This prayer is about the true spiritual life rather than one that seeks to escape from earth.
June 15, 1913
EVEN he who might have arrived at perfect contemplation in silence and solitude, could only have done so by extracting himself from his body, by making an abstraction of himself; and thus the substance of which the body is constituted would remain as impure, as imperfect as before, since he would have abandoned it to itself; by a misguided mysticism, by the attraction of supraphysical splendours, by the egoistic desire of being united with Thee for his personal satisfaction, he would have turned his back upon the reason of his earthly existence, he would have refused cowardlike to accomplish his mission to redeem and purify Matter. To know that a part of our being is perfectly pure, to commune with that purity, to be identified with it, can be useful only if we subsequently utilise this knowledge for hastening the earthly transfiguration, for accomplishing Thy sublime work.
The text above is quoted from the Third Edition, 1954 (translation by Rishabhchand Samsukha)
This book is freely available at https://www.auro-ebooks.com/prayers-and-meditations-1954-edition/
