>8や ब्रांडनाझाभू• वश्झ अङ्-िbब्रिड । چه ***** = • " و "ح" هدیه " می we want the aid of God to enable us to obtain Him, we can not obtain Him. But the noblest of prayers is, I think, that to which the word prayer in its usual sense cannot apply. It is the state of "still communion which transcends the inferior offices of prayer and praise.' It is the state which our Vedas call the state of full contact with God, the state, which it declares to be the source of the greatest felicity. This state is compared by it to holding the analaki fruit in the palm of the hand. The word for prayer in the Sanskrit litiguage (upasana) comes from a root signifying "to sit' and literally means "sitting lowly before God.' This “sitting lowly before God' at last culminates in the contact with God mentioned above. Your expression “the Being dearer and nearer to us than a flower or star' brought to my mind the saying of the Persian Poet Sadi : “ The Friend is nearer to me than I am to myself. This is troubling to me that I am far from Him.' Our Vedas say in one place: “The wise, who see him in the soul, enjoy everlasting peace and not others' and in another: “The wise, who see Him in the soul, enjoy everlasting felicity and not others.' This constant perception of God as the soul of the soul, nearer to me than I am to myself and more mine than I am mine, is, I think, the highest prayer. Most of the prayers in the book are addressed to God as father and mother. The ideas of God as father and mother are very consoling and, at the
