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FOREWORD
By Amelita Galli-Gurci
In Whispers from Eternity, by Paramhansa Yogananda, we
are taught to pray to Our Heavenly Father by demanding instead
of begging, and thus not limit ourselves to the law of beggary.
The author explains in the beginning why all our prayers are not
answered. All the property belonging to a father can be claimed
by his son, but not by a beggar. That is why the author tells us
that in order to demand, we must first realize our forgotten identity
with the Father by deep meditation, and that we must learn to remember
by right living that God made us in His image.
In this sacred book we are shown how to resurrect dead, old-fashioned
prayers, and through their living qualities bring response from
the silent Almighty. Instead of parroting dead prayers, we learn
to saturate them with God-invoking love.
We are taught how to avoid two extremes—egotistical guidance
from self, and blind, passive dependence on God. It teaches us how
to use our own God-given will and concentration, guided not by ego
but by God, in making life successful in every way. Consequently,
the author writes: "I will reason, I will will, I will act;
but guide Thou my reason, will, and activity to the right thing
that I should do."
The prayers in this book serve to bring God closer, by describing
the feelings which directly arise from actual God-contact. God is
expressed here as something definite and tangible. The Cosmic
Idol is the grand conception of the Infinite and Invisible made
finite, tangible and visible. Nature, man, mind, and every visible
object are all taken as materials to build a colossal Divine Idol,
on which we can easily concentrate.
Followers of all religions can drink from this fountain of universal
prayers. These invocations are an answer to the modern scientific
mind, seeking God intelligently. This book gives us a great variety
of prayers, which enables each of us to choose that one most suited
and helpful to his particular need.
My humble request to the reader, I express in the following lines:
Pass not by, with hurried intellectual reading, the mines of realization
hidden beneath the soil of words in this sacred book. But, as the
author says, daily and repeatedly dig deep into them with the pickaxe
of your attentive, reverential, and meditative study; then you will
find the priceless gem of Self-realization.
Amelita Galli-Gurci
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