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<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">&nbsp;</p>
<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>
<font size="4">Prayer and Aspiration</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<div class=Section1>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><span style='font-family:
Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>(1)</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>PRAYERS are
of many kinds. There is a prayer, purely mechanical and physical, that is to
say, merely words learnt by rote and repeated mechanically. It does not mean
much and generally has only one effect, making the person calm who prays; if
you repeat a prayer several times, it calms you in the end.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>There
is a prayer which is a formula welling out spontaneously in order to give
expression to something very precise which you ask for. You may pray for
something, for some person; you may pray even for certain circumstances; you
may pray for yourself also.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Or
you may pray to express your gratitude to the Divine for what He has done for
you, for what you see in Him, for what you wish to do for Him in thankfulness.
Evidently it is the highest kind of prayer, for it is not exclusively concerned
with one's own self. It is of a great order, this prayer of thanksgiving.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>It
is the meeting ground of prayer and aspiration. Such prayers are the
spontaneous formulation of an experience that has been lived; it pours out from
within the being, as the expression of a deep realisation, a yearning to sing
praises for this experience that has been granted, a desire that the
experience may continue or be explained. All this is very near to aspiration.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Again
there is a prayer, spontaneous and disinterested, a great call as it were, a
call for divine intercession. It is a very powerful thing. I have had
innumerable examples of things being fulfilled instantaneously by prayers of
this kind. It means a great faith, a great fervour, a great sincerity, also a
great simplicity of heart – something that does not calculate, that does not <span
class=GramE>arrange,</span> that does not bargain, that does not give with the
idea of a return.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 112<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none'>

<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>(2)</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:13.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>You can
pray in all domains. A prayer belongs to the domain in which you pray.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:13.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Prayers may
be purely physical, even material.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:13.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>They may be
vital or mental or psychic or spiritual.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:13.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Each one
has its own character and its own value.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Prayer
is a thing much more external than aspiration. It concerns generally a
definite object and it is always formulated, for it is the formula itself that
is the prayer. One can have an aspiration and transcribe it in a prayer, but
if it is formulated in words, ids almost a movement of invocation.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Aspiration
goes beyond prayer on all sides. It is much more self-forgetful, living only in
the thing that one wills to do or become, in the offering that one seeks to
make to the Divine. Aspiration may come from any plane, but the centre lies in
the psychic.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>(3)</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.3pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>You
aspire for a certain state of being. You have, for example, discovered within
you something which does not agree with your ideal, a movement of obscurity or
ignorance, even perhaps a bad will, something which goes against what you want
to realise. You do not formulate a vow in words but something rises up in you
like a flame, an offering made of a living experience which asks for a
greater, larger being, a being more and more clear and precise. The thing can
be reproduced in words later on, when one tries to remember and note down the
experience.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:11.5pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Aspiration bursts forth like a
mounting flame bearing in itself the thing that one desires to become, to do or
to have. I said &quot;desires&quot;, but &quot;aspires&quot; is the right word,
for it has neither the quality nor the form of a desire. It is truly a great
flame of purifying will and it bears in its core what seeks to realise itself.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.2pt;text-indent:-.2pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>(4)</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:9.8pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>You have, for example, done a thing 
which you regret to have done. That has unfortunate consequences and upsets 
things, in<span
class=GramE>volving</span> </p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:9.8pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page –
113<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:12.45pt;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:9.8pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none'>

<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>also other persons. You do not know the reaction of others,
but as for yourself you wish that what has been done should turn to good and if
a fault has been committed it should be admitted and made an occasion for a
greater progress, a greater discipline and a new ascent towards the Divine, for
opening a door towards a future that you want to be clearer, more true and more
intense.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Then,
the thing gathers like a force and rushes forth, mounts like a great ascending
movement, sometimes without being formulated in the least, without words,
without expression, but like a flame.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>That
is true aspiration. That can happen a hundred times, a thousand times every
day, if you are in the state when you want to progress constantly, become more
true, more integrally in harmony with what the Divine Will wants of you.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>(5)</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>It
seems difficult to pray without praying to someone. There are people who have a
conception of the universe from which they have driven out all notion of the
Divine. There are many, I suppose, like that. It troubles them, the idea that
there is something that knows all, is capable of all, and is superior to them
in such a formidable manner that there is no comparison; it is troublesome to
their self-love, so they try to make a world without the Divine. They certainly
cannot pray. To whom would they pray-unless they pray to themselves, which is
not the normal custom? But one can aspire for something without having a faith
in the Divine. One can have an aspiration for a condition, <span class=GramE>a
knowledge</span>, a realisation, a state of consciousness. You do aspire for
something. There are people who have no faith in the existence of God, but they
have faith in progress; they believe that the world is progressing constantly
and this progress will go on indefinitely without stop towards a <i><span
style='font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>better </span></i>that
will be always greater than the preceding <i>better.<span
style='font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'> </span></i>Such
people may indeed have a great <span class=GramE>aspiration,</span> they need
have no notion of a divine existence for that.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Aspiration
necessarily includes a faith, but it need not be a faith in the divine Being.
Prayer, on the other hand, cannot exist unless it is addressed to a divine
Being.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 114<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none'>

<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>(6)</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>What
to pray unless one prays to some person for something. You pray to someone who
can listen to you. If there is none to listen to you, how can you pray?
Therefore, if you pray, it means, even in case you do not admit it, you have a
faith in something which is infinitely greater and infinitely more powerful
than you and which can change your destiny and change yourself, provided you
pray in a way that the prayer is heard.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
intellectuals recognise aspiration and say that prayer is an inferior thing.
The mystics tell you that aspiration is all right, but if you wish to be heard
and wish the Divine to hear, you must pray – and pray with the simplicity of a
child, with a perfect candour, that is to say, perfect trust. &quot;I have need
of this or that&quot; – whether a moral or material need – &quot;I ask it of
you give me.&quot;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&quot;You
gave me what I asked for. You have brought to my close touch experiences that
were unknown and that are now wonders which I reach at will. I am infinitely
grateful and I offer you this hymn of thanksgiving for your intervention.&quot;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>(7)</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.3pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Instead
of lighting a lamp and kneeling before it with folded hands, light a flame
within your heart and then have a great aspiration towards something more
beautiful, more true, more noble, better than anything you know.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&quot;I
ask that tomorrow all the things that I do not know I may begin to know, all
the things that I cannot do, I may begin to do, and every day more and
more.&quot;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.3pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>And
if you are put in the presence of much misery in the world, if you have friends
who are unhappy and relatives who suffer, if you have difficulties or anything
whatsoever, ask:</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.3pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.25in;text-align:justify;text-indent:
9.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&quot;May the entire consciousness altogether rise to
that Perfection which shall <span class=GramE>manifest!</span> May all this
ignorance that has made the world so unhappy change into an enlightened
knowledge! May this bad will be illumined and transformed into goodwill.&quot;<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 115<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none'>

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</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:13.5pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-bottom:0'>And in proportion to what you are able to do, what you are able to
understand, you wish with all your heart that it may be like that. It may take
the form of a prayer, and you can ask – ask of what or whom? Ask of that which
knows, ask of that which is capable, ask of all that is better and stronger
than <span class=GramE>yourself</span> to give the help that it may be so. And
how beautiful such prayers would be!<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-top:0;text-align:center;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-bottom:0'>
<span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page –
116</span></p>
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