He who sits with humbled, bowed head and folded, clasped, or knees-rested hands, with mind and heart in awed reverence, in sincere, worshipful, and rapt absorption which is aware of nothing else than the divine presence—he is praying, is meditating, is worshipping, is in heaven already.

The Reverential Life > The Reverential Life > The Reverential Life

#22647D – 12.18.0.1

BN – Z – K

All living forms everywhere embody this principle of being—the One Infinite Life-Power. It is not itself personal yet it is open to man's personal access and will respond to his invocation—provided he succeeds in establishing contact with it and provided his approach is right—but its response must come in its own way and time.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22648 – 12.18.1.1

BN – X – D

The devotional element belongs as much to this quest as to any other. 'Adoration' of the divine soul and 'humility' in the divine presence are two necessary qualities which the quester ought to develop. The first is expressed through meditation and the second through prayer.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22649 – 12.18.1.2

BN – X – DEK

Look how the smaller birds greet the sun, with so much merry chirruping and so much outpouring of song! It is their way of expressing worship for the only Light they can know, an outer one. But man can also know the inner Sun, the Light of the Overself. How much more reason has he to chirp and sing than the little birds! Yet how few men feel gratitude for such privilege.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22650 – 12.18.1.3

BN – X – DK1

Why ought I to cultivate religious faith, feeling worship? Because it lifts up the feeling nature generally. Because it develops humility. Because it invites Grace. Because it is the duty of a human being in relation to its Source.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22651 – 12.18.1.4

BN – X – D

He will come to perceive that his real strength lies in remembering the higher self, in remembering the quest of it, and, above all, in remembering the two with intense love, devotion, and faith.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22653 – 12.18.1.6

BN – X – D

If the aspirant will cultivate a feeling of reverence toward the higher power, whether it be directed toward God, the Overself, or his spiritual guide, he will profit much.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22654 – 12.18.1.7

BN – X – DEK

When devotion, worship, and reverence are fortified by knowledge, they can one day reach a stage where notably less is desired or demanded and peace then naturally arises. Nor is a measure of peace the only gain. Virtue later follows after it, quietly and effortlessly growing.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22656 – 12.18.1.9

BN – X – DK1

Metaphysical study will not weaken reverence but will rather put it on firmer ground. Metaphysical understanding will not weaken devotion but will rather more firmly establish it. What it will weaken, however, is the attachment to transient forms of reverence; what it will destroy is the error of giving devotion exclusively to the individual and refusing to include the Universal.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22657 – 12.18.1.10

BN – Z – K1

Since true philosophy is also a way of life, and since no such way can become effectual unless the feelings are involved, it includes and cultivates the most refined and most devotional feelings possible to man.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22658 – 12.18.1.11

BN – Z – DK1

Nature displays her beauteous landscapes in vain if he who has wandered into her presence lacks the aesthetic reverent sensitivity to glance appreciatively at the grand vistas. Similarly, philosophy calls for a tuned-in, quieted, and reverent mentality if a man who wanders to its feet is to profit by it.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22659 – 12.18.1.12

BN – X – D

Our greatest strength comes from reliance on the Higher Self and faith in the Higher Laws.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22660 – 12.18.1.13

BN – Z – D

I will never tire of telling men that the Overself is as loving as any parent and that it does care for our real welfare. But we must return that love, must give our unconditional devotion, if we are to have a correct relationship with it.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22662 – 12.18.1.15

BN – X – D

The need is for much more bhakti, especially during meditation, for intenser and warmer yearning to feel the sacred presence. It is really a need to descend from merely knowing in the head to knowing and feeling in the heart.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22664 – 12.18.1.17

BN – X – D

This deep, inner, and indescribable feeling which makes him yearn for closeness to the higher power is neither a misguided feeling nor a vain one.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22667 – 12.18.1.20

BN – X – D

It is a queer notion which regards a philosopher as a man without feeling, only because he has brought it under control. Not that it is altogether to his credit that he has been able to do so, for grace must share some credit too. There is plenty of feeling in his communion with the Higher Self.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22668 – 12.18.1.21

BN – X – D

This is the magic talisman which will strengthen and save you, even though you go down into Hades itself—this faith and love for the inner self.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22669 – 12.18.1.22

BN – X – D

Reverence, awe, adoration—these are evoked by, and themselves evoke the feeling of, the Overself's presence.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22672 – 12.18.1.25

BN – X – D

The message of philosophy in this matter may be summed up as this: Look beyond your tiny circle of awareness and forget the little "I" for a while in order to remember that greater and grander Being whence you have emanated.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22675 – 12.18.1.28

BN – Z – D

The key word here is reverence. It ought to enter every remembrance and every meditation.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22682 – 12.18.1.35

BN – X – D

He has raised an altar to the unknown God in his heart. Henceforth he worships there in secret and in silence. His hours of solitude are reserved for it, his moments of privacy dedicated to it.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22683 – 12.18.1.36

BN – Z – D

If they do not come to this quest with enough reverence, they are led later to the reverence by the quest.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22685 – 12.18.1.38

BN – X – D

Memorable are those minutes when we sit in silent adoration of the Overself, knowing it to be none other than our own best self. It is as though we have returned to our true home and rest by its hallowed hearth with a contentment nowhere else to be known. No longer do we possess anything; we are ourselves ineffably possessed. The individual hopes and fears, sorrows and desires that have so plagued our days are adjourned for the while.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22686E – 12.18.1.39

BN – X – DEK

We revere God best in silence, with lips struck dumb and thoughts hid deep.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22689 – 12.18.1.42

BN – Z – DK

Humbly the ego bends in silent homage, held by the benign peace; and then this second self appears: it is the Overself. Gently the smiling Presence spreads around.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22694 – 12.18.1.47

BN – Z

If men really wish to revere God, they may best do so by revering God's deputy in their hearts, the Overself.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Devotion

#22695 – 12.18.1.48

BN – X – D

Aspiration which is not just a vague and occasional wish but a steady settled and intense longing for the Overself is a primary requirement. Such aspiration means the hunger for awareness of the Overself, the thirst for experience of the Overself, the call for union to the Overself. It is a veritable power which lifts one upward, which helps one give up the ego more quickly, and which attracts Grace. It will have these desirable effects in proportion to how intensely it is felt and how unmixed it is with other personal desires.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22700 – 12.18.1.53

BN – X – D

Remember that no enterprise or move should be left to depend on the ego’s own limited resources. The humble invocation of help from the Higher Self expands those resources and has a protective value. At the beginning of every day, of every enterprise, of every journey, and of every important piece of work, remember the Overself, and remembering, be obedient to its laws. Seek its inspiration, its power. To make it your silent partner is to double your effectiveness.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22701 – 12.18.1.54

ME_01 – ZZ – DK1

If you want to know how to set about finding the Higher Self, Jesus has very clearly given the answer. Seek, knock, and ask; pray to it and for it—not just once but scores of times, if necessary, and always with your whole heart, lovingly, yearningly, reverently.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22702 – 12.18.1.55

B_12 – P – D

What intellect cannot do because of its feebleness the aspirational feeling can do by its force.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22704 – 12.18.1.57

BN – X – D

To yearn only at times for this spiritual awakeness is not enough. He must yearn for it continually.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22706 – 12.18.1.59

BN – X – D

To remember the Overself devotedly, to think about it frequently and lovingly, is part of this practice.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22707 – 12.18.1.60

BN – X – D

The quest is not a thing to be played with; that is only for those who merely talk about it. To engage in it is of necessity to devote one's entire life to it.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22708 – 12.18.1.61

BN – X – D

Dwelling upon the beauty and tranquillity, the wisdom and the power of the Overself, he lets thoughts move towards it of their own accord.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22711 – 12.18.1.64

BN – X – D

If he is to achieve his purpose, it should be clearly pictured in his mind and strongly supported by his will. It should be desired with all his being, believed in with all his heart.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22712 – 12.18.1.65

BN – X – D

Henceforth he lives on and for the quest, killing in his heart all other desires.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22716 – 12.18.1.69

BN – X – D

Life, history, experience—each gives us the same clear message. The temple of Solomon, once a pyramid in its vast area, is felled to the ground, and its thousands of worshippers gone with it. What, then, how, and where shall we worship? Let us seek the timeless Power which transcends the centuries, let us utter no word but fall into silence, for here the voice of the little ego's thoughts is an insult. Let us go where Jesus advised—deep inside the heart. For we carry the truth within ourselves—yet how few know it—and bear the closest of ties with that Power in consciousness itself.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22718 – 12.18.1.71

B_12 – P – DE

Loving attention to the Overself should not be limited to moments spent in meditation or prayer, but should form the background for all one's other thoughts.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22719 – 12.18.1.72

BA12 – P – D

Why does not the Overself show its existence and display its power once and for all? Why does it let this long torment of man, left to dwell in ignorance and darkness, go on? All that the ego is to gain from undergoing its varied evolution is wrapped up in the answer. This we have considered in 'The Wisdom of the Overself' and 'The Spiritual Crisis of Man'. But there is something more to be added to that answer. The Overself waits with deepest patience for him—man—to prefer it completely to everything and everyone else. It waits for the time when longings for the soul will leave the true aspirant no rest, when love for the divine will outlast and outweigh all other loves. When he feels that he needs it more than he needs anything else in this world, the Overself will unfailingly reveal its presence to him. Therefore a yearning devotion is one of the most important qualifications he can possess.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22723 – 12.18.1.76

BN – Z – DEK

By thought, the ego was made; by thought, the ego’s power can be unmade. But the thought must be directed toward a higher entity, for the ego’s willingness to attack itself is only a pretense. Direct it constantly to the Overself, be mentally devoted to the Overself, and emotionally love the Overself. Can it then refuse to help you?

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22724 – 12.18.1.77

BN – X – D

The way to be admitted to the Overself's presence can be summed up in a single phrase: 'love it'. Not by breathing in very hard nor by blowing out very slow, not by standing on the head nor by contorting like a frog can admission be gained. Not even by long study of things divine nor by acute analysis of them. But let the love come first, let it inspire the breathing, blowing, standing, or contorting, let it draw to the study and drive to the thinking, and then these methods will become really fruitful.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22725 – 12.18.1.78

BN – ZZ – DEK1

The way to be admitted the Overself’s presence can be summed up in a single phrase: love it. Not by breathing in very hard nor by blowing out very slow, not by standing on the head… can admission be gained. Not even by long study of things divine nor by acute analysis of them. But let the love come first.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22725E-E – 12.18.1.78

B_01 – ZZZ – DEK

When the divine has become the sole object of his love and the constant subject of his meditation, the descent of a gracious illumination cannot be far off.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22727 – 12.18.1.80

BN – X – D

Love is both sunshine for the seed and fruit from the tree. It is a part of the way to Self-Realization and also a result of reaching the goal itself.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22728 – 12.18.1.81

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DK1

The love which he is to bring as sacrificial offering to the Overself must take precedence of all other loves. It must penetrate the heart's core to a depth where the best of them fails to reach.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22729 – 12.18.1.82

BN – Z – K1

He needs to hold the sacred conviction that so long as he continues to cherish the Ideal his higher self will not abandon him.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22730 – 12.18.1.83

BN – Z – DK

Amid all his mental adventures and emotional misadventures, he should never lose sight of the goal, should never permit disappointment or frailty to cause desertion of the quest.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22731 – 12.18.1.84

BN – X – D

He who is possessed by this love of truth and who is so sincere that he is willing to subordinate all other desires to it will be repaid by truth herself.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22733 – 12.18.1.86

BA12 – P – D

Only when the Overself becomes the focus of all his thinking is it likely to become the inspirer of all his doing.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22734 – 12.18.1.87

BN – X – D

He will come, if he perseveres with sufficient patience, to look upon his practice not as a dry exercise to which he reluctantly goes at the call of duty but as a joyous return to which he is attracted by his heart's own desire.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22735 – 12.18.1.88

BN – X – D

How close he comes to the truth may depend on how deeply he cares for it.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22737 – 12.18.1.90

BN – X – D

Love will have to enter his quest at some point—love for the Overself. For it is through this uniting force that his transformation will at the end be effected.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22738 – 12.18.1.91

BN – X – D

Unless he loves the Overself with deep feeling and real devotion, he is unlikely to put forth the efforts needed to find it and the disciplines needed to push aside the obstacles in the way to it.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22739 – 12.18.1.92

BN – X – D

Love of the Overself is the swiftest horse that can bear us to the heavenly destination. For the more we love It, the less we love the ego and its ways.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22740 – 12.18.1.93

BN – X – D

The devotional attitude will not decrease with the growth of the mystical one. It too will grow, side by side with the other. But it will cast out of itself more and more egoistic selfish interest or grasping until it becomes the pure love of the Overself for the latter's sake alone.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22741 – 12.18.1.94

BN – X – D

Why do we come to God's presence only with our messy problems and our dark troubles? Why only as beggars, or when unhappy, miserable, unhealthy? Can we not come to Him joyously, for His own sake, for love of Him alone?

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22742 – 12.18.1.95

BN – X – D

A man or woman to whom fate has denied the outer human love may find that it has also offered him or her the very real feeling of divine love. In that case, he or she cannot receive the gift 'in its fullness' unless he or she accepts the denial with resignation.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22750 – 12.18.1.103

BN – ZZ – DK

The more we are devoted to the diviner attractions, the less devoted or susceptible do we become to the earthly ones. Thus the mere exercise of the faculty of veneration for something beyond ourselves gradually lifts us nearer to the desireless state.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > The greatest love

#22758 – 12.18.1.111

BN – X – D

A worldly refusal to honour the sacred is as unbalanced as a monastic refusal to honour the secular. In a balance of both duties, in a commonsense union of their ordained roles in a man's life lies the way for present-day man. Each age has its own emphasis; ours should be equilibrium.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Warnings and suggestions

#22761 – 12.18.1.114

BN – Z – K1

The duty of worship, whether in a public temple or a private home, exists not because God needs our praise—for he is not in want of anything—but because we need to recollect him.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Warnings and suggestions

#22767 – 12.18.1.120

BN – X – D

What is prayer but a turning to the higher unseen power in the only way that simple, spiritually untutored people know? Why deprive them of it? What is wrong about its use in organized religion is that they are not taught the further facts. First, prayer is only a beginning, its continuing development being meditation. Second, it ought not be limited to material demands but always accompanied by moral and religious aspiration. Third, it is best performed, as Jesus taught, in private and secret.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Warnings and suggestions

#22772 – 12.18.1.125

B_01 – ZZ – K

There is danger to every man who denies this inner part of his being any share in daily life, any love, reverence, and worship. This danger may appear, fully realized, in his body or mind.

The Reverential Life > Devotion > Warnings and suggestions

#22776 – 12.18.1.129

BN – X – D

Prayer is one of the oldest of human acts and one of the first of human needs.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22788 – 12.18.2.1

BN – X – D

The quest begins with prayer and even ends with it too. No man, whether novice or proficient, can afford to throw away this valuable means of communion, adoration, worship, and request.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22790 – 12.18.2.3

BN – X – D

The call for prayer which, in most religions, is timed for once or twice a day and, in the Islamic religion, for five times a day, has at least two objectives in the mind of those sages who originally framed it. The first is to act as a reminder of what one is—a soul—and where one is going—ultimately to God. The second is to rescue us from the narrowing materializing routine of work or business.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22791 – 12.18.2.4

BN – X – D

Prayer is very necessary. It helps to clean or purge the feelings. Prayer later leads to intuition. > >Do not pray for things to happen in the way you wish them to; this is not always the same as what is best for you. Even in your daily prayers you can do something to better your character. > >Most people start their prayer asking for something. That is not right; prayer is an act of devotion and love to God. It is the manifestation of the feeling that there is something higher with which it is possible to come in contact. Prayer is not only asking, it is first and foremost an act of worship and love of God. Only after that is done you may ask for something for yourself—mainly, of course, for spiritual things and not material. You should pray in solitude, if possible. But you may pray with others if they are in harmony with you.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22792 – 12.18.2.5

BN – X – DEK

There is no man so advanced that he can afford to dispense with prayer. It occupies a most important place in the philosophic aspirant's life.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22793 – 12.18.2.6

BN – X – D

The sceptic who deems all prayer vain and useless, who regards the reasons for it as foolish, is too often justified. But when he ceases to search farther for the reasons behind prayer, he becomes unjustified. For if he did search, he might discover that true prayer is often answered because it is nothing less than making a connection—however loose, ill-fitting, and intermittent it be—with the life-force within the universe.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22794 – 12.18.2.7

BN – X – K1

There is no one so sinful or so degraded in character that he is denied this blessed privilege of a contrite yearning for communion with his own divine source. Even the failure to have ever prayed before, even a past life of shame and error, does not cancel but, on the contrary, merely enhances this right. This granted, it will be found that there are many different forms of such communion, different ways of such prayer.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22795 – 12.18.2.8

BN – Z – DEK1

He should not fall into the error of believing that the transition to philosophical study has exempted him from the duty of mystical practice or that the transition to the latter has exempted him from the need of religious devotion. We do not drop what belongs to a lower stage but keep and preserve it in the higher one. Aspiration is a vital need. He should become as a child at the feet of his divine Soul, humbly begging for its grace, guidance, and enlightenment. If his ego is strong, prayer will weaken it. Let him do this every day, not mechanically but sincerely and feelingly until the tears come to his eyes. The quest is an integral one and includes prayer alongside of all the other elements.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22798 – 12.18.2.11

BN – Z – DEK1

We are called to prayer because we can achieve no success, whether in human life or in the spiritual quest, without seeking and gaining divine help.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22804 – 12.18.2.17

BN – X – D

In those situations wherein it is totally helpless to save itself from danger and death, every creature sends forth an anguished cry from the heart. And this is as natural to animals as to human beings. The younger animals address it to their physical mother, the older ones to the Father-Mother of all beings, God.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22805 – 12.18.2.18

BN – X – DEK

The first value of prayer is that it is a confession of personal inadequacy and, by consequence, an aspiration to personal upliftment. It is a self-humbling of the ego and the beginning of a detachment from it. It is a first step in obedience to Jesus' paradoxical proclamation, "He that loseth his life shall find it".

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22807 – 12.18.2.20

B_11 – P – D

The Christian grace before, the Hebrew thanksgiving before and after meals, were prescribed for the same reason that the Muhammedan's brief five-times-a-day prayer was prescribed. And this was to bring the remembrance of life's higher purpose into everyday living.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22812 – 12.18.2.25

BN – X – D

Too many individuals—and some of them are followers of this Quest—fail to remember the importance of simple prayer. There is not enough humbling of intellectual pride at the feet of the Higher Power and there is an obvious neglect of reverent worship in their attitudes and daily lives.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22814 – 12.18.2.27

BN – X – D

The mystic has to pass through the earlier stage of regarding the Overself as an "other" before he can arrive at the later stage of regarding it as his own essential self. Hence the need of prayer for the first stage.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Prayer

#22816 – 12.18.2.29

BN – X – DEK

A philosopher’s prayer: “That which is the ever-living presence in man: to That I turn when in trouble; on That I meditate when at rest; may That bless with its grace my entry into the other side of death.”

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22821 – 12.18.2.34

BN – X – D

It is good to pray that the coming year may find in you a more aspiring and more determined person, a calmer and better balanced seeker after truth.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22822 – 12.18.2.35

BN – X – D

Thanks for Thy presence and existence here and now. > >Praise for making life on earth more bearable and more endurable when it becomes oppressive.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22825 – 12.18.2.38

BN – Z – K1

At some point during your prayer surrender your personal self to God, and your personal will to His Will.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22833 – 12.18.2.46

BN – X – D

If you want a workable and faultless prayer, what is better than the one which Socrates habitually used, "Give me that which is best for me," or the one which some older pagan used, "May I love, seek, and attain only that which is good"?

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22834 – 12.18.2.47

BN – X – D

It is advisable to bring your prayer or healing treatment to an end with a silent or spoken expression of thanks to the higher power. It should be uttered with strong fervour and deep humility.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22839 – 12.18.2.52

BN – X – DK

Thou! Unseen, untouched and unknown, The only grace I beg for Is the grace of loving Thee! — My prayer

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22841 – 12.18.2.54

BN – X – D

He should not hesitate to pray humbly, kneeling in the secrecy of his private room, to the Overself. First his prayer should acknowledge the sins of his more distant past having led to sufferings in the later past or his immediate present, and he should accept this as just punishment without any rebellious feeling. Then he may throw himself on the Grace as being the only deliverance left outside his own proper and requisite efforts to amend the causes. Finally let him remember the living master to whom he has given allegiance and draw strength from the memory.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22846 – 12.18.2.59

BN – ZZ – K1

To enter this stillness is the best way to pray.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22847 – 12.18.2.60

BN – ZZ – DK1

It is not to be, as it is with so many unenlightened religionists, nothing more than a request to be given something for nothing, a petition for unearned and undeserved personal benefit. It is to be first, a confession of the ego's difficulty or even failure to find its own way correctly through the dark forest of life; second, a confession of the ego's weakness or even helplessness in coping with the moral and mental obstacles in its path; third, an asking for help in the ego's own strivings after self-enlightenment and self-betterment; fourth, a resolve to struggle to the end to forsake the lower desires and overcome the lower emotions which raise dust-storms between the aspirant and his higher self; and fifth, a deliberate self-humbling of the ego in the admission that its need of a higher power is imperative.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22848 – 12.18.2.61

BN – Z – K1

Whenever an emergency arises wherein you require help, guidance, protection, or inspiration, turn the thought away from self-power and bring it humbly to the feet of the higher power in prayer.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22851 – 12.18.2.64

BN – X – D

Prayers really begin when their words end. They are most active not when the lips are active but when they are still.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22852 – 12.18.2.65

BN – X – D

Too often prayer is mere soliloquy, a man talking to his own ego about his own ego, and heard only by his own ego. It would be far better for him to learn how to keep his thoughts silent, to put himself into a receptive listening attitude; what he may then hear may convince him that "the Father knoweth what ye need."

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22857 – 12.18.2.70

BN – X – D

Oh, Lord, if I have any prayer at all it is, "Make the 'me' absolutely quiescent and lead me into thy utter stillness where nothing else matters but the stillness itself."

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22858 – 12.18.2.71

BN – X – D

What shall he pray for? Let him aspire more intensely than ever to the Overself and ask to become united in consciousness with it, surrendered in will to it, and purified in ego.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22860 – 12.18.2.73

BN – Z – DK

Pray by listening inwardly for intuitive feeling, light, strength, not by memorized form or pauperized begging.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22864 – 12.18.2.77

BN – Z – DEK1

The eternal laws of karma will not cease operating merely for the asking … He must set going a series of new causes which shall produce new and pleasanter consequences that may act as an antidote to the older ones.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22868E – 12.18.2.81

BA11 – ZZZ – DEK

He may always rightly close his prayer by soliciting guidance and sometimes by asking for forgiveness. Such a request can find justification, however, only if it is not a request for interfering with karma, only if it comes after recognition of wrong done, perception of personal weakness, confession leading to contrition, and a real effort to atone penitently and improve morally. The eternal laws of karma will not cease operating merely for the asking and cannot violate their own integrity. They are impersonal and cannot be cajoled into granting special privileges or arbitrary favours to anyone. There is no cheap and easy escape from them. If a sinner wants to avoid hurtful consequences of his own sins, he must use those very laws to help him do so, and not attempt to insult them. He must set going a series of new causes which shall produce new and pleasanter consequences that may act as an antidote to the older ones.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Forms of prayer

#22868 – 12.18.2.81

BN – ZZZ – DEK

To regard—as W. Tudor Pole regards—the successful withdrawal from Dunkirk or the successful air battle of Britain as being the result of the Church's intercession or of the National Day of Prayer is merely to fall into superstition. Why not say that the capitulation of Belgium and the collapse of France were also due to the same cause because they also occurred about the same time? Why did not all the clergy's prayers save the thousands of British churches which were destroyed by German bombs? No—karma is more powerful than the Church, evolution more fateful than intercession; Britain was saved because both the British karma and the world's evolutionary needs demanded its saving.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Misunderstandings and misuses

#22873 – 12.18.2.86

BN – Z – K

How useful are prayers which are set, formal, and prepared? All too often they lack individual appeal and fail to stir any feeling. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to say that they are quite useless.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Misunderstandings and misuses

#22879 – 12.18.2.92

BN – Z – K

There is no moment when the unseen divine activity is not present in the Universe. Everything is being carried on by the divine Power and divine Wisdom. God is not taking care of us or, indeed, of everyone else. God is in every atom of the Universe and consequently in full operation of the Universe.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Misunderstandings and misuses

#22882M – 12.18.2.95

BA11 – P – DX

It is a great and grave fallacy to believe that it is necessary to pray in order to be taken care of by god. The truth is that there is no moment when god is not taking care of us or, indeed, of everyone else. God is in every atom of the universe and consequently in full operation of the universe. This activity does not stop because we stop praying.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Misunderstandings and misuses

#22882 – 12.18.2.95

B_01 – ZZ – DEMK

Dogmatic or mechanical prayer is really valueless. The only effective prayer comes straight from the heart. It should be fervent, reverent, and spontaneous, expressing both idealistic aspirations and spiritual needs.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Misunderstandings and misuses

#22887 – 12.18.2.100

B_01 – ZZ – K

Before you venture into the prayer of petition ask yourself first, is it really as wise to get what you seek as it seems to be; second, are you deserving of it; and third, what will you do to justify its bestowal.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Misunderstandings and misuses

#22899 – 12.18.2.112

BN – Z

What usually passes for prayer seldom gets near the divine presence, remains ego-encircled and useless.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Misunderstandings and misuses

#22901 – 12.18.2.114

BN – Z

The true purpose of prayer is not to keep asking for some benefit each time we engage in it, but rather to express the yearning of the underself for the Overself, the attraction felt by the ego living in darkness for its parent source dwelling in light.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Misunderstandings and misuses

#22905 – 12.18.2.118

BN – X – D

The internal ego does them more harm than anything or anyone else, yet how few appeal to the Divine for protection against themselves, how many for protection against merely external evils?

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Misunderstandings and misuses

#22909 – 12.18.2.122

BN – X – D

When prayer is not selfish commerce but holy communion, when it is not worldly minded but spiritually minded, when it seeks the inner Ideal rather than the outer Actual, it has the chance of becoming effectually realized.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Misunderstandings and misuses

#22915 – 12.18.2.128

B_01 – ZZ – K

Self-purification is the best prayer, self-correction is the most effectual one.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22921 – 12.18.2.134

BN – Z – K1

It is common to pray for help to overcome our shortcomings, and this is right; it is even more common to pray to escape the painful results of our shortcomings, but this is not right. Their results are needed for our development and if god took them away from us, we would be robbed of a chance to make this development.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22923 – 12.18.2.136

B_01 – ZZ – K

He who can kneel down in utter humility and spontaneously pray to his higher self out of a genuine desire to elevate his character, will not pray in vain.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22928 – 12.18.2.141

BN – X – D

If the confession of sins and faults is an indispensable part of philosophic prayer, striving to forsake those sins and faults must be made an active part of the daily life after prayer.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22929 – 12.18.2.142

BN – X – D

It is better to pray to be led into truth, for then, as Jesus knew and remarked, "All these [other] things shall be added unto you."

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22931 – 12.18.2.144

B_01 – ZZ – K

The best kind of prayer which we can make for another person is uttered without words—that is, by leading him to the stillness; the lesser kind is to beg for him by voiced sound.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22943 – 12.18.2.156

BN – Z – D

He is neither to pity nor to despise those whose weaknesses are very pronounced, but he is to wish to help them. If actual aid seems beyond his capacity, he can at least turn them over during the peak period of his meditation hour to the care of the higher power. In this way he makes some kind of a mental link for them with this power.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22944 – 12.18.2.157

BN – Z

If you seek to invoke the divine grace to meet a genuine and desperate physical need or human result, seek first to find the sacred presence within yourself and only after you have found it, or at least only after you have attained the deepest point of contemplation possible to you, should you name the thing or result sought. For then you will not only be guided whether it be right to continue the request or not, but you will also put yourself in the most favourable position for securing grace.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22946 – 12.18.2.159

BN – Z – DM1

The highest help we can give another person is not physical but spiritual. And in giving it we benefit ourselves too. For the lofty mood, the loving thought, the peaceful feeling, the full confidence in higher power that we seek to transmit in prayer or meditation to him, must be first created within ourselves. From that creation, we benefit as well as he. Yes, we may introduce the remembrance of other persons, toward the close of our meditation, and pray silently on their behalf. The wonder is that this remembrance, this prayer, this meditation for another may have some effect, although we may be in Canada and the other in Africa. Like a radio broadcast, it reaches out to him.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22947 – 12.18.2.160

BN – Z

Do not give any "suggestion." All that is necessary is to pray to be used in whatever way best for the other person's spiritual benefit.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22963 – 12.18.2.176

BN – Z

Both prayer and receptivity are needed. First we pray fervently and feelingly to the Overself to draw us closer to it, then we lapse into emotional quietness and patiently wait to let the inner self unfold to us. There is no need to discard prayer because we take up meditation. The one makes a fit prelude to the other. The real need is to purify prayer and uplift its objectives.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22965 – 12.18.2.178

BN – ZZ – DK1

In prayer we are trying to speak to God. In meditation we are trying to let God speak to us. There lies one difference.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22968 – 12.18.2.181

BN – X – DEK

A further difference between prayer and meditation is that in prayer, when successful, there is felt an intimacy with the Holy but not an identity with it, as is the case in the latter.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22969 – 12.18.2.182

BN – X – D

Every philosophic aspirant should devote a little time to prefacing meditations or studies with a worshipful, devoted, and reverent supplication of the higher self for enlightenment.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22971 – 12.18.2.184

BN – X – D

More than four hundred years ago a Dominican monk, Louis of Granada, affirmed: “Contemplation—is the most perfect prayer.”

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22974 – 12.18.2.187

BN – X – D

Prayer not only must be used as a suitable preface to meditation, but may also be effectively used as a help to meditation. Where an aspirant is unable to calm his restless thoughts, in addition to the constant daily regular effort to do so—for perseverance is part of the secret of success—he may pray to the higher self to take possession of his mind. Such prayer must be deeply heartfelt, constantly repeated, and animated by a longing to get away from the peaceless ego.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22975 – 12.18.2.188

BN – X – DEK

Prayer begins to make itself heard and get itself answered when the praying one begins to penetrate his own within-ness, to experience his own spiritual selfhood. For the only God he can reach, and the only one who will help him, is the God in him, the Overself.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22977 – 12.18.2.190

BN – Z – DEK

It seems to be a law of the inner life that we have to ask for the inner help that is needed long long before it begins to manifest.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22979 – 12.18.2.192

BN – Z – DK1

His prayers and longing, his aspirations and yearnings are not in vain. They are all heard, let him be assured of that. But their fulfilment must necessarily come in the Overself's time, not his own. A seed cannot shoot up all at once into a tree. The processes of growth in nature satisfy the criterions of soundness, although they dismay the criterions of sentimentality.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22981 – 12.18.2.194

BN – Z

The answer to prayer may come in a wholly unexpected way that we neither desire nor like. It may come as an apparent misfortune, for that may be the real "good" for us just then.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22982 – 12.18.2.195

BN – Z

If the response to prayer could set aside universal laws for the sake of those who pray, then the universe would become a chaos.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22983 – 12.18.2.196

BN – Z

Such is the untouched depth of the human being that when a man prays to God he really prays to himself, his Overself.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22986 – 12.18.2.199

B_01 – ZZ – DMK

The Power to whom prayer should be addressed—for Its Grace, Its Self-Revelation and Guidance—is one’s own higher self, the Overself.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22988 – 12.18.2.201

BN – X – D

In praying, the aspirant should direct his prayer to the only God he can know, that is, the God-Principle within himself—his own Divine Soul.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22989 – 12.18.2.202

BN – X – D

The man who finds God within himself feels no need to pray to a god who is to be sought and addressed outside himself. To enter this stillness is the best way to pray.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22990 – 12.18.2.203

B_01 – ZZ – DEK

If the sincere desire of his heart is echoed by a prayer that expresses humility and requests guidance, it will be heard. Although he may receive no answer for quite a time, sooner or later it will come.

The Reverential Life > Prayer > Human petition, divine response

#22992 – 12.18.2.205

BN – Z – D

We complain that there is no response to our prayer for uplift or light. But that is because there is no propriety in our approach. The intellectually gifted comes with his arrogance and the artistically gifted with his vanity, while each man comes with his pride. The correct approach was described by Jesus: Become as a little child; for then we become humble, feel dependent, and begin to lay the ego aside. With that the door to the Overself opens and its grace begins to shine through.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#22993 – 12.18.3.1

BN – X – D

We must be humble enough to recognize how imperfect we are, but instructed enough to recognize that the ego-covered part of us is shiningly divine. Thus both humility and dignity must be brought together in our make-up and reconciled and balanced.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#22996 – 12.18.3.4

BN – Z – DEK

Rare is the person who can witness his ego crushed to the ground and yet never forget his divine parentage, so that his mental equilibrium is not broken—who can be lifted up to the glorious heights of the Overself and yet remain humbly human.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#22999 – 12.18.3.7

BN – X – DM

If the need to communicate either in prayer or in meditation with that higher power is not felt by a man, his intellect may be too powerful or his pride too strong.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#23002 – 12.18.3.10

BN – X – D

There is no entry here for the proud, the conceited, the self-pedestalled. They must first be humbled, shorn, and shamed. They must drop to the ground on their knees, must become weeping beggars and wounded mendicants.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#23004 – 12.18.3.12

BN – Z

If he presents a firm assured face to the world, to protect his place in it, he presents a far humbler one to the Overself.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#23005 – 12.18.3.13

BN – Z

The proud heart of man must be humbled before the Overself will reveal itself to him.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#23006 – 12.18.3.14

BN – X – D

There are certain times and certain experiences which a man must approach humbly and uncritically if he is to benefit by them.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#23007 – 12.18.3.15

BN – ZZ

When we come to know more fully and more really what we are, we have to bow, humbled, in heartfelt adoration of the Mind of the World.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#23010 – 12.18.3.18

BN – X – D

The humility needed must be immensely deeper than what ordinarily passes for it. He must begin with the axiom that the ego is ceaselessly deceiving him, misleading him, ruling him. He must be prepared to find its sway just as powerful amid his spiritual interests as his worldly ones. He must realize that he has been going from illusion to illusion even when he seemed to progress.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#23012 – 12.18.3.20

BN – ZZZ – DEK1

Let us be humble where it is right to be so but let us not forget that when humility becomes personal cowardice and disloyalty to truth, then its virtue is transformed into vice.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#23022 – 12.18.3.30

BN – ZZ

Spiritual pride has rightly been listed by the Christian saints as a source of deception, and as the last of the traps into which the would-be saint can fall. A man may be quite holy and well self-controlled, but if he notices these two attainments with self-complacency, or rather self-congratulation, he at once strengthens the ego—although he transfers his excellence from worldly to spiritual matters.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#23031 – 12.18.3.39

BN – X – D

There are mystics who have developed a considerable depth of meditation. They come back from their session of practice feeling the peace they have touched, but at the same time they come back smugly satisfied with the experience and especially with the attainment it seems to point towards. This is not enough. Even if they go apparently to the apex of the stillness, the ego has travelled with them. They may be aware of where they have been, but they were aware that they were aware. Thus there was duality in what 'they' thought was unity. Do not praise the ego for having found God. It was Grace which brought about the discovery. It was not the ego. It is true that the beginner needs humility but it is even more true that the advanced man needs even more humility.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The need

#23034 – 12.18.3.42

BN – X – DEK

Humility, sensitivity, and emotional refinement are essential qualities which must be developed. Even more necessary is the daily practice of humble worship, devotion, and prayer.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23035 – 12.18.3.43

BN – X – D

The cultivation of reverential, prayerful, humble worship is needed to attract Grace. The putting aside of pride, self-conceit, and complacency is indispensable in order to assume the correct attitude during such worship. At such a time the saying of Jesus "Except ye be as a little child . . ." is directly applicable. The shy reticence of the Overself cannot be overcome without utter humility on the practitioner's part. Of course, this is the attitude to be adopted during devotions, not during worldly activity.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23036 – 12.18.3.44

BN – X – DEK

Humility is the first step on this path. We should realize how little we really know when confronted by the great mysteries of life…

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23038E – 12.18.3.46

BA12 – P – DE

What are the attributes of a little child? A child has a flexible mind. It has not become mentally set or prejudiced by a collection of conceptions about life. It is fresh. Its head is not stuffed with a lot of so-called education. It is ready to learn—in fact, it is learning all the time. And the child has also a simplicity of spirit. It does not become complicated, tied up with all sorts of conjectures imposed by societies or families or newspapers. It has not become prejudiced by caste or environment. Moreover the child has not yet developed the strong sense of personality which adults have. Above all, the child is humble, it is teachable, it is willing to learn. This is what we need too. Humility is the first step on this path. We should realize how little we really know when confronted by the great mysteries of life.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23038E – 12.18.3.46

BN – X – DEK

To be humble is to be willing to admit the galling fact that one's own shortcomings of character or intelligence (and not other people's) were mostly responsible for most of one's troubles.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23040 – 12.18.3.48

BN – X – D

The higher he climbs, the humbler he becomes. Only he will not make an exhibition of his humility to the world, for it is not needed there and might even harm him and others. He will be humble deep down in his heart where it is needed, in that sacred place where he faces the Overself.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23041 – 12.18.3.49

BN – X – DK1

These "Great Truths" require great humility in a human being to receive them. The bigoted and the prejudiced lack it.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23044 – 12.18.3.52

BSG_4 – ZZ – D

He must be humble enough to admit errors in thought and conduct, never hesitating to retrace his steps when on the wrong road.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23045 – 12.18.3.53

BN – ZZZ – DK

Humility: See all men and women according to the Holy Ghost that is within them; always remember that the outer picture is still being worked on.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23052 – 12.18.3.60

BN – Z – D

By maintaining the humility of the learner and the questing spirit of a seeker, he improves his own usefulness as a channel to help other people.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23053 – 12.18.3.61

BA12 – P – D

His attitude need not be utterly pessimistic. He [the philosophic student] may say to himself, "If I have made a mistake, very well; I am undergoing a process of spiritual trial and error. Some errors are inevitable, but I shall catch up with them, study them, understand their results, and wring their meaning and their lessons out of them. In that way they will become steps which I shall mount towards truth. If I suffer calamities of my own making, I will stand aside, calm, impersonal, and detached, and take the sting out of them by this ego-free attitude. In the long-range point of view it is not what I want but what I need that matters; and if I need the correction of adversity or calamity it is better that I, have it."

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23057 – 12.18.3.65

B_01 – ZZZ – DEK

The nearer his understanding comes to this higher Self, the humbler he becomes and the less likely is he to boast about this uncommon condition.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23058 – 12.18.3.66

BN – X – D

There is much that we must let stand as inexplicable, must accept as a mystery, and thus avoid falling into the trap of smooth intellectual theories. We ought not demand what the human mind, because it is finite, has no right to demand.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23060 – 12.18.3.68

BN – ZZ

For the man who has a strong ego, the religious approach with its cultivation of humility, its confession of sinfulness, and its redirection of emotion away from personality is the best to be recommended, if accompanied by some of the Philosophical Discipline's restrictions of the ego. However, such a person usually refuses to drink the medicines he most needs and therefore continues to remain involved in troubles of his own creation.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23061 – 12.18.3.69

BN – Z – D

At such a time he feels that his entire past was a horrible series of self-deceptions.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23063 – 12.18.3.71

BN – Z

He has emotionally to crawl on hands and knees before the higher power in the deepest humility. This kills pride, that terrible obstacle between man and the Soul’s presence.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23065 – 12.18.3.73

BN – ZZZ – DK

The ego must acknowledge its own transiency, confess its own instability, and thus become truly humble.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23066 – 12.18.3.74

BSG_4 – ZZ – DK

Only when his ego's pride has been shattered, only when he has become depressed by future prospects and humiliated by present failure, is a man more likely to listen to the truth about himself.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23071 – 12.18.3.79

BN – Z

When affliction seems too hard to be borne any longer, when man has come to the end of his endurance, what other recourse has he than to fall on his knees or to cry out in humility?

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23074 – 12.18.3.82

BN – Z

Too often man has to have his ego crushed, has to be pushed into sorrow and even despair, before he is willing to turn his head upward or to bend his knees in prayer to the unseen power.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23080 – 12.18.3.88

BN – Z – D

The more he is humbled by his failures, the more is he likely to find a way out of them.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23081 – 12.18.3.89

BN – Z

A sharply critical, dryly intellectual aspirant who has had many troubles in his worldly life and physical health has had the opportunity of working out a lot of hard destiny. But it will not be without compensation if out of his suffering he develops a more religious attitude towards life, a fuller acceptance of the insufficiency of earthly things and human intellect, a greater throwing of himself into self-humbling prayer and upon the Grace. He is the type and temperament which must emphasize the religious, devotional approach to Truth and confess his helplessness. In this way he will begin to rely less on his own ego, which is his real enemy and hindrance to his true welfare.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23082 – 12.18.3.90

B_17 – P – DE

When life seems to lose its meaning, when action seems in vain and ambition futile, when depression besets one like a dark cloud, the ego begins to feel its helplessness, its dependence on forces outside itself.

The Reverential Life > Humility > The practice

#23083 – 12.18.3.91

BN – Z – D

When we can fully accept the truth that God is the governor and manager of the universe, that the World-Mind is behind and controlling the World-Idea, then we begin to accept the parallel truths that all things and creatures are being taken due care of and that all events are happening under the divine will. This leads in time to the understanding that the ego is not the actual doer, although it has the illusion of doing, working, and acting. The practical application of this metaphysical understanding is to put down our burdens of personal living on the floor and let Providence carry them for us: this is a surrender of the ego to the divine.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23085 – 12.18.4.2

BN – X – D

It is when a man breaks down and finally admits that he cannot go on, that both he and his life must change—it is at such a moment that he is close to the guidance and help of the Overself, if only he can recognize them and is willing to accept them.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23090 – 12.18.4.7

BN – Z – D

When life in the world becomes so formidable or so frightening that in desperation or bewilderment, panic or mental unbalance, the idea of suicide seems the only way out, then the time has come for a man to cast his burden on the Higher Power.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23091 – 12.18.4.8

BN – Z

There is a panacea for all troubles. It is to turn them over to the Overself. This is a daring act; it will demand all your faith and all your understanding, but its results are proven. They are not available, however, for the lazy drifters and idle dreamers, for the insincere would-be cheaters of the Overself, and for the superstitious seekers of something-for-nothing.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23092 – 12.18.4.9

BN – X – D

He will come to the point where he will give up the burden of always trying to do something for his spiritual development, the burden of believing that it rests entirely upon his own shoulders.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23095 – 12.18.4.12

BN – X – D

If you cannot see the proper way to deal with your problem, if making a right decision or coping with a difficult situation seems too much for you, if all the usual guides to action prove insufficient or unhelpful, then it is time to hand the trouble over to the Superior Power.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23097 – 12.18.4.14

BN – X – D

When a sensitive man loses faith in his own goodness, and even his own capacities, to the point of despairing hopelessness, he is really ready to pray properly and practise utter dependence upon the Higher Power's grace. When he realizes that the evil in himself and in other men is so deep and so strong that there is nothing below the surface of things he can do, he is forced to turn to this Power. When he abandons further trust in his own nature and clings to no more personal hopes, he really lets go of the ego. This gives him the possibility of being open to grace.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23098 – 12.18.4.15

BN – X – DEK

The surrender of every problem as it arises to the higher self, the renouncing of personal will in the matter, and the readiness to accept intuitive guidance as and when it comes provide a superior technique and yield better results than the old ways of intellectual handling and personal planning alone.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23100 – 12.18.4.17

BN – Z – D

So long as he is more afraid of giving up the ego than he is desirous of gaining the consciousness beyond it, so long will he dwell in its gloom.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23101 – 12.18.4.18

BN – X – D

Having worked to the utmost upon himself, but finding that a stable spiritual consciousness still eludes him, he has no recourse except to submit his further development to a higher power than his own will and then wait and let it work upon him.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23103 – 12.18.4.20

BN – X – D

Submit to the World-Idea—or suffer. Resign yourself to the higher course of things: go along with it—and be at peace!

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23104 – 12.18.4.21

B_01 – ZZ – DK

When the ship on which the Muhammedan mystic Ibrahim ibn Adham was travelling was endangered by a storm, his companions begged him to pray for help. He retorted: "This is not the time to pray, it is the moment to surrender."

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23105 – 12.18.4.22

BN – Z

If we concentrate attention only on the miseries and distresses which afflict us, then we have to depend on our own intellect to find a way out of them. If, however, we turn concentration in the opposite direction, that of the Overself, and deposit our troubles there, we gain a fresh source of possible help in dealing with them.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23107 – 12.18.4.24

BN – X – D

When it seems humanly impossible to do more in a difficult situation, surrender yourself to the inner silence and thereafter wait for a sign of obvious guidance or for a renewal of inner strength.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23108 – 12.18.4.25

BN – Z – D

In the end, after many a rebellion, he learns to trust God and accept his lot, like a tired old man.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23109 – 12.18.4.26

BN – X – D

To surrender is to know one's own incompetence and to put one's life in wiser hands.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23110 – 12.18.4.27

BN – X – D

No one finds that the pattern of his experience of life conforms to what he wished for in the past or wishes for now, so everyone in the end must learn acceptance.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23111 – 12.18.4.28

BN – Z – D

The passage from black despair to healing peace begins with learning to "let go." This can refer to the past's crippling pictures, the present's harsh conditions, or the future's grim anticipations. To what then can the sufferer turn? To the Overself and its divine power.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23112 – 12.18.4.29

BN – ZZ – D

The resignation which is advisable when circumstances are unalterable need not be a grim and hopeless one.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23113 – 12.18.4.30

BN – ZZ – DK

He has tried to manage his life by himself through all these years, but the results have been too deplorable too frequently. Is it not time to let the Overself take over?

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23114 – 12.18.4.31

BN – X – D

When he has exhausted every means of finding a right and reasonable solution to his problem, it is time to hand it over to the higher self. Let him not indulge in self-pity under the delusion that he is indulging in self-abasement. There is a total difference between the two emotional attitudes, for the first will only weaken his capacity for the spiritual quest whereas the second will only strengthen it.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Surrender

#23115 – 12.18.4.32

BN – ZZ – DEK

Every time he patiently crushes a wrong or foolish thought, he adds to his inner strength. Every time he bravely faces up to a misfortune with calm impersonal appraisal of its lesson, he adds to his inner wisdom.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23116E – 12.18.4.33

BA11 – P – DE

There are great dangers in falling into a supine attitude of supposed submission of our will, an attitude into which so many mystics and religionists often fall. There is a profound difference between the pseudo-surrendered life and the genuine surrendered life. It is easy enough to misinterpret the saying "Thy will be done". Jesus, by his own example, gave this phrase a firm and positive meaning. Hence this is better understood as meaning "Thy will be done by me". A wide experience has revealed how many are those who have degenerated into a degrading fatalism under the illusion that they were thereby co-operating with the will of God; how many are those who have, through their own stupidity, negligence, weakness, and wrong-doing, made no effort to remedy the consequences of their own acts and thus have had to bear the suffering involved to the full; how many are those who have failed to seize the opportunity presented by these sufferings to recognize that they arose out of their own defects or faults and to examine themselves in time to become aware of them and thus avoid making the same mistake twice.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23116E – 12.18.4.33

B_11 – ZEL1/3 – DEK1

"Thy will be done". Jesus, by his own example, gave this phrase a firm and positive meaning. Hence this is better understood as meaning "Thy will be done by me". The importance of heeding this counsel is immense. For example, many an aspirant has felt that fate has compelled him to work at useless tasks amid uncongenial surroundings, but when his philosophic understanding matures, he begins to see what was before invisible—the inner karmic significance of these tasks, the ultimate educative or punitive meaning of those environments. Once this is done he may rightly, and should for his own self-respect, set to work to free himself from them. Every time he patiently crushes a wrong or foolish thought, he adds to his inner strength. Every time he bravely faces up to a misfortune with calm impersonal appraisal of its lesson, he adds to his inner wisdom.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23116E – 12.18.4.33

B_11 – ZEL2/3 – DEK1

Every time he patiently crushes a wrong or foolish thought, he adds to his inner strength. Every time he bravely faces up to a misfortune with calm impersonal appraisal of its lesson, he adds to his inner wisdom. The man who has thus wisely and self-critically surrendered himself may then go forward with a sense of outward security and inward assurance, hopeful and unafraid, because he is now aware of the benign protection of his Overself. If he has taken the trouble to understand intelligently the educative or punitive lessons they hold for him, he may then—and only then—conquer the evils of life, if at the same time of their onset, he turns inward at once and persistently realizes that the divinity within offers him refuge and harmony.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23116E – 12.18.4.33

B_11 – ZEL3/3 – DEK1

Life is a struggle for all; only the wise struggle ego-lessly, but they struggle all the same. They have to because the adverse element in Nature is forever at war, tearing down where they build, stimulating strife where they give peace, and enslaving minds where they lead to freedom.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23117E – 12.18.4.34

BA11 – ZZZ – DEK*

Giving up the ego does not require us to give in always to other people. That would be weakness.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23119 – 12.18.4.36

BN – Z

This surrender of the future does not imply idleness and lethargy. It does imply the giving up of useless worry, the abandonment of needless anxiety.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23120 – 12.18.4.37

BN – X – D

The intuitive sensitivity of the artist and the discriminating intellect of a scientist are needed to keep that delicate balance which knows when to assume responsibility for one's own decision, action, and life and when to shift this responsibility to a higher power. The novice's statement that he commits his life into God's hands is not enough, for obviously if he continues to repeat the same foolish judgements and the same guilty conduct as before this commitment, his life still remains in the personal ego's hands. If his commitment is to be effective, it must be accompanied by the duty of self-improvement. Surrender to a higher power does not relieve him of this duty; on the contrary, it compels him more than ever before to its carrying out. The shifting of personal responsibility is achieved only when the awakening of consciousness to the higher self is itself achieved. The mere desire and consequent say-so of the aspirant does not and cannot become factual until then. He may seek to relieve himself of the pressure of obligation and the irritation of obstacles by this device, but the relief will be merely fictional and not factual.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23122 – 12.18.4.39

BN – Z – DEK1

Surrender to the Higher Self is one thing; apathetic resignation to life is another. The one act gives birth to, or is the consequence of, mystical intuition. The other merely shuts out or prevents the arisal of such intuitions.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23124 – 12.18.4.41

BN – X – D

All talk of doing God's will becomes meaningful only if we are ourselves aware of God's existence. All talk of trust in God is meaningless if we are ourselves unaware of God's presence.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23125 – 12.18.4.42

BN – ZZ – K

We render much lip service to the theme of doing God's will; hundreds of writers, speakers, and clergymen utter its praise; but how few take a practical opportunity of giving it real expression by giving up the ego.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23127 – 12.18.4.44

A250224 – ZZ – DK

It is correct that we may trust absolutely to the higher power. But mystics should first be sure that they have found it and are not merely trusting some subconscious aspect of their ego. Otherwise they will be abusing the principle of inner guidance, falsifying the doctrine of inner light, even though they feel they are acting correctly in their own judgement.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23128 – 12.18.4.45

BN – X – DEK

If the problem is really handed over to the Higher Power he is released from it. This lifts the feeling of being burdened with it. But if the feeling still remains, then he has deceived himself, has not truly committed it except outwardly in mumbled words.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23131 – 12.18.4.48

BN – X – D

When such inner guidance and rational thinking speak with united voice, then he can go forward with a plan, a faith, or a deed, sure and unafraid and confident.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23133E – 12.18.4.50

BSG_4 – Z – DE

The surrender to the Overself must not be misinterpreted as surrender to lethargy, to lack of initiative, or to absence of effort. It means that before initiative rises and before effort is made, a man will first look to the Overself for inspiration. When such inner guidance and rational thinking speak with united voice, then he can go forward with a plan, a faith, or a deed, sure and unafraid and confident.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23133 – 12.18.4.50

BN – Z – D

Such resignation does not mean that he shall let himself be always put upon, that he shall uphold truth, principle, justice, and goodness for others but deny them to himself.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23135 – 12.18.4.52

BN – Z

This turning of a problem or a situation over to God may be real humility but it may also be a cowardly evasion of an unpleasant decision or difficult act.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23136 – 12.18.4.53

BN – Z – D

Self-surrender does not mean surrender to someone else's ego, but rather to the Overself. Merely giving up one's own will to perform the will of somebody else is personal weakness and not spiritual strength; it is to serve the fault and negative qualities of other persons rather than to serve their spiritual life.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23140 – 12.18.4.57

BN – Z – DEK

It is easy to ignore the fact that the cause of one's failure is one's own shortcoming, to cover incompetence in the management of earthly life by loud reiteration of trust in Providence—in short, to deceive oneself.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23143 – 12.18.4.60

A250224 – Z

It is not a slavish and sentimental putting up with all that happens which is required.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Avoid self-deception

#23146 – 12.18.4.63

BN – Z – K

To be truly resigned to the will of God—a demand made on the Muhammedan, the Hindu, and the Christian alike—does not necessarily mean blindly accepting all that happens as perfect, unquestionable, or best. According to the occasion, it may mean one or another of these things. But it may also mean looking with open eyes and intelligent mind at the course of events in order to understand them impersonally and then, this achieved, comprehending that given the factors and persons involved, only this could have happened.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23150 – 12.18.4.67

A250224 – Z

It is for him to do whatever practical wisdom calls for in each situation but, having done that, to relinquish the results to the higher power for better or for worse.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23151 – 12.18.4.68

BA11 – ZZ – D

The indispensable prerequisite to mystical illumination is self-surrender. No man can receive it without paying this price. Any man in any degree of development may pay it—he has to turn around, change his attitude, and accept the Christ, the higher self, as his sovereign. But once this happens and the Grace of illumination descends, it can affect the self only as it finds the self. An unbalanced ego will not suddenly become balanced. An unintellectual one will not suddenly become learned. His imperfections remain though the light shines through them.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23153 – 12.18.4.70

BN – Z – DEK1

If a man can give up his fears and anxieties to the higher self, because he is convinced that it is better able to manage his problems than the egoistic self, because he believes in trusting to its wisdom rather than to his own foolishness, yet does not evade the lessons implicit in those problems, his surrender becomes an act of strength, not of weakness.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23156 – 12.18.4.73

BN – Z – DK

It is right to say resignedly that it is God's will when we find ourselves in misfortune. But to content ourselves with such a half-truth is dangerous. It blinds our present perceptivity and bars our future advancement. Without perceptivity, we cannot accurately read the situation. Without advancement, we repeat mistakes and duplicate sufferings. A wiser statement would add the second half-truth, whose absence imperils us: that we ourselves often are largely the cause of our misfortune, that God's will is only the universal law of consequences bringing us the results of our own thinking or doing, our own tendencies or nature. Yes, let us submit to the divine will, let us surrender in acquiescence to what it sends us. But what will it profit us if we do so blindly, dumbly, and without comprehension? Is it not better to remember that it sends us what we have earned or what we need, either for self-perfection or self-purification?

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23157E – 12.18.4.74

A250224 – ZEL1/2 – DEK

We ourselves often are largely the cause of our misfortune, that God's will is only the universal law of consequences bringing us the results of our own thinking or doing, our own tendencies or nature. Yes, let us submit to the divine will, let us surrender in acquiescence to what it sends us. But what will it profit us if we do so blindly, dumbly, and without comprehension? Is it not better to remember that it sends us what we have earned or what we need, either for self-perfection or self-purification? And, remembering, should we not seek out the lesson behind what is sent us and thus be able to co-operate intelligently with it? Then the Overself's will truly becomes our own. Are we not as aspirants to be distinguished from the multitude in several ways and not least in this, that we must try to learn from our experiences instead of letting them be useless and futile?

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23157E – 12.18.4.74

A250224 – ZEL2/2 – DEK*

Should we not seek out the lesson behind what has sent us and thus be able to co-operate intelligently with it? Then the Overself’s will truly become our own.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23157E – 12.18.4.74

BSG_4 – ZZ – DEK*

We ought not to expect man to give what he is not yet ready to give. Only in the measure that he recognizes a higher purpose to be fulfilled will he renounce the ego which hinders that fulfilment.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23160 – 12.18.4.77

BN – Z – D

Insofar as the whole of his future must be surrendered to his Higher Self, the planning of it through his ego-mind cannot be allowed. He resigns himself to God's will in this matter because he realizes that it will bring him only what is best for him or only what is needed by him or only what has been earned by him. He believes that God's will is a just will. Yet within the frame of reference of the intuition which may come to him as a result of this self-surrender, he may allow the intellect to plan his course and to chalk out his path. The intellect may function in the arrangement of his personal life, but it must function in full obedience to the intuition, not to the ego. Hence if he makes any plans for the future, he does so only at the Higher Self's bidding.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23161 – 12.18.4.78

BN – Z

Where, despite his best efforts, he finds that he cannot control the course of events, he should accept it as being the higher will, the ordained destiny. Where he can control it, he should seek to learn from and obey the inner voice in what he does.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23162 – 12.18.4.79

BN – Z

Before we can do God's will we have to find out what it is.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23163 – 12.18.4.80

A250224 – Z

That is true willpower which acts from the deepest part of our being, which sets the ego aside instead of expressing it. Not only can it thrust heredity aside and master surroundings, but then only is “Thy will” done by us.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23165 – 12.18.4.82

BN – Z – DK

Having handed his life over to the higher power, he has handed his future over, too. But although much that will happen to him will not be of his own planning, he need not paralyse his will and negate his reason. They have their place and may be used, especially to work out the details of what he is led to do by intuition, or by inner guidance.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Accept responsibility

#23167 – 12.18.4.84

BN – ZZ

His destination is also his origin. But if you say that he was born in the eternal Spirit, the question arises how can time, which is placed outside eternity, bring him to eternity. The answer is that it does not bring him there, it only educates him to look for, and prepares him to pass through, the opening through which he can escape. Need it be said that this lies at the point where ego surrenders wholly to Overself?

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23168D – 12.18.4.85

BN – X – D

He is to sacrifice all the lower emotions on the altar of this quest. He is to place upon it anger, greed, lust, and aggressive egoism as and when each situation arises when one or another of them shows its ugly self. All are to be burnt up steadily, if little by little, at such opportunities. This is the first meaning of surrender to the higher self.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23170 – 12.18.4.87

BN – Z – DM1

No candidate could enter the King's Chamber and be initiated therein into the Greater Mysteries without stooping in emblematic submission beneath the low doorway at its entrance. For no man may attain adeptship without surrender of his personal egoism and his animal nature.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23171 – 12.18.4.88

BN – X – D

From the day that he abandons the egoistic attitude, he seeks no credit, assumes no merit. Hence Lao Tzu says: "Those most advanced in Tao are the least conspicuous of men."

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23172 – 12.18.4.89

BN – X – D

Do not let the ego try to manage your worldly life. Do not let it even manage your search for truth! It is faulty and fallible. Better to cast the burden on the higher self and walk by faith, not knowing where you are going, not seeing what the future is.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23174 – 12.18.4.91

BN – X – D

Release your problems. Work in the Silence—until the Silence rules. The Infinite Intelligence will then take over your problems—to the extent that you release them to it.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23175 – 12.18.4.92

BN – ZZ – D

When the ego is truly given up, the old calculating life will go with it. He will keep nothing back but will trust everything to the Overself. A higher power will arrange his days and plan his years.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23176 – 12.18.4.93

BN – Z – D

But before he can even attempt to surrender the underself, he must first begin to feel, however feebly and however intermittently, that there is an Overself and that it is living there deep within his own heart. Such a feeling, however, must arise spontaneously and cannot be manufactured by any effort of his own. It does not depend on his personal choice whether he experience it or not. It is therefore an unpredictable factor; he cannot know when it is likely to come to him. This indeed is what makes this quest so mysterious. For such a feeling is nothing else than a manifestation of grace. Hence an old Sanskrit text, the Tripura, says: "Of all requisites Divine Grace is the most important. He who has entirely surrendered to his larger self is sure to attain readily. This is the best method." Without the divine grace (Faiz Ullah), the Sufis say, man cannot attain spiritual union with Him, but they add that this grace is not withheld from those who fervently yearn for it.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23177 – 12.18.4.94

BN – X – DEK

The more he becomes conscious of that thing in himself which links him with the World-Mind, the more he becomes conscious of a higher power back of the world's life, a supreme intelligence back of the world's destiny. It is consequently back of his personal destiny, too, and bringing him what he really needs to fulfil the true purpose of his earthly existence. With this realization he becomes content to surrender it to God's will, to abandon all anxiety for the future, all brooding over the past, all agitation over the present.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23178 – 12.18.4.95

BN – X – D

No man can penetrate into the being of the Overself and remain an ego-centered individual. On the threshold he must lay down the ego in full surrender.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23179 – 12.18.4.96

BN – X – D

You will have turned over the matter or problem if certain signs appear: first, no more anxiety or fretting about it; second, no more stress or tension over it; third, no more deliberating and thinking concerning it.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23181 – 12.18.4.98

BN – X – D

If he wants the full Grace he must make the full surrender. He should ask for nothing else than to be taken up wholly into, and by, the Overself. To ask for occult powers of any kind, even the kind which are called spiritual healing powers, is to ask for something less than this.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23183 – 12.18.4.100

BN – X – D

Whatever happens in the world around him, he will so train his thoughts and feelings as to keep his knowledge of the World-Idea, and his vision of its harmony, ever with him.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23184 – 12.18.4.101

BN – X – D

If he really surrenders his life to the Higher Power and turns over his sense of responsibility to It, he will be unable to act selfishly in his relationship with others, but will consider their welfare along with his own.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23186 – 12.18.4.103

BN – X – D

If he turns his problem over to the Overself in unreserved trust, he must admit no thoughts thereafter of doubt or fear. If they still knock at his door he must respond by remembering his surrender.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23187 – 12.18.4.104

BN – X – D

He will learn to live by faith where he cannot live by sight, to accept happenings against which the ego rebels and to endure situations which reason denounces.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23188 – 12.18.4.105

BN – Z

The real meaning of the injunction, so often delivered by spiritual prophets, to give up self is not a humanitarian one and does not concern social relations with other men. It is rather a psychological one, a counsel to transfer attention from the surface self to the deeper one, to give up the personal ego so as to step into the impersonal Overself.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23190 – 12.18.4.107

BN – X – D

The real meaning of these constant injunctions to practise selflessness is not moral but metaphysical and mystical. It is to give up the lower order of living and thinking so as to be able to climb to a higher one.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23192 – 12.18.4.109

BN – X – D

It is the poor ego which worries and struggles to come closer to perfection. But how can the imperfect ever transform itself into the perfect? Let it cease its worry and simply surrender itself to the ever-perfect Overself.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23195 – 12.18.4.112

BN – X – D

The shoulders of the aspirant must be strong enough to bear the bitter blows of destiny without getting bowed down. He has placed his life utterly in the hands of the gods, and he must be ready to suffer with a sublime fortitude.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23196 – 12.18.4.113

BN – Z

We achieve a total surrender of the ego only when we cease to identify ourselves with it. In this aspiration is the key to a practical method of achievement.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23200 – 12.18.4.117

BN – X – D

We may know God only by losing self, we may not lose self without experiencing pain. This is the inner meaning of the crucifixion.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23201 – 12.18.4.118

BN – ZZ – K

Practise referral of doubts, questions, needs, requests to the Higher Power. Do not depend on the ego alone.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23204 – 12.18.4.121

BN – ZZ – D

To surrender life to TRUTH is to desert the baser standards of conduct which have hitherto held us. It means that henceforth we will no longer consult our own comfort and convenience, but will accept the leading of the inner Master, no matter into how hard a path he may direct us.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23205 – 12.18.4.122

BN – ZZZ

To turn to the Higher Power and to wait patiently for its direction or support is a good practice but it must be remembered that one can only turn to a Higher Power by turning away from the ego.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23207 – 12.18.4.124

BN – X – D

He begins with turning his problems over to the higher unseen Power: he ends by turning himself over to it. This is what is also called “surrendering to God” and “taking refuge in Him alone.”

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23208 – 12.18.4.125

BN – X – D

The finite mind of man can not take possession of the Infinite Power any more than the little circle can contain the large one. At the point where the two come into contact there must be surrender, self-surrender, a willingness to let go of its own self-centre, its own instinct of self-preservation.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23209 – 12.18.4.126

BN – X – D

To die to one's self is to let go of all attachments, including the attachment to one's own personal ego. In some ways it is like the act of passing away from the fleshly body.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23210 – 12.18.4.127

BN – X – D

What it is necessary for him to do is really to surrender his fears and anxieties, whether concerning himself or those near and dear to him, or those who, he thinks, want to hurt him. He should surrender all these to God and be himself rid of them. For this is what giving up the ego truly means. He would then have no need to entertain such negative thoughts. They would be replaced by a strong faith that all would be well with him. To the extent that he can give up the little ego with its desires and fears, to that extent he invites and attracts divine help in his life.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23212 – 12.18.4.129

BN – X – D

The surrendering of his life to the Overself does not depend wholly upon his own efforts. He cannot bring it about as and when he wills. He can bring about the prerequisite conditions for this manifestation. He can fervently yearn for it, but the last word depends upon the Overself, upon Grace. The Grace comes in time if it is wanted strongly enough, and then he steps out of the shadows into the sunshine and a benign assurance is born in the heart. Of course this can never be the result of metaphysical striving alone but only of a coordinated, integral effort of thought, feeling, and action. But whoever can arrive at it will surely be able to endure life's problems as well as, and perhaps much better than, he who has to endure and struggle without it.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23214 – 12.18.4.131

BN – X – DEK

We struggle to find God, we long after what seems unattainable, and we must hold nothing back, must yield all, surrender all, until the ego melts with every fetter that belongs to it.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23215 – 12.18.4.132

BA12 – P – D

If we turn ourselves over to the higher power, surrendering our personal spiritual future to it, we must also turn over the personal physical future, with all its problems, at the same time.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23218 – 12.18.4.135

BN – X – D

"Whatever you do, offer it to Me," said Krishna. This implies constant remembrance of the Higher Power, which in turn saves those who obey this injunction from getting lost in their worldly life.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23219 – 12.18.4.136

BN – X – D

He who surrenders his future to the Higher Power surrenders along with it the anxieties and cares which might otherwise have infested the thought of his future. This is a pleasant result, but it can only be got by surrendering at the same time the pleasurable anticipations and neatly made plans which might also have accompanied this thought. "Everything has to be paid for" is a saying which holds as true in the realm of the inner life as it does in the marketplace. The surrender of his life to the Higher Power involves the surrender of his ego. This is an almost impossible achievement if thought of in terms of a complete and instant act, but not if thought of in terms of a partial and gradual one. There are parts of the ego, such as the passions for instance, which he may attempt to deny even before he has succeeded in denying the ego itself. Anyway, he has to make clear to himself the fact that glib talk of surrender to God is cancelled if he does not at the same time attempt to surrender the obstructions to it.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23220 – 12.18.4.137

BN – Z – DEK1

When a man consciously asks for union with the Overself, he unconsciously accepts the condition that goes along with it, and that is to give himself wholly up to the Overself. He should not complain therefore when, looking forward to living happily ever after with a desired object, that object is suddenly removed from him and his desire frustrated. He has been taken at his word. Because another love stood between him and the Overself, the obstruction had to be removed if the union were to be perfected; he had to sacrifice the one in order to possess the other. The degree of his attachment to the lesser love was shown by the measure of his suffering at its being taken away; but if he accepts this suffering as an educator and does not resent it, it will lead the way to true joy.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23221 – 12.18.4.138

B_17 – P – DE

The Inner Being will rise and reveal Himself just as soon as the ego becomes sufficiently humbled, subdued, surrendered. The assurance of this is certain because we live forever within the Love of God.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23222 – 12.18.4.139

BN – X – D

Within his heart, he may call or keep nothing as his own, not even his spirituality. If he really does not want to cling to the ego, he must cling to nothing else. He is to have no sense of inner greatness, no distinct feeling of having attained some high degree of holiness.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23223 – 12.18.4.140

BN – ZZ – DEK1

Once he grasps that the higher part of his being not only knows immeasurably more than he what is good for him, but also possesses infinitely more power than he does to bring it about, he is ready to enter upon the surrendered life. He will no longer complacently assume that his imperfect mentality is wise enough to guide him or his faltering ego strong enough to support him. He will no longer predetermine his decisions or his doings. He realizes that other forces are now beginning to enter his life and mind, and his part is not to obstruct them but to let them do 'their' work. The more his own passivity meets their activity, the better will this work be done.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > The process

#23224 – 12.18.4.141

BN – ZZZ – DE

He who has the courage to put first things first, to seek the inner reality which is changeless and enduring, finds with it an ever-satisfying happiness from which nothing can dislodge him. This got, it will not prevent him seeking and finding the lesser earthly happinesses. Only he will put them in a subordinate and secondary place because they are necessarily imperfect, liable to change and even to go altogether. And then if he fails to find them or if he loses them after having found them, he will still remain inwardly unaffected because he will still remain in his peace-fraught Overself. This is as true of the love of man for fame as it is true of the love of man for woman. The more he looks in things and to persons for his happiness, the less he is likely to find it. The more he looks in Mind for it, the more he is likely to find it. But as man needs things and persons to make his existence tolerable, the mystery is that when he has found his happiness in Mind they both have a way of coming to him of their own accord to complete it.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23226 – 12.18.4.143

BN – ZZZ – DEK

He who puts himself at the Overself's disposal will find that the Overself will in turn put him where he may best fulfil his own divine possibilities.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23227 – 12.18.4.144

BN – X – D

Emotional worry, whether it be worry about worldly and personal affairs or even about the spiritual quest, will vanish if one surrenders one's life to the Overself entirely. That is the only way to enjoy real freedom from worry; that is inner peace.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23233 – 12.18.4.150

BN – X – D

Once this direction from within, this reception of the Overself's voice, is accepted, whatever comes to us from without falls into intelligible pattern. It is for our good even when its face is forbidding: it is helpful even when it is painful. For we no longer judge it egoistically and therefore wrongly. We seek its true meaning, its hidden message, and its place in the divine orderliness.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23235 – 12.18.4.152

BN – ZZ

Anxieties subside and worries fall away when this surrender to the Overself grows and develops in his heart. And such a care-free attitude is not unjustified. For the measure of this surrender is also the measure of active interference in his affairs by the Divine Power.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23236 – 12.18.4.153

BN – X – D

When he has made this surrender, done what he could as a human being about it and turned the results over completely to the higher self, analysed its lessons repeatedly and taken them deeply to heart, the problem is no longer his own. He is set free from it, mentally released from its karma, whatever the situation may be physically. He knows now that whatever happens will happen for the best.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23237 – 12.18.4.154

BN – ZZZ – DK

There is a strikingly parallel thought in the Bhagavad Gita which confirms the New Testament’s injunction, “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you.” In the Indian scripture, Krishna, the Indian Christ, enjoins his disciple Arjuna: “Whoever worships Me and Me alone with no other thought than the worship of Me, the care of his welfare I shall take upon myself.”

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23239 – 12.18.4.156

BN – X – D

He will feel all personal pride and claims ebb out of his being as the higher self takes possession of him. An utter humility will be the result. But this is not the same as a sense of inferiority; it will be too serene, too noble, and too satisfying for that.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23241 – 12.18.4.158

BN – ZZ – DK

Such a surrender to the higher self brings with it release from negative tendencies, liberation from personal weaknesses.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23242 – 12.18.4.159

BN – ZZ – DK

If he attains and maintains a harmony with the Overself (for which he must pay the price of submission to it) then the Overself will help him for it is being allowed to do so.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23243 – 12.18.4.160

BN – ZZZ – DK

The Overself—when you are fortunate enough to find it—will provide for and protect you, comfort and support you.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23245 – 12.18.4.162

BN – X – D

Once we accept the soul’s existence, faith in its power and worship of its presence follow by deduction.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23247 – 12.18.4.164

BN – X – D

The serenity of the Overself never varies and consequently the man who accomplishes the complete surrender to it is unvaryingly serene and unshakeably tranquil.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23253 – 12.18.4.170

BN – Z – DK

To the degree that he can surrender his mind to the higher self, to that degree does he surrender the worries and fears that go along with it.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23254 – 12.18.4.171

BN – X – D

If he has really turned his life over to the higher power, then he need not crease his brow trying to work out his own plans. He can wait either for the inner urge to direct him or for new circumstances to guide his actions.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23256 – 12.18.4.173

BN – X – D

The same power which has brought him so far will surely carry him through the next phase of his life. He must trust it and abandon anxieties, as a passenger in a railroad train should abandon his bag by putting it down on the floor and letting the train carry it for him. The bag represents personal attempts to plan, arrange, and mold the future in a spirit of desire and attachment. This is like insisting on bearing the bag's weight himself. The train represents the Higher Self to which the aspirant should surrender that future. He should live in inner Peace, free from anticipations, desires, cares, and worries.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23257 – 12.18.4.174

BN – X – D

He need no longer seek things essential to his life or needful to his service; they themselves will come seeking him.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23258 – 12.18.4.175

BN – Z – D

He has nothing more to do, at this stage, than to give up the ego and give in to the Overself. This done, all that matters will be done, for from that time his farther way will be shown to him, and his subsequent acts guided, by the Overself.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23259 – 12.18.4.176

BN – X – D

The notion of making up an itinerary well in advance appeals to the time-bound calculating intellect but not to the spirit-led intuition.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23260 – 12.18.4.177

BN – Z – DK

The notion of making up an itinerary well in advance appeals to the time-bound calculating intellect but not to the spirit-led intuition.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23261 – 12.18.4.178

BN – Z – K

At this stage he will tend more and more to stop counting on fixed, pre-thought plans for future movement, actions, or arrangements, to let the guidance of the moment take over, through the silent voice of intuition.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23266 – 12.18.4.183

BN – Z

He finds that having attained this liberation of his will from the ego's domination, his freedom has travelled so far that it loses itself and ceases to be free. For it vanishes into the rule of his higher self, which takes possession of him with a completeness and a fullness that utterly hoop him around. Henceforth, its truth is his truth, its goodness is his goodness, and its guidance his obedience.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23267 – 12.18.4.184

BN – X – D

He who has turned all problems over to the Overself is no longer faced with the problem of solving each new problem that arises. He is free.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23268 – 12.18.4.185

BN – X – D

Jesus had no where to lay his head. He wandered from place to place, teaching without price as he wandered. Wherever he went he was at home in the complete confidence that Providence was taking care of him.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23269 – 12.18.4.186

B_11 – ZZ – DK

With this serene acceptance of life, this glad co-operation with it and willing obedience to its laws, you begin to find that henceforth life is for you. Events begin to happen, circumstances so arrange themselves, and contacts so develop themselves that what you really need for your further development or expression appears of its own accord.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23270 – 12.18.4.187

B_01 – ZZZ – DK

His struggle for survival has ended. Henceforth his life has been entrusted to a higher power.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23272 – 12.18.4.189

BN – Z – D

He knows, having aligned himself harmoniously with the higher power that supports the universe, that it surely can and will support the little fragment of the universe that is himself. A sublime confidence that he will be taken care of in the proper way pervades him in consequence.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23273 – 12.18.4.190

BN – X – D

Those who sincerely and intelligently live according to the philosophical ideal as best they can, surrendering the ego to the Overself continually, receive visible proof and wonderful demonstration of a higher presence and power in their lives. They can afford to trust God, for it is no blind trust.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23275 – 12.18.4.192

BN – ZZ – DK

He will be shown some way of dealing with his problem whether it leads to overcoming or to submission, to amendment or to sidestepping.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23276 – 12.18.4.193

BN – ZZ

Either he will be inwardly directed to a certain move with successful results, or without any effort of his own something will happen of itself to bring them about. Whether he himself makes the right move at the right moment or whether someone else does it for him, a higher cause will be at work for the man who truly relies on the higher forces of the Spirit.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23277 – 12.18.4.194

BN – Z

In that wonderful state the feeling of tension, the troubling by fear, and the suffering from insecurity vanish away. Why? Because the particular problems involved have been taken over by the Overself. Also, because no negative thinking is possible in that peaceful atmosphere. From this we may deduce an excellent practical rule for daily living: surrender all problems to the Overself by turning them out of your mind and handing them over (but not in the wrong way by refusing to face them. The Secret Path and The Quest of the Overself show the right way). Jesus taught the same method in simpler language: Psalm 55 holds out the promise "Cast thy burden upon the Deity, and he shall sustain thee". And in the Bhagavad Gita, among the final words addressed to the troubled Prince Arjuna, there is almost identical counsel.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23278 – 12.18.4.195

B_11 – P – DE

The universal power will sustain him simply because he has surrendered himself to it. Failure in the true sense, which, however, is not always the apparent one, will then be impossible.

The Reverential Life > Surrender > Its effect

#23279 – 12.18.4.196

BN – Z – DEK

Grace is a cosmic fact. If it were not, then the spiritual outlook for the human race, dependent entirely on its own efforts for the possibility of spiritual progress, would be poor and disheartening.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23280 – 12.18.5.1

BN – X – D

Grace is the indrawing power, or inward pull, of Overself, which, being itself ever-present, guarantees the ever-presence of Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23281 – 12.18.5.2

BN – X – D

Grace is the benign effluence of the Overself, the kindly radiation from it, ever-present in us…

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23283E – 12.18.5.4

BSG_5 – P – DE

Grace is the benign effluence of the Overself, the kindly radiation from it, ever-present in us. The theological use of this term to mean particular help given by God to man to enable him to endure temptation and act rightly is a serious and arbitrary narrowing down of its original meaning. It may mean this sometimes, but it also means the loving mercy God shows to man, which appears variously as enlightenment of the mind or relief of the heart, as change of outward physical conditions or a dynamic revolution-working energy acting on the aspirant or on his life.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23283 – 12.18.5.4

UR_3.2 – ZZ – DEK

Out of the grand mystery of the Overself, the first communication we receive telling us of and making us feel its existence, is Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23284 – 12.18.5.5

BN – X – D

The rejection of the idea of Grace is based on a misconception of what it is, and especially on the belief that it is an arbitrary capricious gift derived from favouritism. It is, of course, nothing of the kind, but rather the coming into play of a higher law. Grace is simply the transforming power of the Overself which is ever-present but which is ordinarily and lawfully unable to act in a man until he clears away the obstacles to this activity. If its appearance is considered unpredictable, that is because the karmic evil tendencies which hinder this appearance vary considerably from one person to another in strength, volume, and length of life. When the karma which generated them becomes weak enough, they can no longer impede its action.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23285 – 12.18.5.6

BN – ZZ – DEK1

By grace I mean the manifestation of God's friendliness.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23286 – 12.18.5.7

BN – X – K1

The Overself extends its grace to all men, but not all men are able to get it. This may be due to different reasons, some physical and others, the most numerous, emotional or mental.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23287 – 12.18.5.8

BN – X – D

It is a whisper which comes out of the utter silence, a light which glimmers where all was sable night. It is the mysterious herald of the Overself.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23291 – 12.18.5.12

BN – X – D

There are little graces, such as those which produce the glimpse; but there is only one great Grace: this produces a lasting transformation, a deep radical healing and permanent enlightenment.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23292 – 12.18.5.13

BN – X – D

The wicked cannot always be judged by appearances. Some illumination may suddenly be granted because of past good deeds or intensity of suffering. The Higher Self is infinitely accommodating to human weakness and, also, infinitely patient; compassion is its first attribute.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23295 – 12.18.5.16

BN – X – DK

Grace is here for all. It cannot be here for one special person and not for another. Only we do not know how to open our tensioned hands and receive it, how to open our ego-tight hearts and let it gently enter.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23296 – 12.18.5.17

BSG_5 – P – D

There is a power which inspires the heart, enlightens the mind, and sanctifies the character of man. It is the power of Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23297 – 12.18.5.18

BN – X – D

The Grace is always present since the Infinite Power, from which it originally comes, is always present.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23304 – 12.18.5.25

BN – X – D

Grace does not depend on God's intervention in any favouritistic or arbitrary manner. It is not an effect of God's whim or caprice. It falls like sunlight on all, the good and evil alike. Each individual can receive it, according to the quantity of obstacles he removes from its path.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23305 – 12.18.5.26

UR_3.2 – ZZ – DK

If he offers himself to the divine, the divine will take him at his word, provided his word is sincerely meant. The response to this offer when it comes is what we call Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23312 – 12.18.5.33

BN – X – D

There has been some questioning about the idea of Grace. It is accepted by the Christians and Hindus and denied by the Buddhists and Jains. However, even those who accept it have confused and contradictory ideas concerning it. In a broad general sense it could be defined as a benevolent change brought about without the person's own willpower, but rather by some power not commonly or normally his own. But because we have with us residues of former reincarnations in the form of karma, it is impossible for most persons to distinguish whether any happening is the result of karma or of Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23313E – 12.18.5.34

BN – ZEL1/2 – K

Because we have with us residues of former reincarnations in the form of karma, it is impossible for most persons to distinguish whether any happening is the result of karma or of Grace. But sometimes they can, for instance, if they wake up in the morning or even in the middle of the night remembering some difficulty, some situation or problem, but along with it feeling a Higher Presence and then with this feeling beginning to see light upon the difficulty or the problem and especially beginning to lose whatever distress, inquietude, fear, or uncertainty may have been caused by it. If they feel that the negative reactions vanish and a certain peace of mind replaces them, and especially if the way to act rightly in the situation becomes clear, then they are experiencing a Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23313E – 12.18.5.34

BN – ZEL2/2 – K

People have curious ideas about what Grace really is. So few, for instance, seem to see that in opening themselves up to the beauties of nature or of music and art they would be inviting the attention of Grace too. Grace is not just an arbitrary religious factor.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23314 – 12.18.5.35

B_09 – P – DE

Grace may be defined as the Overself's response to the personal self's aspiration, sincerity, and faith, lifting up the man to a level beyond his ordinary one. This working in us (as contrasted with the working by us) begins in deep passive stillness and ends in mental, emotional, and even physical activity. It is true that grace is given, but we ourselves help to make its blessing possible by the opening of self to receive it, the silencing of self to feel it, and the purifying of self to be fit for it.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Grace

#23317E – 12.18.5.38

BN – X – DEK

If the existence of grace is granted, the question of its means of transmission arises. Since it is a radiation issuing from the Overself, it can be directly bestowed. But if there are internal blockages, as in most cases there are, and insufficient force on the man's part to break through them, then it cannot be directly received. Some thing or person outside him will have then to be used as a means of indirect transmission.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23318 – 12.18.5.39

BN – Z – DK1

When a person is crushed by events and falls to his knees in prayer, his ego is temporarily crushed at the same time. After the prayer has been formulated, whether aloud or mentally, there are a few moments of complete exhaustion, of complete rest, which follow it. There is then temporary stillness and it is in this stillness that the Grace which is always emanating from the inner Being is able to do its healing and helping work. At the same time there may also be a corresponding external activity of a beneficial character.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23319E – 12.18.5.40

BN – EL1/2

The aspirant who has silently called for help may find that his call is answered by the appearance of a book or a person or a circumstance from whom he receives the help needed at the time. In the case of the appearance of a person, this may or may not be his destined guru, but it will be someone sufficient for the moment. The point is that what is called the guru helps prepare the right conditions which allow the inner Presence to make itself felt or which let it do its gracious work. The real help comes from this Grace—from the aspirant's own spiritual being, from himself. Saswitha, the Dutch healer, once said that he used his patients' own healing energy in order to treat them. Where did this healing energy come from? It came from their own subtler bodies, that is, from themselves; but Saswitha created the necessary conditions which enabled it to be released—when he was successful.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23319E – 12.18.5.40

BN – EL2/2

Grace is not necessarily bestowed deliberately or conferred personally. It may be received from someone who does not even know that he is its source. It may manifest through nothing more than the physical meeting between these two, or through a letter from one to the other, or even through the mere thinking about one of them by the other person. But, however obtained, Grace has its ultimate source in the mysterious Overself. This is why no man, however saintly, exalted, or advanced, can really give it to anyone: he can only be used by the higher power for this purpose, whether aware or unaware in the surface part of his mind of what is happening.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23320 – 12.18.5.41

BN – X – DEK

No one but a man’s own Being gives him grace. From the moment when he lays his head prostrate before It, and returns again and again to that posture, mentally always and physically if urged, grace is invoked.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23323 – 12.18.5.44

BN – Z – DK1

He may receive grace directly from its source in the infinite love, power, and wisdom of the Overself, or indirectly through personal contact with some inspired man, or still more indirectly through such a man's intellectual or artistic productions.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23324 – 12.18.5.45

BN – X – D

The philosophic concept of Grace is different from, and not to be confounded with, the popular religio-theologic one. The latter carries arbitrariness, caprice, and favouritism within it. The former has nothing of the kind. Despite its mysteriousness, it often follows the fulfilment of certain conditions by the seeker; but even when it does not appear to do so, it is a legacy from causes set going in earlier lives on this earth. The notion that it is dispensed in an arbitrary manner by the Higher Power is to anthropomorphize that Power, to regard it as a glorified man. This is nonsense to anyone who can reflect correctly and think deeply on the Power's real nature. The notion of caprice is to make the manifestation of Grace an affair of mere whimsy, an emotion of the moment, a passing mood. This simply could not be, for grace descends from a plane which transcends such things.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23325E – 12.18.5.46

BN – ZZ

His grace is always there [the grace of the Master], but men must be able to recognize him and accept it. He is always ready to share his experience of the divine ever-presence with everyone, but not everyone is ready to receive it. In short, grace is what comes to you from an inspired book, or a blessed letter, or a few moments of relaxation.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23325E – 12.18.5.46

BN – ZZZ – K

Whether he be a recipient of the Overself’s healing grace, or its teaching grace, or its protective grace, the source remains one and the same.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23329 – 12.18.5.50

BN – X – D

It was not Christ's death that brought his grace into the human world, but his life.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23334 – 12.18.5.55

BN – X – D

No words can re-create these moments of grace so well as music. Think of the blessed gift which mankind has received through such works as Handel's Messiah and Bach's Christmas Oratorio.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23336 – 12.18.5.57

B_09 – Z – DK*

The man who fervently believes that Christ has the power to forgive his sins is not wrong. But his interpretation of his forgiver is wrong. The Christ who can do this for him must be a living power, not a dead historical personage. And that power is his own Christ-self, that is, Overself.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23340 – 12.18.5.61

B_12 – P – D

Another channel for Grace’s manifestation is through circumstances. These may provide the right surroundings, the right persons, and the right happenings for it.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23346 – 12.18.5.67

BSG_5 – P – D

It is not for him to know in advance in what form the revelation will come, whether it will be an intuition, a strong pressure, a dream, or a particular happening, words read in a book, a phrase dropped from someone's lips, a mood engendered by music, art, Nature.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23347 – 12.18.5.68

B_09 – Z

No Maharishee, no Aurobindo, no Saint Francis can save you. It is the Holy Spirit which saves man by its Grace. The ministrations of these men may kindle faith and quiet the mind, may help you to prepare the right conditions and offer a focus for your concentration — but they offer no guarantee of salvation. It is highly important not to forget this, not to deify man and neglect the true God who must come to you directly and act upon you directly.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Its transmission

#23348 – 12.18.5.69

BN – X – DK1

The forgiveness of sin is no myth, but it can become a fact only after the sinner has done penance and sought purification.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23350 – 12.18.5.71

BN – X – D

There are three types of Grace: firstly, that which has the appearance of Grace but which actually descends out of past good karma and is entirely self-earned; secondly, that which a Master gives to disciples or aspirants when the proper external and internal circumstances exist—this is in the nature of a temporary glimpse only but is useful because it gives a glimpse of the goal, a sense of the right direction, and inspiring encouragement to continue on the Quest; thirdly, when a man attains the fullest degree of realization, he is enabled in some cases to modify overhanging negative karma or in others to negate it because he has mastered the particular lessons that needed to be learned. This is particularly evident when the Hand of God removes obstructions in the path of his work. The philosophic conception of Grace shows it to be just and reasonable. It is indeed quite different from the orthodox religious belief about it, a belief which regards it as an arbitrary intervention by the Higher Power for the benefit of its human favourites.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23352 – 12.18.5.73

BN – ZZ – K1

By this grace the past's errors may be forgotten so that the present's healing may be accepted. In the joy of this grace, the misery of old mistakes may be banished forever. Do not return to the past—live only in the eternal Now—in its peace, love, wisdom, and strength.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23353 – 12.18.5.74

BN – X – D

We have the authority of Lao Tzu that there is such a thing as pardon. He says: “For what did the ancients so much prize this Tao? Was it not because by it those who had sinned might escape?”

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23354 – 12.18.5.75

BN – X – D

Would forgiveness be an impossible nullification of the law of karma? Is there no way out of one karmic consequence leading to and creating a further one in an endless and hopeless series? I believe an answer to the first question has been given by Jesus, and to the second by Aeschylus. Matt. 12:31: "Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men," was Jesus' clear statement. As for the difficult problem propounded by the second question, consider the solution suggested by Aeschylus: "Only in the thought of Zeus, whatever Zeus may be." Karma must operate automatically, but the Power behind karma knows all things, controls all things, controls even karma itself, knows and understands when forgiveness is desirable. No human mind can fathom that Power; hence Aeschylus adds the qualifying phrase, "whatever Zeus may be." Forgiveness does not destroy the law of karma; it complements the work of that law. "All of us mortals need forgiveness. We live not as we would but as we can," wrote Menander nearly four hundred years before Jesus' time.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23355 – 12.18.5.76

B_14 – ZZ – DEK

The notion of grace as given out in popular religion was helpful perhaps to the masses but needs a large revision for the philosophic seekers. It is not granted at the whim of a Personal God nor solely after deserving labours for it. It is rather more like a steady permanent emanation from a man's own Overself, always available, but of which he must partake by himself. If at times it seems to intervene specially on his behalf, that is an appearance due to the immense wisdom in timing the release of a particular good karma.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23356 – 12.18.5.77

BN – ZZ – K

Just as this generation has lived to see the experience of gravity upset by the weightlessness experiences of spacemen, so in all the generations there have been those who have found the experience of karma upset by grace and its forgiveness.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23357 – 12.18.5.78

BN – Z – K

When the ego's total submission is rewarded by the Overself's holy Grace, he is granted pardon for the blackest past and his sins are truly forgiven him.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23358 – 12.18.5.79

BN – X – D

To make the result dependent on Grace alone would be to deny the existence and power of the universal law of recompense. The need of effort can only be ignored by those who fail to see that it plays an indispensable part in all evolution, from the lowly physical to the lofty spiritual.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23360D – 12.18.5.81

BN – X – D

Who can tell the miraculous power of the Overself? Its Grace may lift the most degraded of men into the most exalted.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23361 – 12.18.5.82

BN – X – D

The failure to appreciate the role of grace because of faith in the law of karma is as deplorable as the tendency to exaggerate it because of faith in a personal deity.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23365 – 12.18.5.86

BN – Z – K

Such is the wonder of grace that the worst sinner who falls to the lowest depths may thereafter rise to the loftiest heights. Jesus, Buddha, and Krishna have plainly said so.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23366 – 12.18.5.87

B_12 – P – D

The Overself acts through inexorable law, yes, but love is part of the law. Grace violates no principle but rather fulfils the highest principle.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23368 – 12.18.5.89

BN – X – D

Grace can be a ripening of karma, or a response to a direct appeal to a higher power, or can come through a saint's appeals. Faith in the Power is rewarded by grace. If the appeal fails, adverse karma must be too strong. Materialists do not make such appeals, so they receive no Grace unless the accumulation of good deeds brings good karma.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23369 – 12.18.5.90

BN – Z – K

There is hope for all because there is Grace for all. No man is so sinful that he cannot find forgiveness, cleansing, and renewal.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Karma and forgiveness

#23372 – 12.18.5.93

BN – X – D

Where is the hope for mankind if there is no Grace, only karma? If it took so many ages to collect the karmic burden we now carry, then it will take a similar period to disengage from it–the forbidding task will continue throughout every reincarnation until the man dies again and again–unless the individual collector, the ego, is no longer here to claim it. But to cancel its own existence is impossible by its own efforts, yet possible by its non-effort, its surrender, its letting in the Higher Power, by no longer claiming its personal identity. The coming in, when actualized, 'is' Grace for it is not his doing.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23373 – 12.18.5.94

BN – Z – K

The aspirant who depends solely on his own unaided efforts at self-improvement will nevertheless one day feel the need of an outside power to bestow what he cannot get by himself. The task he has undertaken cannot be perfectly done or completely done by himself alone. He will eventually have to go down on his knees and beg for Grace. The ego cannot save itself. Why? Because secretly it does not want to do so, for that would mean its own extinction. So unless he forces it to seek for Grace, all his endeavours will bring him only a partial result, never a fully satisfactory one. Those who say that the idea of Grace violates the concept of universal law do not look into it deeply enough. For then they would see that, on the contrary, it fulfils the law of the individual mind's effort, which they believe in, by complementing it with the law of the Universal Mind's activity inside the individual, which they ought also to believe in. God cannot be separated from man. The latter does not live in a vacuum.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23374 – 12.18.5.95

BN – Z – DEK

The destiny of the ego is to be lifted up into the Overself, and there end itself or, more correctly, transcend itself. But because it will not willingly bring its own life to a cessation, some power from outside must intervene to effect the lifting up. That power is Grace and this is the reason why the appearance of Grace is imperative. Despite all its aspirations and prayers, its protestations and self-accusations, the ego does not want the final ascension.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23375 – 12.18.5.96

BN – X – DEK

It does not lie within man's power to gain more than a glimpse of this diviner life. If he is to be established firmly and lastingly in it, then a descent of grace is absolutely necessary. Artificial methods will never bring this about. Rites and sacrifices and magical performances, puzzling over Zen koans or poring over the newest books, will never bring it.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23379 – 12.18.5.100

BN – Z – DEK

The closer he comes to the Overself, the more actively is the Grace able to operate on him. The reason for this lies in the very nature of Grace, since it is nothing other than a benign force emanating from the Overself. It is always there but is prevented by the dominance of the animal nature and the ego from entering his awareness. When this dominance is sufficiently broken down, the Grace comes into play more and more frequently, both through Glimpses and otherwise.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23380 – 12.18.5.101

BN – Z – DK1

The Holy Spirit's light alone can open his understanding and that of those around him.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23381 – 12.18.5.102

BN – X – K

Nothing that you do can bring about this wonderful transformation, for it is not the result of effort. It does not depend on the power of your will or the strength of your desire. It is something which can only be done to you, not by you. It is the result of your absorption by another and higher Force. It depends on Grace. It is more elusive yet more satisfying than anything else in life.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23383 – 12.18.5.104

BN – X – D

It is the power of the Other which pulls him upward out of his attachments to body and earth, cajoling him to do what he cannot do of himself—let go. This power, when so felt, we call grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23385 – 12.18.5.106

BN – X – D

When the ego knows that it is beaten, when it gives up its strivings, efforts, and goals, when it lies prostrate and calls out to the higher Power in despair or surrender, there is then a chance that the Grace will appear. However, lest there be any misunderstanding on this point, it must be said that this is only one way for Grace to appear, and there are other ways not so unhappy and much more joyous.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23387 – 12.18.5.108

BN – ZZ

It is not within the power of man to finish either the purificatory work or its illumination-sequel: his Overself, by its action within his psyche, must bring that about. This activating power is Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23389 – 12.18.5.110

BSG_5 – P – D

Grace is a necessity before the ego can go up in the blaze of divine energy.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23392 – 12.18.5.113

BN – Z – DK

What Grace does is to draw the man's attention away from himself, from his ego, to the Overself.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23393 – 12.18.5.114

BN – X – D

Many have failed to disidentify themselves from their thoughts, despite all attempts. This shows its difficulty, not its impossibility. In such cases, grace alone will liberate them from their thought-chains.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23395 – 12.18.5.116

BN – X – D

When the ego is sufficiently crushed by its frustrations or failures—and sooner or later this may happen to most of us—it will turn, either openly or secretly, to the admission that it needs outside help. And what other help can it then find than Grace, whether mediated directly from the Overself or indirectly through a master?

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23396 – 12.18.5.117

BN – X – D

The ego, the personal limited self, cannot lift itself into the Higher Self, and if the student at times has felt dismally powerless to make progress by self-effort, he will have learned the priceless lesson of the need of Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23397 – 12.18.5.118

BN – X – D

The supreme effect of Grace, its most valuable benefit, is when its touch causes the man to forfeit his ego-dominance, when it takes away the personal obstruction to the Overself.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23399 – 12.18.5.120

BN – X – D

Only when the ego, thwarted and disappointed, hurt and suffering, finds that it cannot sufficiently change its own character, is it ready to beg, out of its helplessness, for Grace. So long as it believed that by its own power it could do so, it failed. And the way to ask for Grace is to sit perfectly still, to do nothing at all, since all previous doing failed.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23400 – 12.18.5.121

BN – X – D

The revelation which brings one's own consciousness into coincidence with the Overself comes only by Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23403 – 12.18.5.124

BN – X – D

When a man's strivings mature, the insight dawns of itself. Yet he cannot tell which day this is to be, cannot precipitate the wondrous event by his own will. For this depends on grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23404 – 12.18.5.125

BN – ZZ – DK

If he insists on clinging to the ego, he makes it impossible to know truth, approach God, or experience the timelessness of reality. Only an outer intervention can then help him, only the Grace coming direct or through some human channel.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The power of the Other

#23406 – 12.18.5.127

BN – X – D

Grace is the hidden power at work along with his spirit’s aspiration and his efforts at discipline. This does not mean that it will continue to work if he drops both aspiration and effort. It may, but more often it will not.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23409 – 12.18.5.130

BN – X – D

We realize that self-effort is absolutely necessary to our salvation, but we discover later that it is not enough for our salvation. We have to be humbled to the ground in humility and helplessness before Grace will appear and itself finish the work which we have started.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23410E – 12.18.5.131

BN – X – DEK

It is important to note that in the Bhagavad Gita the introduction of the subject of Grace and its actual descent upon the disciple Arjuna come only at the very end of the book—after Arjuna, by patient discipleship, has really earned it. Without Grace there is no entry. We may strive and weep, but unless the Grace falls on us we cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven. How and when it should come depends partly upon our karma, partly upon our yearning, and partly upon the channel which God uses.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23411 – 12.18.5.132

BN – Z – DEK

The passing over into higher consciousness cannot be attained by the will of any man, yet it cannot be attained without the will of man. Both grace and effort are needed.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23412 – 12.18.5.133

BN – X – D

If all his efforts are concentrated on self-improvement, then the circle of his thinking will be a small and limited one. The petty will become over-important in his own eyes and the insignificant will become full of meaning. It is needful to balance the one attitude with another—surrender to and faith in the power of Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23413 – 12.18.5.134

BN – X – D

Constant self-effort can thin down the egoism but not eliminate it. That final act is impossible because the ego will not willingly slay itself. What self-effort does is to prepare the way for the further force which can slay it and thus makes the operation timely and its success possible. What it further does is to improve intelligence and intuition and to ameliorate the character, which also prepares the individual and attracts those forces. They are nothing else than the pardoning, healing, and, especially, the transforming powers of Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23414 – 12.18.5.135

BN – X – D

However much he exerts his intellect he cannot reach the final revelation, the clearest enlightenment, for this is a gift of grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23416 – 12.18.5.137

BN – X – D

It is not by special intervention that the Divine Grace appears in our life. For it was there all the time, and behind all our struggles, as a constant unbroken radiation from the Overself. But those struggles were like the hoisting of sails on a ship. Once up, we are able to catch the wind and propulsion begins automatically.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23418 – 12.18.5.139

BSG_5 – P – D

When your efforts have brought you to a certain point, then only do they get pushed aside or slowly drawn away by another power—your higher Self. What really happens is that the energy or power which you are using spontaneously ignites. It is that which enables you to do, to get done, to achieve. The all-important point is that the active power is not your own will, but is really a direct visitation of what we must call Grace. It is strongly felt, this experience of the higher power or higher Self.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23420 – 12.18.5.141

BN – X – DEK

A man can look to his own knowledge and his own actions to carry him a long distance on this path, but in the end he must look to grace for final results.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23421 – 12.18.5.142

BN – X – D

Man has no power of his own to command Grace but he does have the power to turn away from smug satisfaction with his own ego and throw himself at the feet of the Overself—the source of Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23423 – 12.18.5.144

BN – X – D

When he becomes acutely aware both of the sacred duty of self-improvement and of the pitiful weakness which he brings to it, the need of getting the redeeming and transforming power of Grace follows logically. He is then psychologically ready to receive it. He cannot draw Grace to himself but can only invoke and await it.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23425 – 12.18.5.146

BN – X – DK

In the end, and after we have tried sufficiently long and hard, we find that the knot of self cannot be untied. It is then that we have to call on grace and let it work on us, doing nothing more than to give our consent and to accept its methods.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23426 – 12.18.5.147

BN – X – D

If he fails but persists despite the failures, one day he will find himself suddenly possessed of the power to win, the power to achieve what had hitherto seemed impossible for his limited ability. This gift—for it is nothing else—is Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23428 – 12.18.5.149

BN – X – D

If grace had to depend solely on human merit, if it had to be fully worked for and earned, it would no longer be grace. It really depends on the mysterious will of the higher power. But this is not to say that it comes by the caprice of the higher power. If a man puts himself into a sufficiently receptive attitude, and if he applies the admonition ”Be still and know that I am God,” he is doing something to attract grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23429 – 12.18.5.150

BN – X – D

When he has passed successfully through the last trial, overcome the last temptation, and made the last sacrifice of his ego, the reward will be near at hand. The Overself's Grace will become plain, tangible, and wholly embracing.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23433 – 12.18.5.154

BN – X – D

The strength needed for sustained mystical contemplation must come at first from his own ego's persistence but will come in the end from the Overself's Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23435 – 12.18.5.156

BN – X – D

Although personal effort and the will toward self-mastery do much to advance him on this quest, it is grace, and grace alone, which can advance him to the goal in the last stages or assist him out of an impasse in the earlier ones.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23436 – 12.18.5.157

BN – X – D

First, he must attempt to lift himself upwards, taking the needed time and making the needed effort. Then he will feel that some other force is lifting him gratuitously—this is the reaction, Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23437 – 12.18.5.158

BN – X – DK

To come into the consciousness of the Overself is an event which can happen only by grace. Yet there is a relation between it and the effort which preceded it, even though it is not an exact, definite, and universally valid relation.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23438 – 12.18.5.159

BN – Z – DEK

We must exert our own will and strength to prepare the way for, and make us receptive to, the divine grace. Thus the one complements the other; both are necessary parts of the World-Idea.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23439 – 12.18.5.160

BN – X – D

Jesus has said that it is Grace which starts and keeps a man on the way to God, even though his heart and will have to make their effort also. Ramana Maharshi confirmed this statement.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23440 – 12.18.5.161

BN – X – D

How can the ego's self-effort bring about the grand illumination? It can only clear the way for it, cleanse the vehicle of it, and remove the weaknesses that shut it out. But the light of wisdom is a property of the innermost being—the Soul—and therefore this alone can bring it to a man. How can the ego give or attain something which belongs to the Overself? It cannot. Only the divine can give the divine. That is to say, only by grace can illumination be attained, no matter how ardently he labours for it.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23441 – 12.18.5.162

BN – X – DEK

No man is excluded from that first touch of Grace which puts him upon the Quest. All may receive it and, in the end, all do. But we see everywhere around us the abundant evidence that he will not be ready for it until he has had enough experience of the world, enough frustration and disappointment to make him pause and to make him humbler.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23442 – 12.18.5.163

BA12 – P – D

Some Questers become depressed and discouraged when they learn that grace is the final essential ingredient for success on the Quest. This seems to put the issue out of their hands and to make it a matter of luck. They are taking too negative an attitude. It is true that grace is not subject to their command, but the atmosphere which attracts it, the conditions in which it can most easily enter, are subject to him.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23444 – 12.18.5.165

BN – X – D

His part is to open a way, remove obstructions, gain concentration, so that the Overself's grace can reach him. The union of both activities produces the result.

The Reverential Life > Grace > The significance of self-effort

#23448 – 12.18.5.169

BN – X – D

The fact of Grace being an unpredictable descent from above does not mean that we are entirely helpless in the matter, that there is nothing we can do about it. We can at least prepare ourselves both to attract Grace and to respond aright when it does come. We can cleanse our hearts, train our minds, discipline our bodies, and foster altruistic service even now. And then every cry we send out to invoke grace will be supported and emphasized by these preparations.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23450 – 12.18.5.171

BN – X – D

When your strongest passion is to make real the presence of the Soul and you demonstrate this by the strivings and sacrifices of your whole life, you are "not far" from the visitation of Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23451 – 12.18.5.172

BSG_5 – P – D

If he wants the grace he must do something to earn it, such as attend to the wastage of time on trivial or even harmful (because negative) gossip and activities; purify his character; study the revelations of sages; reflect on the course of his life; practise mind-stilling and emotional discipline.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23453 – 12.18.5.174

BN – X – D

When the Quest becomes the most important activity in a man's life, even more important than his worldly welfare, then is Grace likely to become a reality rather than a theory in his life too.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23454 – 12.18.5.175

BN – ZZ – DK1

The commonest way, the most usual way, of attracting grace was indicated by the Carthusian monk Guiges, more than eight hundred years ago: “It would be a rare exception to gain [the degree of] contemplation without prayer. . . . Prayer gains the grace of God.”

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23455 – 12.18.5.176

BN – X – D

By forgiving those who have harmed us, we put ourselves in the position of earning forgiveness for the harm we ourselves have done.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23460 – 12.18.5.181

B_14 – P – D

Those who are asking the Overself to give them its greatest blessing, its grace, should ask themselves what they have been willing to give the Overself—how much time, love, self-sacrifice, and self-discipline.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23462 – 12.18.5.183

BN – X – D

These repeated prayers and constant aspirations, these daily meditations and frequent studies, will in time generate a mental atmosphere of receptivity to the light which is being shed upon him by the Grace. The light may come from outside through a man or a book, or it may come from inside through an intuition or an experience.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23463 – 12.18.5.184

BN – X – D

The man who has the courage to be his own bitterest critic, who has the balance to be so without falling into paralysing depression as a result, who uses his self-analysis so constructively that every shortcoming is the object of constant remedial attention—he is the man who is preparing a way for the advent of Grace.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23465 – 12.18.5.186

BN – X – K

Grace is always being offered, in a general way, but we do not see the offer; we are blind and so pass it by. How can we reverse this condition and acquire sight? By preparing proper conditions. First, mark off a period of each day—a short period to begin with—for retreat from the ordinary out-going way of living. Give up this period to in-going, to meditation. Come out of the world for a few minutes.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23466 – 12.18.5.187

BN – X – D

The fact is that the higher power dispenses grace to all, but not all are able, willing, or ready to receive it, not all can recognize it and so many pass it by. This is why men must first work upon themselves as a preparation.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23470 – 12.18.5.191

BN – X – D

The ultimate secret of Grace has never been solved by those who do not know that previous reincarnations contribute to it. Some men receive it only after years of burning aspiration and toil but others, like Francis of Assisi, receive it while unprepared and unaspiring. The ordinary candidate cannot afford to take any chance in this matter, cannot risk wasting a lifetime waiting for the unlikely visitation of Grace. He had better offer his all, dedicate his life, and surrender his loves to one all-consuming passion for the Overself, if he wants the power of Grace to flow into him. If he is unable to give himself so totally, let him do the next best thing, which is to find someone who has himself been granted the divine Grace and who has become inwardly transformed by it. Let him become such a man's disciple, and he will then have a better chance of Grace descending on him than he would have had if he walked alone.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23473 – 12.18.5.194

BN – X – DEK

The aspiration which mounts upward from his heart is answered by the grace which descends downward into it.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23475 – 12.18.5.196

BN – X – D

If he tries to fulfil these conditions of sincere self-preparation, and if he tries to practise service, compassion, and kindliness, Grace will come and its meaning will be found. For Grace holds a significance that is very close to love, to unselfish love. What he has given to others will be returned to him by the law of recompense.

The Reverential Life > Grace > Preparing for grace

#23478 – 12.18.5.199

BN – ZZ – DEK