How to Better Close Each Day In Peace
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
Prayers are never used in theosophy to ask for personal favours. Instead, they express active decisions and commitments which the individual makes with himself.
An effective prayer consists of clear and well-defined thoughts. It helps organize one’s own will and is based on the philosophical principles of self-knowledge, self-respect and self-responsibility. It is helpful when used to begin something, and also in closing and completing any period of activity.
The way things finish is as important as the manner they start. The end of a week, the close of a month and the last days of a year constitute occasions to evaluate what was done and how. Lessons must be extracted, and the decision renewed to do one’s best.
Everything is cyclic. Life evolves in spirals: the last step of each phase prepares the first step in the phase that follows. The final thoughts before sleeping influence more than just the quality of one’s sleep and dreams. They help determine the substance of the awakening in next morning. It is correct, therefore, to direct them in a conscious and creative way, with a sense of responsibility regarding the effects which they will provoke. A prayer is a way to set a direction for consciousness in the exact moment of transition into rest.
How to Improve the Quality of Sleep
The 24 hours cycle is an indivisible whole: the quality of sleep is determined by one’s consciousness in the waking state. The wider context of one’s daily life must therefore be examined and improved. It is a healthy habit to sleep early. In the hours previous to physical rest, one should avoid stressful activities or thoughts which involve emotional conflict. One must get up in the right time and proper way at the beginning of each journey.[1]
Fulfilling one’s duty during the day makes it easier to sleep involved in a soul-level atmosphere of confidence and relaxation, and correct action naturally tends to occur if one combines noble intentions with personal detachment and a sharp discernment of right and wrong.
The Prayer Before Going to Sleep can be said with contemplative pauses which will have a varying duration. The moments of silence must be as long as they are useful for the practitioner. The right measure must be sensed. Their duration will be potentially different at each new practice: pauses can be made in different points according to the significance of one idea or other in the closing of each particular day.
It is correct to record ideas and commentaries in the margins of the paper where the prayer was printed.
The practice of saying the word AUM (pron. “OM”) is a way to evoke the law of universal harmony.
The “holy word” of the Eastern tradition must be pronounced in a selfless and altruistic state of mind; otherwise; it would harm the practitioner, and perhaps severely so.
The AUM can be pronounced for some four to five seconds. Surprisingly to some, the end of the sound must be quick, not prolonged. Among other effects, the sound of the AUM expands serenity. Those who love each other may want to practice the following prayer together.[2]
A Prayer Before Going to Sleep
1) Om…
2) It’s the time to rest now, and I decide to conclude in peace the small incarnation that I had today. I say thanks to every part of my physical body, for the work faithfully done. I’m grateful to each cell of this body. Free from objective tasks, I accept the presence of happiness in my heart.
3) I now renounce to all desire. Tiredness is welcome. I experience serenity. I know I am a part of the universal law, and the law is my refuge.
4) Here and now, the point of balance in my being consists in the feeling of self-respect and respect for all beings. Love is like the light of the Sun and the stars. It guides each living being. Through universal love one finds the happiness of peace.
5) I call upon my higher self, my guardian angel, the inner master of each day. He made me be born. He guides me every time I can hear his voice. His voice flows above the plane of reality where words exist.
6) The voice of my Master, my soul’s voice, is the voice of the sacred Silence. I am a vehicle of the immortal aura which surrounds and inspires me. In this aura I live. I find peace in it. Its harmony is eternal and it is alive here and now. It protects me.
7) Om… Shanti. Peace.
NOTES:
[1] See the text “How to Start the Day”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline, which can be found at our associated websites.
[2] After a few weeks (or months) of a daily practice in which one reads the text in paper, it is correct to evoke the inner and living spirit of this prayer, that is, the mental state it produces. Even so, it will be necessary to come back to reading the text from time to time.
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On the role of the esoteric movement in the ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
Published in 2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist, the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.
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