Prayers of the Mother (a book)

123 Prayers
Translated by
Sri Aurobindo
or
Translated by Disciples
and Revised by Him

Publisher’s Note

The 123 prayers in this collection are translations of prayers that were originally written in French by the Mother. Twenty-five of these prayers were translated by Sri Aurobindo in whole or in part; the rest were translated by his disciples and then revised by him; in revising them, he not only corrected the translations for errors of language and grammar but recast them with a view to style. All bear the touch of his literary excellence.

Sixty-one of these prayers were first published in 1941 under the title Prayers and Meditations of the Mother; three more prayers were added by the Mother in 1962. These sixty-four prayers form the base of the present collection. The remaining fifty-nine prayers, translated by disciples and revised by Sri Aurobindo, bring the total number to 123. Fifty-eight are being published here for the first time. These 123 prayers comprise all of Sri Aurobindo’s known literary translations of the Mother’s prayers.

The Mother in Tokyo, 1916

2 November 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 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.

3 November 1912

LET Thy Light be in me like a Fire that makes all alive; let Thy divine Love penetrate me. I aspire with all my being for Thy reign as sovereign and master of my mind and heart and body; let them be Thy docile instruments and Thy faithful servitors.

19 November 1912

I SAID yesterday to that young 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.

26 November 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!

28 November 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 repass 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.

2 December 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.

3 December 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 object 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.

5 December 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.

7 December 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 willest 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.

10 December 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. Amen.

11 December 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.

5 February 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.

8 February 1913

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.

10 February 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,

And sanctify life;

Let it transform men’s hearts,

And Thy Peace reign on earth.

12 February 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!…

13 March 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.

11 May 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 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.

18 June 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!

21 July 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!

28 November 1913

MOTHER Divine, grant that today may bring to us a completer consecration to Thy Will, a more integral gift of ourselves to Thy work, a more total forgetfulness of self, a greater illumination, a purer love. Grant that in a communion growing ever deeper, more constant and entire, we may be united always more and more closely to Thee and become Thy servitors worthy of Thee. Remove from us all egoism, root out all petty vanity, greed and obscurity. May we be all ablaze with Thy divine Love; make us Thy torches in the world.

Sri Aurobindo’s translation of the third paragraph
of the prayer of 28 November 1913.[1] 

24 January 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.

1 February 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 time 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 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.

14 February 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!

15 February 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 into 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 fantasies; 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. May I be nothing else any more than a flame of love utterly awakened to a supreme realisation of Thee.

7 March 1914

On board the Kaga Maru

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 ills, 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!

8 March 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 disperses all ignorance, O Thou the supreme healer, be constantly present on this boat in the heart of those whom it shelters that once again Thy glory may be manifested!

9 March 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.

25 March 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 is awake. 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 givest to it the peace of Knowledge.

10 April 1914

SUDDENLY the veil was rent, the horizon was disclosed — and 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 definitely 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 one 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.

17 April 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 willest 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.

12 May 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 “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.

21 May 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.

22 May 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 for 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 and a complete manifestation 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.

26 May 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.

1 June 1914

O VICTORIOUS power of divine Love, Thou art the sovereign Master of this universe; Thou art its Creator and its Saviour; Thou hast permitted it to emerge from chaos and now Thou leadest it towards its eternal purpose. There is nothing so humble but that I see Thee shine in it, no being in appearance so hostile to Thy Will but that I feel Thee live in it and act and radiate.

O my sweet Master, O essence of that love, I am Thy heart and the torrents of Thy love pass through the entirety of my being and flow out to awaken Thy love in all things, — or rather, to awaken all things to the consciousness of Thy love which animates all.

All who recognise Thee not, all who are ignorant of Thee, all who seek to turn away from Thy sweet and divine law, I take in my arms of love, and cradle them on my heart of love and offer them to Thy divine blaze so that penetrated by Thy miraculous effluence they may be converted in Thy beatitude.

O Love, resplendent Love, Thou penetratest, Thou transfigurest all.

4 June 1914

O THOU who triumphest over all obstacles, Thou shalt be in us the victory over all that would oppose the fulfilment of Thy divine law. Thou wilt disperse the shadow of ignorance and the black smoke of egoistic ill-will; Thou wilt dissolve all evil suggestions and fortify in us a clear and pure vision and the perspicacity that does not suffer itself to be deceived by disruptive thoughts and the forces of disorder.

O my sweet Master, Thy infinite love is the reality of our being; who can struggle against its all-powerful action? It penetrates all; it passes through every obstacle, whether it be 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 that splendour of Thine ever increasing in its force, shall radiate its action over all the earth, and become perceptible to the consciousness of all.

Who can resist Thy divine power?

Thou art the unique and supreme Reality!

My being is gathered into itself in a mute adoration and all disappears that is not Thou.

9 June 1914

LORD, I am before Thee like an offering ablaze in the ardent fire of the divine union….

And that which is thus before Thee is all the stones of this house and all that it contains and all those who cross its threshold and all who see it, all who are in touch with it in any way; and from one to another the whole earth.

From this ardent centre and focus which is now and will be ever more and more permeated with Thy light and with Thy love, Thy forces shall radiate over all the earth, visibly and invisibly in the hearts of all and in their thoughts….

Such is the certitude which Thou givest me in answer to my aspiration towards Thee.

An immense wave of love descends over all things and penetrates all things.

Peace, peace upon all the earth, victory, plenitude, wonder.

O beloved children, sorrowful and ignorant, and thou, O Nature, rebellious and violent, open your hearts, tranquillise your forces; for lo, there cometh the sweet omnipotence of love, lo, the pure radiance of the light that penetrates you. This is the human, the earthly hour beautiful over all hours. Let each and all know it, and enjoy the plenitude that is given.

O saddened hearts and careworn brows, O foolish obscurity and ignorant ill-will, let your anguish be calmed and your suffering disappear.

Lo the splendour of the new word arrives —

“Here am I.”

11 June 1914

EVERY morning, O Lord, it is a salutation innumerable that rises to Thee, a salutation from all the states of being and from all the multitude of their elements. It is a daily consecration of all to the All, a call from the egoism and the ignorance to Thy Light and Thy Love. And constant comes Thy reply and it is perceived in its entirety: “All is light, all is love; the ignorance, the egoism are but vain phantoms, they can be dissolved.”

And over all is spread Thy sovereign peace, Thy fruitful calm.

16 June 1914

LIKE a sun Thy splendour descends upon the earth; Thy rays shall illumine the world. All the elements that are pure enough, plastic enough, sufficiently receptive to manifest the very splendour of the central nucleus are grouping themselves together. This grouping is not arbitrary and does not depend on the will or the aspiration of one element or another; it depends on what he is, it is independent of any individual decision. Thy splendour wills to radiate; that manifests it which is capable of manifesting it; and these elements are gathered together in order that they may reconstitute as perfectly as can be in this world of division the divine nucleus which has to be manifested.

All the cells of the being exult in the wonder of this contemplation and, seeing That which Is, the entire substance passes into an ecstasy. How to distinguish now between that substance and Thyself! It is, in a perfect identification, Thou — completely, entirely, intensely Thou.

17 June 1914

ALL that has until now been conceived and realised is mediocre, commonplace, insufficient compared to that which is to be. The perfections of the past have no present force. A new might is needed to transform the new powers and to subject them to Thy divine Will. — “Ask, and this shall be”, is Thy constant reply. And now, O Lord, Thou must create in this being the constant aspiration, uninterrupted, intense, passionate in the immutable serenity. The silence, the peace are there: but there must be born the persistence of the intensity. O Thy heart sings a hallelujah of joy, as if what Thou willest were on the way to its fulfilment. Let all these elements perish, that from their ashes may emerge new elements fitted to the new manifestation.

Oh, the immensity of Thy luminous Peace!

Oh, the omnipotence of Thy sovereign Love!

And beyond all that we can think, the unspeakable splendour of that which we feel to be coming. Give unto us the Thought, give unto us the Word, give unto us the Force.

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

18 June 1914

ALWAYS the same Will is at work. The Force is there, waiting to manifest itself: we must discover the new form which will permit the new manifestation. And Thou, only Thou, O Lord, canst grant this knowledge. It is for us with our whole being to make the effort, ask, aspire. But it is for Thee to answer with the Illumination, the Knowledge and the Power.

O joyful canticle of Thy victorious Presence!…

19 June 1914

FILL our hearts with the delight of Thy Love.

Flood our minds with the splendour of Thy Light.

Grant that we may effectuate Thy Victory!

23 June 1914

THOU art the sovereign power of transformation, — why shouldst Thou not act on all who are brought in contact with Thee by our intermediation? We lack faith in Thy power: always we think that men must will this integral transformation in their conscious thought for it to come about. We forget that it is Thou who willest in them and that Thou canst so will that their whole being becomes illumined …. We doubt Thy might, O Lord, and thus we become bad intermediaries and veil the major part of its transforming force.

O give us this faith which we lack; give us the certitude of detail which is wanting in us …. Deliver us from the common way of thinking and judging; grant that we may live in the consciousness of Thy infinite love and see it at work at every moment and that by our consciousness of it we may bring it into touch with the most material states of being….

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

24 June 1914

FROM the viewpoint of the manifestation, of the work to be carried forward on earth, a hierarchy is needed, — but in this world still in disorder, can it be established apart from any arbitrary choice, in perfect conformity with Thy law? … The observing being in me, calm, indifferent, smiling, looks upon the play, the comedy which is unfolding itself and awaits circumstances with serenity, knowing that they are never but a most imperfect translation of that which should be.

But the religious being in me turns to Thee, O Lord, in a great aspiration of love, and implores Thy help so that it may be “the best” that shall be realised, so that as many obstacles as possible shall be overcome, as many obscurities as possible shall be dispersed, as many egoistic ill-wills as may be shall be vanquished. It is not “the best” in the circumstances of the present disorder which must come to pass — for that always comes to pass — it is the circumstances themselves which a greater effort than ever yet was made must transfigure so that a “best” new in quality, new in quantity, an altogether exceptional “best”, may be manifested.

So let it be!

*

It is always a mistake to judge of the future or even to try to foresee it by the thought we have about it; for this thought is the present, it is, in the very measure of its impersonality, the translation of the present relations — which are, necessarily, not the future relations, — between all the elements of the terrestrial problem. To deduce future from present circumstances is a mental activity of the order of reasoning, even if the deduction takes place in the subconscient and is translated in the being into the form of intuition. But reasoning is a human, an individual faculty; its inspirations do not come from the infinite, the unlimited, the Divine. It is only in the All-knowledge, it is only when we are at the same time that which knows, that which is to be known, and the power to know that we can become conscious of all relations, past, present and future; but in that state there is no longer a past, present or future; all eternally is. The order of manifestation of all these relations does not solely depend on the supreme impetus, on the divine law; it depends also on the resistance opposed to that law by the most external world. From the combination of both together there comes forth the manifestation, and so far as it is at present possible for me to know this combination is in a way indeterminate. It is this that makes the “play”, the unexpectedness of the play ….

30 June 1914

EACH activity in its own domain, accomplishing its special mission without disorder, without confusion, one fitting into another, all grouped hierarchically around a single centre, — Thy Will …. What beings lack most is clarity and order; each element, each state of being, instead of fulfilling its function in tune with all the others, wants to be a whole in itself, a thing autonomous and independent. Therein lies the ignorant error of all this universe, a global error, repeating itself in millions and millions of examples. But under the pretext that these activities are separated from each other and in disorder, to wish to suppress them and let only Thy single Will subsist, which in its solitude would have no reason to exist, would be an undertaking as absurd as it is unrealisable. It is easier indeed to suppress than to organise, but harmonious order is a realisation far superior to suppression. And even if the final goal were a return to Non-Being, the return does not seem possible except through a highest perfection of the being….

O my sweet Master, grant to them that they may feel Thy infinite tenderness and, in the calm repose that it gives, perceive and realise the supreme order of Thy Law.

Let Thy Will which is all Love, let Thy Peace be manifested.

1 July 1914

WE hail Thee, O Lord, with adoration and with joy, we give ourselves to Thee in a gift constantly renewed, so that Thy Will may be fulfilled upon earth and in every part of this universe.

When we turn towards Thee, the thought is dumb but the heart exults; for Thou shinest in everything, the least grain of sand can be an occasion for worship.

We bow down before Thee, we unite with Thee, O Lord, in a love that is limitless and full of an inexpressible beatitude.

O grant this sovereign joy to all.

4 July 1914

O SOVEREIGN Force, O victorious Power, Purity, Beauty, Love supreme! grant to the entirety of this being and the whole of this body to approach Thee religiously and offer to Thee in a complete and modest surrender this means of manifestation abandoned perfectly to Thy Will, if not perfectly ready for this realisation …. With the calm and strong certitude that Thou wilt one day accomplish the expected miracle and manifest in its fullness Thy sublime splendour, we turn to Thee in deep ecstasy and silently implore Thee —

O Immensity, Infinity, Wonder!… Thou alone art and Thou shinest in all things. The hour is near of Thy fulfilment. The whole of Nature is gathered religiously into herself …

Thou answerest her ardent call!

8 July 1914

O DIVINE Force, supreme Illuminatrix, hearken to our prayer! draw not to a distance, retire not, help us to fight the good fight, strengthen us for the struggle, grant us the force to conquer!

O my sweet Master, Thou whom I adore without knowing Thee, Thou whom I am without realising Thee, my whole conscious individuality prostrates itself before Thee and implores in the name of the workers in their struggle, in the name of the earth in her agony, in the name of suffering humanity, in the name of striving Nature, O sweet Master, O marvellous Unknowable, O Dispenser of all boons, Thou who makest light to leap forth in the darkness, and strength to be born out of weakness, support our effort, guide our steps, lead us to Victory.

10 July 1914

O THOU who eternally, immutably art, Thou who consentest to become in this world that Thou mayst bring into it a new illumination, a new impulse! Thou art there; manifest Thyself more and more completely, always more perfectly. The instrument has given and gives itself to Thee with an enthusiastic adhesion, a total surrender: Thou canst reduce it to dust or transform it into a sun, it will resist nothing that is Thy Will. In this surrender lies its true power and its true beatitude.

But why dost Thou spare the animality of the body? Is it because it is necessary to give it time that it may adapt itself to the marvellous complexity, the powerful infinity of Thy Force? Is it Thy Will that makes itself gentle and patient, is unwilling to act abruptly, leaves to the elements leisure to adapt themselves? … I would say, is it better thus, or is it impossible otherwise? Is there here a special incapacity which Thou toleratest with mansuetude, or is this a general law which is an inevitable portion of all that has to be transformed?…

But it matters little what we think about it, since thus it is. The attitude alone is important: should we fight, should we accept? And it is Thou who dictatest the attitude, it is Thy Will that determines it at each instant. Why foresee and contrive when it is enough to observe and to give a full adhesion.

The working in the constitution of the physical cells is perceptible: permeated with a considerable quantity of force, they seem to dilate and to become lighter. But the brain is still heavy and asleep. … I unite myself to this body, O divine Master, and cry to Thee: “Spare me not, act with Thy sovereign Omnipotence; for in me Thou hast put the Will to an entire transfiguration.”

13 July 1914

PATIENCE, strength, courage, calm and indomitable energy!…

Let the mind learn to be silent, let it not be eager to take immediate advantage of the forces which come from Thee for the integral manifestation.

But why has been chosen for the expression of Thy Will the poorest element, the most mediocre, the most imperfect?…

15 July 1914

WHAT, O Lord?…

Just as Thou wilt, just as Thou wilt….

This instrument is weak, mediocre; Thou hast taught it that all activities are possible for it, in all human activities none radically strange to it; but it is in intensity, in perfection only that the Divine begins, and until now Thou hast granted to it no extraordinary intensity, no true perfection…. All is in the stage of promise, — a promise not individual but collective — nothing is completely realised.

Why, О Lord?…

Thou hast placed in my heart a peace so entire that it seems almost to be indifference, and in an immensity of calm serenity, it says;

Just as Thou wilt, just as Thou wilt….

18 July 1914

TWO things remain unshakable in spite of all winds of tempest, even the most violent: the will that all may be happy with the true happiness — Thine; and the ardent desire to be perfectly united and identified with Thee…. All the rest is perhaps still the result of an effort and a pretension, this is spontaneous, unshakable; and at the moment when it seems as though the earth were giving way and all crumbling, this appears luminous, pure and calm, piercing through the clouds, dispelling the shadows, emerging greater and stronger from the ruins, carrying in itself Thy infinite peace and beatitude.

19 July 1914

О LORD, Thou art the omnipotent Master of Thy own manifestation; grant to these instruments that they may escape from frames too narrow, from limits too fixed and mediocre. All the riches of human possibility are needed to translate even one atom of Thy infinite force…. Open the doors that are closed, make to gush forth the sealed fountains that the floods of Thy eloquence and Thy beauty may overspread the world. Amplitude and majesty, nobility and grace, charm and grandeur, variety and might: for it is the will of the Lord to manifest.

О my sweet Master, Thou art the sovereign ruler of our destinies; Thou art the omnipotent Master of Thy own manifestation….

Thine is all this world, all these creatures and all these atoms: transfigure them, illumine!

23 July 1914

LORD, Thou art almighty: become the combatant, gain the victory. Let Thy Love be the sovereign master of our hearts and Thy Knowledge never leave our thoughts…. Abandon us not to impotence and obscurity; break every limit, shatter every chain, dissipate every illusion.

Our aspiration rises to Thee in ardent prayer.

25 July 1914

AT the rising of the sun I sang the praise of this world in which it is possible not only to desire Thee, but to know Thee and even to become Thyself. And I was astonished that there should be some who so ardently aspire to leave this universe and enter into another world of perfection.

Thou hast placed such contentment in my heart that it has become impossible for me not to feel satisfied in all circumstances internal or external…. And yet, something in my being aspires always for more beauty, for more light, for more knowledge, for more love, — in a word, for a more conscious, a more constant relation with Thee…. But that too depends on Thy will, and it shall be when it is Thy will that Thou wilt grant me the entire transfiguration.

27 July 1914

HUMBLY, quietly my prayer rises to Thee, О sweet Master, Thou who acceptest without discussion or criticism all that offers itself to Thee, Thou who givest Thyself and makest Thyself known to all without asking whether they are worthy, Thou who findest nothing too weak, too small, too modest, too inadequate to manifest Thee….

Let me lay myself at Thy feet, let me melt into Thy heart and disappear in Thee, let me be annihilated in Thy beatitude. Or rather let me be Thy servant only, claiming nothing more. I desire, I aspire for nothing else. To be only Thy servant is all I ask.

31 July 1914

IT seems that Thou wouldst make me taste successively all the experiences that are ordinarily put at the summit of a Yoga, as its last outcome and the proof of its perfect accomplishment. The experience is striking, intense, complete; it bears in it the knowledge of all its effects, all its consequences, it is conscious, willed, the result of methodical effort and not of an unexpected chance; and yet it is always single of its kind; it is like milestones that we place along the way, separated from each other by a long ribbon of road, and these milestones which are the landmarks of the infinite ascension are never alike; always they are new and seem to have no connection one with the other…. Will a moment come when Thou wilt make this being capable of synthetising all these innumerable experiences so as to gather from them a new realisation, more complete and more beautiful than all accomplished until now? I know not, but Thou hast taught me not to regret an exceptional state when it disappears, any more than I desire it before it comes. I see in the disappearance no longer the sign of an instability in the progress made, but the evidence of a march which goes deliberately forward without stopping more than the time indispensable for the different stages of the way.

Every time Thou teachest me yet a little more that the means of manifestation is limited only because we think it so, and that it can effectively participate in Thy infinitude. Each time something of Thy immensity makes itself kin to the instrument which is its dwelling-place, flinging wide doors which open on horizons without a limit.

4 August 1914

О LORD, О eternal Master —

Men, pushed by the conflict of forces, are performing a sublime sacrifice, they are offering their lives in a bloodstained holocaust….

О Lord, О eternal Master, grant that the sacrifice may not be in vain; grant that inexhaustible floods of the divine Force may overspread the earth and penetrate the troubled atmosphere, the struggling energies, the violent chaos of battling elements; grant that the pure light of Thy knowledge and the inexhaustible love in Thy benediction may fill men’s hearts, penetrate their souls, illumine their consciousness and make to leap forth out of this obscurity, out of this sombre, terrible and potent darkness the splendour of Thy majestic presence!

My being is laid before Thee in a holocaust conscious and complete that their inconscient holocaust may by it be made effective.

Accept the offering, answer our call: Come!

5 August 1914

О ETERNAL Master, Thou art in all things like a vivifying breath, a sweet peace, a sun of luminous love piercing the clouds of obscurity.

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

О divine Master, accept the offering of all myself as a holocaust that Thy work may be fulfilled and the times may not pass by in vain!

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

О divine Master, accept this offering, this complete holocaust that the time may not have come in vain.

My whole being is transformed into an ardent flame, a flame of sacrifice of pure love.

Become once more the king of Thy kingdom, free the earth from the heavy weight which is crushing it, the weight of its own inert, ignorant and obscure ill-will.

О my sweet Master, my being is ablaze with the ardent flame of the sacrifice of love: accept my offering that the obstacle may be overcome.

6 August 1914

WHAT then are the faults, the blemishes that prevent the offering from being complete enough for Thee to welcome it, the holocaust from seeming to Thee worthy to be received?… Limitations there are still in this being, but wilt Thou not shatter them?

О Lord, we know that it is an hour of great gravity for the earth; those who can be Thy intermediaries that from the conflict there may arise a greater harmony and from its dark ugliness a diviner beauty, must be ready for this work. О Lord, О eternal Master, we entreat Thee, answer our endeavour, enlighten it, show us the way, give us the strength to break down all inner resistance and overcome every obstacle.

О my sweet Master, I prostrate myself at Thy feet; my entire being cries to Thee in an ardent supplication…. “Deliver me from the incapacity of the personal being.”

8 August 1914

MY pen is silent … so absorbing is this material world! Why must we let it take so much place in our consciousness? Is it an incapacity in us? Is it Thy Will?

О my sweet Master, I would live only in Thee, but Thy answer is that I must live for Thee; and in thus living for Thee our consciousness turns towards external domains and we seem to go far from Thee.

I know that this is not altogether true; but there is a resistance still in the being which refuses to yield, there is a door which remains closed, a door of luminous intelligence that no effort has been able till now to open, and this terribly impoverishes Thy manifestation.

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

Monstrous forces have thrown themselves on the earth like a hurricane, forces dark and violent and powerful and blind. Give us strength, О Lord, to illumine them. Thy splendour must break out everywhere in them and transfigure their action; their devastating passage must leave behind it a divine sowing.

О my divine Master, reject not my offering. Make me worthy to be wholly Thine in the plenitude of the gift and the fullness of the manifestation.

20 August 1914

TО perceive the goal from a new angle which can usefully light up the rest, we must constantly make over again the experience of the inner discovery, and return to the extreme limit of the consciousness without at any time postulating in advance what will be the end of our journey.

But instinctively the mind remembers the impression that it received from one or from some of the preceding contacts of our consciousness with the ultimate centre, and says: “That is what one finds at the end of the way.” It does not reflect that the “That” which is in its thought only one of innumerable ways of translating the goal or even of travestying it, nor does it perceive that the intellectual conception must follow the experience and not precede it.

To go over the road again in all innocence as though one had never yet trodden it, is the true purity, the perfect sincerity; it is this that permits an uninterrupted progress, a growth, an integral perfectioning.

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

… О Thou, whom I cannot think, but whom with certitude I know!

21 August 1914

О LORD, Lord, the whole earth is overturned and groans and suffers and is in agony…. It must not be that all this pain has descended upon it in vain; grant that this bloodshed may produce a more rapid germination of the seeds of beauty and light and love that must blossom and cover the earth with their rich harvest. From the bottom of this abyss of darkness the whole being of the earth cries to Thee to give it air and light; it stifles, wilt Thou not come to its aid?…

О Lord, what must we do to triumph?

Hear us, for we must conquer at any price. Break down every resistance: appear!

25 August 1914

О LORD, let Thy Will be done, Thy work be accomplished. Strengthen our devotion, increase our surrender, give us light on the way. We erect Thee within ourselves as the supreme Master, that Thou mayest become the Master of all this earth.

Our speech is still ignorant: enlighten it.

Our aspiration is still imperfect: purify it.

Our action is still powerless: make it effective.

О Lord, the earth groans and suffers; chaos has made this world its dwelling-place.

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

26 August 1914

О MY sweet Master, О Lord of Felicity, all these worlds of Felicity interpenetrating and completing one another are an immensity difficult to perceive in their whole. Give us the knowledge of its laws, give us the power to awaken the earth to an understanding and perception of the aim so blindly pursued.

In all things Thou art happiness without alloy, a blessed felicity; but the felicity is perfect only when it is integral, from the most external manifestations down into the most unfathomable depths.

О Lord, Thou hast placed me on a threshold of wonder; confirm me in this knowledge. Establish me in that centre of consciousness from whence all my activities will be an unmixed expression of Thy law.

In a potent and mute adoration, I wait….

27 August 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, О 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….

28 August 1914

О LORD, О eternal Master, my thought remains mute and powerless before Thee, but my heart calls to Thee. Awaken my entire being that it may be for Thee the needed instrument, the perfect servant.

О to be infinitely Thou, Thou in all, Thou everywhere, Thou always, the absolute silence, the absolute movement.

To be no more anything other than the One, all-containing, contained in all, — free from every limit and from all blindness.

О Supreme Triumphant, triumph over every obstacle.

29 August 1914

WHAT would be the use of man if he were not created to throw a bridge between that which eternally Is but is not manifested and that which is manifested, between all the transcendencies and splendours of the divine life and all the dark and sorrowful ignorance of the material world? Man is the link between what must be and what is; he is the footbridge thrown across the abyss, the large cross-wise X, the quaternary point of union. His true domicile, the effective seat of his consciousness, must be in the intermediary world at the junction of the four arms of the cross, there where comes all the infinity of the Unthinkable to take a precise form so that it may be projected into the innumerable manifestation….

That centre is a place of supreme love, of perfect consciousness, of pure and entire knowledge. There establish, О Lord, those who can, who must and will truly serve Thee, so that Thy work may be accomplished, the bridge definitively established, and Thy forces poured unwearyingly over the world.

31 August 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 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 farther step, infallibly and without care for the inevitable results, whatever be the apparent momentary consequences: they unite themselves with Thee, О Master eternal, they unite themselves with Thee, О 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.

1 September 1914

О 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, О 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.

13 September 1914

WITH fervour I salute Thee, О divine Mother, and with great tenderness identify myself with Thee. United to our divine Mother I turn, О Lord, towards Thee, and salute Thee in mute adoration, and in an ardent aspiration identify myself with Thee.

Then, all becomes a marvellous Silence; Being is absorbed in Non-Being, all is suspended, arrested, immutable ….

How shall one express the Ineffable?

14 September 1914

THERE is no longer an “I”, no longer an individuality, no longer any personal limits, — there is only the immense universe, our sublime Mother, burning with an ardent fire of purification in honour of Thee, О Lord, divine Master, sovereign Will, so that that Will may meet with no farther obstacle in the way of its realisation.

A mighty canticle of fervent love and exultation arises to Thee, О Lord; all the earth is united to Thee in an inexpressible ecstasy.

Let Thy potent breath feed the brazier that it may become more and more vast and formidable, that all darkness and blind resistance may be absorbed, set ablaze, transfigured into Light in the marvellous purifying flame.

О the splendour of Thy purification and its power for peace!

16 September 1914

HEARKEN to the voice that mounts, hearken to the chant that rises to salute Thy divine dawn….

Let the supreme law be fulfilled; whether it be existence eternal, universal, or reabsorption in the Non-Being, little does it matter. Must one choose between the two? I cannot; in my consciousness there is no longer any preference, only one Will persists, — Thine, О Ineffable.

And all this universe is no more aught else than an ever vaster and more harmonious song arising to salute Thy divine dawn.

20 September 1914

MY pen is mute; for thought is silent, but my heart aspires to Thee, О Lord, uniting Thee to our divine Mother in one love, one veneration. And through Thee the whole being strains towards the Ineffable; beyond Being, beyond the very Silence that is united to That.

Datta’s translation of the prayer of 20 September 1914,
revised by Sri Aurobindo

24 September 1914

HOW art Thou present among us, О beloved Mother! It is as if Thou wouldst assure us of Thy complete assistance, as if Thou wouldst show us that the Will which means to manifest through us, has found in us instruments which can realise its Law by placing it in complete accordance with Thy present possibilities. The things which seemed the most difficult, the most improbable, perhaps even the most impossible, become wholly realisable, because Thy presence is our assurance that the material world itself is prepared to manifest the new form of the Will and the Law.

I salute Thee, in the joyous plenitude of the perfect harmony, Thee, Thy principle and Thy works.

25 September 1914

О DIVINE and adorable Mother, with Thy help what is there that is impossible? The hour of realisations is near and Thou hast assured us of Thy aid that we may perform 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.

28 September 1914

MY pen is mute to chant Thy presence, О 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.

30 September 1914

О THOU, Sublime Love, to whom I gave never any other name but who art so wholly the very substance of my being, Thou whom I feel vibrant and alive in the least of my atoms even as in the infinite universe and beyond, Thou who breathest in every breath, movest in the heart of all activities, art radiant through all that is of good will and hidden behind all sufferings, Thou for whom I cherish a cult without limit which grows ever more intense, permit that I may with more and more reason feel that I am Thyself wholly.

And Thou, О Lord, who art all this made one and much more, О Sovereign Master, extreme limit of our thought who standest for us at the threshold of the Unknown, make rise from that Unthinkable some new splendour, some possibility of a loftier and more integral realisation, that Thy work may be accomplished and the universe take one step farther towards the sublime Identity, the supreme Manifestation.

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

5 October 1914

IN the calm silence of Thy contemplation, О 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 them, that Thy Peace may appease. 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.

6 October 1914

О SWEET Mother, Thou must teach me to be entirely and constantly Thyself, wholly consecrated to the giving of a means of ever wider and more perfect expression to That which wills to manifest….

All is calm, serene; there is no more struggle, no more anguish: aspiration itself becomes sovereignly peaceful in its immensity, yet loses nothing of its intensity; and through a curious opposition in the consciousness, like the obverse and the reverse sides of a medal, the being perceives at one and the same time the immutable calm of the infinite reality in which all is for ever, without any possibility of change, and the ardent and rapid march of all that becomes without cessation in an uninterrupted progress…. To Thee, О Lord, both are equally true.

7 October 1914

OH, let Light be poured on all the 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 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, О Lord, that under cover of the present turmoil, in the very heart of this extreme confusion the miracle may be accomplished and 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 divine consciousness.

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

8 October 1914

THE joy that is contained in activity is compensated and balanced by the perhaps still greater joy contained in withdrawal from all activity; when the two states alternate in the being or are simultaneously conscious, the felicity is complete, for then, О Lord, is realised Thy plenitude.

О divine Master, Thou hast granted me the infinitude of divine contemplation, the perfect calm of Thy eternity, and through identification with our divine Mother, the All-Realiser, Thou hast permitted me to participate in her sovereign power to be conscious and act….

In the omnipotent felicity of Thy infinitude I salute Thee!

14 October 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 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 circumstance can have the power to take it away from me?

16 October 1914

IT is Thy will that I should be like a channel, ever open, ever wider, through which Thy forces may pour themselves in abundance on the world…. О Lord, let Thy will be done! Am I not Thy will and Thy consciousness in a felicity supreme?

The being grows incommensurably in largeness and becomes vast like the universe.

17 October 1914

О DIVINE Mother, the obstacles shall be surmounted, the enemies appeased, Thou shalt dominate the whole earth with Thy sovereign love, and the consciousness of all shall be illumined with Thy serenity.

This is the promise.

23 October 1914

О LORD, the entire being is ready and it calls Thee to take possession of Thy own; of what service can be the instrument if the master will not use it? And whatever be the mode of manifestation, it shall be well, from the most modest, most obscure, most material, most outwardly limited, to the most vast, the most brilliant, the most powerful, the most intellectual.

The entire being is ready and waits in a passive silence till it is Thy will to manifest.

25 October 1914

MY aspiration to Thee, О 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, О 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.

8 November 1914

FOR the plenitude of Thy Light we invoke Thee, О 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.

9 November 1914

О LORD, for perfect consciousness we aspire….

All the being is gathered together like a well-tied sheaf made of different but harmonised flowers. The will was the hand that gathered the flowers and the tie that bound the sheaf, and it is the will that now holds it out to Thee like a scented offering. To Thee it is held out unweariedly, without faltering.

10 November 1914

О LORD, Thy Presence is settled in me like a firm rock; the whole being exults in belonging to Thee without the least reserve, with a complete and general surrender.

О Consciousness serene and immobile, Thou watchest at the confines of the world like the sphinx of eternity; and yet to some Thou yieldest Thy secret and they can become Thy sovereign Will which chooses without preference and executes without desire.

21 November 1914

О LORD, Thou hast given me Thy power, that Thy peace and joy may reign over the world.

And this being is no longer aught else than an embrace of peace which envelops the whole earth, than an ocean of joy which spreads over all things.

О ye who are full of hatred, rancour shall be effaced from your hearts as the sea effaces an imprint upon the sand.

О ye who feed on vengeance, peace will pass into your hearts as into the soul of a child lulled by its mother.

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

12 December 1914

WE must know at each instant how to lose all that we may gain all, — we must be able to throw off the past like a dead body that we may be reborn into a greater plenitude…. It is so that the constant aspiration of the inner being expresses itself; turned towards Thee, it wills to reflect Thee in an ever purer mirror. Thy immutable beatitude is translated in it into a propelling force of progress incomparably intense; and this force is transformed in the most external being into a calm and assured will that no obstacle can vanquish.

О Divine Master, with what an ardent love am I Thy faithful servant! With what a pure, immobile and infinite joy am I Thyself in all that is and beyond all existence in form. And these two consciousnesses unite in an unequalled plenitude.

15 December 1914

О LORD, Thou hast given me peace in force, serenity in action, immutable happiness in the midst of all circumstances.

2 January 1915

ANY idea, however powerful, however profound it be, 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 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 divisions of time are purely arbitrary, that the date assigned to the renewal of the year varies according to latitudes, climates, habits, and is purely conventional. This is the mental attitude which smiles at the childishness of men and wishes to leave itself to the guidance of deeper truths. And then suddenly the mind itself feels its impotence to translate these truths exactly, 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…. The occidental year renews itself? Then why not profit by it to will with renewed ardour that this symbol should 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, can shut Thee up in our mental formulas; but however vast, complex, synthetic they may be, Thou wilt remain always the Ineffable, even for him who knows and lives Thee…. For one can live Thee, 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, worthy of all wonder; 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 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, faced with its ignorance, the mental being remains luminous, calm and smiling, even as though it possessed the supreme knowledge, — to be Thou innumerably, invariably, infinitely, just simply Thou.

24 January 1915

О LORD, long I 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 saidst to me: “Turn thy look 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.

15 February 1915

О 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 on the earth, and the being appeared erect, always as substantial but resplendent with a dazzling light.

3 March 1915

SOLITUDE, a harsh intense solitude, and always this strong impression of having been flung headlong into a hell 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 on a hue of melancholy and the calm and mute converse with the Master within is transformed for a moment into an invocation that almost supplicates, “O Lord, what have I done that Thou hast thrown me thus into the sombre Night?” But immediately the aspiration rises, still more ardent, “Spare this being all weakness; suffer it to be the docile and clear-eyed instrument of Thy work, whatever that work may be.”

7 March 1915

IT is past, the time of sweet mental silence, so peaceful, so pure, through which could be felt the deep will expressing itself in its all-potent truth.

Now the will is no longer perceived; the mind, once more necessarily active, analyses, classifies, judges, chooses, constantly reacts, as a transforming agent, upon all that imposes itself on the individuality, which is so enlarged as to be in touch with a world infinitely vast and complex, and mixed with shade and light, like all that belongs to the earth.

I am exiled from every spiritual happiness, and of all ordeals this, О Lord, is surely the most painful that Thou canst impose: but most of 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 an untiring faith to keep the external consciousness thus abandoned to itself from being invaded 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 Thou forbidst it. No flight out of the world! The burden of its darkness and ugliness must be borne to the end even if all divine succour seems to be withdrawn. I must remain in the bosom of the Night and walk on without compass, without beacon-light, without inner guide.

I will not even implore Thy mercy; for what Thou willst for me, I too will. All my energy is in tension solely to advance, always to advance step after step, despite the depth of the darkness, despite the obstacles of the way, and whatever comes, О Lord, it is with a fervent and unchanging love that Thy decision will be welcomed. Even if Thou findest the instrument unfit to serve Thee, the instrument belongs to itself no more, it is Thine; Thou canst destroy or magnify it, it exists not in itself, it wills nothing, it can do nothing without Thee.

8 March 1915

FOR the most part the condition is one of calm and profound indifference; the being feels neither desire nor repulsion, neither enthusiasm nor depression, neither joy nor sorrow. It regards life as a spectacle in which it takes only a very small part; it perceives its actions and reactions, conflicts and forces as things that at once belong to its own existence which overflows the small personality on every side and yet to that 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 might almost 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 deep, too great, too deep perhaps to be understood by men — something that holds in it the seed of Tomorrow.

2 November 1915

Paris
(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 the multitude of its remembrances. Intense, complex, crowded the past lived again in a flash having lost nothing of its savour, or its richness.

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, О Lord, at Thy feet as an offering.

For throughout its life, without knowing it or with some presentiment of it, it was Thou whom it sought; in all its desires, all its enthusiasms, all its hopes and disillusionments, 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 it should have needed so many sensations, emotions, and experiences 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 of which the being rejoices to make its gift to Thee. The purifying flame of Thy illumination has turned it into jewels of price laid down 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 victories of eternity; all the 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 up to Thy inconceivable splendour.

26 November 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 to 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 ceaselessly increased in immensity and intensity. It was as if 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 globular 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 infinitely moving. 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, enveloped the universe and gave it eternal birth. Then the consciousness, become that Being, perceived that its form was changing once more; it was absorbed into something which was no longer a form and 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.[2]

15 January 1916

О THOU whom I can call God, Thou who art the personal form of the eternal Transcendent, О 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 Thee; О 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? is Thy work wholly accomplished? is there in it no more shadow, ignorance or limitation? Canst Thou at last take definitively 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 all the atoms of my being? Wilt Thou effect an overwhelming transformation, or will it be still a slow action in which cell after cell must be wrested from its darkness and its limit?…

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

Will the great miracle of the integral divine life in the individual be at last accomplished?

22 January 1916

THOU hast taken entire possession of this miserable instrument, and if it is not yet enough perfected 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 enlighten it and in the ensemble of the being to class, organise and harmonise it. 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 flowing source has brought into the being an ecstasy more marvellous than all that it has ever felt before. Thus to Thy action there answers the aspiration of that on which Thou workest, and the aspiration is all the more ardent because the instrument has seen itself as it is, in all its infirmity.

О 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!

26 December 1916

ALWAYS the word Thou makest me hear in the silence is sweet and encouraging, О 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 role. 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…. О 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?”

27 December 1916

О 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 mayest 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….

О Lord, my arms are outstretched in supplication towards Thee, my heart is wide open before Thee, that Thou mayest 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.

29 December 1916

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

19 January 1917

AND the hours pass away like dreams unlived.

30 March 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 too should be our attitude towards the means of action.

О Thou who dwellest in my heart and directest all by Thy supreme Will, Thou hast told me a year ago to cut all my bridges and cast myself headlong into the unknown, as did Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon: it was the Capitol for him or the Tarpeian Rock.

Thou hidst then from my eyes the result of the act. Now still Thou keepest it secret, and yet Thou knowest that the equanimity of my soul remains the same whether confronted with greatness or with misery.

Thou hast willed that for me the future should be uncertain and that I should advance with confidence not knowing whither the road would lead.

Thou hast willed that I should put the care of my destiny utterly into Thy hands, and abdicate altogether all personal preoccupations.

It is doubtless because my road must be virgin even to my own thought.

31 March 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, О 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?

О 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 descend softly on our world of obscure ignorance, one would say a rain upon earth of golden stars one by one from a sombre firmament.

All kneels in mute devotion before this ever renewed miracle.

7 April 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 the 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.”

9 April 1917

WHEN once has been crossed the threshold of the kingdom of Thy Omniscience, each time there is a return to the mental world every thought there seems a marvellous and unfathomable problem of which one had never dreamed before.

Above, no question is put; in that calm silence all is known since all eternity Below, all is new, unknown, unexpected.

And the two meeting in one single consciousness give it a confident wonder that gives birth to peace, light and joy.

10 April 1917

MY heart is in slumber, a slumber down to the depths of the being….

The whole earth is in a stir and agitation of perpetual change; all life enjoys and suffers, endeavours, strives, conquers, is destroyed and formed again.

My heart is in slumber, a slumber down to the depths of the being….

In all these innumerable and manifold elements I am the Will which moves, the Thought which acts, the Force which realises, the Matter which is put in motion.

My heart is in slumber, a slumber down to the depths of the being….

No more personal limits, no more individual action, no more separative concentration creating conflict, nothing but a single and infinite Oneness.

My heart is in slumber, a slumber down to the depths of the being….

28 April 1917

О 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 a 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, О 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!

24 September 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, О 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.

15 October 1917

I HAVE cried to Thee in my despair, О 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.

25 November 1917

О LORD, because in an hour of cruel distress I said in the sincerity of my faith: “Thy Will be done”, Thou earnest 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.

12 July 1918

SUDDENLY, before Thee, all my pride fell. I understood how futile it was in Thy Presence to wish to surmount oneself, and I wept, wept abundantly and without constraint the sweetest tears of my life.

Ah! how restful, how calm and sweet they were, those tears that I shed before Thee, without shame, without constraint! Was it like a child’s in the arms of its father? But what a father was here! What a sublimity, what a magnificence, what an immensity of comprehension! What a power and plenitude in the response! Yes, my tears were like a holy dew. Is it because it was not for my own sorrow that I wept?

Tears sweet and beneficent, tears that opened my heart without constraint before Thee and melted in one miraculous moment all the remaining obstacles that could separate me from Thee!

Some days before, I had known it, I had heard: “If thou weepest without constraint or disguise before me, much will change, a great victory will be won.” It was therefore that when the tears rose from my heart to my eyes, I came and sat before Thee to let them flow as an offering, religiously. And how comforting and sweet was that offering.

And now, although I weep no longer, I feel so near, so near to Thee that my whole being quivers with joy.

Let me stammer out my homage:

I have cried too 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, Thou who 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 highest will because it is Thou Thyself who wiliest in it!

“It would be folly to seek elsewhere than in Thee for one who will listen, understand, love and guide, since always Thou art there ready to our call and never wilt Thou fail us!

“Thou hast made me know the supreme, the sublime joy of a perfect confidence, an absolute serenity, a surrender total and without reserve or colouring, free from effort and constraint.

“Joyous like a child I have smiled and wept at once before Thee, О my well-Beloved!”

Oiwaké, 3 September 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, О 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, 22 June 1920

AFTER granting me the joy which surpasses all expression, Thou hast sent me, О 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, О 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, 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.

Fair copy in the Mother’s hand of the translation
of the prayer of 28 December 1928

28 December 1928

THERE is a Power that no ruler can command; there is a Happiness that no earthly success can bring; there is a Light that no wisdom can possess; there is a Knowledge that no philosophy and no science can master; there is a Bliss of which no satisfaction of desire can give the enjoyment; there is a thirst for Love that no human relation can appease; there is a Peace that one finds nowhere here, not even in death.

It is the Power, the Happiness, the Light, the Knowledge, the Bliss, the Love, the Peace that flow from the Divine Grace.

Nolini Kanta Gupta’s translation of the prayer
of 28 December 1928, revised by Sri Aurobindo

24 November 1931

О 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 appear triumphant; falsehood is the monarch of the world; life without Thee is a 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.”

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.”

Prayer of 24 November 1931 in the Mother’s handwriting

Radha’s Prayer[3]

O Thou whom at first sight I knew for the Lord of my being and my God, receive my offering.

Thine are all my thoughts, all my emotions, all the sentiments of my heart, all my sensations, all the movements of my life, each cell of my body, each drop of my blood. I am absolutely and altogether Thine, Thine without reserve. What Thou wilt of me, that I shall be. Whether Thou choosest for me life or death, happiness or sorrow, pleasure or suffering, all that comes to me from Thee will be welcome. Each one of Thy gifts will be always for me a gift divine bringing with it the supreme Felicity.

13 January 1932

23 October 1937

(A prayer for those who wish to serve the Divine)

GLORY to Thee, О 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, О Lord, Supreme Master of all realisation.

Give us a faith active and ardent, absolute and unshakable in Thy Victory.

Note on the Text

Prières et Méditations de la Mère

Around 1912, while living in France, the Mother began writing a diary in French in which she recorded her prayers to the Divine and some of her spiritual experiences. She maintained this diary with some frequency until 1920, the year in which she settled in Pondicherry with Sri Aurobindo. He asked her to make a selection of the prayers in the diary and prepare them for publication. She chose 313 entries which were published in 1932 under the title Prières et Méditations de la Mère. This book has remained in print ever since and gone through several editions.

Prayers of the Mother

The present book consists of English translations of 123 prayers of the Mother — about two-fifths of the complete collection. Sri Aurobindo directly translated 24 of these prayers, in whole or in part. The remaining 99 prayers were translated by disciples and then meticulously revised by him. In revising these prayers, he not only corrected linguistic and grammatical errors, but recast them with a view to style. The 123 prayers fall into two groups of 64 and 59 prayers, which will be discussed below.

Sixty-four Prayers Published
in Prayers and Meditations of the Mother

An English translation of 61 prayers of the Mother, entitled Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, was published in 1941. The book was seen through the press by Sri Aurobindo, and on the page-proofs he made some revisions: he revised the first half of the prayers very lightly — there are only a handful of verbal revisions; the second half he revised more substantially — there are verbal revisions on almost every page. All the prayers in the book bear the stamp of his stylistic excellence. Three more prayers were added by the Mother in the second edition of 1962; they are dated 3 November 1912, 28 November 1913 and 23 November 1937.

Of the 64 prayers, Sri Aurobindo wrote out 24 prayers in whole or in part. They were presumably directly translated by him; there is no manuscript or other evidence that they were translated by disciples. The 24 prayers are dated:

3 November 1912
28 November 1913 (part)
15 February 1914
27 August 1914
31 August 1914
1 September 1914
28 September 1914
30 September 1914 (part)
5 October 1914
7 October 1914
14 October 1914
25 October 1914
8 November 1914
15 February 1915
3 March 1915 (part)
7 March 1915 (part)
8 March 1915
26 December 1916
27 December 1916
29 December 1916
31 March 1917
28 April 1917 (part)
12 July 1918 (part)
23 October 1937

Another 21 prayers were initially translated by the disciple Datta[4] and then revised by Sri Aurobindo. These prayers are dated:

28 November 1912
2 December 1912
3 December 1912
5 December 1912
7 December 1912
7 March 1914 (part)
8 March 1914
9 March 1914
10 April 1914
12 May 1914
25 September 1914
30 March 1917
7 April 1917 (part)
28 April 1917 (part)
24 September 1917
15 October 1917
25 November 1917
12 July 1918
3 September 1919
22 June 1920
24 November 1931

For the prayer of 28 April 1917, Datta translated the first two paragraphs and Sri Aurobindo the final two paragraphs. For the prayer of 12 July 1918, Datta translated the second sentence of the first paragraph and the second paragraph; Sri Aurobindo translated the first sentence of the first paragraph and the third to the tenth paragraphs. Therefore these two prayers appear on both of the lists above.

For all the above prayers — those of Sri Aurobindo and those of Datta/Sri Aurobindo — there are manuscripts of the texts. For the remaining 21 prayers in Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, there is no manuscript or other evidence to indicate the origin of the translations; however, Sri Aurobindo did revise a number of them at page-proof stage when they were first published in 1941. These prayers are dated:

2 November 1912
19 November 1912
26 November 1912
10 December 1912
11 December 1912
5 February 1913
8 February 1913
10 February 1913
12 February 1913
13 March 1913
11 May 1913
18 June 1913
21 July 1913
24 January 1914
1 February 1914
14 February 1914
25 March 1914
17 April 1914
21 May 1914
22 May 1914
26 May 1914

Fifty-nine Prayers Translated by Disciples
and Revised by Sri Aurobindo

In addition to the 64 prayers discussed above, there are another 59 prayers translated by disciples and revised by Sri Aurobindo — one prayer translated by Nolini Kanta Gupta and 58 prayers translated by Datta. They will be discussed below.

The prayer of 28 December 1928 was first translated by Nolini Kanta Gupta and then fully revised by Sri Aurobindo. It was published for the first time in 1979 in Prayers and Meditations, Volume 1 of the Collected Works of the Mother.

The remaining 58 prayers were first translated by Datta and then carefully revised by Sri Aurobindo; he not only corrected errors of language and grammar, but imbued them with beauty and an uplifting elan. These 58 prayers are being published for the first time in the present book. They are dated:

1 June 1914
4 June 1914
9 June 1914
11 June 1914
16 June 1914
17 June 1914
18 June 1914
19 June 1914
23 June 1914
24 June 1914
30 June 1914
1 July 1914
4 July 1914
8 July 1914
10 July 1914
26 August 1914
28 August 1914
29 August 1914
13 July 1914
15 July 1914
18 July 1914
19 July 1914
23 July 1914
25 July 1914
27 July 1914
31 July 1914
4 August 1914
5 August 1914
6 August 1914
8 August 1914
20 August 1914
21 August 1914
25 August 1914
10 November 1914
21 November 1914
12 December 1914
13 September 1914
14 September 1914
16 September 1914
20 September 1914
24 September 1914
6 October 1914
8 October 1914
16 October 1914
17 October 1914
23 October 1914
9 November 1914
15 December 1914
2 January 1915
24 January 1915
7 March 1915 (part)
2 November 1915
26 November 1915
15 January 1916
22 January 1916
19 January 1917
9 April 1917
10 April 1917

The reader should note that one of the prayers above (that of 7 March 1915) was translated only in part by Datta; the other part was translated by Sri Aurobindo. Therefore this prayer has been counted only once in reckoning the total number of prayers.

Radha’s Prayer

Although it is not one of the Prayers and Meditations, Radha’s prayer is being published here because Sri Aurobindo translated it, as well as for its intrinsic value. Written in French by the Mother on 13 January 1932, Sri Aurobindo translated the prayer into English sometime after this, perhaps in 1935. He began by revising Nolini Kanta Gupta’s translation of the first sentence and then translated the rest of the prayer himself.

The Title of This Book

This book has been titled Prayers of the Mother to distinguish it from the existing Prayers and Meditations of the Mother. Several entries in this book, however, are not prayers but “meditations” in which the Mother describes her spiritual experiences. The subtitle of the book — 123 Prayers Translated by Sri Aurobindo or Translated by Disciples and Revised by Him — is an elaborate one intended to identify the nature of the texts in it.

[1] The reader may note that in the translation above, the seven “thy” s and “thee”s are in the lower case; all the “t” s were capitalised when the translation was first published in 1962. In the French original, the Mother began this prayer “O Divine Maître” (O Divine Master); in translating it, Sri Aurobindo turned it into a prayer addressed to the Divine Mother. The Mother titled this translation “Morning Prayer”.

[2] This is a letter which the Mother sent to Sri Aurobindo and to which he answered on 31 December 1915 as follows:

“The experience you have described is Vedic in the real sense, though not one which would easily be recognised by the modern systems of Yoga which call themselves Vedic. It is the union of the “Earth” of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images. But the modern Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine.”

[3] The Mother originally wrote this prayer in English and then translated it into French the following day. Later Sri Aurobindo translated the French version into English; this is the translation presented above. The Mother’s original prayer in English is given in the Note on the Texts.—Ed.

[4] Datta’s original name was Dorothy Hodgson. An Englishwoman, she was a friend of the Mother before coming to the Ashram. Datta lived with the Mother in Japan and then came with her to Pondicherry in 1920. Sri Aurobindo gave her the Sanskrit name Vasavadatta, but in the Ashram she was known simply as Datta.