To All the Truth-Seekers and Readers Of The Wonderful “Prayer-yoga Pearls”.
1. Prayer covers the whole of man’s life. Prayer is a preface to the book of living; the text of the life’s sermon; the girding on the armour for life’s battle; the pilgrim’s preparation for his journey. Man’s prayer and God’s grace are like two buckets in a well, while the one ascends, the other descends.
2. Prayer is the wing by which the soul flies to Heaven and meditation is the eye by which it sees God. Prayer is meditation through speech, meditation is prayer through silence.
3. Mysticism denotes a system of relations between man and God. Man aspires that there should be direct relations between the created and the creator and in these relations he shall find a solution to the perplexities of life. Prayer-yoga confirms the mystic doctrine by saying that the kingdom of God is within you.
4. Throughout man feels or intuits as if he were in the presence of Other, an Other who is not wholly Other, a Beyond that is within. This subject-object relation is present in every kind of experience. But in our spiritual experience, there is the added feeling or intution that the Other is in some way responsive to us. Prayer-yoga aims at the complete development of this intuition of responsiveness which is implicit in all our spiritual activities.
5. Prayer is not eloquence of speech but earnestness of the heart. The heart is common to all and God seated in the heart is one in all.
6. God looks not at the oratory of your prayer or how elegant it may be, nor at the geometry of your prayer or how long it may be, nor at the arithmetic of your prayer or how much it may be, nor at the logic of your prayer or how methodical it may be, but God looks at the sincerity of your prayer.
7. God speaks not to a proud head but to a pure heart.
8. Man has been able extend the power of his hands with incredible machines, of his eyes with telescopes and microscopes, of his ears with telephones, radio waves and sonars, of his brain with computers and automation. He must now learn to extend his heart, his sentients, his love to the dimension of the entire human family; otherwise modern civilization will be crushed under the weight of soulless organization.
9. In Prayer-yoga, God is felt to be not the final abstraction but the one actuality. He is the omnipresent Reality, the all pervading within whom the worlds are being held like beads. In His personal aspect, He is the beloved friend teaching and companioning each soul.
10. God looks not at the oratory of your prayer or how elegant it may be, nor at the geometry of your prayer or how long it may be, nor at the arithmetic of your prayer or how much it may be, nor at the logic of your prayer or how methodical it may be, but God looks at the sincerity of your prayer.
11. The unique relation of God to soul is not as Father to Son but as Son to Father. The analogy given to understand this fact is that of light lit from another light, and the second of which is in no way less than the stature and standard of the Father. Hence, all souls are sons of the Father and destined to become like the Father. Hence God abides in the soul or is immanent in the soul in all his perfection and totality of being and becoming.
12. The path of love is the chosen path of the mystic by which he realizes immortality. There is no such thing as death, death is a curtain placed against eternal life. The screen only has to be removed, then the visions of beauty and bliss are vouchsafed to the soul that is blessed. This blessedness is nothing but grace.
13. Prayer-yoga confirms the mystic doctrine by saying that the kingdom of God is within you. It shows the path how to realize the Heaven not as a place but as a state, as an attitude of mind, as a disposition of the heart, as transformation of life.
14. Prayer presupposes faith in God, love in man and work in society; but it speaks of faith that is enlightened, love that is selfless, work that is worship. Hence Prayer-yoga has a touch of the supernatural, the elan of the spirit which alone can produce that majestic faith that is the bread of the soul.
15. The natural world is a world of necessity while the spiritual world is a world of freedom. In the natural world we are mere recipients but in the spiritual world we are God’s partners.
The above quotations and sayings are collected from various works of His Holiness Shri Kumarswamiji on ‘Prayer-yoga’ and ‘Veerashaivism’