August 17, 1913 (PM 010)

This prayer reveals to us what our true priorities should be and also shows us the way to liberation from all that holds us back from our true progress…

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.