There is reason to believe that the physical conditions in many astrophysical masers are far from homogeneous. In particular, if the maser pump involves the absorption of infrared photons, the pump rate may vary rapidly (perhaps exponentially) across the cloud. The consequences of such variation of the pump rate for the maser radiation are calculated, and it is shown that there are substantial asymmetries in the output of the maser. A general result is that the maser radiation is preferentially emitted back toward the source of pump radiation. The implication of this result for the interpretation of the circumstellar 1612 MHz OH masers is briefly discussed.