Page 38 - All India Magazine Jun-2025

cidedly the highest prayer, for it is not exclusively preoccupied
with oneself, it is not an egoistic prayer.
CWM 5: 139-41

Prayer for intercession
There is a kind of prayer at once spontaneous and unself-
ish which is like a great call, usually not for one's own self per-
sonally, but like something that may be called an intercession
with the Divine. It is extremely powerful. I have had countless
instances of things which have been realised almost instanta-
neously due to prayers of this kind. It implies a great faith, a
great ardour, a great sincerity, and a great simplicity of heart
also, something that does not calculate, does not plan, does
not bargain, does not give with the idea of receiving in ex-
change. For, the majority of men give with one hand and hold
out the other to get something in exchange; the largest num-
ber of prayers are of that sort. But there are others of the kind
I have described, acts of thanksgiving, a kind of canticle, and
these are very good.
There you are. I don't know if I have made myself clear, but
this is how it is.
To be clearer, we may say that prayer is always formulated
in words; but the words may have different values according to
the state in which they are formulated. Prayer is a formulated
thing and one may aspire. But it is difficult to pray without pray-
ing to someone. For instance, those who have a conception of
the universe from which they have more or less driven out the
idea of the Divine (there are many people of this kind; this idea
troubles them — the idea that there is someone who knows
all, can do everything and who is so formidably greater than
they that there can be no comparison; that's a bit troublesome
for their amourpropre; so they try to make a world without
the Divine), these people evidently cannot pray, for to whom

38 All India Magazine, June 2025