The prayer of a yogi
by Gregorian Bivolaru
The prayers of the yogis and of those longing for the Absolute evince pure simplicity and crave of communion to God, despite all inherent obstructions and difficulties. This works both for the “earthly” saints and for those mainly gifted for the contemplation of the Divine in the all surrounding world.
It awakes the surnatural force of the heart
The saints often give countless advice, sometime apparently at odds about how to pray, which mirror different needs, complexion and vocations as the case may be. Some saints devoted to contemplation like Saint John of the Cross and the anonymous author of the work “The cloud of ignorance” are mainly interested in the ineffable tinge of the inner states depicting the stages of the soul journey towards God. Other names longing for the Absolute – like Ignatius de Loyola or Anthony Mary Claret provide most guiding about keeping close to God even in the everyday tumult of all kind of temptations; this wise and common-sensed advice naturally reflect their own amazing experience.
To me, the passionate longing for the Absolute or the prayer means, most of all, the heart enthusiasm toward the Divine; it means the impetuous longing that makes you raise your eyes to the heaven; it means the spontaneous tears of love and gratefulness shed at the peak of joy or in the deepest sorrow. The longing for the Absolute or the prayer such as, shall stir inside of us a huge, surnatural force that opens our heart and keeps us close to God.
It’s quite meritorious indeed to deeply meditate on His kindness, or to love Him with heart and soul and praise Him for His kindness. But it’s still more useful to let one’s heart and mind melt in the ecstatic knowledge of God, for this will reveal to us His pure essence, which makes us love Him and praise Him for what he really is. Let’s strive to open our mind and soul and full of love not say a word to God. Just stay still and contemplate Him for He watches us unawares and embraces us in all that surrounds us ever.
A beginner in striving for the Absolute or in praying – you should remember this for it is very important – must pursue to keep his faith in God steady and endeavour to have his own will and the supreme will of God be ONE.
The silent calling leads us to the Supreme Kingdom
When we enter into a church or chapel we should sit in front of an icon of Him and then say: “Here I am, Lord, give me all that you want and know useful to me. For whatever you may give me now or ever makes me deeply happy and therefore I thank you. If you don’t give me anything, my Lord, I shall thank you equally happy, for I shall know thereby I do not deserve anything yet. That’s why I now want to say to you all about my joys, my thoughts, my pains and then, covered with love and gratefulness for your divine compassion and kindness, I shall listen with my whole being all that you say to me”.
People often are deluded by the overflowing words in their longing after the Absolute or in their prayers. We’d rather utter five words from deep inside our soul, than five thousand words that our mind and soul cannot relish in endless love and deep understanding.
Still there are many of us, who better fit the longing for the Absolute or the uttered prayer than the mind prayer, where we thank God in silence. Such pure beings can see in every word of the Prayer of Our Father or of the Creed a sea of force, kindness, love, wisdom and compassion. The Lord give us then the Grace to utter them in deep focus and passion; in His great kindness He will gradually give us His Grace even in the mental prayer, although we often get close to God by the words prayer. However, by the mental prayer our consciousness can deeply penetrate the Lord Kingdom.
Any place becomes a temple
When we strive to God, it’s quite useful for us to understand and recover the sacrifice of Jesus, by focusing on the image of the cross and meditating on it. No matter we can’t do it now with all our being, we should at least recall inside of us and intensely focus on all aspects and inner states connected to the Jesus’ sacrifice, for the recalling of the important emotions and images, which we keep clear in mind will engender in our heart more divine enthusiasm and fervour.
As we passionately strive to the Absolute and as we pray, it is worth to learn steadiness in love, the careful devotion that silently waits for God to manifest in our being. Most of all we have to control our imagination and prevent it from disturbing us by its fabrications. For as we said before the power of the soul to intimately communicate to God consists of the profound silence in the ecstatic peace, in the sweet and pure expectation of the love for the Divine.
To the souls that have attained the real communion to Him, any place is a temple to strive for the Absolute in, any moment is a moment if intense prayer, any action is a step that gets them closer to Him. The relation of such human beings rises from earth to heaven – and thanks to the divine transfiguration any form of selfish, earthly action and low sensuality shall disappear. Then every inner emotion instantly uplifts them and expands them to the infinite in the all embracing Kingdom of our Father, the Holy Lord. But as much as we may be involved in our spiritual progress, we should know that nothing ever occurs unless God’s direct help, unless the great support he offers to the people who humbly and devotedly call Him from their heart; for God only offers Himself to those who restlessly long for His blissful embrace in their prayers.
Everyday one hundred short and intense invocations
We often hear about the monks at the Athos Mountain striving for the Absolute who pray continuous prayers in short impetuous phrases and exclamations, least the inner effort required in calling for the Divine should vanish and lose subtlety by some slow uttering.
The outstanding servants of God have some old custom – to prepare short prayers (for instance “O, Lord, give me thy mercy!”), which they often utter during the day by some explosive aspiration to the Absolute, springing to a supreme Heaven. At that moment they direct their mind straight to the Divine, with all power, instantly rising over the earthly misery. He who shall follow such way shall reap incredible divine harvest, with no big effort.
This is why God must be called with short and intense heart effusion. In doing so as much as possible we may enjoy all His gifts! When we ask for His help with deep love, we must bring our entire mind into the heart and recall down there the Cross, knee in front of it, begging for the divine kindness and praying God for our enlightenment and redemption. Such invocations must be practiced one hundred times a day.
Through restless aspiration to the Absolute or through prayers, our entire life improves by every step and it becomes an endless holiday; then we are fully convicted that God is everywhere, always. As we work we can feel his power, as we love we relish his kindness and all everyday actions are performed in a continuous blissful communion with him.
He who endeavours shall succeed
The aspiration to the Absolute or the mind prayer is not complete unless the Divine Self is revealed, which helps attaining the ultimate goal, by the very invocation of the divine. For the soul without aspiration to the Absolute or without prayer is just like a paralysed man – he has arms and legs but cannot control them.
There are so many people around us concerned with the outer earthly issues that they are helpless to twist in themselves. Such limp souls are literally scared when somebody has the intuition of their frailty and comes to them full of love, trying to help. The aspiration to the Absolute or the prayer is essential to those who want to defeat the dark thoughts. The prayer will help removing the veil of ignorance that covers understanding. At a certain point it will make him easily devote to God and give up the perverse path of the stray thoughts that keep him close to the inferno.
Sometimes the frantic prayer to the Absolute or the afflicted prayer that the man can endeavour pleases God much more than a slow shallow prayer on the top of the lips. The suffering due to the aspiration to the Divine and the sublime longing of the one struggling to pray in vain, who sincerely complains his helplessness, shall make him a winner in the long run, blessed by God’s Grace. The aspiration to the Absolute or the prayer sometimes mean the mourning of the soul, the inner tears and not empty words. In such moments we realize that God puts the tears of His sympathy in our eyes, as our sincere cry, our soul longing for His embrace cannot be concealed. God, the Creator of all things and beings by His Word never asks empty words from man.
The closer we get to Him by the power of our prayer and of the aspiration to the Absolute the more we feel as if we shake His hands. We feel more and more He is embracing us as we tread with Him along a quite safe path. We can feel in our whole being His great generosity; we rely on His infinite power as we feel steadier in merging with Him in the divine and fraternal love.
He who aspires to the Divine or prays must not fall into error and waste himself in trifles and ephemeral things, and mistake attraction for the great devotion. The real aspiration to the Absolute or the prayer will always be the one to guide the heart and mind to the beneficial divine path. We must realize that the most precious gift we may get is what God, our Creator, drops into our heart and gives as a guide humility that engenders the spiritual love and wisdom.
Give and you’ll be given unto
The aspiration to the Absolute or the prayer is just like the balmy ecstatic dew; in order to feel the soft touch we must call for God in the passion of a pure heart. By the power of the prayer the diaphanous sweetness of the heavenly nectar shall run through our being. When it is deep and sincere, our sorrow shall melt just as the snow melts under the warm sunshine. But in order to get close to God you must go straight to Him, full of love and undemurely, just like a bullet out of a gun. The fiery aspiration to the Absolute or the prayer unhooks our soul from the chains of the matter and makes it lift up like a light gas that propels a balloon to the heights. The more we long for the Absolute or we pray, the higher our longing.
Just like the fish that first swims at the surface of the water and then dives deeper and deeper, our soul dives in ecstasy down in the delightful communion to God. The longing for the Absolute or the prayer is the marvellous holy water that makes our green sublime, divine wishes bloom. Also the longing for the Absolute or the prayer wholly purifies our souls, makes them flawless and quenches the degrading, enchaining passions inside our hearts.
No matter temptation, if we know how to properly use the endless power of the prayer or the high aspiration to the Absolute we shall easily be the winners, for calling God makes much more than all devils or demons. The one sometimes hit by the evil spirits of the dark, due to the bad resonances in his aura only has to passionately pray and long for the Absolute with perseverance. Thereby, after a while he will succeed to unchain himself and defeat the low forces.
Long for the Absolute with all heart and raise your heart to God at the beginning of any action and utter in deep feeling: “O, Lord, I strive for you and wish with my whole being to give up to myself, to my own narrow mind, to my own tarnished will, to the selfish love for myself. Here I surrender for good to you, to your holy spirit and your divine love. Take me out of myself and guide me with your power, will and wisdom in this action, as you wish to make it better.”
Learn how to meditate upon God
There is a quite important thing we can do for our aspiration to the Absolute, for our prayer: light inside our heart the fire that burns the divine love and passion. If instead we feel our zeal and enthusiasm decreasing due to a tired and frail body we must stop praying at once and try to focus in a systematic and beneficial way to other genuine spiritual ways.
The yoga system is the only to have taught us the act of mental meditation upon God, which allows us aspirate to the Absolute and pray in truth and spirit. However there are many to stagnate in their spiritual evolution, for they only confine to aspiring to the Absolute by verbal prayer.
One day, one of the yoga teachers in our school asked a beginner student what exactly he had spiritually performed during the last summer, when there were no yoga courses. The student said he would go in his room and sit in the empty place behind his bed, where he could stay isolated behind a thick curtain. He would simply stay there and ponder. So this was during the summer after the first year of yoga. “Ponder, all right, but what about?” the teacher asked curiously. “Oh, the student answered joyfully, I’m thinking about God, life, love and relaxation. By means of yoga I also learned, you know, to think about God inside myself, and in time I noticed that this kind of meditation is a sublime form of prayer and a spiritual longing that fills me up with delight and power.”
In order to make our longing for the Absolute or our prayer deeper we must become aware of a huge source of love in the heart area and focus there in the centre of our being as much as possible and start communicate to God like purest children.
A great gift is also a divine gift that we deserve, but this won’t help us totally aspire to the Absolute or pray more intensely. You often get such a gift just for easier communication to people, but you don’t need it for total communication to God. For a passionate prayer or longing for God you only need frantic aspiration and great energy.
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