Page 78 - Imperience Beckons

PRAYER (Commandment 10)
The tenth Commandment deals with prayer. "At bed times, feeling the presence of God, repent for the wrongs committed. Beg forgiveness in a supplicant mood, resolving not to allow repetition of the same".
We may think that to pray at bedtime should be easy for all of us, to start with at least. As Master puts it, because one is then free from all entanglements and the only point in one's view is that of rest and repose it is considered better time for prayer. He compares this freedom we have at the time of bedtime as similar to the state of contentment of Nature at that time and it is good time to take advantage of this natural condition.
But is it really so for us. Do we feel contented by bedtime? We are accustomed to plan for the next day carrying in our minds the problems of the present day. Further the physical and vital planes of our existence demand our attention, which we are not generally able to resist. This is in spite of our offering prayer. We most often complete recitation of the prayer and succumb to the demands of the physical and vital planes of existence. We know that we have just now prayed but yet the tight hold of the urges over us, make us ignore the prayer offered few minutes earlier and succumb to indulgence in carnality.
Master says offer prayer feeling the presence of God. This is essential in as much as we are conscious of our deficiencies and it is only He who can hear our problems and help us to come out of our helplessness in resisting carnality. The awareness of the greatness of God automatically brings in us a certain amount of vacuum. This enables the influx of the Divine, thanks to the introduction to the system of Pranahuti Aided Meditation where our link to the Divine Master is established at the time of introduction. The imperience we have at this time is the motivating factor for us in the coming days to pray.
But of course, that is not all that easy, because we really don't know what is God and what is His presence. If we entertain in our minds the various notions of God our rest is bound to get disturbed and the purpose of the prayer itself would be defeated. But if we accept implicitly what Master has stated namely, if we find a certain amount of calmness and peace, when we sit near a person and think about that particular person as one spiritually advanced and capable of leading us to our goal, and be devoted to him it is easy to remember that person and feel