Spiritualizing a prayer-demand

Dry the match first

"The flame of inspiration is hidden behind the lines of each prayer and demand in this book." It is dampened, he says, by printer's ink, paper, and our own intellectual associations — so the reader's first job is to rise above those distractions.

His closing instruction in that section: "Every day, dry, with the heat of your concentration, the wet matchsticks of mere words in the demand you select; then repeatedly strike them on the tinder of your mind. You will at last see the divine flame leaping out."

Restlessness, not lack of belief, is what keeps the spark from catching.

One paragraph at a time

The method is exact: "take only one paragraph at a time from a single demand; mentally picture the meaning; visualize the imagery of the figures of speech — and then meditate deeply on what is perceived, until the fiery meaning, free from all word limitations, emerges."

Words, he says, are like "a dumb, drunken man" who knows he has drunk but cannot say what. They can only gesture at the wine of inspiration inside them. So the words are a means, never the destination.

Reading the whole demand once for an overview is fine. The power comes from re-reading and then feeling it with the eyes closed.

Tend the prayer-plant

"Prayers and demands are like plants which daily grow new blossoms: the flowers change, but the plants remain basically the same." Water the plant with meditation and the same words yield new feeling every day.

He names the storms that damage it: doubt, distraction, mental idleness, "procrastination of meditation (to a morrow that never comes!)," absent-mindedness, and pretending to be focused when you are not.

The germicides against these parasites: "self-control, determination, and loyalty to a single teaching."

Watch this teaching

Kriyananda on bhakti — why feeling, not technique, is the engine of Yogananda's prayer-demands.

Transforming Emotion Into Devotion (with Swami Kriyananda)