第51章

All earthly joy is mixed with anguish, with discontent.If love ought not to pall then death should end it while its flame is high, so that we see no ashes.But in God our wretchedness becomes delight, joy lives upon itself and multiplies, and grows, and has no limit.In the Earthly life our fleeting love is ended by tribulation; in the Spiritual life the tribulations of a day end in joys unending.The soul is ceaselessly joyful.We feel God with us, in us; He gives a sacred savor to all things; He shines in the soul; He imparts to us His sweetness; He stills our interest in the world viewed for ourselves; He quickens our interest in it viewed for His sake, and grants us the exercise of His power upon it.In His name we do the works which He inspires, we act for Him, we have no self except in Him, we love His creatures with undying love, we dry their tears and long to bring them unto Him, as a loving woman longs to see the inhabitants of earth obey her well-beloved.

"The final life, the fruition of all other lives, to which the powers of the soul have tended, and whose merits open the Sacred Portals to perfected man, is the life of Prayer.Who can make you comprehend the grandeur, the majesty, the might of Prayer? May my voice, these words of mine, ring in your hearts and change them.Be now, here, what you may be after cruel trial! There are privileged beings, Prophets, Seers, Messengers, and Martyrs, all those who suffer for the Word and who proclaim it; such souls spring at a bound across the human sphere and rise at once to Prayer.So, too, with those whose souls receive the fire of Faith.Be one of those brave souls! God welcomes boldness.

He loves to be taken by violence; He will never reject those who force their way to Him.Know this! desire, the torrent of your will, is so all-powerful that a single emission of it, made with force, can obtain all; a single cry, uttered under the pressure of Faith, suffices.Be one of such beings, full of force, of will, of love! Be conquerors on the earth! Let the hunger and thirst of God possess you.Fly to Him as the hart panting for the water-brooks.Desire shall lend you its wings; tears, those blossoms of repentance, shall be the celestial baptism from which your nature will issue purified.Cast yourself on the breast of the stream in Prayer! Silence and meditation are the means of following the Way.God reveals Himself, unfailingly, to the solitary, thoughtful seeker.

"It is thus that the separation takes place between Matter, which so long has wrapped its darkness round you, and Spirit, which was in you from the beginning, the light which lighted you and now brings noon-day to your soul.Yes, your broken heart shall receive the light; the light shall bathe it.Then you will no longer feel convictions, they will have changed to certainties.The Poet utters; the Thinker meditates; the Righteous acts; but he who stands upon the borders of the Divine World prays; and his prayer is word, thought, action, in one! Yes, prayer includes all, contains all; it completes nature, for it reveals to you the mind within it and its progression.White and shining virgin of all human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and strong companion partaking of the lion and of the lamb, Prayer! Prayer will give you the key of heaven! Bold and pure as innocence, strong, like all that is single and simple, this glorious, invincible Queen rests, nevertheless, on the material world;she takes possession of it; like the sun, she clasps it in a circle of light.The universe belongs to him who wills, who knows, who prays;but he must will, he must know, he must pray; in a word, he must possess force, wisdom, and faith.

"Therefore Prayer, issuing from so many trials, is the consummation of all truths, all powers, all feelings.Fruit of the laborious, progressive, continued development of natural properties and faculties vitalized anew by the divine breath of the Word, Prayer has occult activity; it is the final worship--not the material worship of images, nor the spiritual worship of formulas, but the worship of the Divine World.We say no prayers,--prayer forms within us; it is a faculty which acts of itself; it has attained a way of action which lifts it outside of forms; it links the soul to God, with whom we unite as the root of the tree unites with the soil; our veins draw life from the principle of life, and we live by the life of the universe.Prayer bestows external conviction by making us penetrate the Material World through the cohesion of all our faculties with the elementary substances; it bestows internal conviction by developing our essence and mingling it with that of the Spiritual Worlds.To be able to pray thus, you must attain to an utter abandonment of flesh; you must acquire through the fires of the furnace the purity of the diamond;for this complete communion with the Divine is obtained only in absolute repose, where storms and conflicts are at rest.