© 2010 Swami Veetamohananda
© 2010 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
How to practice the presence of God in everyday life
One of the easiest and most effective spiritual disciplines is to bring the presence of God into the heart of every activity of our daily lives. This is the rule that is best suited for a holy life. We all know how Brother Laurent of the Resurrection (1), who was a very modest person, became an illuminated soul, a saint, through his practice of the presence of God.
The main purpose of this discipline is to cultivate the habit of filling one’s soul with a permanent and ever-increasing divine presence. How can this be done? Let us listen to Brother Lawrence: “If we would, in this life, know the serene peace of paradise, we must learn to converse with God in a familiar, humble, and loving manner.” This discipline is a form of Bhakti Yoga. Any devotee of a personal God, whatever his conception, anywhere in the world, can practice it with great profit. Its chief features are its absolute simplicity and ease. Let us again take the advice of Brother Lawrence: "Men invent means and methods to arrive at loving God. They learn rules and create formulas to recall this love and they make a whole world of introducing themselves into the consciousness of the presence of God. And yet it can be so simple… It is neither art nor science. Let us go to Him as we are, without pretension, with sincerity._ »
The life of Brother Lawrence offers us great spiritual hope and inspiration. He is a shining example of a beginner who, without any special gift, can rise from the humblest position to the highest spiritual illumination. He received the revelation of God when he was barely eighteen years old. It happened to him by the greatest of chances, while seeing something very ordinary. One day, in the middle of winter, he saw, in a meadow, a tree stripped of its leaves. As he looked at the trunk and branches in which life had fallen asleep, he had: “…the experience of seeing the tree as it would be in summer, that is to say, covered with thousands and thousands of leaves and flowers, then with fruit.” At the same time as this vision, he felt what has never left him, the sense of divine power and generosity. As he reflected on God’s dealings with the tree, he was converted at that very moment. Years later he declared that this bare tree had suddenly revealed to him, in a flash, the fact of God. And this kindled in his heart a love so great and so complete that it needed no further growth for the rest of his life. When he was thus convinced “of the fact of God, of his wisdom, his power, and his goodness,” he had no other concern than to rigorously reject every other thought, that every one of his acts might be done for the love of God. We know that Brother Lawrence had difficulty in teaching his mind to reject its desires and its hesitations. And that he had doubts about his salvation, too. But, despite all his trials and tribulations, despite all his doubts and hesitations, he held on to this one idea which he expressed thus: “I entered into the spiritual life for the love of God alone and I try to act in accordance with his will alone; whatever happens to me, whether I am lost or whether I am saved, I will continue on the path of his love and his will. This, at least, can be put to my credit: until my death, all my efforts will have been aimed at loving and serving God.”
This spiritual discipline, practiced by Brother Lawrence, teaches us to fix our minds on God and to do all our work for Him, with love and devotion. It requires establishing our minds in the blessed presence of the Lord and calling them to order when they stray from Him. It is, of course, a painful exercise, but we must persist in spite of all difficulties.
Let us remember this from the experience of Brother Laurent of the Resurrection:
-There is no more delightful and satisfying way to live in the world than to experience the presence of God, at all times and in all places.
And for those who desired to practice the presence of God, he suggested four main disciplines:
If these disciplines are practiced consistently, they will produce the most wonderful effects on the soul, and will bring forth a profusion of divine grace. Insensibly, the soul will become illuminated and inhabited by the permanent vision of the loving and beloved God. This is the holiest, most real, and most inspiring of all ways of practicing devotion. Such are the wonderfully simple teachings of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection. They can certainly inspire us and help us to enrich our personal approach to God.
The practice of the presence of God has been, since very ancient times, a spiritual method advocated in the Indian tradition. At the time of the Upanishads, the cultivation of the presence of the divinities reached its peak when the higher fact of Reality, the identity of the soul with the Supreme Spirit was discovered. However, only those who transcended the consciousness of their body were able to practice this approach to Reality. For the vast majority of spiritual seekers, who could not transcend the consciousness of their body, a personal approach to a personal God remained the opening to the spiritual life.
(1) Nicolas Herman, born in 1614 in Lorraine. At 18, he joined the army. Severely injured, he had to leave the army and worked as a footman in Paris. In 1640, he entered the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites under the name of Brother Laurent of the Resurrection. He died in 1691.
Swami Veetamohananda