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 Page – 289 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 hommage: 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 ! Page – 290
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.
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 Page – 291 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.
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 Page – 292 sense of amplitude, of complexity, of power. And even as I have seen Thee, resplendent, exciting 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.
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 he 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.
THERE is a Power which no government can command, a Happiness which no earthly Page – 293 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 no where, 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 Page – 294 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."
{A prayer for those who wish to serve the Divine.) October 23, 1937
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. Page – 295 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. Page – 296 |