Author: Swami Swahananda
Illustrator: Kay Kaiser
Publisher: Chinmaya Mission Trust
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 86
ISBN/UPC (if available): P0004
Description
Most of us are inspired to pray only at moments of emotional upheaval, when failure, success, or deep fears overwhelm us. At those times in our lives, says Swami Swahananda, something is stirred up in man’s heart; faith in a greater being r power in born, and prayer follows. Prayer is thus the deepest impulse of the soul of man.
Many know prayer only as a form of petition, a plea for a desired object or state, either for oneself or for someone else. But prayer can also take other forms, says Aldous Huxley, among others:
Prayer as adoration: an expression of love for God Prayer as contemplation: union with the Divine.
It is these higher forms of prayer that chasten us and mark a passage into higher states of consciousness. This kind of prayer brought to its culmination is a silent standing before God, an unbroken sate of union with the Higher. Prayer then is no longer the activity of a supplicant relative to a greater power but is, instead, a state of being, one of total identification with the higher reality.
Contents
PREFACE
PART ONE
The Meaning of Prayer
PART TWO
Appreciation The Divine
PART THREE
Joyous Communion