Sunday, September 14, 2008

prayed

Getting my reading fix this week by indulging my transportation hours with Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.

Somehow, the classics I choose always seem to resonate with the kind of situation I am facing in my everyday life. The last, Jane Austen's Persuasion, the heroine met her true love at 19... sigh.

These books are found at MPH Raffles City for only $5.89... quite a steal.
All the characters in Les Miserables very poor thing one... makes me feel sort of gladdened that we live in this day and age where no one is destined to be so miserable. Still, we have our little troubles and fears.

Read this interesting piece which I shall reiterate here:

They pray.
To whom?
To God.
Pray to God, what is meant by that?
Is there an infinite outside of us? Is this infinite, one, inherent, permanent; necessarily substantial, because it is infinite, and because, if matter were wanting to it, it would in that respect be limited; necessarily intelligent, because it is infinite, and because, if it lacked intelligence, it would be to that extent, finite?

Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of essence, while we are able to attribute to ourselves the idea of existence only? In other words, is it not the absolute of which we are the relative?

At the same time, while there is an infinite outside of us, is there not an infinite within us? These two infinites (fearful plural!) do they not rest superposed on one another? Does not the second infinite underlie the first, so to speak? Is it not the mirror, the reflection, the echo of the first, an abyss concentric with another abyss? Is this second infinite, intelligent also? Does it think? Does it love? Does it will? If the two infinites be intelligent, each one of them has a will principle, and there is a 'me' in the infinite above, as there is a 'me' in the infinite below. The 'me' below is the soul, the 'me' above is God.

To place, by process of thought, the infinite below in contact with the infinite above, is called 'prayer'.

It goes on.
I shall finish 'book one' by this week and buy 'book two' next week!