SPIRITUAL DAILY ROUTINE FOR THE HOUSEHOLDER :

 

 

 

 

SPIRITUAL DAILY ROUTINE FOR THE HOUSEHOLDER :
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Each householder should have an ideal daily routine. The home life should not be left to
itself, but taken care of. In addition to those unexpected things that come up every day—a visit of
someone, a telephone call, an invitation to go out with someone—every one of you should have an
accepted basic programme, a basic schedule for your daily life, which should include an hour of
prayer in the morning and an hour of prayer in the evening. The prayer hour might include the
reading of scriptural texts, the reading of sacred and inspiring spiritual books, a few minutes of
quiet, indrawn meditation, a few minutes of actually articulated prayer, inspiring prayer. The prayer
can be spontaneous; it does not necessarily have to come out of some book. Or it can be both, as
there are some very inspiring short prayers in the Gospel and also in some other books. The children
should also be trained in this way.

 

There should also be some actual act of external worship. After all, we are embodied
creatures and we wish to exercise our bodies also in devotion. When you are in a state of worship,
the body also should take on the attitude of worship. You should light a candle, burn a little incense,
bow before the Deity, offer supplication, ask Him to enlighten you, to fill your heart with virtue, fill
your heart with divine love, goodness and selflessness, and then, bowing low and with
genuflection, kneel, press down with your forehead. In this way, you have to humble yourself in the
presence of God. Then, as the body genuflects, prostrates and humbles itself, the influence of those
little acts has a chastening effect upon the mind. We cannot become completely heedless to these
reactions of the body upon the mind and the mind upon the inner spirit. Therefore, each day, you
should have an hour when you have scope for the exercise of all these several aspects of your
being—for the exercise of the body, the heart and the feelings in prayer; for the exercise of the mind
and the intellect in study, reflection and enquiry; and for the exercise of the spirit in inner
contemplation, silence, indrawnness and meditation.

Each member of the family should have a private altar. The mother should have her own
nook or little corner, where she has her own little prayer, little conversation with God, little asking
for guidance, little intimate communion with God. The husband, likewise, should have a little altar
for himself, and if this cannot be had, at least he must have some time for himself, when he
communes with the Maker individually. And the children should be trained right from the very
beginning to have such separate little corners for themselves. Just as they have one corner for their
toys, another for their books, a third for their pets, so they must have a corner for their own
communion with the Most High, and if this habit is developed from childhood, then later on, they
will be able to have their own independent spiritual life.