| On Prayer | |
| Then a priestess said, "Speak to us of Prayer." | |
| And he answered, saying: | |
| You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. | |
| For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether? | |
| And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart. | |
| And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing. | |
| When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet. | |
| Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion. | |
| For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive. | |
| And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted: | |
| Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard. | |
| It is enough that you enter the temple invisible. | |
| I cannot teach you how to pray in words. | |
| God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips. | |
| And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains. | |
| But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart, | |
| And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence, | |
| "Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth. | |
| It is thy desire in us that desireth. | |
| It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also. | |
| We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us: | |
| Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all." |