My Library

personality, which is unreservedly surrendered to Him for ever and ever. By meditating on that prayer an actual descent of power will be experienced, and the entire nature will be refreshed and strengthened for the strain of daily lift, and inspiration and illumination will flood the whole consciousness. “The Practice of the Presence of God” is another means of gaining an expansion of consciousness. Those who follow that road strive continually to realize the divine immanence, to know that God is everywhere present, and to attain union with Him. A certain mediaeval monk, Brother Lawrence, who served for thirty years as a scullion in one of the monasteries on the Continent, had practiced this method so consistently and so regularly that he was able to say that he had lived for thirty years in the unbroken consciousness of the Presence of God; even at meal times, when the food had to be delivered rapidly from the kitchen to the monks in the refectory, and there was a great amount of bustle, he never, in the heat of the work, lost the sense of the divine companionship. He said, in effect: “I go into the chapel at stated times, because it is the Abbot’s wish; but I feel no nearer to Him there than when I am washing the dishes, because I am always in His Presence.”39 Meditation upon certain sentences will produce an expansion of consciousness. One such Example is: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, Heaven and earth are full of Thy Glory. Glory be to Thee, O Lord Most High.” This is one of the most pregnant phrases ever written. As its truth is realized, and the whole soul is poured out in worship, a great expansion of consciousness takes place. In the Bhagavad Gita40 the Logos proclaims: “Having pervaded this whole universe with a fragment of Myself, I remain.” And again He says: “He who seeth Me in everything and everything in Me, of him will I never lose hold, and he shall never lose hold of Me.” Meditation upon such sublime ideas lifts the student out of the personal into the egoic consciousness, and he touches for a moment that part of himself which is divine. That contact, frequently repeated, is the surest means of attaining expansion of consciousness. Before leaving this part of our subject, one more example of prayer suitable for meditation may be given: “Universal God, One Life, One Light, One Power,