History: The Prophet: On Prayer

Source of version: 2 (current)

||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."| || ||((The Prophet|The Prophet)) |le prije ctuca / le pijyctu (the wise teacher) ((The Prophet: The Coming of the Ship)) |.i nu selklama le bloti ((The Prophet: On Love)) |lo ka prami ((The Prophet: On Marriage)) |lo nu speni ((The Prophet: On Children)) |lo panzi ((The Prophet: On Giving)) |lo nu dunda ((The Prophet: On Eating and Drinking)) |lo nu citka je pinxe ((The Prophet: On Work)) |lo zu'o gunka ((The Prophet: On Joy and Sorrow)) |lo li'i gleki je badri ((The Prophet: On Houses)) |lo zdani ((The Prophet: On Clothes)) |lo taxfu ((The Prophet: On Buying and Selling)) |lo nu tevecnu je vecnu ((The Prophet: On Crime and Punishment)) |lo zekri .e lo nu sfasa ((The Prophet: On Laws)) |lo flalu ((The Prophet: On Freedom)) |lo za'i zifre ((The Prophet: On Reason and Passion)) | lo nu krinu pensi .e lo se cinmo ((The Prophet: On Pain)) | lo nu dunku ((The Prophet: On Self-Knowledge)) | lo nu sevzi djuno ((The Prophet: On Teaching)) | lo nu ctuca ((The Prophet: On Friendship)) | lo nu pendo ((The Prophet: On Talking)) | lo nu tavla ((The Prophet: On Time)) | lo temci ((The Prophet: On Good and Evil)) | lo ka vrude .e lo ka pacna ((The Prophet: On Prayer)) | lo nu jdaselsku ((The Prophet: On Pleasure)) | lo za'i pluka ((The Prophet: On Beauty)) | lo ka melbi ((The Prophet: On Religion)) | lo lijde ((The Prophet: On Death)) | lo nu morsi ((The Prophet: The Farewell)) | le nu cusku zo co'o||