise, clear and definitive to the least detail as well as to the whole.

Thus the advent of the time expected will be hastened.

The whole being exults in an intense joy and an unequalled plenitude.

1915

January

January 2, 1915

ANY idea, however powerful, however profound it be, if repeated too often, expressed too constantly, becomes dull, insipid, valueless….The highest concepts lose their bloom after a time, and the intelligence which delighted in transcendent speculations feels suddenly an imperious need to give up all its reasoning and its philosophy, and contemplate life with the marvelling gaze of a child, caring no more to know anything of its past science, even though it were a science sovereignly divine.

It is true to say that the divisions of time are purely arbitrary, that the date assigned to the renewal of the year varies according to latitudes, climate, habits, and is purely conventional. This is the mental attitude which smiles at the childishness of man and wants to be guided by deeper truths. And then suddenly the mind itself feels its incapacity to translate exactly these truths, and, renouncing all wisdom of the kind, it lets the song of the heart arise, the heart which aspires, the heart for which every circumstance is an opportunity for an aspiration deeper, vaster and more intense…. For the West a new year begins. Why not profit by it to will with renewed ardour that this symbol may become a reality, and the things which lamentably were, give place to those which must gloriously be?

Always we believe that we can define Thee, and shut Thee up in our mental formulas; but however vast, complex, synthetic they may be, Thou wilt remain always the Ineffable, even for one who knows Thee and lives Thee…. For one can live Thee even though unable to express Thee, can realise and be Thy infinity though unable to define or explain Thee; always Thou wilt remain the eternal mystery calling for all our wonder and marveling; not only in Thy Transcendence, unthinkable and even unknowable, but in Thy universal manifestation, in all that we integrally are. Always forms of thought are succeeded by new forms ever purer, higher and more comprehensive; but never will any one of them be judged sufficient to give so much as an idea of what Thou art. Each new fact will be a new problem more marvellous and mysterious than all that preceded it. Yet, facing its ignorance and its powerlessness, the mental being remains luminous, calm and smiling, as if it possessed the supreme knowledge: to be Thou innumerably, invariably, infinitely, very simply.

January 11, 1915

MORE than ever before, the aspiration of the mental being rises towards Thee with a great fervour.

The perception of infinity and eternity is ever there. But it is as if Thou hadst willed to cut me off from all religious joy, all spiritual ecstasy, so as to plunge me into the most strictly material circumstances. Everywhere, O Lord, is Thy perfect felicity, and nothing can take away from me the grandiose gift Thou hast made of it to me; in every place and in every circumstance it is with me; it is I, even as I am Thou. But all this is nothing in comparison with what ought to be. Thy will is that from the heart of this heavy and obscure Matter I must let loose the volcano of Thy Love and Light. It is Thy will that, breaking all old conventions of language, there must arise the right Word to express Thee, the Word that never was heard before; it is Thy will that the integral union should be made between the smallest things below and the sublimest and most vast above; and that is why O Lord, cutting me off from all religious joy and spiritual ecstasy, depriving me of all freedom to concentrate exclusively on Thee, Thou hast said to me, “Work as an ordinary man in the midst of ordinary beings; learn to be nothing more than they are in all that is manifesting; associate with the integral way of their being; for, beyond all that they know, all that they are, thou carriest in thyself the torch of the eternal splendour which does not waver, and by associating with them, it is this thou wilt carry into their midst. Hast thou any need to enjoy this light so long as it spreads from thee? Is it necessary that thou shouldst feel my love vibrating in thee so long as thou givest it? Must thou enjoy integrally the bliss of my presence so long as thou servest as its intermediary among men?”

May Thy will be integrally done, O Lord! It is my happiness and my law.

January 17, 1915

NOW, O Lord, things have changed. The time of rest and preparation is over. Thou hast willed that from a passive and contemplative, I become an active and realising servant; Thou hast willed that the joyful acceptance be transformed into a joyful combat, that in a constant and heroic effort against all that in the world opposes the accomplishment of Thy law in its purest and highest present expression, I recover the same peaceful and immutable poise which one possesses in a surrender to Thy law as it is working itself out at the moment, that is to say, without entering into a direct struggle with all that is opposed to it, drawing the best out of every circumstance and acting by contagion, example and slow infusion.

In a combat partial and limited, but representative of the great terrestrial struggle, Thou art putting to the test my power, decision and courage, in order to see if I can truly be Thy servant. If the result of the battle shows that I am worthy of being the intermediary of Thy regenerating action, Thou wilt extend the field of the action. And if I always show myself to be at the height of what Thou expectest from me, a day will come, O Lord, when Thou wilt be upon the earth, and the whole earth will rise against Thee. But Thou wilt take the earth in Thy arms and it will be transformed.

January 18, 1915

LORD, hear my prayer…

In me Thou art almighty, sovereign Master of my destiny, guide of my life, conqueror of all obstacles, triumphing over preconceived will and the fixed ideas of the mind. Perhaps to be all-powerful in the external world Thou hast need of the mediation of my mind, to organise and form the means of action; but if Thou canst make the instrument perfect, how can one doubt that the work will be accomplished? All the evil shadows that suggest the contrary must be chased away very far and, full of an unshakable confidence in Thy infinite mercy, I address to Thee this prayer:

Transform Thy enemies into friends,

Change the darkness into light.

In this heroic and immense struggle, in this sublime struggle of love against hatred, of justice against injustice, of obedience to Thy supreme law against revolt, may I, little by little, make humanity worthy of a still more sublime peace in which all internal dissensions having ceased, the whole effort of man may unite to attain to a more and more perfect and integral realisation of Thy divine will and Thy progressive ideal.

January 24, 1915

O LORD, long I have remained silent before Thee in one of those inner prostrations full of an ardent adoration which end in a supreme identity…. And as always, Thou hast said to me: “Turn thy regard towards the earth.” And I saw all the ways wide open and radiant with a calm and pure light.

In mute adoration, filled utterly with Thy Will, I turned towards the earth.

February

February 15, 1915

O LORD of Truth, thrice have I implored Thy manifestation, invoking Thee with deep fervour. Then, as always, the whole being made its total submission. At that moment the consciousness perceived the individual being mental, vital and physical, covered all over with dust, and this being lay prostrate before Thee, its forehead touching the earth, dust in the dust, and it cried to Thee, “O Lord, this being made of dust prostrates itself before Thee praying to be consumed with the fire of the Truth that it may henceforth manifest only Thee.” Then Thou saidst to it, “Arise, thou art pure of all that is dust.” And suddenly, in a stroke, all the dust sank from it like a cloak that falls to the ground, and the being appeared erect, always as substantial but resplendent with a dazzling light.

March

March 3, 1915; On board the Kamo Maru.

SOLITUDE, a harsh, intense solitude, and always this strong impression of having been flung headlong into an inferno of darkness! Never at any moment of my life, in any circumstances have I felt myself living in surroundings so entirely opposite to all that I am conscious of as true, so contrary to all that is the essence of my life. Sometimes when the impression and the contrast grow very intense, I cannot prevent my total submission from taking a hue of melancholy, and the calm and mute converse with the Master within is transformed for a moment into an invocation almost suppliant, “O Lord, what have I done that Thou throwest me thus into the sombre night?” But at once the aspiration becomes more ardent, “Spare this being all weakening; grant that it may be the docile and clear-eyed instrument of Thy work, whatever that work may be.”

For the moment the clear perception is missing: never was the future more veiled. So far as the destiny of the individual is concerned, it looks as if we were advancing towards a high and impenetrable wall. As regards the destinies of the nations and of the earth, they appear more clearly. But of them it is futile to speak; the future will clearly reveal them to the eyes of all, even of the most blind.

March 4, 1915

ALWAYS the same harsh solitude…but it is not painful, rather the contrary. In it is revealed more clearly the infinite and pure love in which the whole earth is immersed. Through this love all is live and vibrates, the darkest shadows seem to become translucent and let its streams flow through them, and the most intense pain is transformed into a potent bliss.

Each turn of the helix upon the deep ocean appears to carry me farther from my true destiny, from that which best expresses the divine Will; each hour that passes seems to plunge me back more and more into that past with which I had severed connection, sure of being called to new and vaster realisations; everything appears to draw me back towards a state of things totally contrary to the life of my soul, although it reigns uncontested over the external activities; and, in spite of the apparent sadness of the individual situation, the consciousness is so strongly established in a world which on all sides overpasses the personal limits, that the whole being exults in a constant perception of power and love.

Tomorrow is obscure and illegible in the material fact; no light, ever so feeble, reveals to my bewildered sight the indication, the presence of the Divine. But something in the depths of my consciousness turns to the Invisible and Sovereign Witness and says to Him, “Thou plungest me, O Lord, into the most opaque darkness; it must be then because Thou hast so firmly established Thy light in me that Thou knowest it will stand the perilous test. Hast Thou chosen me for descending into the vortex of this hell as Thy torch-bearer? Hast Thou deemed my heart strong enough not to fail, my hand firm enough not to tremble? And yet my individual being feels powerless and weak; when Thou dost not manifest Thy Presence, it is more poorly equipped than the majority of those who do not know or who disregard Thee. In Thee alone is its strength and its capacity. If Thou art pleased to use it, nothing will be too difficult to accomplish, no task too vast and complex. But if Thou withdrawest, there is left only a poor child capable solely of nestling in Thy arms and sleeping there that sweet dreamless sleep in which nothing exists save Thou alone.”

March 7, 1915

THE time of the sweet silence of the mind is past, the time, so peaceful and pure, through which was felt the profound will expressing itself in its all-powerful truth. Now the will is no longer perceived and the mind, having necessarily become active, analyses, classifies, judges, chooses, reacts constantly as a transforming agent on all that is imposed on the individuality which has been widened to be in relation with a world infinitely vast, complex and mixed of shadow and light, like all that belongs to the earth. It is an exile from all spiritual happiness, and of all ordeals, O Lord, this is certainly the most painful that Thou canst impose; above all, the withdrawal of Thy will which seems to be a sign of total disapprobation. Strong is the growing sense of rejection and it needs all the ardour of a faith that nothing can weary, to guard the external consciousness, thus abandoned to itself, from invasion by an irremediable sorrow.

But it refuses to despair, it refuses to believe that the misfortune is irreparable; it waits with humility in an obscure and hidden effort and struggle for the breath of Thy perfect joy to penetrate it again. And, perhaps, each of its modest and secret victories is a true help brought to the earth.

If it were possible to come definitively out of this external consciousness, to take refuge in the divine consciousness…. But that Thou hast forbidden and still and always forbiddest: no flight out of the world; the burden of darkness and ugliness must be borne to the end, even if all divine help seems to be withdrawn. I must remain in the heart of the night and walk on, even without any inner compass, beacon-light or guide.

I will not even implore Thy mercy, for what Thou wiliest for me, I too will. All my energy strains solely to advance, always to advance, step by step, despite the depth of the darkness and the obstacles of the way; whatever happens, O Lord, it is with a fervent and unchanging love that Thy decision will be welcomed. And even if Thou hast found the instrument unfit to serve Thee, the instrument no longer belongs to itself, it is Thine…. Thou canst destroy or magnify it; by itself it does not exist, and it wills nothing, it can do nothing, without Thee.

March 8, 1915

IN a general way, the condition is one of calm and profound indifference; the being feels neither desire nor repulsion, neither enthusiasm nor depression, neither joy nor sorrow. For it life is like a play in which it would take the smallest part; it perceives the actions and reactions, the conflicts of forces as things that at once belong to its own existence which overflows the small personality on every side and yet to that transient personality are altogether foreign and remote.

But from time to time a great breath passes, a great breath of sorrow, of anguished isolation, of spiritual destitution, — one could say, the despairing appeal of Earth abandoned by the Divine…. It is a pang as silent as it is cruel, a sorrow submissive, without revolt, without any desire to avoid or pass out of it and full of an infinite sweetness in which suffering and felicity are closely wedded; something infinitely vast, great and profound, too great, too profound perhaps to be understood by men…something which holds in it the seed of Tomorrow.

April

Lunel, April 19, 1915

AN urgent need has compelled me to take up again this confidant of my seeking and of the efforts of my soul.

All external circumstances have changed, giving the direct lie to the dream of the ideal which sought to be lived even in material activities. The hour has not yet come for the happy realisation in the outer physical fact. The physical being is plunged again into the dull and monotonous night from which it wanted too prematurely to extricate itself; and Thy will realised, O Lord of Truth, comes to say to the constructing mind, “You cannot conceive that it is true, and yet it is.” The mind has recognised with good grace its error and made its perfect surrender to all that Thou willest. The vital being is quietly satisfied in all circumstances. The feelings live in an equal and pure peace; the whole being is flooded with Thy vast, eternal light; Thy love penetrates and animates it. And yet the impression that the external fact is a falsehood has not been effaced, and the body, in spite of its indisputable good-will, is so profoundly shaken that it cannot regain the equilibrium of its health.

The whole earthly life of this being, from the beginning to the present moment, appears to it as an unreal dream, very far from it, and having almost no contact with it any longer. All this outer mechanism is but a machine which it moves, because such is the will of its central Reality, but which interests it no more, perhaps even less, than a neighbouring mechanism or even an unknown one, the product of the earth of tomorrow. But the earth itself is foreign to it, and as it is conscious of nothing else except the Eternal Silence, all life in form appears to it remote and almost unreal; to it it seems strange that one can desire anything, since nothing exist, or prefer one thing to another, since none are. But at the same time it does not see why it should shun any action, whatever it may be, since all actions are equally unreal, and it feels no need to run away from a world which is not and cannot be a burden, since its existence is so inexistent.

The whole thing gives an impression of a void which is full of light, peace and immensity, eluding all form and all definition. It is the nihil, but a nihil which is real and which can endure eternally, for it is, even while having the perfect immensity of that which is not…. Poor words which try to say what silence itself cannot express.

The condition which is thus trying to define itself in awkward terms has been installed progressively for some weeks, and each day that passes establishes it more definitively, more deeply and, so to say, more irremediably. Without having willed, sought or desired it, the being sinks into it more and more, also losing more and more the consciousness of itself in a Consciousness which is no longer individual, and whose immobility is ineffable: in a Consciousness from which it is no longer possible to distinguish oneself.

May

May 24, 1915

ONE day, O Lord, my mind learnt from Thee that it could act fully as a means of manifestation of Thy divine truth, as an intermediary of Thy eternal will, without being limited in its realising constructions by the narrow field of the external being’s possibilities. Till then this mind, except on rare occasions, had the habit of coming out of its mute ecstasy, its silent contemplation before Thy ineffable infinity, only to concentrate its effort on the centre of action represented by the external being; and this was a sort of slavery in a too narrow frame; there was a contradiction between the power of mental realisation and the instrument through which it tried to express itself; the most immediate result was a wastage and limitation of the energies of the mind which, not finding satisfaction in activity, turned back quite naturally to an immersion in Thy eternity.

Suddenly Thou hast put an end to this disorder; Thou hast liberated the mind from its last obstacle; Thou hast taught it to be freely active through all forms, and not only exclusively in those which it considered till then as its own, that is to say, as its natural means of expression.

The vital being had for a long time already realised this freedom and knew how to live the whole plenitude of sensations and emotions in all forms capable of manifesting life. But the mental being had not yet leant consciously to animate, organise and illumine all lives equally. Thou hast removed the barriers, Thou hast opened to it the gates of Thy infinite manifestation.

In a few days the new conquest was affirmed and made firm. And what Thou attendest from the centre of consciousness which my whole being represents at present upon the earth, clearly manifested before it: To be the Life in all material forms, the Thought organising and using this Life in all forms, the Love enlarging, enlightening, intensifying, uniting all the diverse elements of this Thought, and thus by a total identification with the manifested world, to be able to intervene with all power in its transformations.

On the other hand, by a perfect surrender to the Supreme Principle, to become conscious of the Truth and the eternal Will which manifests it. By this identification, becoming the faithful servant and sure intermediary of the divine Will, and uniting this conscious identification of the Principle with the conscious identification of the becoming, to mould and model consciously the love, mind and life of the becoming according to the Law of Truth of the Principle.

It is thus that the individual being can be the conscious intermediary between the absolute Truth and the manifested universe and intervene in the slow and uncertain advance of the Yoga of Nature in order to give it the swift, intense and sure character of the divine Yoga.

It is thus that at certain periods, the whole terrestrial life seems to pass miraculously through stages which, at other times, it would take thousands of years to traverse.

At present, O Lord, the state of perfect and conscious surrender to Thy eternal will is, as far as I can know, constant and invariable behind every act, every movement, mental, vital or material. This imperturbable calm, this deep, peaceful, unchanging bliss which do not leave me — are they not the proof of it? The passive, that is to say, the receptive identification with life, thought and love in all manifested forms is an accomplished fact which appears as the inevitable consequence of surrender to the pure Truth.

But the moments when the consciousness is effectively the Life animating and moulding all material forms, the Intelligence organising the Life and the Love illumining the Intelligence, in an active and fully conscious way, at once in the mass and in the smallest detail, in a sense of infinite plenitude and precise powers, are yet intermittent, though becoming more and more frequent and abiding.

It is in these moments that the two consciousnesses are simultaneous and melt into a single consciousness, indescribable and ineffable, in which are united Immutable Eternity and Eternal Movement. It is in these moments that the work of the present time begins to be accomplished.

July

Marsillargues, July 31, 1915

SHOULD I, playing the rôle of a servant, an instrument, turn towards Thee, O Lord, and address to Thee a hymn of adoration? Should I identify myself with Thee in the eternal Reality and the infinite Beatitude and speak to men of the peace and joy they know not?….The two attitudes are simultaneous, the two consciousnesses are parallel, and in this close and indissoluble union is the Plenitude.

The heavens have been definitively conquered, and nothing and nobody has the power to take them from me. But the conquest of the earth has yet to be made; it is going on in the very heart of the turmoil, and, even when achieved, will still be relative; in this world its victories are but stages leading progressively towards still more glorious victories; and what Thy Will makes my mind conceive as the goal to be attained, the conquest to be realised, is only one simple element of Thy eternal plan; but in the perfect union I am this plan and this Will and I taste the supreme bliss of the infinite, even while I play with ardour, precision and energy, in the world of division, the special play Thou hast entrusted to me.

Thy power in me is like a fountain, strong and fertilising, which clamours behind the rocks, accumulating its energies to break down the obstacle and gush forth freely to the exterior, pouring over the plain to fertilise it. What will be the hour of its emergence? When the moment will come, it will leap forth, and time and the hour are nothing in Eternity. But what words can tell the immensity of joy caused by this inner accumulation, this deep concentration of all the forces docile to the manifestation of Thy Will of tomorrow, preparing to spread over the world, drowning in their sovereign floods all that persists in their will to be always an expression of Thy Will of yesterday, in order to take possession of the earth in Thy Name and offer it to Thee as a completer image of Thyself!

Thou hast said that the earth would die, and it will die to its old ignorance.

Thou hast said that the earth would live, and it will live in the renewal of Thy Power.

What words will ever tell the splendour of Thy Law and the magnificence of Thy Glory! What words will express the Perfection of Thy Consciousness and the infinite Bliss of Thy Love!

What words can sing Thy ineffable Peace and celebrate the Majesty of Thy Silence and the Grandeur of Thy omnipotent Truth!

The whole manifested world cannot speak Thy splendour and recount Thy marvels, and in the eternity of time, it is this which it has been trying to do more and more, better and better, eternally.

November

Paris, November 2, 1915

(After a few moments devoted to putting in order some familiar objects.)

AS a strong breeze passes over the sea and crowns with foam its innumerable waves, so a great breath passed over the memory and awakened a multitude of reminiscences. Intense, complex, crowded the past lived again in a flash, losing nothing of its savour, no part of its riches.

Then was the whole being raised up in a great uplift of adoration and, gathering all its remembrances like an abundant harvest, it laid them, O Lord, at Thy feet as an offering.

For through all its life, without knowing it, or with some presentiment of it, it was Thou whom it was seeking; in all its desires, all its enthusiasms, all its hopes and disappointments, all its sufferings and all its joys, it was Thou whom ardently it wanted. And now that it has found Thee and possesses Thee in a supreme peace and felicity, it wonders that so many sensations, emotions and experiences should have been needed to discover Thee.

But all this which was a struggle, a turmoil and a perpetual effort, has become, through the sovereign grace of Thy conscious Presence, a priceless fortune which the being rejoices to make its gift to Thee. The purifying flame of Thy illumination has turned them into jewels of price laid as a living holocaust on the altar of my heart.

The errors have become stepping-stones, the blind gropings conquests; Thy glory transforms defeats into eternity’s victories; all shadows have fled before Thy radiant brightness.

It is Thou who wert the motive and the goal; Thou art the worker and the work.

The personal existence is a canticle, perpetually renewed, which the universe offers to Thy inconceivable splendour.

November 7, 1915, 3 O’clock.

BEYOND all external sign, all particular circumstance, the minutes flowed on so majestically, in so solemn an inner silence, so deep and vast a calm, that my tears streamed freely. For the last two days the earth seems to be passing through a decisive crisis; it seems that the great, the formidable play between the material resistance and the spiritual powers, is nearing a conclusion, or, in any case, an element of capital importance has made, or is about to make, its appearance in the play.

How little personalities count in such hours! They are like wisps of straw swept away by a breath that passes, whirling for a moment above the ground to be afterwards thrown back on it and reduced to dust. And the personalities who thus feel themselves to be so precarious, so devoid of importance, suffer and groan and painfully agonise. For them, even waiting itself becomes a perpetual menace, all speaks of danger and destruction.

But what a grandeur, what a sovereign beauty there is in the heart of this external anguish wholly made up of a narrow egoism; what a splendour dwells in this waiting made religious by the force of a gathered inwardness, when the walls of a personal blindness have fallen and the individual consciousness has taken its flight into the immensity to be united with Thy eternal Consciousness.

This sorrowful world kneels before Thee, O Lord, in mute supplication; this tortured Matter nestles at Thy feet, its last, its sole refuge; and so imploring Thee, it adores Thee, Thee whom it neither knows nor understands! Its prayer rises like the cry of one in a last agony; that which is disappearing feels confusedly the possibility of living again in Thee; the earth awaits Thy decree in a grandiose prostration. Listen, listen; its voice implores and supplicates Thee…. What will be Thy decree, what is Thy sentence? O Lord of Truth, the individual world blesses Thy Truth which it knows not yet, but which it calls, and to which it adheres with all the joyful energy of its living forces.

Death has passed, vast and solemn, and all fell into a religious silence during its passage. A superhuman beauty has appeared on the earth.

Something more marvellous than the most marvellous bliss has made felt the impress of its Presence.

November 26, 1915

THE entire consciousness immersed in divine contemplation, the whole being enjoyed a supreme and vast felicity.

Then was the physical body seized, first in its lower members and next the whole of it, by a sacred trembling which made little by little even in the most material sensation, all personal limits fall away. The being progressively, methodically, grew in greatness, breaking down every barrier, shattering every obstacle, that it might contain and manifest a force and a power which increased ceaselessly in immensity and intensity. It was, as it were, a progressive dilatation of the cells until there was a complete identification with the earth: the body of the awakened consciousness was the terrestrial globe moving harmoniously in ethereal space. And the consciousness knew that its global body was thus moving in the arms of the universal Personality, and it gave itself, it abandoned itself to Her in an ecstasy of peaceful bliss. Then it felt that its body was absorbed in the body of the universe and one with it; the consciousness became the consciousness of the universe, in its totality immobile, in its internal complexity moving infinitely. The consciousness of the universe sprang towards the Divine in an ardent aspiration, a perfect surrender, and it saw in the splendour of the immaculate Light the radiant Being standing on a many-headed serpent whose body coiled infinitely around the universe. The Being in an eternal gesture of triumph mastered and created at one and the same time the serpent and the universe that issued from it; erect on the serpent, he dominated it with all his victorious might, and the same gesture that crushed the hydra, enveloping the universe, gave it eternal birth. Then the consciousness became this Being and perceived that its form was changing once more; it was absorbed into something which was no longer a form and yet contained all forms, something which, immutable, sees, — the Eye, the Witness. And what It sees, is. Then this last vestige of form disappeared and the consciousness itself was absorbed into the Unutterable, the Ineffable.

The return towards the consciousness of the individual body took place very slowly in a constant and invariable splendour of Light and Power and Felicity and Adoration, by successive gradations, but directly, without passing again through the universal and terrestrial forms. And it was as if the modest corporeal form had become the direct and immediate vesture, without any intermediary, of the supreme and eternal Witness.

1916

January

January 15, 1916

O THOU whom I can call my God, Thou who art the personal form of the eternal Transcendent, cause, source and reality of my individual being, who throughout the centuries and the millenniums hast slowly and subtly kneaded this Matter that one day it might consciously be identified with Thee and no longer aught else than Thou; O Thou who hast appeared to me in all Thy divine splendour — this individual being in all its complexity offers itself to Thee in an act of supreme adoration; it aspires in its entirety to be identified with Thee, eternally Thou, merged for ever in Thy reality. But is it ready for that? Is Thy work wholly accomplished? Is there in it no longer any shadow, ignorance or limitation? Canst Thou at last take definitive possession of it and, in the most sublime, the most integral transformation, extricate it for ever from the world of ignorance and make it live in the world of Truth?

Or rather, Thou art myself divested of all error and limitation. Have I become integrally this true self in every atom of my being? Wilt Thou bring about an overwhelming transformation, or will it still be a slow action in which cell after cell must be torn out from its darkness and its limits?

Thou art the Sovereign ready to take possession of Thy kingdom; dost Thou not find Thy kingdom yet sufficiently ready for Thee to unite it definitively to Thyself and become one body with it?

Will the great miracle of the integral Divine Life in the individual be accomplished at last?

January 22, 1916

THOU hast taken entire possession of this miserable instrument, and if it is not yet perfected enough for Thee to complete its transformation, its transmutation, Thou art at work in each one of its cells to knead it, and make it supple and illumine it, and to class, organise and harmonise it in the ensemble of the being. All is in motion, all is changing; Thy divine action makes itself felt as the inexhaustible source of a purifying fire that circulates through all the atoms. And this source has brought into the being an ecstasy more marvellous than all that it has ever felt before. So to Thy action answers the aspiration of that on which Thou art at work, and the aspiration is all the more ardent because the instrument has seen itself as it is, in all its infirmity.

O Lord, hasten, I implore Thee, the blessed day when the divine miracle will be accomplished, hasten the day of the realisation of the Divine upon earth!

January 23, 1916

O DIVINE inhabitant of this gross form, Thou seest that it is a mass of limitations: wilt Thou not break down all these limitations that it may participate in Thy infinity? Thou seest that it is full of obscurities: wilt Thou not dissolve this darkness with Thy resplendent light that it may share in Thy brightness? Thou seest that it is burdened with ignorant impurities: wilt Thou not consume all these impurities with Thy devouring fire of love that the being in its integrality may no longer be anything else than one with Thee in all its consciousness?

Findest Thou not that, for the earth and for humanity, this sombre and sorrowful experience of egoistic separativity has lasted long enough? In the world, has not the hour struck for this phase of development to be replaced by another, dominated by the pure and vast consciousness of Thy Unity?

At every moment, without a stop, my invocation rises towards Thee, and I call Thee: “Lord, Lord, take possession of Thy kingdom, illumine it with Thy eternal Presence, make the cruel error cease in which it lives, thinking itself separate from Thee, whilst, in its reality and essence, it is Thyself.

Break, break the last resistances, consume the impurities, strike with Thy thunder this being, if need be, but let it be transfigured!

June

Tokio, June 7, 1916

LONG months have gone by in which nothing could be said, for it was a transitional period of passage from one equilibrium to another, vaster and more complete. The external circumstances were manifold and novel, as if the being needed to accumulate many perceptions and observations to give a more extensive and more complex base to its experience. But since it was wholly in this experience, it had not the necessary self-withdrawal to see it in its totality and know what it was and, above all, towards what it tended.

Suddenly on the fifth June the veil was torn and there was light in my consciousness.

When I contemplated Thee under Thy individual form, O Lord of eternity, and implored Thee to take possession of Thy kingdom of the flesh, Thou hast set in motion, in activity, this vital form which, for the necessity of development and unification, had been living for years in a receptive and harmonious passivity, but as a stranger to all active manifestation of Thy will.

This return to activity implied a completely new adaptation of the vital instrument, for its natural tendency is always to engage in action with its old habits and modes. This period of adaptation was long, painful, sometimes obscure, although, behind, the perception of Thy Presence and the perfect submission to Thy Law were unchanging and sufficiently strongly conscious, so that no trouble could shake the being.

Little by little, the vital being was habituated to find harmony in the most intense action, as it had found if in passive surrender. And once this harmony was sufficiently established, there was light again in all parts of the being, and the consciousness of what had happened became complete.

Now the vital being has recovered in the midst of action the perception of Infinity and Eternity. It can, through all sensations and all forms, perceive Thy supreme Beauty and can live it. Even in its sensation, extended, active and fully developed, it can feel the contrary sensations at the same time and always it perceives Thee.

It is not unaware, however, that this is only a stage, and it bows down before Thee in deep adoration to tell Thee: “O Lord, Thou hast again taken up Thy instrument in hand to use it for action. The instrument is aware of its imperfection and impurity and implores Thy Mercy to perfect and purify it, so that, from day to day, it may, in a progressive disappearance of all its preferences and limitations, more integrally manifest Thee.

November

November 28, 1916

THOU hast made me read over again these child’s prattlings, for they are the awkward attempts expression of a mind still in its early infancy, and all this appeared to me to be far, very far away, clad in the charm and purity of the experiences of a candid and enthusiastic childhood. And yet before Thee, O eternal Lord, I have not grown older at all and I have not advanced any further: the expression of today would not be superior to that of those earlier times. The mind is as poor and awkward as ever. And what is there so remarkable that it could have to express? There is no sensational experience: all experiences now appear simple and natural. There is no new powerful or exceptional idea, none of those ideas which fill one with the joy of discovery: all ideas, under whatever form they may present themselves, now seem like old acquaintances to whom one makes in passing a friendly salutation but from whom one expects nothing unforeseen. There is no psychological analysis, scrupulous and detailed, discovering some inner recess still unexplored: the internal complications no longer exist in themselves; they are the faithful and impartial reflections of all the environing psychological movements; and to describe what passes in the being would be at once complex and monotonous, like a description of the world in its almost exclusively subconscient fumblings and wanderings.

Poverty, poverty! Thou hast placed me in a desert, arid and bare, and yet this desert is sweet to me, like all that comes from Thee, O Lord. In this dull and colourless greyness, in this light as of an ashen hue, without brightness, I taste the savour of the infinite spaces; the pure breeze of the ocean, the powerful breath of the free heights ever fill my heart and penetrate into my life; all barriers have fallen, within and around me; and I feel like the bird that opens its wing for an unopposed soar. But the bird remains perched on the rock, its wings unfurled in the grey, cotton-wool sky, pausing to take its flight, for something to happen — something that it awaits without knowing what it is. Having no longer any bonds to enchain its flight, it thinks no more of flying. Conscious of its freedom, it does not enjoy it, and remains like others, among others, perched on the ground in the midst of a sombre and dense mist.

December

December 4, 1916

SINCE Thou permittest it, O Lord, I begin again to come to Thee daily, extricating myself for a few short moments from an activity of which I know, even while I do it, the entire relativity. Thou hadst plunged me back into action and into the ordinary consciousness, and now Thou accordest to me the power to resume regularly my flight towards Thee, to soar a little into the immutable Silence and the eternal Consciousness.

Thou hast willed, O Lord, that the being should become larger and greater. It could not do so without entering again, at least partially and temporarily, into ignorance and obscurity. It is this ignorance and this obscurity that it has come now to place at Thy feet as the most modest of ordeals. I would not ask Thee to bestow on me as a continual experience the Consciousness which Thou accordest to me in those moments of peaceful and pure communion. I would ask Thee only to make those moments still more peaceful and pure, to fortify and enlighten the consciousness ever more, so that it can return to its daily work with a renewed strength and knowledge.

Thou remindest me by these short moments of ecstatic identification that Thou hast already granted to me the power of consciously uniting with Thee. And the divine and musical harmony takes entire possession of the being.

But the sounds come together in the head as if behind a veil and no word comes out from the pen today.

December 5, 1916

THOU hast granted to me the grace of Thy repose in which all individual limits are dissolved and in which one is in all, and still more clearly, all is in oneself. But the mind, immersed in this divine ecstasy, cannot yet find the power to express itself.

(Practical notation of the experience)

“Turn towards the earth”. The habitual injunction was heard in the silence of the immutable identification. Then the consciousness became that of the One in all. “Everywhere and in all in whom thou canst see the One, will be awakened the consciousness of this identity with the Divine. Look”… It was a Japanese street brilliantly illuminated with gay lanterns set out picturesquely with vivid colours. And as whatever was conscious moved forward in the street, the Divine became visible in each and in all. One of the slight houses became transparent so that one could see a woman seated on a tatami in a sumptuous violet kimono embroidered with gold and vivid colours. The woman was beautiful and must have been between thirty-five and forty. She played on a golden samisen. At her feet was a young child. And in the woman also the Divine was visible.

December 7, 1916

LORD, I could justly say that I have neither Yoga nor virtue, for I am completely divested of that which makes the glory of all those who wish to serve Thee. In appearance my life is the most ordinary and commonplace possible; and inwardly what is it? Nothing but a calm tranquillity without any variation or anything unexpected; the calm of something which is realised and is not sought for any longer, which no longer expects anything from life and things, which acts without anticipating any profit, knowing perfectly that its action does not in any way belong to it, either in its impulsion or in its result; which wills, conscious that it is the supreme Will alone that wills in it; a calm wholly made of an incontestable certitude, of an objectless knowledge, of a causeless joy and of a self-existent state of consciousness which no longer belongs to time. It is an immobility which moves in the domain of external life, without, however, belonging to it or seeking to escape from it. I hope for nothing, expect nothing, desire nothing, aspire for nothing and, above all, I am nothing; and yet happiness, a happiness calm and unmixed, a happiness that does not know itself and has no need to look at its existence, has come to inhabit the tabernacle of this body. This happiness is Thou, O Lord, and this calm too is Thou, O Lord, for these are not at all human faculties and the senses of men can neither appreciate nor enjoy them. Thus it is Thou, O Lord, who dwellest in this body, and that is why this corporeal dwelling feels itself so poor and dull for so marvellous an occupant.

December 8, 1916

SUCH was our conversation this morning, O Lord:

Thou hast made the vital being awake with the magic wand of Thy impulsion and Thou saidst to it: “Awake, bend the bow of thy will, for the hour of action will soon come.” Suddenly awakened, the vital being rose, stretched itself and shook off the dust of its long torpor; it perceived from the elasticity of its members that it was still vigorous and fit to act. And it was with an ardent faith that it replied to the sovereign call: “Here am I, what demandest Thou of me, O Lord?” But before another word could be uttered, the mind intervened in its turn, and after bowing down before the Master in token of obedience, thus spoke to him: “Thou knowest, O Lord, that I am surrendered to Thee, and that I try my best to be a faithful and pure intermediary of Thy supreme Will. But when I turn my look towards the earth, I see that man’s field of action, however large it may be, is always terribly restricted. A man who, in his mind and even in his vital being, is vast like the universe, or at least like the earth, as soon as he begins to act, is shut up within the narrow limits of a material action, very bounded in its field and results. Whether he is the founder of a religion or the author of a political transformation, the man of action becomes a petty, little stone in a general edifice, a grain of sand in the immense dune of human activities. I cannot see any realisable action which is of so great a worth that the whole being should concentrate upon it and make of it its reason of existence. The vital being delights in the adventure: but must it be allowed to throw itself into some lamentable adventure, unworthy of an instrument conscious of Thy Presence?” “Fear nothing”, was the reply. “The vital being will not be allowed to set itself in motion, thou wilt not be asked to bring in all the effort of thy organising faculties except when the proposed action will be vast and complex enough for all the qualities of the being to be fully and usefully employed. What this action will be exactly, thou wilt know when it will come to thee. But I warn thee from now, so that thou mayst prepare thyself not to reject it. I warn thee also, as well as the vital being, that the time of a small tranquil, uniform and peaceful life will be over. There will be effort, danger, the unforeseen, insecurity, but also intensity. Thou wert made for this rôle. After having agreed for long years to forget it completely, because the time had not come and also because thou wert not ready, awake now to the consciousness that it is very truly thy rôle and that it was for this that thou wert created.”

The vital being, first, awoke to the consciousness and with the enthusiasm which is natural to it exclaimed, “I am ready, O Lord, Thou canst count upon me.” The mind, more feeble and timid, although as docile, added, “What Thou wiliest I too will. Thou knowest well, O Lord, that I belong entirely to Thee. But shall I be able to be at the height of the task, shall I have the power to organise what the vital being has the capacity to realise?” “It is to prepare thee for it that I am working at this moment; it is for this that thou art undergoing a discipline of plasticity and enrichment. Do not worry about anything: power comes with the need. It is not because, at the same time as the vital being, thou hast confined thyself to very small activities when it was useful that it should be so, in order that the things which had to be prepared might have the time to prepare themselves, — it is not that, I say, that can make thee incapable of living outside these smallnesses in a field of action in keeping with thy true stature. I have chosen thee from all eternity to be my exceptional representative upon the earth, not in an invisible and hidden way, but in a way apparent to the eyes of all men. And what thou wert created to be, thou shalt be.”

As always, O Lord, when the voice of the depths was silent, the sublime and all-powerful benediction enveloped me fully.

And for a moment, the Master and the instrument were but one: the One without a second, the Eternal, the Infinite.

December 9, 1916

IT is long after coming out of contemplation that I get a clear idea of what it has been.

Once more this evening I entered into that state in which the consciousness is dispersed in a multitude of diverse elements, individual and collective centres of consciousness, for accomplishing there an action or rather as many actions as these elements permit.

By flashes, this or that point appears in a precise manner, then is blotted out to give place to another. Each element of consciousness that acts is clearly conscious of its action; but a consciousness of the whole appears at once impossible on account of the extreme complexity it would entail, and useless for the accomplishment of the work itself.

December 10, 1916

CERTAIN apparent weaknesses are sometimes more useful for Thy work, O Lord, than too obvious a perfection. A manifested perfection appears to be the appanage only of one who has retired at once from the world and from the work in the world. But for him whom Thou hast chosen as one of Thy workers upon earth, I see very well that certain weaknesses, certain imperfections (provided they are only apparent and not real,) are in Thy eyes more useful, and, in consequence, more perfect than perfection itself. And to renounce perfection in its apparent form is part of an integral renunciation of the ignorance of the separate self.

Is it for this, O Lord, that Thou givest me but rarely the ecstasy of the complete identification and the perfect consciousness?

Formerly I was spoiled by Thee. Thou madest me live so constantly in Thy Presence… But now it seems that Thou wishest to teach me how to know an unchanging felicity even in the midst of darkness and to have no preference between consciousness and inconscience.

To be beyond all desires, plunged in the condition of those who live by desire… that is strange!

But what is most strange, is that it leaves me perfectly calm, peaceful and contented, and that in this darkness I perceive a great power; and that even from the depth of this night the sublime celestial harmonies can also be heard.

Each new step into Thy Kingdom, O Lord, is a new cause of wonder.

December 12, 1916

MY mind has been disquieted at being so constantly turned towards such little things, at moving in so narrow a circle of practical and immediate ideas.

It has learned to see Thee in every thing, O Lord, and in the smallest it perceives Thee and delights in Thee. But even while it thus enjoys Thee and recognises Thee in the most futile things and activities as well as in the most vast and noble, it wonders why some prevail over others. Many a time for several months it has tried to react against this tendency, but always in vain. Is it because Thou findest it good that it should be so or because it is incapable of being otherwise? It put Thee the question, and as always, Thy smile came to comfort it; but the precise reply has not been heard.

Now for this mind the least riling becomes an unfathomable mystery, and all is a constantly renewed cause of wonder.

December 14, 1916

I SALUTE Thee, O Lord, and bow down before Thee. But I shall write nothing, for Thou hast just said to me in reply to a question about the present meditation: “We have had a private conversation which even Thy own physical ears must not hear.”

December 20, 1916

DAYS have passed, apparently stormy and troubled, but calm and strong in their reality, reflecting Thy divine Will; they have passed, deploying, discovering, developing once more all the unforeseen and varying splendour of Thy tireless divine play. And what a wonder it is to watch it when one perceives the infinite intercrossing of the movements brought into play by Thy eternal Will; when one knows that all this is from all eternity and that it is only in our imperfect faculties that it becomes an uninterrupted succession of facts in which we are the well-intentioned but ignorant agents. We act with the apparent inconscience and blindness of those who do not know, and yet I know, and even while being an agent, I am also a witness. But I am not yet pure enough for Thee to reveal to my eyes the totality of the effects and results; it is only partially and imperfectly that I know them before the act and am allowed to act with the knowledge of the why of it and with a full illumination on what Thou attendest from me. When, O Lord, shall I have that purity? But for this also I have no longer any impatience, and I implore no longer. I see how far Thy splendours are obscured and veiled in this wretched and poor instrument; but Thou knowest why it is so; and Thou makest use also of these shadows and weaknesses for Thy eternal ends.

My soul is in prayer and bows down with love before what it can understand and know of Thee. My soul is in prayer and gives itself to Thee in one of those sublime fervours which end in identification. My soul is in prayer…and my body also; and my thought is silent in a mute ecstasy.

(Communication received at 5-30 in the evening after meditation.)

“As you are contemplating me, I shall speak to you this evening. I see in your heart a diamond surrounded with a golden light. It is at once pure and warm, so that it can manifest impersonal love; but why do you let this treasure lie enclosed in this sombre casket lined with an intense purple? The outermost envelope is of a deep blue which is not luminous, a veritable mantle of darkness. One would say that you were afraid of showing your splendour. Learn to radiate and do not fear the storm: the wind carries us far away from the shore but shows us the world. Is it that you would husband your tenderness? But the source of love is infinite. Are you afraid of being misunderstood? But where have you seen man able to understand the Divine? And if the eternal truth finds in you a means to manifest, what can the rest matter to you? You are like a pilgrim coming out of a sanctuary; standing on the threshold in front of the crowd, he hesitates before revealing his precious secret, the secret of his supreme discovery. Listen, I too hesitated for days, for I could foresee both my preaching and what would be its result: the imperfection of expression and the still greater imperfection of understanding. And yet I turned towards the earth and men and I brought to them my message, “Turn towards the earth and men”, is this not the command you always hear in your heart — in your heart, for it is that which carries a blessed message for those who are athirst for compassion? Henceforth nothing can attack the diamond. It is unassailable in its perfect constitution, and the soft radiance which shoots from it can change many things in the hearts of men. You doubt your power and are afraid of your ignorance? It is precisely this that covers your power with this dark mantle of starless night. You hesitate and tremble as if on the threshold of a mystery, for, now the mystery of the manifestation appears to you as more terrible and more unfathomable than that of the Eternal Cause. But you must take courage and obey the injunction from the depths. It is I who say it to you, for I know and love you as you knew and loved me before. I have appeared clearly before your eyes, so that you may not doubt my words in the least. And also to your eyes I have shown your heart, so that you may thus see what the supreme Truth has willed and discover in it the law of your being. The thing still appears to you very difficult; a day will come when you will wonder how the truth could seem to you other than what it is.”

Shakyamuni

December 21, 1916

LORD, Thou hast spoken to me through the mouth of one of those who have known Thee best, doubtless to make me understand Thy lesson better (was I then deaf to Thy direct suggestion?). And yet even now I do not understand what to do. Thou knowest what would be my happiness if by Thy Grace I could be integrally transformed into a hearth of divine love — that love which is the first and highest manifestation of Thy eternal Truth, that love which is at once the most complete expression of Thy Truth in this world and the most direct path leading to it the human consciousness which has lost its way. At the time when I was aspiring, desiring, asking, how many times have I not demanded from Thee the grace of this condition as the most in conformity with my existing ideal of action! And at that time it seemed to me that on the day when I should be purified of all egoistic preference, Thou wouldst choose this individual terrestrial being as an instrument of Thy manifestation of love upon earth. And now that Thou demandest it of me, more than ever I feel my powerlessness. So long I thought I knew what is love, and now that I no longer see anything which cannot be called love, I no longer see anything either which can be specially called love. And how to be that thing which I can no longer define, that state which I can no longer distinguish? And yet Thou madest me see yesterday that I held enclosed in a dark envelope one of the most precious and most powerful of Thy gifts.

O Lord, my whole being aspires to obey Thy Voice, to conform to Thy Law; but it does not know in its outer consciousness, it has not understood, what Thou attendest from it. It feels very well that at present its love is a passive state and that Thy will is to bring about its birth into an active state; but how to pass from the one to the other, that escapes it. It knows that this active state of love should be constant and impersonal, that is to say, altogether independent of circumstances and persons, since it cannot and should not be concentrated on any of them in particular; and in that it will resemble the present passive state of love, which is pure, unchanging and impersonal. But what it does not know yet is, even while remaining in its qualities of purity, invariability and impersonality which are now inherent in its being, how to resume its activity?

It was for this that this evening I implored Lord Mitra who so perfectly symbolises Thy truth of love, asking him to come to my help for enlightening my ignorance, dissolving my doubts, conquering my hesitation, dissipating the last obstacles and taking possession of this physical instrument, so that it may become what Thou attendest from it.

But my words are timid and my voice is unskilled in its utterance, and I do not know if Lord Mitra heard my prayer.

December 24, 1916

LORD, without letting my mind be aware of what was going to take place and how it would take place, Thou hast made me this evening feel beforehand what Thou attendest from me; feel only, for it is the first, very timid step upon the marvellous way Thou hast half-opened before me. It was like the rising flow which swells a river more and more until it overflows, covering everything with its beneficent waters. And this time it was the heart that thus swelled under the pressure of the powers of love Thou madest flow into it; and the whole being has begun to love, love more and more, without any definite aim, nothing and everything at the same time, that which it knows and that which it knows not, that which it sees and that which it has never seen; and little by little, this potential love has become an effective love, ready to spread over everything and all things in beneficent waves, in an active outpouring of its rays… It was but a beginning, a very feeble beginning. But I know, O Lord, that it is this Thou wiliest. As always Thy Will is an infinite Grace which floods the being with its divine delight and transports it above mean contingencies towards the Glory of Thy heavenly abode.

To be what Thou wiliest is to be divine!

December 25, 1916

(What I heard in the silence and noted last evening.)

“BY renouncing everything, even wisdom and consciousness, thou wert able to prepare thy heart for the rôle which was assigned to it: apparently the most thankless rôle, that of the fountain which always lets its waters flow abundantly for all, but towards which no stream can ever remount: it draws its inexhaustible force from the depths and has nothing to expect from outside. But thou feelst already beforehand what sublime felicity accompanies this inexhaustible expansion of love; for love is sufficient unto itself and has no need of any reciprocity; this is true even of individual love, how much more true, then, of divine love which so nobly reflects the infinite!

“Be this love in everything and everywhere, ever more widely, ever more intensely, and the whole world will become at once thy work and thy estate, thy field of action and thy conquest. Strive with persistence to throw down the last limits which are but frail barriers before the expansion of the being, to conquer the last obscurities which the illumining Power is already lighting up. Fight that thou mayst conquer and triumph; struggle to surmount all that has been up to this day, to make the new Light emerge, the new example, which the world needs. Fight stubbornly against all obstacles, outer or inner. This is the pearl without price which is proposed for thee to realise.”

December 26, 1916

ALWAYS the word Thou makest me hear in the silence is sweet and encouraging, O Lord. But I see not in what this instrument is worthy of the grace Thou accordest to it or how it will have the capacity to realise what Thou attendest from it. All in it appears so small, weak and ordinary, so lacking in intensity and force and amplitude in comparison with what it should be to undertake this overwhelming rôle. But I know that what the mind thinks is of little importance. The mind itself knows it and, passive, it awaits the working out of Thy decree.

Thou biddest me strive without cease, and I could wish to have the indomitable ardour that prevails over every difficulty. But Thou hast put in my heart a peace so smiling that I fear I no longer know even how to strive…Things develop in me, faculties and activities, as flowers bloom, spontaneously and without effort, in a joy to be and a joy to grow, a joy to manifest Thee, whatever the mode of Thy manifestation. If struggle there is, it is so gentle and easy that it can hardly be given the name. But how small is this heart to contain so great a love and how weak this vital and physical being to carry the power to distribute it! Thus Thou hast placed me on the threshold of the marvellous Way, but will my feet have the strength to advance upon it?… But Thou repliest to me that my movement is to soar and it would be an error to wish to walk….O Lord, how infinite is Thy compassion! Once more Thou hast taken me in Thy omnipotent arms and cradled me on Thy unfathomable heart, and Thy heart said to me, “Torment not thyself at all, be confident like a child: art thou not myself crystallised for my work?”

December 27, 1916

O MY beloved Lord, my heart is bowed before Thee, my arms are stretched towards Thee, imploring Thee to set all this being on fire with Thy sublime love, that it may radiate from there on the world. My heart is wide open in my breast; my heart is open and turned towards Thee, it is open and empty that Thou mayst fill it with Thy divine Love; it is empty of all but Thee and Thy presence fills it through and through and yet leaves it empty, for it can contain also all the infinite variety of the manifested world.

O Lord, my arms are outstretched in supplication towards Thee, my heart is wide open before Thee, that Thou mayst make of it a reservoir of Thy infinite love.

“Love me in all things, everywhere and in all beings” was Thy reply. I prostrate myself before Thee and ask of Thee to give me that power.

December 29, 1916

O MY sweet Lord, teach me to be the instrument of Thy Love.

December 30, 1916

WHY, O Lord, does my heart seem to be so cold and dry?

I feel, I see my soul live within my being, and my soul sees Thee, recognises and loves Thee in everything, in all that is; it is fully conscious of this, and as the outer being is surrendered to it, that being also is conscious; the mind knows and never forgets; the vital being, purified, no longer knows any attractions and repulsions, and more and more it tastes the joy of Thy Presence in all and always. But the heart seems to be asleep in a slumber of exhaustion, and the soul no longer finds in it an activity sufficiently responsive to its impulsion. Why? Was it so poor that the fight has so exhausted it, or so deeply wounded that it is quite anchylosed? And yet it desires to answer the inner call; it wills it with a faith and ardour that have never wavered; but it seems to be like an old man who smiles benevolently at the play of youth but cannot take part in it. And yet it is full of joy and confidence, it overflows with gratitude for all the treasures of affection that nature has generously lavished upon it; and it would, in exchange for all these precious gifts, spread in inexhaustible waves the golden wine of tenderness which revives and fortifies, enlivens and consoles, the true wine of life for all human beings. It would and tries…but how poor is what it does in comparison with what it dreams of doing; how mediocre is what it can do in comparison with what it hopes, for it hopes always. It knows that Thy call is never heard in vain; and it doubts not that it can realise one day the splendours of which Thou hast given it a glimpse.

Who will open these flood-gates still closed?

My heart loves in a human way, and in that way, it seems to me, it loves with force, constancy and purity. But it is Thy will that it should love divinely in a limitless deployment of Thy sovereign power; and this is for it still unrealised.

Who will open these flood-gates still closed?

1917

January

January 4, 1917

LORD, Thou heapest Thy benefits upon me. Now that this being expects nothing, desires nothing from life, life brings to it its most precious treasures, those treasures which men covet. In all the domains of individuality, Thou loadest me with Thy boons, mental, psychical and even material. Thou hast placed me in abundance, and abundance appears to me as natural as poverty, and does not cause me a greater joy; for, often, in poverty, the spiritual life was for me more intense and conscious; but I perceive very well this abundance, and my individual being, whom Thou loadest thus with Thy boons, prostrates itself before Thee with an ineffable gratitude.

Thy goodness is without parallel and Thy mercy infinite.

January 5, 1917

LOVE is nothing else than the tie which unites and holds together all the flowers of Thy divine bouquet. It is a rôle unobtrusive, modest, not recognised; a rôle essentially unselfish, which, only in this impersonality, can find all its utility.

It is because I become more and more this tie, this link, assembling the scattered fragments of Thy consciousness, and enabling those fragments, by grouping them, to reconstitute better and better Thy consciousness, at once single and multiple, that it has been possible for me to see clearly what love is in the play of the universal forces, what is its place and its mission. It is not an end in itself, but a supreme means. Active, everywhere and between everything, everywhere it is veiled by that very thing which it unites, and which while undergoing its effects, sometimes does not even know of its presence.

O Lord, Thy sweetness has entered into my soul, and Thou hast filled all my being with joy.

And in this joy I have made to Thee a prayer, so that it may reach up to Thee.

January 6, 1917

THOU hast filled my being with an ineffable peace and an unequalled repose…and without any personal thought or will, I let myself be cradled passively by Thy infinity.

January 8, 1917

THOU hast made a silence in my mind and my head; but no voice rises from the depths of this silence. Peace alone reigns, a sweet and beneficent guest.

January 10, 1917

IS it then Thy will to teach me that all effort that would have in view my own being as its aim would be vain and useless? Only an action which has as its motive the raying out of Thy Grace is done with ease and success. When the will puts itself forth for an outward result, then it is powerful and effective; when it puts itself into an inward-going movement, it is without any force or effort…Thus every action undertaken for a personal progress becomes more and more unfruitful, and, in consequence, more and more rare. On the other hand, the outer action appears to gain in effectivity all that the inner has lost. In this way, O Lord, Thou takest the instrument such as it is, and if it must be refined, it will be by the working itself.

January 14, 1917

“MAY the unhappy become happy, the wicked become good and the sick become healthy!” Thus was formulated in me the aspiration about the manifestation of Thy divine Love through this instrument. It was like a demand, a demand which a child makes to its father with the certitude that it will be granted. For the certitude was in me when I asked: it appeared to me so simple and so easy; I felt so clearly in me how this is possible. To grow from joy to joy, from beauty to beauty — is it not more natural and also more fruitful than to suffer and labour in a struggle ignorant and reluctantly undergone? If Thou enablest the heart to bloom freely at the touch of Thy divine Love, this transformation is easy and takes place by itself.

Wilt Thou not permit this, O Lord, as a token of Thy compassion?

It is with the confidence of a child that my heart implores Thee this evening.

January 19, 1917

AND the hours pass away like dreams unlived.

January 23, 1917

THOU hast filled my being with a love, a beauty and a joy so complete and intense that it has seemed to me impossible that they should remain uncommunicated. It was like a burning hearth from which the breath of thought carried far away the sparks which, in the secret depths of the hearts of men, went to kindle other sparks, the sparks of Thy divine Love, O Lord; of that Love which irresistibly pushes and attracts human beings towards Thee. O my sweet Lord, grant that this may not be merely a vision of my consciousness in its ecstasy, but a reality truly transformative of beings and things!

Grant that this love, this beauty and this joy which flood all my being, hardly strong enough to bear their intensity, may likewise flood the consciousness of all those whom I have seen, of all those of whom I have thought and also of all those whom I have neither thought of nor seen…. Grant that all may awake to the consciousness of Thy infinite Bliss!

O my sweet Lord, fill their hearts with joy, love and beauty.

January 25, 1917

O RADIANT Love, who fillest all my being and pourest joy into it, art Thou received, art Thou given? None can say, for Thou receivest Thyself and givest Thyself to Thyself, being at once sovereignly active and receptive in every thing and in every being.

January 29, 1917

IN the world of forms a lack of Beauty is a fault as great as a lack of Truth in the world of ideas. For Beauty is the homage which Nature renders to the supreme Master of the universe; Beauty is the divine language in the form. A consciousness of the Divine which is not externally translated by an understanding and an expression of Beauty would be an incomplete consciousness.

But true Beauty is as difficult to discover, to understand and, above all, to live as any other expression of the Divine; this discovery and this expression demand as much impersonality and abdication of egoism as the discovery of Truth or Bliss. Pure Beauty is universal, and one must be universal in order to see and recognise it.

O Lord of Beauty, how many faults I have committed against Thee; how many faults I still commit!… Give me a perfect understanding of Thy Law, so that I may no longer fall short of it. Love would be incomplete without Thee; Thou art one of its most perfect ornaments, Thou art one of its most harmonious smiles. Sometimes I have misunderstood Thy rôle, but in the depth of my heart I have always loved Thee. And even the most arbitrary, the most radical doctrines have not been able to extinguish the fire of the cult which, since my childhood, I have vowed to Thee.

Thou art not what a vain people think of Thee, Thou art not exclusively attached to any particular form of life: it is possible to awaken Thee, to make Thee shine in every form; but for this one must have discovered Thy secret.

O Lord of Beauty, give me a perfect understanding of Thy Law, that I may not fail in it and that Thou mayst become in me the harmonious crown of the Lord of Love.

March

March 27, 1917

(Communication in dialogue from received during meditation)

“LOOK, thou seest the living form and the three inanimate images. The living form is clad in violet, the other three are made of dust, but whitened and purified. It is in the calm of silence that the living form can, by penetrating in the other three, unite them in order to transform them into a living and active garment.”

O Lord, Thou knowest that I am surrendered to Thee and that my being adheres with a peaceful and profound joy to what Thou givest it!

“I know thy adherence, but I would increase thy consciousness, and for that awaken what still sleeps within thee. Open thy eyes to the Light, and in the clear mirror of thy mind will be reflected what thou hast to know.”

Lord, all is silent in my being and waits.

“Knock at the door of consciousness and it wilt be opened to thee”.

The river streams limpid and silvery; its uninterrupted flow descends from the sky towards the earth. But what wouldst Thou say to me that I must know?

“Thy silence is not yet deep enough: something is in movement in thy mind.

“The fire of the soul has to be seen through the veils of manifestation; but those veils should be clear and precise, like words traced on a luminous screen. And all this should be preserved in the purity of thy heart, as the meadow, sown with seeds, is buried and protected under the snow.

“Now that thou hast sown the seeds in the field and traced the signs on the screen, thou canst return to thy calm silence, thou canst rise into thy calm retreat to be tempered in a deeper and truer consciousness. Thou canst forget thy personality and recover the charm of the universal.

“May peace be on thee in these hours of rest, but forget not the reveille which will soon sound.

“Thou wilt yet smile at thy destiny which speaks to thee.

“Thy heart will use the force which comes.

“Thou wilt be the woodcutter who binds the faggot.

“Thou wilt be the great swan with outspread wings that purifies the eyes with its pearly whiteness and warms the heart with its white down.

“Thou wilt lead them all towards their supreme destiny.

“Thou hast seen the hearth and thou hast seen the child. One was attracting the other, and both were content; one, because it burned, and the other because it was warmed.

“Thou seest in thy heart this triumphant hearth; thou alone canst carry it without its becoming destructive. If others touched it, they would be consumed. Let them not, therefore, come too close to it. The child has to know that it should not touch the dazzling flame which so attracts it. From a distance it warms the child and illumines its heart; too close, it would reduce it to ashes.

“One alone can dwell in this heart without fear; for he is the very ray that has kindled it. He is the salamander that is reborn in the fire.

“Another is above, not afraid of any burning: he is the immaculate sphinx, the bird descended from the sky, who knows how to return to it.

“One is the Power of realisation.

“The other is the Light.

“And the third is the Sovereign Consciousness.”

O Lord, I listen to Thee and I am prostrate at Thy feet. Thou hast opened the door for me; Thou hast opened my eyes, and a little of the night has been illumined.

March 30, 1917

THERE is a sovereign royalty in taking no thought for oneself. To have needs is to assert a weakness; to claim something proves that we lack what we claim. To desire is to be impotent; it is to recognise our limitations and confess our incapacity to overcome them. If only from the point of view of a legitimate pride, man should be noble enough to renounce desire. How humiliating to ask something for oneself from Life or from the Supreme Consciousness which animates it! How humiliating for us, how ignorant an offence against Her!

For all is within our reach, only the egoistic limits of our being prevent us from enjoying the whole universe as completely and concretely as we possess our own body and its immediate surroundings.

Such also should be our attitude towards the means of action.

Thou who dwellest in my heart and directest everything by Thy supreme Will, saidst to me a year ago to cut off all bridges and fling myself headlong into the Unknown, like Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon: it was the Capitol or the Tarpeian Rock.

Thou hidst from my eyes the result of action. Still now Thou keepest it secret; and yet Thou knowest that the equality of my soul remains the same in front of grandeur or misery.

It was Thy Will that for me the future should be uncertain, and that I should advance with confidence, without even knowing where the road would lead.

It was Thy Will that I should wholly entrust to Thee all care for my destiny and totally renounce all personal preoccupation.

It was, no doubt, because my path must be virgin even to my thought.

March 31, 1917

EACH time that a heart leaps at the touch of Thy Divine breath, a little more beauty seems to be born upon the earth, the air is embalmed with a sweet perfume, all becomes more friendly.

How great is Thy power, O Lord of all existences, that an atom of Thy Joy is sufficient to efface so much darkness, so many sorrows, and a single ray of Thy glory can light up thus the dullest pebble, illumine the blackest consciousness!

Thou hast heaped Thy favours upon me, Thou hast unveiled to me many secrets, Thou hast made me taste many unexpected and unhoped for joys, but no grace of Thine can be equal to this Thou grantest to me when a heart leaps at the touch of Thy Divine breath.

At these blessed hours all earth sings a hymn of gladness, the grasses shudder with pleasure, the air is vibrant with light, the trees lift towards heaven their most ardent prayer, the chant of the birds becomes a canticle, the waves of the sea billow with love, the smile of children tells of the infinite and the souls of men appear in their eyes.

Tell me, wilt Thou grant me the marvellous power to give birth to this dawn in expectant hearts, to awaken the consciousness of men to Thy sublime Presence, and in this bare and sorrowful world awaken a little of Thy true Paradise? What happiness, what riches, what terrestrial powers can equal this wonderful gift?

O Lord, never have I implored Thee in vain, for that which speaks to Thee is Thyself in me.

Drop by drop Thou allowest to fall in a fertilising rain the living and redeeming flame of Thy almighty love. When these drops of eternal light fall gently upon earth our world of obscure ignorance, they seem like golden stars falling one by one upon earth from the inscrutable depth of a heavens.

All kneels in mute devotion before this ever-renewed miracle.

April

April 1, 1917

THOU hast shown to my mute and attentive soul all the splendour of fairy landscapes: the trees en fête and lonely paths which appear to climb up to the sky.

But of my destiny Thou hast not spoken. Must it remain so entirely veiled from me?

Again and everywhere I see cherry trees; Thou hast put into these flowers magical virtue: they seem to speak of Thy sole Presence; they bring with them the smile of the Divine.

My body is at rest and my soul blossoms: what a charm hast Thou put into these trees in bloom?

O Japan, it is the rich apparel of thy good will that is in its festival, it is thy purest offering, it is the token of thy fidelity; it is thy way of saying that thou reflectest the sky.

And now here is a magnificent country of high pine-covered mountains and valleys in full cultivation. And the little pink roses which this Chinaman brings — are they a promise of the near future?

April 7, 1917

A DEEP concentration seized on me, and I perceived that I was identifying myself with a single cherry-blossom, then through it with all cherry-blossoms, and, as I descended deeper in the consciousness, following a stream of bluish force, I became suddenly the cherry-tree itself, stretching towards the sky like so many arms its innumerable branches laden with their sacrifice of flowers. Then I heard distinctly this sentence:

“Thus hast thou made thyself one with the soul of cherry-trees and so thou canst take note that it is the Divine who makes the offering of this flower-prayer to heaven.”

When I had written it, all was effaced; but now the blood of the cherry-tree flows in my veins and with it flows an incomparable peace and force. What difference is there between the human body and the body of a tree? In truth, there is none, the consciousness which animates them is identically the same.

Then the cherry-tree whispered in my ear:

“It is in the cherry-blossom that lies the remedy for the disorders of the spring.”

April 9, 1917

WHEN once the threshold of the kingdom of Thy Omniscience has been crossed, each time that there is a return to the mental world, every thought one has there seems to be a marvellous and unfathomable problem of which one had never dreamt before.

Above, no question arises; in that calm silence all is known from all eternity. Below, all is new, unknown, unexpected.

And the two united in a single consciousness give a confident wonder which begets Peace, Light and Joy.

April 10, 1917

MY heart has fallen asleep, down to the very depths of my being.

The whole earth is in a stir and agitation of perpetual change; all life enjoys and suffers, endeavours, struggles, conquers, is destroyed and formed again.

My heart has fallen asleep, down to the very depths of my being.

In all these innumerable and manifold elements, I am the Will that moves, the Thought that acts, the Force that realises, the Matter that is put in motion.

My heart has fallen asleep, down to the very depths of my being.

No more personal limits, no more any individual action, no more any separatist concentration creating conflict; nothing but a single and infinite Oneness.

My heart has fallen asleep, down to the very depths of my being.

April 28, 1917

O MY divine Master, who hast appeared to me this night in all Thy radiant splendour, Thou canst in an instant make this being perfectly pure, luminous, translucid, conscious. Thou canst liberate it from its last dark spots, free it from its last preferences. Thou canst…but hast Thou not done this tonight when it was penetrated with Thy divine effluence and Thy ineffable light? It may be… for in me is superhuman strength made all of calm and immensity. Grant that from this summit I may not fall; grant that peace may for ever reign as the master of my being, not only in my depths of which it has long been the sovereign but in the least of my external activities, in the smallest recesses of my heart and of my action.

I salute Thee, O Lord, deliverer of beings!

“Lo! here are flowers and benedictions! here is the smile of divine Love! It is without preferences and without repulsions…It streams out towards all in a generous flow and never takes back its marvellous gifts!”

Her arms outstretched in a gesture of ecstasy, the Eternal Mother pours upon the world the unceasing dew of Her purest love.

July

Akakura, July 13, 1917

ONE day I wrote: “My heart has fallen asleep, down to the very depths of my being…” Merely asleep? I cannot believe it. I think it is at peace, perhaps for ever. From sleep one awakes, from peace one does not fall back. And since that day I have not noticed any relapse. In place of something very intensely concentrated which was for a long time intermittently tumultuous, an immensity so vast and calm and untroubled has come to fill my being; or rather the being has melted into it; for how could the unlimited be contained in a form?

And these great mountains with serene outlines, which I see from my window majestically ranging up to the horizon, are in perfect harmony with the rhythm of this being, filled with an infinite peace. Lord, may it be that Thou hast taken possession of Thy kingdom? Or rather, of this part of Thy kingdom, for the body is still obscure and ignorant, slow to respond, devoid of plasticity. Will it one day be purified like the rest? And will Thy victory then be complete? It matters little. This instrument is what Thou wouldst have it be and unmixed is its felicity.

September

September 24, 1917

THOU hast subjected me to a hard discipline; rung after rung, I have climbed the ladder which leads to Thee; and, at the summit of the ascent, Thou hast made me taste the perfect joy of identity with Thee. Then, obedient to Thy command, rung after rung, I have descended to outer activities and external states of consciousness, re-entering into contact with these worlds that I left to discover Thee. And now that I have come back to the bottom of the ladder, all is so dull, so mediocre, so neutral, in me and around me, that I understand no more.

What is it then that Thou awaitest from me, and to what use that slow long preparation, if all is to end in a result to which the majority of human beings attain without being subjected to any discipline?

How is it possible that having seen all that I have seen, experienced all that I have experienced, after I have been led up even to the most sacred sanctuary of Thy knowledge and communion with Thee, Thou hast made of me so utterly common an instrument in such ordinary circumstances? In truth, O Lord, Thy ends are unfathomable and pass my understanding.

Why, when Thou hast placed in my heart the pure diamond of Thy perfect felicity, sufferest Thou its surface to reflect the shadows which come from outside, and so leave unsuspected and, it would seem, ineffective, the treasure of Peace Thou hast granted me? Truly all this is a mystery and confounds my understanding.

Why, when Thou hast given me this great inner silence, sufferest Thou the tongue to be so active and the thought to be occupied with things so futile? Why?… I could go on questioning indefinitely and, to all likelihood, always in vain.

I have only to bow to Thy decree and accept my condition without uttering a word.

I am now only a spectator who watches the dragon of the world unrolling its coils without end.

(After some days)

Lord, how many times, weakening in face of Thy command, I have prayed to Thee: “Spare me this calvary of the terrestrial consciousness; let me merge in Thy supreme unity.” But my prayer is cowardly, I know it, for it remains fruitless.

October

October 15, 1917

I HAVE cried to Thee in my despair, O Lord, and Thou hast answered my call.

I have no right to complain of the circumstances of my existence; are they not consonant with what I am?

Because Thou ledst me to the threshold of Thy splendour and gavest me the joy of Thy harmony, I thought I had reached the goal; but, in truth, Thou hast regarded Thy instrument in the perfect clarity of Thy light and plunged it back into the crucible of the world that it may be melted anew and purified.

In these hours of an extreme and anguished aspiration I see, I feel myself drawn by Thee with a dizzy rapidity along the road of transformation and my whole being vibrates to a conscious contact with the Infinite.

It is so that Thou givest me patience and the strength to surmount this new ordeal.

November

November 25, 1917

O LORD, because in an hour of cruel distress I said in the sincerity of my faith: “Thy Will be done,” Thou camest garbed in Thy raiment of glory. At Thy feet I prostrated myself, on Thy breast I found my refuge. Thou hast filled my being with Thy divine light and flooded it with Thy bliss. Thou hast reaffirmed Thy alliance and assured me of Thy constant presence. Thou art the sure friend who never fails, the Power, the Support, the Guide. Thou art the Light which scatters darkness, the Conqueror who assures the victory. Since Thou art there, all has become clear. Agni is rekindled in my fortified heart and his splendour shines out and sets aglow the atmosphere and purifies it.

My love for Thee, compressed so long, has leaped forth again, powerful, sovereign, irresistible — increased tenfold by the ordeal it has undergone. It has found strength in its seclusion, the strength to emerge to the surface of the being, impose itself as master on the entire consciousness, absorb everything in its overflowing stream.

Thou hast said to me: “I have returned to leave thee no more.”

And, my forehead on the soil, I have received Thy promise.

1918-1937

July 12, 1918

SUDDENLY, before Thee, all my pride gave way. I understood how futile it was to wish to surmount oneself in Thy Presence…and I wept, wept abundantly and without constraint, the sweetest tears of my life… Yes, how sweet they were, what a repose and calm they gave, the tears that I shed before Thee without any shame or constraint! Was it like a child in the arms of its father? But what a Father! What sublimity, what magnificence, what immensity of understanding! And what power, what plenitude in the response! Yes, those tears were like a holy dew. Was it so because it was not over my own trouble that I wept? Ah, what sweet, what beneficent tears, which have opened my heart without constraint before Thee and melted in one miraculous moment all the remaining obstacles that could separate me from Thee!

A few days back I had known, I had heard: “If thou respondest frankly and without any constraint before me, many things will change, a great victory will be won.” And that is why, when the tears rose from my heart to my eyes, I came and sat before Thee to let them flow as an offering, piously. And how the offering was sweet and comforting!

And now, although I weep no longer, I feel Thee so near, so near to me that my whole being quivers with Joy.

Let me stammer my homage.

I have cried to Thee with the joy of a child:

“O Supreme and only Confidant, Thou who knowest beforehand all we can say to Thee, because Thou art its source!

“O Supreme and only Friend, Thou who acceptest, Thou who lovest and understandest us just as we are, because it is Thyself who hast so made us!

“O Supreme and only Guide, Thou who never gainsayest our higher will, because it is Thyself who wiliest in it! It would be a folly to seek elsewhere than in Thee for one who will listen, understand, love and guide, since Thou art always there to do it and never wilt Thou fail us.

Thou hast made me know the supreme, the sublime joy of a perfect confidence, an absolute security, a total, unreserved and unvarnished surrender, without effort or constraint.

And joyous like a child, I have smiled and wept at once before Thee, O my Beloved!”

October 10, 1918

O MY beloved Lord, what a sweetness to think that it is for Thee and Thee alone that I act! At Thy service I am; it is Thou who decidest, ordainest and puttest in motion, directest and accomplishest the action. What peace, what tranquillity, what supreme felicity are given me when I sense and perceive it! For it is enough to be docile, plastic, surrendered and attentive, so as to let Thee act freely; then there can be no longer errors or faults or any lack or insufficiency, since it is what Thou hast willed that Thou doest and it is so done as Thou hast willed it.

Accept the ardent flame of my gratitude and of my joyous and fully confident adherence.

My father has smiled at me and taken me in his powerful arms. What is there that I could fear? I have melted into Him and it is He who acts and lives in this body which He has Himself formed for His manifestation.

Oiwaké, September 3, 1919

SINCE the man refused the meal I had prepared with so much love and care, I invoked the God to take it.

My God, Thou hast accepted my invitation. Thou hast come to sit at my table, and in exchange for my poor and humble offering Thou hast granted to me the last liberation. My heart, even this morning so heavy with anguish and care, my head surcharged with responsibility, are delivered of their burden. Now are they light and joyful as my inner being has been for a long time past. My body smiles to Thee with happiness as before my soul smiled to Thee!...

And surely hereafter Thou wilt withdraw no more from me this joy, O my God; for this time, I think, the lesson has been sufficient, I have mounted the calvary of successive disillusionments high enough to attain to the Resurrection. Nothing remains of the past but a potent love which gives me the pure heart of a child and the lightness and freedom of thought of a god.

Pondicherry, June 22, 1920

AFTER granting me the joy which surpasses all expression, Thou hast sent me, O my beloved Lord, the struggle, the ordeal, and on this too I have smiled as on one of Thy precious messengers. Before, I dreaded the conflict, for it hurt in me the love of harmony and peace. But now, O my God, I welcome it with gladness: it is one among the forms of Thy action, one of the best means for bringing back to light some elements of the work which might otherwise have been forgotten, and it carries with it a sense of amplitude, of complexity, of power. And even as I have seen Thee, resplendent, initiating the conflict, so also it is Thou whom I see unravelling the entanglement of events and jarring tendencies and winning in the end the victory over all that strives to veil Thy Light and Thy Power; for out of the struggle it is a more perfect realisation of Thyself that must arise.

May 6, 1927

WE must know how to give out life and our death, our happiness and our suffering; we must know how to depend for everything and in everything on the Divine Dispenser of all our possibilities of realisation, for He alone can and will decide whether we are to be happy or not to be happy, whether we are to live or not to live, whether we are to participate in the realisation or not to participate.

In the integrality and absoluteness of this love and this surrender, we find the essential condition of the perfect peace, which is the indispensable foundation of an uninterrupted beatitude.

December 28, 1928

THERE is a Power which no government can command, a Happiness which no earthly success can give, a Light which no wisdom can possess, a Knowledge which no philosophy, no science can acquire, a Beatitude of which no satisfaction of desire can give the enjoyment, a thirst for Love which no human relation can quench, a Peace which can be found nowhere, not even in death.

It is the Power, the Happiness, the Light, the Knowledge, the Beatitude, the Love and the Peace which come to us from the Divine Grace.

November 24, 1931

O MY Lord, my sweet Master, for the accomplishment of Thy work I have sunk down into the unfathomable depths of Matter, I have touched with my finger the horror of the falsehood and the inconscience, I have reached the seat of oblivion and a supreme obscurity! But in my heart was the Remembrance, from my heart there leaped the call which could arrive to Thee: “Lord, Lord, everywhere Thy enemies are triumphant, falsehood is the monarch of the world; life without Thee is death, a perpetual hell; doubt has usurped the place of Hope and revolt has pushed out submission; Faith is spent, Gratitude is not born; blind passions and murderous instincts and a guilty weakness have covered and stifled Thy sweet law of love. Lord, wilt Thou permit Thy enemies to prevail, falsehood and ugliness and suffering to triumph? Lord, give the command to conquer and victory will be there. I know we are unworthy, I know the world is not yet ready. But I cry to Thee with an absolute faith in Thy Grace and I know that Thy Grace will save us.”

Thus, my prayer rushed up towards Thee; and, from the depths of the abyss, I beheld Thee in Thy radiant splendour; Thou didst appear and Thou saidst to me: “Lose not courage, be firm, be confident, — I COME.”

October 23, 1937

(A prayer for those who wish to serve the Divine)

GLORY to Thee, O Lord, who triumphest over every obstacle.

Grant that nothing in us shall be an obstacle in Thy work.

Grant that nothing may retard Thy manifestation.

Grant that Thy will may be done in all things and at every moment.

We stand here before Thee that Thy will may be fulfilled in us, in every element, in every activity of our being, from our supreme heights to the smallest cells of the body.

Grant that we may be faithful to Thee utterly and for ever.

We would be completely under Thy influence to the exclusion of every other.

Grant that we may never forget to own towards Thee a deep, an intense gratitude.

Grant that we may never squander any of the marvellous things that are Thy gifts to us at every instant.

Grant that everything in us may collaborate in Thy work and all be ready for Thy realisation.

Glory to Thee, O Lord, Supreme Master of all realisation.

Give us a faith active and ardent, absolute an unshakable in Thy Victory.