The quotes, in blocks of 400, are displayed here in the same order as in The Digital Notebooks of Paul Brunton.

  • He enters into a state which is certainly not a disappearance of the ego, but rather a kind of divine fellowship of the ego with its source.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Overself displaces ego

    #28560 – 14.22.6.265

    BN – Z – D

  • It is neither the ego thinking of the Overself nor the Overself thinking of itself. All thoughts are absent from this experience. It is rather that the Overself contemplates and knows itself in the moment that the ego is withdrawn into it.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Overself displaces ego

    #28564 – 14.22.6.269

    BN – Z – D

  • For the brief period in which it prevails, the glimpse destroys the ego's dominance.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Overself displaces ego

    #28566 – 14.22.6.271

    BN – X – D

  • His old centre in the ego has mysteriously gone. His new centre in the Overself has taken its place.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Overself displaces ego

    #28567 – 14.22.6.272

    BN – X – D

  • In that moment man has come to himself. Before then he has been dwelling in alien things, in his passions, his thoughts, his emotions, and his desires.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Overself displaces ego

    #28571 – 14.22.6.276

    BN – X – D

  • In this ecstatic mental silence, the personal will is given up, the impersonal Overself is given mastery.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Overself displaces ego

    #28572 – 14.22.6.277

    BN – X – D

  • His personal identity is taken away for a while, to be replaced by a higher one.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Overself displaces ego

    #28573 – 14.22.6.278

    BSG_4 – P – D

  • To be born again, in the sense that Jesus used this phrase when speaking to Nicodemus, means to leave the ego's limited and outward awareness for the Overself's infinite and inward awareness.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Overself displaces ego

    #28574 – 14.22.6.279

    B_11 – ZZ – DK

  • It is literally a going out of his little self into the liberating enlightening Overself.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Overself displaces ego

    #28576 – 14.22.6.281

    BN – X – D

  • In that blessed moment he sinks his identity into the Reality which he has reached.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Overself displaces ego

    #28578 – 14.22.6.283

    BN – Z – D

  • This glimpse of a state he has never before seen is an effective revelation. For he has now understood, felt, and experienced—lucidly—the exact meaning of that vague word "spiritual."

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28579 – 14.22.6.284

    BN – Z – D

  • The glimpse gives a man either a revelation or a confirmation that something exists which transcends this ordinary life, that it is holy, beautiful, satisfying, and that he may commune with it.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28581 – 14.22.6.286

    BN – X – D

  • The glimpse is a man's personal revelation of his divine possibilities. It is breath-taking and beautiful. He eagerly seeks its repetition.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28582 – 14.22.6.287

    BN – X – D

  • Only when he knows his ego as it is known in the Overself can a man be truly said to know himself.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28584 – 14.22.6.289

    BN – ZZ – D

  • The Overself's light enters the understanding and enables him to perceive what men like Jesus really meant when they spoke.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28585 – 14.22.6.290

    B_11 – Z – K

  • The divine self reveals itself for a few thrilling moments and then draws back into the void where it dwells. But the glimpse is enough to tell him that a higher kind of life is possible and that there is a being beyond the ego.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28586 – 14.22.6.291

    BN – X – D

  • The glimpse gives him a slight inkling of what the term Overself means. It shows him—not as intellectual idea but as realized fact—something of the ideal toward which he shall strive.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28587 – 14.22.6.292

    BSG_5 – P – D

  • It is from such paradoxical moments that man learns both how insignificant he is and how great he is!

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28589 – 14.22.6.294

    BN – X – D

  • With this experience of his own divinity, he discovers a meaning in life. Henceforth, he is able to take part consciously in the higher evolution which is inherent in it.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28592 – 14.22.6.297

    BN – Z – D

  • The Glimpse provides assurance that the Soul exists, that God is, that the purpose of human life must include spiritual fulfilment to be complete, and that the Good, the Beautiful, and the True are more enduring and more rewarding than the Bad, the Ugly, the Lie.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28595 – 14.22.6.300

    BN – Z – DEK

  • Yes it is a wonderful feeling, this which accompanies a glimpse of the higher self; but when it is also merged with a knowing, a positive perception beyond the need of discussion, interpretation, formulation, or judgement, it gives the philosophical seeker a certitude which is like a benediction.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28596 – 14.22.6.301

    B_05 – ZZZ – DMK1

  • Every man who passes through this experience and holds its memory, verifies for himself that there is an Infinite Life-Power pervading the entire universe—also that it is ever present, perfectly wise, and all-knowing. Its point of contact with him is his Overself.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28597 – 14.22.6.302

    BN – Z – DM1

  • In that sudden moment of spiritual awareness, or that longer period of spiritual ecstasy, he identifies himself no more with the projection from Mind but with pure Mind itself. In that severance from its projection, the shadow becomes the sun.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28598 – 14.22.6.303

    BN – X – DM1

  • During such unforgettable moments the Soul will speak plainly, if silently, to him. It may tell him about his true relationship to the universe and to his fellow creatures. It will certainly tell him about Itself. It may separate him from his body and let him gaze down upon it as from a height, long enough to permit him to comprehend that the flesh is quite the poorest and least significant part of him. And perhaps best of all it will certainly fill him with the assurance that after his return to the world of lonely struggle and quick forgetfulness, It will still remain beside and behind him.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28599 – 14.22.6.304

    BA11 – ZZ – DM1

  • A glimpse may exalt the man and give him inspiration, but above everything else it attests for him the fact that he is fundamentally Spirit. This is the commonest kind of Glimpse but there is another kind which, in addition to doing these things, opens mysterious doors and provides inlooks to the working of secret laws and occult processes in Nature, the world and the life of man. This kind of glimpse may fitly be termed "a revelation."

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28600 – 14.22.6.305

    BN – ZZ – DK1

  • He sees the universe as he might see a great mosaic picture opening before him.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28601 – 14.22.6.306

    BN – X – K

  • In this mood there is knowledge without thoughts, understanding without words.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28607 – 14.22.6.312

    BN – X – D

  • What goes on within his ego could be better seen, and judged, if he could climb above it for a short time. This is just what the glimpse enables him to do. It clears the sight.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28608 – 14.22.6.313

    BN – Z – D

  • The experience explains a man to himself for the first time, lights up the fact that he lives in two planes at one and the same time. It reveals his ego as the illusion which envelops his consciousness and his Overself as the reality behind his consciousness.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28610 – 14.22.6.315

    BSG_5 – ZZ – D

  • A glimpse is a transitory state of mental enlightenment and emotional exaltation. It is an experience of self-discovery. The experience explains a man to himself for the first time, lights up the fact that he lives in two planes at one and the same time. It reveals his ego as the illusion which envelops his consciousness and his Overself as the reality behind his consciousness.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28610 – 14.22.6.315

    UR_3.2 – ZZ – DXK

  • It is in those uplifted moments that one has the possibility of coming near to confirm the Pythagorean belief that the human soul is an emanation of the Universal Divine Mind.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28617 – 14.22.6.322

    BN – X – D

  • If he will compare those rapturous and illumined moments with his prosaic ordinary days, he will have an excellent clue to what his life's goal should be, what his true self really is, as well as how and where he should look for both.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28621 – 14.22.6.326

    BN – ZZ – D

  • When he reaches this high level, he feels that he is an integral part of the cosmos, rooted in and supported by the illimitable Reality. But the glimpse is only momentary for he is forced by some powerful attraction to return to his body and with it to his ordinary self.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28627 – 14.22.6.332

    BN – Z – D

  • The Glimpse provides overwhelming confirmation of the belief in a divine principle, positive certainty that it rules the world, and renewed assurance that one day all men will obey its benign prompting towards goodness and wisdom.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28629 – 14.22.6.334

    BN – ZZ – D

  • He learns then that there is another part of himself not the ego which has hitherto dominated his thoughts and days—a delightful beautiful unpressured part. He knows then what peace of mind really means. He sees that he has lived only as a fraction of himself, and even that has been made miserable by inner or outer friction.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28631 – 14.22.6.336

    BN – ZZ – D

  • He perceives that this is a new kind of experience, a new way of knowing, a new level of happiness, a new quality of life.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28633 – 14.22.6.338

    BN – Z – D

  • He who has tasted the immeasurable joy of the Overself's peace will not care to shrink back again into the little self's confines. For he will know then that the Infinite, the Void, the Transcendent—call what he will the loss of his ego—is not a loss of happiness but an unlimited magnification of it.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28636 – 14.22.6.341

    BSG_5 – ZZ – D

  • In these brief but glorious moments we discover that we are divine beings. If most of us are worse than the front we present to our neighbours, 'all' of us are better than they think through our affiliation with divinity.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28648 – 14.22.6.353

    BSG_5 – Z – D

  • Men are so wrapt up in themselves that even when the glimpse happens, they look at the experience as their own, in origin occurrence and result. They seldom look at it from the other side. For it is also an attempt by the Overself first to reveal Itself, second to communicate with them.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28653 – 14.22.6.358

    BN – X – D

  • It is the difference between trying to know and actually knowing.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28656 – 14.22.6.361

    BN – ZZ – D

  • With the glimpse there comes a curious feeling of absolute certitude, happy certitude, utter doubtlessness. The truth is there plainly before him and deeply sensed within him. He knows now that God IS and where he is.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28658M – 14.22.6.363

    BSG_5 – ZZZ – DXK

  • This experience of the ultimate oneness of all things and of one's own part in that oneness is, of course, well known in mystical experience—especially in nature mysticism but also in some kinds of religious mysticism, and certainly in philosophic mysticism. The first effect is to make one feel that one is not alone, that the universe is behind one and that one does not need to be crushed by anxieties, worries, and fears—all pertaining to the little self. Such an experience is indeed an excellent counter to them.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28659 – 14.22.6.364

    BN – ZZ – D

  • We read in the Bhagavad Gita of Arjuna's cosmic vision. He was given a glimpse of a part of the universal order, the World-Design, the World-Idea. Others who have had this glimpse saw other parts of it, such as the evolution of the centre of consciousness through the animal into the human kingdom, an evolution which is recapitulated in a very brief form by an embryo in the womb. > Consciousness may expand into infinity or contract into a point. Some have had this experience through mystical meditation and others through physical chemical drugs, but the point is that they are temporary experiences of the fact that we live in a mind-made world, that the time orders and space dimensions are mental constructs and are alterable, that consciousness is the basic reality, that it can assume many different forms, and that ordinary, average human consciousness is merely one of those forms. This tells us why the insights of the seers like Buddha differed so greatly from those of ordinary human beings.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28663 – 14.22.6.368

    BN – X – DEK

  • With a glimpse comes revelation. He feels that he belongs to an immortal race, that there is an inner Reality behind all things, and that the ultimate source is a beneficent one.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28664 – 14.22.6.369

    BN – ZZ – D

  • With this awakening he begins to relate his own purposes in life to the universal purpose.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28666 – 14.22.6.371

    BN – ZZ – D

  • A vivid, intense, and self-critical revelation of how sinful he has been may precede, accompany, or follow the glimpse. It may shake him to his core. But it cannot be said that he feels he has betrayed his best and higher being any more than it can be said a child has betrayed the adult it has not yet grown into. He understands this at the same time and so forgives himself.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28668 – 14.22.6.373

    B_14 – Z – DK

  • In the mystical happening of the Glimpse, the man gets the intuition that this is what he belongs to; here he can find rest.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28673 – 14.22.6.378

    BN – X – D

  • The experience tells him vividly, luminously, and memorably that there is an existence beyond the physical one and a consciousness beyond the personal one.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28676 – 14.22.6.381

    BN – ZZ – D

  • Another reason why glimpses are given to man is to show him—as in a magic mirror—that there is such a thing as the Overself.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28677 – 14.22.6.382

    BN – ZZ – D

  • These brief enlightenments give us clues to both the true way and the true goal. They point within.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28678 – 14.22.6.383

    BN – X – D

  • The glimpse gives him an untrammelled consciousness of this freer and higher self.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28680 – 14.22.6.385

    BN – Z – D

  • The passing from hope to certainty comes with the glimpse.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28682 – 14.22.6.387

    BN – Z – D

  • When this felicitous glimpse comes to a man it brings him 'certitude'. He knows now that God IS and 'where' he is.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28689 – 14.22.6.394

    BN – ZZ – D

  • With the glimpse there comes a curious feeling of absolute certitude, happy certitude, utter doubtlessness. The truth is there plainly before him and deeply sensed within him. He knows now that God IS and 'where' he is.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28689M – 14.22.6.394

    BSG_5 – ZZZ – DXK

  • The revelation wells up slowly, quietly, deeply; it is unfaltering and continues so long as he does not interrupt or interfere with it by his own thoughts. It is really his own innermost guide and guru, his higher self.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28695 – 14.22.6.400

    BN – Z – D

  • He knows from this experience that he is incipient with a love that the world does not ordinarily know, with a goodness that it seldom sees in action, and with an understanding that lights up dark places in the course of life.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Revelation, exaltation, confirmation

    #28698 – 14.22.6.403

    BN – Z – D

  • He has had the glimpse. The after-period is important. For as he returns to his ordinary self and to the ordinary persons around him, the opportunity is offered to make an adjustment, a fresh start by the light of what the experience revealed.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28701 – 14.22.7.3

    BN – Z – D

  • The great experience is soon over; the released insight lasts but a few minutes or hours, but its memory lasts long. It is a delectable foretaste and warming anticipation of what his continued spiritual development may bring to man. It lifts him far above himself and out of his ordinary state of consciousness, yielding sharper understandings and creating deeper sympathies.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28702 – 14.22.7.4

    BN – Z – D

  • He returns from his first initiation into the egoless life with a rich cargo. He carries the stability of peace. A strange feeling of safety takes possession of him at that time. He knows neither care for the uncertain future nor regret for the unpleasant past. He knows that henceforth the life of his being is in the hands of the higher self, and with this he is quite content.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28703 – 14.22.7.5

    BN – Z – D

  • Once he has attained this inner realization, the student should cling persistently to it, for the world's multifarious forces will come to hear of it and seek to drag him away.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28704 – 14.22.7.6

    BN – Z – DK1

  • The holy feelings generated by the Glimpse ought to be protected against the world's disintegrating power and shielded against your own tendency to dissipate them by hasty violent movements or needless irrelevant chatter.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28710 – 14.22.7.12

    BN – Z – DK1

  • He emerges from the experience feeling surrounded by peace and protected by supernormal powers.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28720 – 14.22.7.22

    BN – Z – D

  • The glimpse vanishes, slowly with a few, quickly with most, leaving its effects in his recognition of greater possibilities in life and grander ones in himself.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28721 – 14.22.7.23

    BN – X – D

  • He comes back from the glimpse not only renewed in grace but purged in character, not only less egoistic but more detached, hence calmer. It is only a mood, of course, and may vanish in a few minutes, hours, or days. But whereas most other moods pass from memory and are unrecallable, this kind is unforgettable.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28722 – 14.22.7.24

    BN – ZZ – DK

  • If the glimpse does not last, if a man discovers, or rather comes back to find, that he still is man, he should be pleased that it came at all.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28728 – 14.22.7.30

    BN – X – D

  • In those glorious enchanted moments which immediately succeed the glimpse, almost anything seems possible.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28730 – 14.22.7.32

    BN – X – D

  • The afterglow of this experience may be a sensation of its curative power, leaving nerves and heart healed of their troubled negative conditions, or of its purifying power, leaving the mind freed of its undesired and undesirable thoughts.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28733 – 14.22.7.35

    BN – Z – D

  • The closer he comes to the Overself the more reticent he becomes about it.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28737 – 14.22.7.39

    BN – Z – D

  • If the glimpse slips away from the great calm, where does it go? Into the ever-active outward-turned thinking movement.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Retain the glow

    #28740 – 14.22.7.42

    BN – Z – K1

  • Only those who have felt it can know the completely satisfying nature of the love which flows to and fro between the ego and the Overself at such enkindled moments. They may be gone the same day but they will reflect themselves in a whole lifetime's aspiration thereafter.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28759 – 14.22.7.61

    BN – ZZ – DK

  • A sense of being lifted up from all worldly cares will pervade him for some time as an afterglow of this experience. The gracious feeling swims away again and leaves him not forlorn but forsworn. He will never again be alone. The remembrance of what happened is by itself enough to be company for him the rest of his life.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28761 – 14.22.7.63

    BN – Z – D

  • Whoever has had this beautiful experience, felt its glorious freedom and known its amazing serenity, has had something which he will always remember. Even after he has fallen utterly away from both freedom and serenity, when darkness bitterness or degradation are his melancholy lot, the knowledge that a life of truth goodness and beauty is somewhere and sometime possible will continue to haunt him.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28764 – 14.22.7.66

    BN – Z – DEK

  • The glimpse, when finally it does come, compensates for all the struggles and difficulties of the years that precede it. He can look back upon them with complete detachment, perhaps even smile at them. Even the sufferings seem no longer what they were, but diminish into unimportant little incidents.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28765 – 14.22.7.67

    BN – ZZ – D

  • Yes, the Glimpse will gently go away, its fine exaltation will subside, but neither its lustrous meaning nor its loving memory will ever be forgotten.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28766 – 14.22.7.68

    BN – ZZ – D

  • The isolated glimpses will have this effect, that they will not only whet his appetite for farther ones but also for a lasting identity with the Overself.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28769 – 14.22.7.71

    BN – X – D

  • If the beauty of his experience penetrates his heart deeply enough, it will not fail to bring about a change in his life. It will also point out the direction in which the change is to be made.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28771 – 14.22.7.73

    BN – Z – D

  • The insight, once caught, and however briefly, will leave behind a calm discontent with the triviality of ordinary life, a lucid recognition of its pathetic futility and emptiness, as well as a calm dissatisfaction with the man himself.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28772 – 14.22.7.74

    BSG_4 – ZZ – DM1

  • The door of his inner consciousness has opened; the regeneration of his moral nature has begun. The truth will come into the innermost chambers of his consciousness, sometimes abruptly but sometimes sluggishly. And because it comes in this way, because it comes from the god within him, it will be dynamic, creative, powerful. As he becomes aware of this sublime influx, so will he soon become aware that character is altering with it, and so will others become aware that his conduct is shaping itself around nobler standards.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28775 – 14.22.7.77

    BN – Z – D

  • When a man discovers that he himself is the bearer of divine forces, he ceases to run hither and thither in search of other men.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28776 – 14.22.7.78

    BN – Z – D

  • Once the soul has revealed her lovely self to him, he cannot help adoring her, cannot help the feeling of being carried away in lifelong pursuit of her. The attraction is not of his own choosing. It is as natural and inevitable as the movement of the sunflower towards the sun.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28777 – 14.22.7.79

    BN – Z – D

  • If we can gain the power to enter the Presence, it will work silently upon the reform and reshaping of our character. Every such entry will carry the work forward, or consolidate what has already been done.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28778 – 14.22.7.80

    BN – Z – D

  • He begins to look on the world afresh, as if for the first time. But it is the beauties, the harmonies, the inner meanings, and the higher purposes that he now sees. He becomes more attentive to the attractiveness of Nature, observes her colourings and forms with new delight.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28779 – 14.22.7.81

    BN – Z – D

  • Even after he sinks back to his former state, the mystic who has had a flash, a glimpse, a revelation, or a vision of something beyond it can never be exactly the same as he was before. The light cannot fall upon him without leaving some little effect behind at the least, or some tremendous change at the most.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28782 – 14.22.7.84

    BN – Z – D

  • These experiences if taken aright will lead him not to spiritual pride but to spiritual humbleness.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28785 – 14.22.7.87

    BN – Z – D

  • Because he has been once illumined, the darkness can never again be total darkness. He will know that the possibility of light flashing across it always exists.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28786 – 14.22.7.88

    BN – X – D

  • No one can know in advance how long it will stay with him. It is here out of nowhere and nowhen, and then gone away the next hour. The visitation may or may not be repeated but because it is nothing that he has achieved, the repetition is outside his reach to control. Thus begins a lifelong haunting by what becomes his dearest wish—to repeat, and especially to continue in, this magical transformation.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28787 – 14.22.7.89

    BN – X – D

  • The glimpse is impermanent, its satisfactions fugitive; but it leaves behind a residue of hope and revelation which the impermanent and fugitive pleasures of the world can never do.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28788 – 14.22.7.90

    BN – ZZ – D

  • The man who tries for years vainly to transcend his human nature is released by this experience. He no longer tortures himself practising excessive asceticisms.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28792 – 14.22.7.94

    BN – X – D

  • It is a spiritual miracle, for it not only transforms his character but also releases some latent powers.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28797 – 14.22.7.99

    BN – X – D

  • Because it gives new hope, fresh encouragement, and the prospect of eventual relief from trouble, the glimpse is like a rainbow in the sky. It reminds him that a providential love is still behind the world and his own existence.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28798 – 14.22.7.100

    BN – ZZ – D

  • Here is goodness and beauty which worldly objects and worldly creatures do not possess. The man who has once glimpsed them can never again be completely satisfied with the world's offerings, for this reason, but will again and again be haunted by, and attracted to, the vision of this higher possibility for man.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28814 – 14.22.7.116

    BN – Z – D

  • The glimpse has several results: it awakens sleeping minds, it encourages questing minds, it inspires earnest minds, and it quickens growing minds.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28816 – 14.22.7.118

    BN – X – D

  • One important effect of the glimpse is to show him how wonderful life could be if there were frequent and easy access to this diviner region. For this spurs him to seek ways and means to bring about its recurrence.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28820 – 14.22.7.122

    BN – X – DK

  • Even if it happens only once or twice in a lifetime, such a glimpse acts as a catalyst which pushes the man into making changes.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28821 – 14.22.7.123

    BN – Z – D

  • The glimpse will always be an incandescent memory in his life, a token of grace to prove that reality does dwell somewhere behind the seeming fatuity and illusoriness of the world's life.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28822 – 14.22.7.124

    BN – Z – D

  • The glimpse brings release from doubts, burdens, fears, depressions, and other negative conditions which may beset the ego. This is most welcome. But only seldom does it last long. It is a momentary or temporary condition. It is never totally or permanently lost; there is usually some kind of residue, if only in memory.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28825 – 14.22.7.127

    BN – Z – DK

  • He may have to weep for a mere glimpse of the soul. But this got, he will certainly weep again for its return. For he knows now by unshakeable conviction and by this vivid demonstration that the durable realization of the Soul is what he is here on earth for.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28828 – 14.22.7.130

    BN – ZZ – D

  • The glimpse gives a man the feeling of a newness as if he were beginning a new kind of life with a new attitude and a new ethical code.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28836 – 14.22.7.138

    BN – X – D

  • The simple discovery of what he really is leads to large implications. He sees his aims in life, his goals and ambitions, his desires and attitudes, under a different light. The glimpse itself passes but the memory remains and the effect upon them is disturbing. He begins to feel a new unease with them.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28846 – 14.22.7.148

    BN – Z – DEK

  • At the very least the glimpse leaves a beautiful memory, at the most a divine inspiration.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28848 – 14.22.7.150

    BN – X – D

  • In our best moments, we discover that we are not really alone, for with them comes our best self. It is our guide and comforter.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28849 – 14.22.7.151

    BN – Z – D

  • The experience may seem to happen by chance, its duration may be little more than momentary, but the impression left may last a lifetime.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28850 – 14.22.7.152

    BN – Z – D

  • When the Overself takes full possession of him, it will change his personality and outlook completely.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28854 – 14.22.7.156

    BN – Z – D

  • Life will be very different for man when, at long last, he recovers the sense of his own divinity.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28856 – 14.22.7.158

    BN – Z – D

  • A few minutes of the glimpse compensates fully for the lengthened years of dull mediocrity and triviality, reconciles him to the past's sufferings.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28866 – 14.22.7.168

    BN – Z – D

  • Out of the inner quietude have come the great decisions, the miraculous healings, the memorable awakenings, and the end of sorrows.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28868 – 14.22.7.170

    BN – Z – D

  • A Glimpse gives him the confidence that he is walking the right road and encourages him to go forward.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28877 – 14.22.7.179

    BN – Z – D

  • Even if the glimpse does not heighten the feeling that here is a signal from something real, his own further or deeper study and the testimony of historic figures will show him that he is on the right track.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

    #28889 – 14.22.7.191

    BN – Z – D

  • The Glimpse is in very truth a magic spell cast over a man's whole being so that he neither feels nor reacts as he did before. For a short time he is born again, a new person.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Marks of authenticity

    #28895 – 14.22.7.197

    BSG_5 – ZZZ – DK

  • The question whether someone is a mystic or yogi can be answered easily enough once we understand what is his state of consciousness and what the mystical condition really is. All the annals of the vanished past and all the experiences of the living present inform us that whoever enters into it feels his natural egotism subside, his fierce passions assuaged, his restless thoughts stilled, his troubled emotions pacified, his habitual world-view spiritualized, and his whole person caught up into a beatific supernal power. Did he ever have this kind of consciousness? His words and deeds, his personal presence and psychological self-betrayal should proclaim with a united voice what he is. No man who habitually enters such a blessed state could ever bring himself to hate or injure a fellow human being.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Marks of authenticity

    #28896 – 14.22.7.198

    BN – Z – K1

  • What are the signs whereby he shall know that this is an authentic glimpse of Reality? First, it is and shall remain ever present. There is no future in it and no past. Second, the pure spiritual experience comes without excitement, is reported without exaggeration, and needs no external authority to authenticate it.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Marks of authenticity

    #28897 – 14.22.7.199

    BSG_5 – ZZZ – DM1*

  • The glimpse also does in part for a man what initiation did in some ancient mystical institutions. It sets him on the road of a new life, a life more earnestly and more consciously devoted to the quest of Overself. It silently bids him dedicate, or rededicate anew, the remainder of his life on earth to this undertaking. It is a baptism with inner light more far-reaching than the baptism with physical water.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Marks of authenticity

    #28898 – 14.22.7.200

    B_04 – ZZ – DK1

  • The old self which he has left behind and which once so occupied his interest now seems ugly, bad, and dull. So great is the change in him that it also seems like a stranger, not entitled to bear his name.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Marks of authenticity

    #28906 – 14.22.7.208

    BN – Z – D

  • However cynical and blasé may have been his attitude in earlier days, it will yield to and melt in the sunny light of this second birth.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Marks of authenticity

    #28907 – 14.22.7.209

    BN – X – D

  • Those who have experienced a glimpse of this blessed Reality or, better, established themselves in it, may share its atmosphere with others in silent communion. But on a lesser level, they may also share with them in phrased speech the thoughts it provokes.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Marks of authenticity

    #28908 – 14.22.7.210

    BN – Z – D

  • There comes a time when out of the silence within himself there comes the spiritual guidance which he needs for his further course. It comes sometimes as a delicate feeling, sometimes as a strong one, sometimes in a clearly formulated message, and sometimes out of the circumstances and happenings themselves. Not only does it tell him and teach him, but sometimes it does the same for others. Such is the effect of the Divine Life now working increasingly within him.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Marks of authenticity

    #28911 – 14.22.7.213

    BN – ZZZ – DEK

  • You have been given a glimpse of the goal. Now you must strive to attain that goal. The glimpse itself has enabled you to understand the consciousness and the characteristics to strive for. Both are so subtle that words merely hint at them and may be meaningless. In receiving an experience beyond words, you have therefore been so fortunate as to be favoured with the Overself's Grace.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28913 – 14.22.7.215

    BN – X – DEK

  • Merely to enjoy such a glimpse is not enough. It must be turned to use, made into a standard for thought and living, applied to every situation in which he finds himself. He must let its beneficent memory shed peace, goodwill, and kindliness on all around.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28914 – 14.22.7.216

    BN – Z – D

  • The illuminatory experience may come to one who is without previous preparation, seeking, effort, or self-discipline. But if it comes so unexpectedly it leaves just as unexpectedly. The visitant is transient. The effects are permanent. If it be asked why it should come to such a person, who neither desired nor strove for it, when others are unable to secure it despite years of seeking, the answer must be that he worked for it in earlier lives. He has forgotten himself for an interval but the illumination recalls him to the quest even though it passes away: hence the permanency of its moral and mystical results.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28915 – 14.22.7.217

    BN – Z – DM

  • What he sees in that sudden flash is to be slowly worked out in his character and conduct during the hours and months of subsequent years. Indeed, every minute offers the chance to transform himself by the smallest of degrees.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28916 – 14.22.7.218

    BN – Z – D

  • What we are ordinarily conscious of are the thoughts and feelings of the ego, but there is much more in us than that. There is the true self, of which the ego is only a miserable caricature. If we could penetrate to this, the fundamental element of our selfhood, we would never again be satisfied with a wholly egoistic life—the call of the Quest would come again and again in our ears. And indeed it is through such rare glimpses, such exalted moments, when they become conscious of a presence, higher and more blessed than their ordinary state, that men are drawn to the Quest in the effort to recapture those moments and those moods. The recapturing is done, not by taking possession of something but by allowing oneself to be possessed, not by a positive and affirmative movement of the will, but by a yielding to, and acceptance of, the gentlest and most delicate thing in man's psyche—the intuition.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28919 – 14.22.7.221

    BN – Z – DEK1

  • Another purpose of these glimpses is to show him how ignorant of truth he really is, and, having so shown, to stimulate his effort to get rid of this ignorance. For they will light up the fanciful or opinionative nature of so much that he hitherto took to be true.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28920 – 14.22.7.222

    BN – ZZ – DK1

  • The bestowal of a glimpse is not merely for his pleasure and satisfaction: there are certain self-cleansing duties and self-improving obligations which follow in its train. The light it throws into him is thrown on his sins and weaknesses too. He sees them more plainly for what they are, as well as the amendment he must make. But he sees also the forgiveness which grace grants.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28921 – 14.22.7.223

    BN – Z – D

  • A single glimpse will offer all the evidence his reason needs, all the proof his judgement demands that there is a kingdom of heaven and that it is the best of all things to search for.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28923 – 14.22.7.225

    BN – Z – D

  • The effect of a Glimpse upon character may show itself as a passing feeling but it is the business of a quester to show it as a habit of life.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28925 – 14.22.7.227

    BN – Z – DK

  • During the glimpse he left himself and found a being within which transcended it. After the glimpse he has the chance to create a conscious relationship between them. His outer life ought to carry the mark of this extraordinary event.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28927 – 14.22.7.229

    BN – Z – DK

  • The glimpse is a memorable experience, but it is not enough. It shows him a possible future, gives him a new world-view, but he must henceforth bring all that into his everyday life and into his whole being. This needs time, practice, patience, vigilance, self-training, and more sensitivity.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28930 – 14.22.7.232

    BN – Z – D

  • It is possible for a man who knows of the Quest only through emotional faith or intellectual conviction to turn aside from it for the remainder of his incarnation, but it is not possible for a man who has enjoyed this Glimpse to do so. He may try—and some do—but each day of such alienation will be a haunted day. The ghost will not leave him alone until he returns.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28941 – 14.22.7.243

    BN – Z – K1

  • These glimpses are only occasional. They take us unawares and depart from us unexpectedly. But the joy they bring with them, the insight they bestow, make us yearn for a permanent and unbroken attainment of the state they tell us about.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28942 – 14.22.7.244

    BN – Z – D

  • It is important to remember that such experiences may be expected only rarely in most cases, perhaps once or twice in a lifetime, if the person is not consciously on the quest. It is natural to hope that it will be repeated. The first glimpse is given to show the way, to throw light on the path ahead, to give direction and goal to the person. But if the glimpse is only temporary and rare, the metaphysical understanding to be derived from it is the permanent benefit. So seek to get and clarify the understanding.

    Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

    #28943 – 14.22.7.245

    BN – Z – K1

  • It is true that illumination of itself exalts character and ennobles feeling, purifies thought and spiritualizes action. But if there has been insufficient effort along these lines, then the illumination will only be temporary.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28948 – 14.22.8.5

    BN – Z – D

  • Too soon he will find that the rebirth was not a durable spiritual event but a temporary one. It offered a picture of something for which, from then on, he must start working in earnest. It was a glimpse only but it provided testimony, evidence, confirmation.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28949 – 14.22.8.6

    BN – Z – D

  • Neither deep meditation nor the experience can give more than a temporary glimpse. The full and permanent enlightenment, which is to stay with a human being and never leave him, can only come after he has clear insight into the nature of Overself.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28954 – 14.22.8.11

    BSG_4 – P – DE

  • These flashes of light, peace, bliss, and understanding are brief but they have the intended effect. They encourage the aspirant to continue his quest and they implant in him a deep yearning to gain entry into the world to which they belong. They will be brief because the ordinary condition of thought and feeling is still far below the exalted condition revealed during these flashes. In other words, he has still to toil away at self-improvement so as to deserve the treasures which have been momentarily shown him.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28956 – 14.22.8.13

    BN – Z – D

  • Between the seeker and the Overself, between his mind and Truth, there is a thick layer of desires, egoisms, passions, opinions, and imaginings. Until he cuts through it—which means until he denies and resists himself in these matters—he may not expect more than Glimpses which fade away.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28957 – 14.22.8.14

    BN – X – D

  • The belief that he can do nothing to hold this glimpse or keep this mood settles on him through repeated experience. But it is not quite correct. Philosophy points out that he can thin down or remove altogether the causes of such evanescence.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28958 – 14.22.8.15

    BN – Z – DK

  • If it is to be a continuous light that stays with him and not a fitful flash, he will need first, to cast all negative tendencies, thoughts, and feelings entirely out of his character; second, to make good the insufficiencies in his development; third, to achieve a state of balance between his faculties.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28959D – 14.22.8.16

    BN – Z – D

  • During the Glimpse he feels that he has travelled close to his journey’s end, to the fulfilment of his highest purposes. The quest has suddenly become easy and pleasant. But alas! after the rainbow fades and vanishes, he is forced to recognize that he has far yet to go, that what he experienced was only a passing glimpse and not the final goal.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28961 – 14.22.8.18

    BN – X – D

  • If he cannot keep this higher consciousness, it is because his lower and earthly nature is strong enough to rise again and block the way. When the purificatory lessons are learned it will then be possible for him, by self-effort and self-development, to regain this experience—at first temporarily and occasionally, but if he works correctly and Grace sanctions, permanently.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28962 – 14.22.8.19

    BN – X – D

  • In each of these glimpses, his quest attains a minor climax, for each is a step towards full illumination.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28963 – 14.22.8.20

    BN – Z – D

  • It is a kind of pre-vision in which he sees, as Moses saw the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land toward which he journeys.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28964 – 14.22.8.21

    BN – X – D

  • It must be remembered that the glimpse is not the goal of life. It is a happening, something which begins and ends, but something which is of immense value in contributing to the philosophic life, its day-to-day consciousness, its ordinary stabilized nature. Philosophic life is established continuously and permanently in the divine presence; the glimpse comes and goes within that presence. The glimpse is exceptional and exciting; but 'sahaja', the established state, is ordinary, normal, every day. The glimpse tends to withdraw us from activity, even if only for a few moments, whereas 'sahaja' does not have to stop its outward activity.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28966 – 14.22.8.23

    BN – Z – DEK1

  • It would be unreasonable to expect anyone to give up his worldly attachments until he sees something more worthwhile. Consequently his soul gives him a foretaste, as it were, through these ecstatic moments and brief enlightenments, of its own higher values.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28968 – 14.22.8.25

    BN – Z – DK1

  • That glimpse is his initiation into the spiritual life and therefore into the sacrificial life. It is but the first step in a long process wherein he will have to part with his lower tendencies, give up his ignoble passions, surrender his baser inclinations, and renounce egoistic views.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28969 – 14.22.8.26

    BN – ZZ – DK1

  • Under the emotional thrill of a religious conversion, many people have thought themselves saved and have believed they live in Christ. Yet how many of them have later fallen away! They thought the conversion was enough to bring about a permanent result, whereas it was only the first step toward such a result in reality. The same situation holds with those who have undergone the emotional thrill of a mystical experience. The illumination they have achieved is not the end of the road for them but the beginning. It gives them a picture of the goal and a glimpse of the course to it. It gives them right direction and an inspirational impetus to move towards it. But still it is only the first step, not the last one. They should beware of the personal ego's vanity which would tell them otherwise, or of its deceitfulness, which would tell it to others.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28970 – 14.22.8.27

    BN – Z – K1

  • Islamic mystics called Sufis differentiate between glimpses, which they call "states," and permanent advances on the path, which they call "stations." The former are described as being not only temporary but also fragmentary, while the latter are described as bearing results which cannot be lost. There are three main stations along the path. The first is annihilation of the ego; the second is rebirth in the Overself; and the third is fully grown union with the Overself. The Sufis assert that this final state can never be reached without the Grace of the Higher Power and that it is complete, lasting, and unchangeable.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28971 – 14.22.8.28

    BN – Z – DEK1

  • If illumination does not become permanent, if it does not stay with its host, that is because it does not find a proper place within him for such abiding stay. His heart is still too impure, his character still too imperfect for the consciousness of the Overself to associate constantly with him.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28972 – 14.22.8.29

    BN – ZZ – DK1

  • He must finish what he has started. He must go on until the peace, the understanding, the strength, and the benevolence of these rare uplifted moods have become a continuous presence within him.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28973 – 14.22.8.30

    BN – ZZ – DK1

  • We cannot see the Truth and still be what we were before we saw it. That is why Truth comes in glimpses, for we cannot sustain staying away from ourselves too long, that is to say, from our egos.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28974 – 14.22.8.31

    BN – ZZ – DM1

  • When he is willing to let go of the self-centered ego and the grace can manifest, there may be this union with his higher nature, with the Overself. It is usually not a permanent experience but the possibility of its becoming one is always there. Then the new outlook seems perfectly natural.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28976 – 14.22.8.33

    BN – ZZ – D

  • A continuous Insight, present all the time, is the goal, not a passing glimpse.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28978 – 14.22.8.35

    BSG_4 – P – D

  • The glimpse is a precious thing but it is not enough. The man who has had it has also a new problem: how to find it again and how to turn it into an all-time state of mind, continuing through all kinds of circumstances and experiences. And how can he bring his everyday life into harmony with it?

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28984 – 14.22.8.41

    BN – Z – D

  • The grand realization of his identity with the ONE should support him in all hours. He who gains this consciousness in times when karma smiles must keep it also in times of tribulation. He must liberate himself from the hazards of circumstance and from the bondage to emotional reactions, and at all times realize his best self.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28985 – 14.22.8.42

    BN – ZZ – K

  • No glimpse is ever full and complete. If it were, the person experiencing it would be unable to fall into spiritual ignorance again. From this we may understand that however wonderful a glimpse of the Overself may be, it is still only a cloudy reflection of the real thing.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28991 – 14.22.8.48

    BN – Z – D

  • These glimpses may be looked upon as brief, minor illuminations leading to the final major illumination that will quash the ego's rule forever.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28996 – 14.22.8.53

    BN – ZZ – D

  • In spite of itself the ego is drawn more and more to the spiritual grandeur revealed by these glimpses. Its ties to selfishness, animality, and materiality are loosened. Finally it comes to see that it is standing in its own way and light and then lets itself be effaced.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #28998 – 14.22.8.55

    BN – ZZ – DK1

  • An intermittent enlightenment which comes like this in moments is only a step on the way. He should not be satisfied with it. Nothing short of total enlightenment which is permanent, constant, and ever-present ought to be his goal.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29001 – 14.22.8.58

    BA12 – ZZZ – DK

  • In these glimpses he only looks at the Infinite Beauty, but in the final realization he become unified with it.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29005 – 14.22.8.62

    BA11 – Z – DK

  • Once he has experienced the glimpse he will understand why his next goal is to experience it again, and why his final goal is to attain it in permanence.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29006 – 14.22.8.63

    BN – X – D

  • Since there are no negative emotions in the Overself, how can it stay in the same breast as an ego filled with them? This is why the glimpse can be only a brief one, and why it can be stretched into permanency only by first cleansing the nature of all negatives.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29010 – 14.22.8.67

    BN – Z – D

  • No glimpse is wasted, even if it does pass away. For not only does it leave a memory to stir comfort guide inspire or meditate upon, but it also leaves a positive advance forward. Each glimpse is to be regarded as a step taken in the direction of the goal, or as a stage in the process of work needed to be done on oneself, or as a further cleansing of the accretions impurities animalities and egoisms which hide the true Self. If his own work is fully and faithfully done, the time comes when the power to prolong a glimpse is at the disciple's command. He is then able not only to bring it on at will but also to extend its length at will.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29015 – 14.22.8.72

    BN – X – DEK

  • The higher awareness falls like pollen for a few short hours, perhaps, only to be blown away for long years. Yet this intervening period need not be wasted. It should be used to cut down the obstructions in his character and to fill up the deficiencies in his equipment. This done, he will grow more and more into his spiritual selfhood with every return to temporary awareness of it.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29016 – 14.22.8.73

    BN – Z – D

  • The glimpse will be lengthened when he himself develops: it will then no longer be abnormal, or supernormal, but a constant experience.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29021 – 14.22.8.78

    BN – X – D

  • The more he gives himself up to the Overself as a consequence of these glimpses of what it requires of him, the sooner will their transience be transformed into permanence.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29026 – 14.22.8.83

    BN – X – D

  • There is a difference between the ordinary glimpse and the philosophical way. Both come to an end; but the philosophical seeker incessantly returns to its remembrance, uses it to work continuously at the transformation of his self and never lets go of the vision.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29031 – 14.22.8.88

    BN – Z – DEK

  • An elementary or obscure knowledge of reality is too often taken by the aspirant as the full knowledge. This is because it so dramatically transcends his ordinary condition. But it is still not to be compared with the firm certitude of clear Insight.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29032 – 14.22.8.89

    BN – ZZ – K

  • It is possible to be open to one's best inner self, aware of its presence, its beauty and peace. And this possibility can be not only realized but also naturalized. It can become one's normal condition.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29033 – 14.22.8.90

    BSG_4 – P – D

  • More and more its light will enter his mind, its strength his heart, and its presence his meditative periods.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29034 – 14.22.8.91

    BN – Z – DEK

  • Since it is a glimpse only, and not a completed experience, he ought not to expect his own person and personal life to be completely transformed.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29037 – 14.22.8.94

    BN – Z – DK*

  • This is his further task, to infuse the beauty and tranquillity, the unworldliness and immaterialism of the glimpse into his ordinary everyday life.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29038 – 14.22.8.95

    BN – X – D

  • He who experiences it only intermittently may guess from this how wonderful his existence would be if he were able to experience it constantly.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29041 – 14.22.8.98

    BN – X – D

  • These glimpses come quite fitfully. Rare is the person to whom the Light comes and stays, day after day, year after year. Most have to work on, with, and by themselves to convert this momentary experience into the ever-present feeling of living in the Overself.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29043 – 14.22.8.100

    BN – Z – D

  • It is man's highest happiness to stay in this heaven of Consciousness all the time, not merely catch a glimpse of it, wonderful though that be.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29044 – 14.22.8.101

    BN – X – D

  • The joyous awareness evoked for a short period is a foretaste of what will one day be manifested continuously.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29046 – 14.22.8.103

    BN – X – D

  • He can then say truthfully, 'knowing' whereof he speaks: "A divine element lives in me!" Far though this has taken him from the ordinary good man or ordinary pious man, it is not enough. He needs to go further so that he can attain the place where, obedient, purified, conscious of the World-Idea, he can add: "This element now works in me." With that the ego's tyranny falls away.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination

    #29047 – 14.22.8.104

    BN – Z – DK

  • The purpose of this brief glimpse is to call us to more serious, more frequent, and sterner efforts, and to arouse in us increased ardours of moral self-improvement. It has shown us our finest potentialities of virtue; now we have to realize them. All elements of personality must be adjusted to the ideal shown by the glimpse, as the whole personality itself has to be surrendered to it. A work lasting several years may be rooted in a flash lasting only a few minutes…

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses of Light

    #29050E – 14.22.8.107

    BSG_5 – Z – DEK3

  • Glimpses bring human being truly into touch with his Soul and demonstrate that divinity is both with and within him. They establish in his consciousness the knowledge of its real existence and the understanding of its real character; whoever has once seen the goal, felt its sublimity, discerned its reality, enjoyed its beauty, and known its security, should draw from the experience the strength needed for the hard upward climb.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses of Light

    #29050E – 14.22.8.107

    BSG_5 – Z – DEK3

  • The way is a progressive one only in the largest sense. In actuality it consists often of stagnations and setbacks, falls and even withdrawals. Instead of smooth progression there are fits and starts, rises and falls. Nearly all seekers experience lapses and wanderings aside. Continuous advance without retrogression is likely to begin only after initiation into the ultimate path.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses of Light

    #29050E – 14.22.8.107

    B_01 – ZZ – DEK3

  • The purpose of this brief glimpse is to call us to more serious, more frequent, and sterner efforts, and to arouse in us increased ardours of moral self-improvement. It has shown us our finest potentialities of virtue; now we have to realize them. All elements of personality must be adjusted to the ideal shown by the glimpse, as the whole personality itself has to be surrendered to it. A work lasting several years may be rooted in a flash lasting only a few minutes.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses of Light

    #29050E – 14.22.8.107

    UR_3.2 – ZZ – DEK3

  • The felicitous experience of the Overself may come briefly during meditation. It comes abruptly. At one moment the student is his ordinary egoistic self, struggling with his restless thoughts and turbulent feelings; at the next the ego suddenly subsides, and every faculty becomes quiescent. All the disciple has to do is to be non-resistant to the divinity, which is taking possession of him, to receive lovingly and not strive laboriously. The oncoming of this experience will be marked by various other signs: the intellect becomes suspended; will, judgement, memory, and reasoning slip gently into abeyance. A deep serenity unknown before takes possession of him, and an exquisite calm settles over him. In these moments of joyous beauty, the bitterest past is blotted out, and the ugliest history redeemed.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses of Light

    #29050E – 14.22.8.107

    B_01 – ZZ – DEK3

  • The upward flights of his novitiate have to be bought at the cost of downward falls. A period of illumination is often followed by a period of darkness. At first the experience of reality will come only in flashes.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses of Light

    #29050E – 14.22.8.107

    B_01 – ZZ – DEK3

  • The veils hiding Truth from us are lifted for a time. The idea that we have a Higher Self, the conviction that we have a Soul, breaks in upon our "little existence" with great revelatory force, and we feel we are emerging into glorious light after a dreary journey through a long dark tunnel.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses of Light

    #29050E – 14.22.8.107

    BSG_5 – ZZ – DEK3

  • When the state of egolessness is first reached, it will be in deep meditation. The second stage of its development will be when it is temporarily reached in active life, the third and last when it is established there.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses of Light

    #29054 – 14.22.8.111

    BN – Z – D

  • When the Grace has led him sufficiently far, he will be distinctly aware of an inner presence. It will think for him, feel for him, and even act for him. This is the beginning of, and what it means to have, an egoless life.

    Inspiration and the Overself > Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > Glimpses of Light

    #29055 – 14.22.8.112

    BN – Z – D

  • This notion that we must wait and wait while we slowly progress out of enslavement into liberation, out of ignorance into knowledge, out of the present limitations into a future union with the Divine, is only true if we let it be so. But we need not. We can shift our identification from the ego to the Overself in our habitual thinking, in our daily reactions and attitudes, in our response to events and the world. We have thought our way into this unsatisfactory state; we can unthink our way out of it. By incessantly remembering what we really are, here and now at this very moment, we set ourselves free. Why wait for what already is?

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29059 – 15.23.1.1

    BN – ZZ – D

  • All other approaches to the goal depend on a dualistic principle, which puts them on a lower plane. But the Short Path is nondual: it begins and ends with the goal itself; its nature is direct and its working is immediate.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29060 – 15.23.1.2

    BN – Z – D

  • Consciousness appearing as the person seeks itself. This is its quest. But when it learns and comprehends that it is itself the object of that quest, the person stops not only seeking outside himself but even engaging in the quest itself. Henceforth he lets himself be moved by the Overself's flow.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29061 – 15.23.1.3

    BN – ZZ – D

  • Are we to reject the plain statements of these enlightened men—that is, statements of the Short Path that you are divine? Do we know more and better about divine things than they do? Why can we not accept the idea that they describe not a theory but a discovery?

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29063 – 15.23.1.5

    BN – ZZ – D

  • This then is the ultimate truth—that in our inmost nature we are anchored in God, inseparable from God, and that the discovery of this heavenly nature is life's loftiest purpose. Even now, already, today, we are as divine as we ever shall be. The long evolutionary ladder which by prophets and teachers, gurus and guides we are bidden to climb toilsomely and slowly and painfully need not be climbed at all if only we heed this truth continually, if we refuse to let it go, if we make it ours in all parts of our being—in thought, feeling, faith, and action.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29064 – 15.23.1.6

    BN – ZZ – DM*

  • For if we are divine and timeless beings now (and who can gainsay it that has had a glimpse of that starry state memorably vouchsafed to him?) then we have always been such. How can we evolve who are already self-existent, perfect beings? Does it not seem more probable that something alien has accreted around us, covering up the sublimer consciousness; that Time's work is not to raise us but to free us; that our search is not for a loftier state but for our pristine state, to recover our former grandeur? What we need is not to grow but to know. Evolution cannot help us, but self-knowledge can.  

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29065 – 15.23.1.7

    UR_5 – ZZZ – DK

  • This is the concept which governs the Short Path: that he is in the Stillness of central being all the time whether he knows it or not, that he has never left and can never leave it. And this is so, even in a life passed in failure and despair.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29066 – 15.23.1.8

    BN – Z – DK1

  • The man on the Short Path moves forward directly to fulfil his objective. Instead of working by slow degrees toward the control of thoughts, he seeks to recollect the fact that the sacred Overself is present in his mind at this very moment, that It lives within him right now, and not only as a goal to be attained in some distant future. The more he understands this fact and holds attention to it, the more he finds himself able to feel the great calm which follows its realization, the more his thoughts automatically become still in consequence.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29067 – 15.23.1.9

    BN – Z – DK1

  • What it asserts is that the real truth already exists in the pithy core of man's mind, that it can be seen by anyone who will undo the illusions which cover it so thickly, the passions which obscure it so agitatedly, and, above all, the egoism which fears it so greatly. This does not imply the development of new things: it implies the removal of old ones. It is concerned with the discovery of what we really are, not what we shall one day become.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29068 – 15.23.1.10

    BA11 – ZZZ – DK

  • Pascal said in 'Le Mystère de Jesus': "Thou wouldst not seek Me, if thou didst not possess Me. Be not therefore anxious."

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29069 – 15.23.1.11

    BN – X – DK*

  • We cannot attain reality, for we already are in it; but we can attain consciousness of it. And such consciousness arises naturally the moment we know appearance as being appearance. This knowledge may be nothing more than a second's glimpse, before old habit powerfully reasserts itself again, but it will be enough to tell us the truth.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29070 – 15.23.1.12

    BN – Z – D

  • It is the paradox of the Short Path that it begins with the end, in order to arrive at the end!

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29073 – 15.23.1.15

    BN – X – D

  • The finest of all experiences is to perceive that he need no longer pursue experiences because the pursuer and the Pursued are one and the same Being. Inner experiences are all in time, doomed to pass away; but he, the Consciousness behind them, behind the ego's consciousness, is out of time, hence Immortal.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29074 – 15.23.1.16

    BN – ZZ – DEK

  • The divine presence is there, its power is consequently there too. He may avail himself of it by Grace. Let him look to it then. But where is he to see it? Jesus provides the clearest answer: "The kingdom of heaven is within you". His hope of help can find its realization coming from one direction only—from the deeper part of his own self.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29075 – 15.23.1.17

    B_11 – Z – DK

  • Wang Yang-ming: "Our original nature is purely good. It is not possible to add anything to this original state. The knowledge of the superior man merely serves to clear away the obscuration, and thus to show forth the shining virtue." And again, "The mind of man is heaven but because of the obscurations caused by selfishness, that state is not manifested. When all of them are cleared away, the original nature is restored."

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29076 – 15.23.1.18

    BN – ZZZ – DK

  • What has never been lost can never be found. If a quester fails to find the Overself, it is not because of faults or weaknesses in the ego but because he is himself that which he seeks. There is nothing else to be found than understanding of this fact. Instead of seeking Overself as something above, beyond, or apart from himself, he should stop seeking altogether and recognize ‘i am’ as ‘I AM’!

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29077 – 15.23.1.19

    B_05 – ZZ – DEK

  • The moment the questing attitude is taken, with the Overself as its sought-for goal, in that moment the ego and the Overself are put apart as two separate things and cannot be brought together again. But by letting such thoughts go, and all thoughts subside, mind may enter the Stillness and know itself again as Mind. Yet even this is useless if the understanding that the seeker is really the sought is lacking.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29078 – 15.23.1.20

    B_05 – Z – DK

  • If you will not accept the saving truth that you are now as divine as you ever will be, and follow the ultimate path, then you rank yourself with those men who, as Jesus said, "love darkness rather than light", however much you may protest against such a classification.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29079 – 15.23.1.21

    B_11 – Z – DEK

  • So long as the aspirant takes the attitude that he aspires to unite with the Overself, that he wants permanent spiritual illumination, he is merely adding another desire to those which his ego already possesses. He is still turning round inside the closed circle of the little self. There is no way out except to forget himself, to turn away from the ego and regard, fixedly and constantly, the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29082 – 15.23.1.24

    BN – Z – D

  • The idea that we have to wait for liberation from the ego and enlightenment by the Overself, to evolve through much time and many reincarnations, is correct only if we continue to remain mesmerized by it, but false if we take our stand on reality rather than appearance: we are now as divine as we ever shall be—but we must wake up from illusion and see this truth.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29083 – 15.23.1.25

    BN – Z – D

  • Because it is impossible for the questing ego to become the Overself, the quester must recognize that he is the Overself and stop thinking in egoistic terms of progress along a path, or attainment of a goal.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29084 – 15.23.1.26

    B_05 – ZZZ – DK

  • Because what we seek is ours already, because the Overself is always here and now, there is in reality no quest to follow, no path to travel, and no goal to reach.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29086 – 15.23.1.28

    UR_4map – ZZZ – DK

  • Job carried the answer to his own question, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him," within himself all the time, but he did not know it.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29087 – 15.23.1.29

    BN – Z – DK*

  • We suffer under the delusion that we must struggle, centimetre by centimetre, all the long way to the kingdom of heaven. We stare, astonished and sceptical, when a Sage—Indian, Chinese, Japanese—tells us that we are already in it.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29088 – 15.23.1.30

    BN – Z – D

  • There is really nothing to be achieved here; only something to be accepted—the fact of your own divinity.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29089 – 15.23.1.31

    BN – ZZ – DK

  • We came to this Earth to understand ourselves, bit by bit. There is really nothing to be achieved here; only something to be accepted—the fact of your own divinity.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29089M – 15.23.1.31

    B_01 – ZZZ – DXK

  • Why go on hoping for a far-off day when peace and truth will be attained? Why not drastically strip off all the illusions of self-identification with ego and recognize that the true identity is already fulfilled?

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29090 – 15.23.1.32

    BN – Z – D

  • The divine is actually within us and has been there all along…

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29091E – 15.23.1.33

    BT1008 – P – DE

  • The divine is actually within us and has been there all along—if we set out to gain knowledge of it. What then really happens should we succeed in doing so? A recognition and a remembrance! Why then all this fuss of studies and practices, exercises and meditations, flocking to gurus and labouring at self-improvements? Is it not enough to be our own teachers and to remember our own long-held wisdom?

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29091 – 15.23.1.33

    B_07 – ZZZ – DEK

  • If the Long Path begins and ends with ego, the Short Path begins with a 180 degree turnaround, opens up a vista of the infinite Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29093 – 15.23.1.35

    BN – Z – DK

  • This identification with the Overself is the real work set us, the real purpose for which human life in the world serves us. All else is merely a comfortable way of escape, a means of keeping us busy so that conscience need not be troubled by the central duty to which we are summoned.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29094 – 15.23.1.36

    BN – ZZ – D

  • The Long Path methods and attitudes, ideas and principles—admirable in their place and time—have to be got rid of; otherwise the Short Path truths cannot be brought in. For the one is dualistic and objective, whereas the other is nondualistic and nonobjective. The aspirant has to turn around and take a totally opposite direction.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29096 – 15.23.1.38

    BN – Z – K

  • The changeover to the Short Path calls for a tremendous leap from his present standpoint—whatever that may happen to be—to the highest possible one.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29099 – 15.23.1.41

    BN – Z – D

  • There is hope if only he is determined to wake up and begin afresh, to supplant negatives with positives, and to give more of himself to the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29102 – 15.23.1.44

    BN – Z – D

  • If, in his earlier days when on the Long Path, he practised daily checking his personal feelings where they were negative, hostile, or condemnatory in the relationship with others, or when they interrupted his inner calm in the relationship with himself, now on the Short Path he abandoned this training. It was no more the really important thing, for it had been just a preparation of the ego for that thing—which was to forget and transcend the ego by transferring attention to the remembrance of his divine being, his Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29103 – 15.23.1.45

    BN – Z – D

  • The Long Path man's thoughts are too often with his personal self, too seldom with his Overself. The blessed turning point will be reached when he looks away from himself with persevering faith.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29104 – 15.23.1.46

    BN – X – D

  • The Long Path man who is worried about his sins and content with his virtues gives place to the Short Path man who is preoccupied with neither—because both are facets of the ego—but seeks to understand, revere, and contemplate the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29106 – 15.23.1.48

    BN – X – D

  • He comes up against the inevitable limitation of his personal ego and, both in meditation exercise and in practical life, turns away from it, opens his eyes, and recognizes the Presence of the Overself as his never-absent guardian angel. With that act of seeing he also receives its Grace. One after another the virtues drop into his hands as easily as ripened fruits.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29107 – 15.23.1.49

    BN – Z – D

  • This progress through a series of attitudes leads in the end to something transcending them altogether—a shift of consciousness from ego to Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29108 – 15.23.1.50

    BN – Z – D

  • It is at such a time that he needs to go straight to the source of divine grace, to break his mental alliance with the ego and begin a joyful reliance on the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29110 – 15.23.1.52

    BN – X – D

  • While a man's mind is full of himself, he shuts out the influx of the Overself. This remains just as true of meditation times as of ordinary times. He must empty out all these earthly interests, all these personal concerns, and even, in the end, all these egoistic spiritual aspirations by transferring his attention to that which is beyond the ego. He must think only of the Overself—of its nature and attributes, of its tokens and signs of presence, of its reality and eternity.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29111 – 15.23.1.53

    BN – Z – D

  • He can repudiate the man that he was in the past: the fool who committed grave errors of judgement; the sinner who fell into trap after trap; the seeker who was preoccupied with his own advancement, his own condition. He can liberate himself from all the old images of himself and assume a new one, become a new man. For he can turn his back on all these ego-regarding attitudes and transfer his thoughts, his self-identification, to the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29112 – 15.23.1.54

    B_05 – ZZ – DEMK

  • It is not good to live in unwholesome memories of what we ought not to have done but did do, and never put a period to them. Such repeated self-flagellation keeps the ego immersed in its own little circle. It is better to turn away from them and live in the sunshine of the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29113 – 15.23.1.55

    BN – X – D

  • To bring about insight into the Overself requires an inner revolution, a psychological burrowing beneath the entire ego-consciousness to that secret place from where it arises.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29114 – 15.23.1.56

    BN – Z – D

  • All pruning of the ego is of little use, for as one fault is removed a new one springs out of latency. Why? Because the ego is. The Short Path is the only genuine approach to truth, the only one offering real possibility of liberation. It is endorsed by Atmananda and Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi. Lifetimes have been spent by seekers who have travelled the Long Path but arrived nowhere, or are not much nearer the goal, whereas others have made swift advance from their first steps on the Short Path. The assertion that the Long Path is a necessary complement to or preparation for the Short one is correct only for those who are still under the thraldom of illusion, who are asleep. Its followers merely travel in a circle: they never get out of the illusion or awake from the sleep. That is why in the end it has to be given up, abandoned, understood for the egoistic effort that it really is.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29115E – 15.23.1.57

    BN – ZEL1/2 – DEK

  • The entire length of the Long Path is an attempt at self-improvement and self-purification planned, managed, operated, and supervised by the ego itself. Is it conceivable that the ego will work for its own destruction? No!—it will never do that however much it pretends to do so, however subtle the bluff with which it deceives itself or others. Even when the ego rebels against itself, it is merely playing a part. It has played many different parts in the past. Appearing as a rebel is merely one more disguise in the whole series.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29115E – 15.23.1.57

    BN – ZEL2/2 – DEK

  • The Short Path calls for a definite change of mind, a thinking of totally new thoughts, a fastening of attention upon the goal instead of the way to it. It calls for a revolution, dethroning the ego from being the centre of attention and replacing it by the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29116 – 15.23.1.58

    BN – ZZ – D

  • The basis of Short Path practices is that the mind is like a transparent crystal which takes on the colour of what is brought into propinquity with it. By turning the mind away from the ego, even from its improvement, and towards the Overself, uplift results.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29117 – 15.23.1.59

    BN – Z – D

  • The Short Path offers the quickest way to the blessings of spiritual joy, truth, and strength. For since these things are present in the Overself, and since the Overself is present in all of us, each of us may claim them as his own by the direct declaration of his true identity. This simple act requires him to turn around, desert the dependence on personal self, and look to the original Source whence flows his real life and being, his true providence and happiness. Disregarding all contrary ideas that the world outside thrusts upon him, disdaining the ego's emotions and desires concerning them, he "prays without ceasing" to that Source. That is, he keeps himself concentrated within upon it until he can feel its liberating qualities and expand in its sunny glories.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29118 – 15.23.1.60

    BN – X – D

  • On the Short Path he must give no backward glances at the ego, must no longer abase himself by identifying himself with that fraudulent self. He must cling to his new attitude with the ardour of a new convert.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29119 – 15.23.1.61

    BN – Z – D

  • Let him try to look beyond his own defects to the perfection which is in the Overself, the true image of himself in which God made man.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29120 – 15.23.1.62

    BN – X – D

  • The Short Path frees him from all gnawing regrets about the past, with its sins of commission and of omission, its errors and follies, its mistakes and deficiencies. Instead it puts his mind to work upon their contraries—what is beautiful and worthy, what is truthful and serene, what is pure and noble. This is the inner work to which a man is called, this transition from long detours, painful struggles, and entrapment in self-centeredness which all form the Long Path. Let them go, turn around, turn to the Short Path and find peace—a peace which is not only felt but also understood.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29121 – 15.23.1.63

    BN – Z – DEK

  • There comes a stage, whether in meditation or in the ordinary daily experience of life, at which he has to cross over from doing, trying, and managing things by his own self alone and when he can let go and open himself to the higher force—when he can submit his ego to its ordinances, its commands, or to its whispers.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29122 – 15.23.1.64

    BN – Z – D

  • Saint John of the Cross gave the following advice: "Enter into your heart and labour in the presence of God who is always present there to help you. 'Fix your loving attention upon Him without any desire to feel or hear anything of God'." Could a beginner be asked to apply such words? A person in a well-advanced state is alone likely to respond to them. Or, those who have been told about the Short Path and have studied its nature and tried to fit it into their inner work—whether they be beginners or proficient—can also put them into practice.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29124 – 15.23.1.66

    BN – X – DEK

  • The self-revilements of the Long Path must be abandoned: his eyes must look up at that other and higher Self.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29127 – 15.23.1.69

    BN – X – D

  • He is asked to turn his back on what he gave so much of his time and thought and feeling to for so long and to give them henceforth to a totally transcendent level—the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29130 – 15.23.1.72

    BN – Z – D

  • On this Long Path, we stand with our back to the Overself and try to re-educate the ego. On the Short Path we turn around from this position and faces the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29132 – 15.23.1.74

    BSG_4 – P – D

  • The time will come when you will have to turn your back upon the Long Path in order to give full attention, the full energy and the full time, to the Short Path. For with this comes a new era when the whole concern is not with the ego, not with its improvement or betterment, but with the divine itself alone—not with the surface consciousness and all its little changes but with the very depths, the diviner depths where reality abides. At this point seek only the Higher Self, live only with positive thought, stay only for as long as you can with the holy silence within, feel only that inner stillness which belongs to the essence of consciousness. Henceforth you are not to become this or that, not to gather the various virtues, but simply to be. For this you do not have to strive, you do not have to think, you do not have to work with any form of yoga, with any method of meditation.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29134 – 15.23.1.76

    BN – Z – DEK

  • If true light can come only from within a man, every outer method of bringing it to him must be in reality a method which leads him astray.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29136 – 15.23.1.78

    BN – ZZ – D

  • He sees the truth as with a jolt. There it is, within his own being, lying deep down but still in his own self. There never was any need to travel anywhere to find it; no need to visit anyone who was supposed to have it already, and sit at his feet; not even to read any book, however sacred or inspired. Nor could another person, place, or writing give it to him—he would have to unveil it for himself in himself. The others could direct him to look inwards, thus saving all the effort of looking elsewhere. But he himself would have to give the needful attention to himself. The discovery must be his own, made within the still centre of his being.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29137 – 15.23.1.79

    BA12 – ZZZ – DK

  • Krishnamurti's free-thinking, idol-shattering teaching is a good counterbalance and advanced complement to the ordinary yoga teaching. It is not really a contradiction, since it is a Short Path form completing yoga's Long Path. Krishnamurti's uncompromising rigidity is also a corrective to the sectarian fanaticism and guru deification which mark the seeking of many beginners. They receive a shock when first reading or hearing him. He undermines and explodes the little attitudes they have been taught to copy, the precious beliefs they have been told to hold. From his point of view, the solemnities of religious ritual and the frivolities of theatrical revue are both on the same plane.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29142 – 15.23.1.84

    BN – Z – K

  • Here, on this Short Path, he is to direct his yearnings and seekings, his hopes and thoughts, solely to the Overself. Nothing and nobody, not even a guru, is to come between them.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29143 – 15.23.1.85

    BN – Z – D

  • It is often advisable to be one's own guide, studying worthy books, using prayer and reflection, and following the intuitive guidance of one's Higher Self.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Begin and end with the goal itself

    #29145 – 15.23.1.87

    BN – Z – D

  • What is the key to the Short Path? It is threefold. First, stop searching for the Overself since it follows you wherever you go. Second, believe in its Presence, with and within you. Third, keep on trying to understand its truth until you can abandon further thoughts about it. You cannot acquire what is already here. So drop the ego's false idea and affirm the real one.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29150 – 15.23.1.92

    BN – ZZ – DK1

  • The Short Path is, in essence, the ceaseless practice of remembering to stay in the Stillness, for this is what he really is in his innermost being and where he meets the World-Mind.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29155 – 15.23.1.97

    BN – Z – DK1

  • The Short Path uses (a) thinking: metaphysical study of the Nature of Reality; (b) practice: constant remembrance of Reality during everyday life in the world; (c) meditation: surrender to the thought of Reality in stillness. You will observe that in all these three activities 'there is no reference to the personal ego'. There is no thinking of, remembering, or meditating upon oneself, as there is with the Long Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29156 – 15.23.1.98

    BN – Z – DK1

  • A part of the Short Path work is intellectual study of the metaphysics of Truth. This is needful to expose the ego's own illusoriness, as a preliminary to transcending it, and to discriminate its ideas, however spiritual, from reality.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29157 – 15.23.1.99

    BN – ZZ – DK1

  • In the first and second stages of the Short Path, his aim is to set himself free from the egoism in which his consciousness is confined.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29158 – 15.23.1.100

    BN – Z – DK1

  • The Short Path is the real way! All else is mere preparation of the equipment for it. For with it he is no longer to direct his meditation upon the shortcomings and struggles of the personal self but up to the Overself, its presence and strength. For the consciousness of the Real, the True, the Beneficent and Peaceful comes by its Grace alone and by this practice he attracts the visitation.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29160 – 15.23.1.102

    BN – ZZ – DK

  • He cultivates a more joyous attitude, this man on the Short Path, for remembrance of the Overself, which he practises constantly, reminds him of the glory of the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29164 – 15.23.1.106

    BN – Z – D

  • It is not enough to learn to bear with others, to excuse and accept their shortcomings. He must also learn to bear with himself, to accept his own shortcomings.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29166 – 15.23.1.108

    B_13 – ZZ – DK

  • It is a Short Path attitude to avoid censorious reproaches and condemnatory speech—these as a part of its larger rejection of negatives and preference for positives.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29170 – 15.23.1.112

    BN – Z – D

  • Reject every negative thought with implacable rigour—this is one of the important practical deductions of the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29171 – 15.23.1.113

    BN – X – D

  • Recognition is a prominent feature on the Short Path. The Overself is always there but only those on the Short Path recognize this truth and think accordingly. The world is always with us, but only those on the Short Path 'recognize' the miracle that it is. In moments of exaltation, uplift, awe, or satisfaction—derived from music, art, poetry, landscape, or otherwise—thousands of people have received a Glimpse; but only those on the Short Path recognize it for what it really is.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29172 – 15.23.1.114

    BN – Z – DEK

  • The Short Path concentrates thought upon the Real, deliberately forgetful of everything and everyone in the world of illusion.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29174 – 15.23.1.116

    BN – X – D

  • A boundless faith in the Overself's power to assist him must be the possession of a Short Path votary—that is, faith in both the existence and the efficacy of its Grace.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29179 – 15.23.1.121

    BN – X – D

  • The Short Path precludes impatience and forbids anxiety.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29180 – 15.23.1.122

    BN – X – D

  • The attitude of pursuing an objective, of searching for a truth, however admirable in the early stages, becomes an obstruction in this the latest stage.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29181 – 15.23.1.123

    BN – X – D

  • When he is established to some extent on the Short Path he may not only expect the expected, as most people do, but also expect the unexpected.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29182 – 15.23.1.124

    BN – X – D

  • On the Short Path he fixes his mind on divine attributes, such as the all-pervading, ever-present, beginningless and endless nature of the One Life-Power, until he is lifted out of his little ego entirely.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29185 – 15.23.1.127

    BN – Z – D

  • If he firmly plants his feet on the Short Path, if he never lets himself forget his real being is in the Overself, then he must refuse to accept a single one of those thoughts which so often trouble the traveller on the Long Path—thoughts of anxiety, frustration, or concern about his progress. He stays well above them.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29187 – 15.23.1.129

    BN – Z – D

  • On the Short Path, instead of attacking the lower self, he lifts himself up to the presence of the higher. The evil in him may then melt away of its own accord.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29190 – 15.23.1.132

    BN – Z – D

  • It is the unique contribution of the Short Path that it takes advantage of the Overself's ever-present offer of Grace.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29192 – 15.23.1.134

    BN – Z – D

  • When body and feeling are cleansed by disciplinary regimes, when the intellect is inspired by meditational exercises, one is ready for the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29193 – 15.23.1.135

    BN – Z – D

  • Your reaction to events and persons depends on your recognition of Overself. If you see only little ego, and fail to see the Overself, there will be a negative reaction. Both are within you.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29194 – 15.23.1.136

    BN – Z – DK

  • Just as the ancient pagan Mysteries required some amount of preparation and some form of purification before candidates were admitted, so the Short Path ordinarily requires some Long Path work as a prerequisite. But not always and not now.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29196 – 15.23.1.138

    BN – X – D

  • The Short Path can only be travelled if faith in the Overself is fundamental and complete, and if trust in the effectiveness of its power is strong and unwavering.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29198 – 15.23.1.140

    BN – Z – D

  • Expect the unexpectable!

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29199 – 15.23.1.141

    BN – Z – K

  • It is the art of being artless, spiritual without doing it consciously. It is achievement of effortless mental quiet. It is ordinary living, plus an extraordinary continuous awareness.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > The practice

    #29200 – 15.23.1.142

    BN – Z – D

  • This is the wonder of the Short Path—that it teaches us to refuse at once every thought which seeks to identify us with the feeble and unworthy self. This is the gladness of the Short Path—that it urges us to accept and hold only those thoughts which identify us directly with the strong and divine Overself, or which reflect its goodness and wisdom.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29201 – 15.23.1.143

    BN – Z – D

  • With the Short Path, one emerges into an atmosphere that is totally different in nature and quality from the Long Path's. It is like seeing the sun break through the clouds.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29202 – 15.23.1.144

    BN – Z – D

  • It is while working with the Short Path that the man discovers he may apply its principles to his worldly existence, his earthly fortunes too. He learns that the ultimate source of his physical welfare is not the ego but the Overself. If he looks only to the little ego for his supply, he must accept all its narrow limitations, its dependence on personal effort alone. But if he looks farther and recognizes his true source of welfare is with the Overself, with its miracle-working Grace, he knows that all things are possible to it. Hope, optimism, and high expectation make his life richer, more abundant.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29204 – 15.23.1.146

    BN – Z – DEK

  • The consequence of this self-training on the Short Path is that in all questions, problems, situations, and practices his first thought will be to take the matter to the Overself, identifying with Overself, and later, when he returns to the second thought, the matter will be looked at under this diviner light.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29207 – 15.23.1.149

    BN – Z – D

  • Put in another way, it may be said that the Short Path develops inspiration and evokes intuition.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29209 – 15.23.1.151

    BN – X – DEK

  • The Short Path will bear fruit in several virtues, which will come of their own accord and without his trying to gain them. In this way it will help him calm his passions and discipline his ego, even though his thoughts and meditations make no reference to them.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29210 – 15.23.1.152

    BN – X – D

  • Even without making special efforts to deal with undesirable traits, some will tend to fall away through being denied attention. This is one consequence of following the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29213 – 15.23.1.155

    BN – X – D

  • When Jesus said, ". . . and all these things shall be added unto you", he did not primarily mean material things such as money and houses, although these were included. He meant that the moral virtues and the moral excellences for which so many seekers after perfection strive in vain would spontaneously add themselves to him as an after-effect of being "born again".

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29216 – 15.23.1.158

    B_11 – ZZ – K

  • Since the Overself is the source of all virtues, the man who unites with it will easily and naturally be virtuous in the truest sense: all the bad in his character will be eliminated.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29217 – 15.23.1.159

    BN – X – D

  • Only the Short Path can turn aspiration into attainment, for only it proffers Grace.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29221 – 15.23.1.163

    BN – X – DK

  • One advantage of the Short Path is that whoever takes to it thoroughly gets rid of guilt complexes, of sorrowing over his past, his errors, his sins.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29225 – 15.23.1.167

    B_13 – ZZ – DMK

  • On the Short Path he does little to free himself from a weakness, a desire, or a passion. It goes, falls away of its own accord, if he looks to the Higher Self rather than to the management of his own ego for salvation. It is in this spontaneous way, too, that the attitude of detachment begins to appear in his character and little by little—but sometimes swiftly—becomes established. But a warning is needed here. Whatever purifications or strengthenings, whatever other attempts and trainings at self-betterment he has begun need not be dropped, provided they are kept in their place and not allowed to obscure the view of the primary goal or gradually sidetrack direction from its superior level.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29226 – 15.23.1.168

    BN – X – DEK

  • He has entered a new and happier phase of his life. The problems of the past have disappeared. The door to inner light is always ready to open at his mere push.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29230 – 15.23.1.172

    BN – Z – D

  • The Short Path makes it possible for the most ordinary man—unprepared, untrained though he be—to find spiritual fulfilment.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29234 – 15.23.1.176

    BN – Z – D

  • Only when it becomes natural and therefore easy, continuous and therefore well-established, does meditation become completely fruitful. But this is possible only on the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29236 – 15.23.1.178

    BN – Z – D

  • The Short Path provides him with the chance of making a fresh start, of gaining new inspiration, more joy.

    Advanced Contemplation > Entering the Short Path > Benefits and results

    #29238 – 15.23.1.180

    BN – X – D

  • The Short Path advocates who decry the need of the Long Path altogether because, being divine in essence, we have only to realize what we already are, are misled by their own half-truth. What we actually find in the human situation is that we are only potentially divine. The work of drawing out and developing this potential still needs to be done. This takes time, discipline, and training, just as the work of converting a seed into a tree takes time.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Pitfalls and Limitations

    #29253 – 15.23.2.12

    BN – ZZ – DM1

  • It is as sure as the sun's rising that if the mass of people are taught that good is no better than evil, both being merely relative, or no more valuable than evil, both being concerned with the illusory ego, they will fall into immorality, wickedness, and disaster. To teach them the Short Path before they have acquired sufficient disciplinary habits from the Long one will only degrade them.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Pitfalls and Limitations

    #29254 – 15.23.2.13

    BN – X – K1

  • The claim that if the true self is found, all the qualities and attributes which pertain to it will also be found, naturally and automatically, at the same time is a valid one. How could the qualities and attributes of the lower nature thrive or even exist in that rarefied air? They would instantly be displaced by the higher ones. But what is overlooked by, or unknown to, the makers of this claim, is that the period of such displacement would, and could, only be a temporary one. "Nature never leaps toward what she will eventually bring about," Goethe announces, and truly. As soon as the impetus which launched him into the deep waters of the Spirit exhausts itself, as it must if he is still unpurified, unprepared, and undeveloped, the man will be thrown back to the place where he belongs. His illumination will not have enough basis to be securely established and so will turn out to be only a passing glimpse.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Pitfalls and Limitations

    #29282 – 15.23.2.41

    BN – X – DEK*

  • Those who believe they can skip all this preparatory work and still realize their latent possibility are foolish. The obstructions will not remove themselves by themselves. They can be overwhelmed for a time, while the glimpse prevails, but they will certainly become evident again when the glimpse fades.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Pitfalls and Limitations

    #29283 – 15.23.2.42

    BN – Z – K

  • It is well not to be boastful about one's attainments on the Long Path, still less about one's achievements on the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Pitfalls and Limitations

    #29290 – 15.23.2.49

    BN – Z – K

  • The high-level teaching has been taken advantage of by the weak or the egotistic to defend their weaknesses or egotism. Personal freedom and self-expression are rightly sought but in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Pitfalls and Limitations

    #29292 – 15.23.2.51

    BN – ZZ – DK

  • It is a matter of simple observation that these Vedantic teachings are unfortunately not adequate to meet all the demands of a worthwhile life. They have no more useful advice to give concerning the physical body than, as I was told by one guru: "Take it to the doctor when it falls sick. Give it no attention otherwise and forget it."

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Pitfalls and Limitations

    #29293 – 15.23.2.52

    BN – ZZ – DK

  • The Short Path schools are correct in asserting that if we gain the Overself we shall also gain the purity of heart and goodness of character which go with it. But they omit to point out that such a gain will be quite temporary if we are unable to remain in the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Pitfalls and Limitations

    #29294 – 15.23.2.53

    BN – ZZ – DK

  • They believe it is possible to attain truth without tears, without discipline, and without training.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Pitfalls and Limitations

    #29295 – 15.23.2.54

    BN – ZZ – DK

  • The Short Path tries to get round the ego by ignoring it altogether!

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Pitfalls and Limitations

    #29299 – 15.23.2.58

    BN – X – D

  • It is said by the advocates of the Short method that the power of the Spirit can remove our faults instantaneously and even implant in us the opposite virtues. That this has happened in some cases is made clear by the study of the spiritual biography of certain persons. But those cases are relatively few and those persons relatively advanced. This miraculous transformation, this full forgiveness of sins, does not happen to most people or to ordinary unadvanced people. A world-wide observation of them shows that such people have to elevate themselves by their own efforts first. When they embrace the Short method without this balancing work done by themselves upon themselves, they are likely to fall into the danger of refusing to see their faults and weaknesses which are their worst enemies, as well as the danger of losing the consciousness of sin. Those who fail to save themselves from these perils become victims of spiritual pride and lose that inner humility which is the essential price of being taken over by the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > The truth about sudden enlightenment

    #29305 – 15.23.2.64

    BN – ZZ – K1

  • Those who believe in the Short Path of sudden attainment, such as the sectarian following of Ramana Maharshi and the koan-puzzled intellectuals of Zen Buddhism, confuse the first flash of insight which unsettles everything so gloriously with the last flash which settles everything even more gloriously. The disciple who wants something for nothing, who hopes to get to the goal without being kept busy with arduous travels to the very end, will not get it. He has to move from one point of view to a higher, from many a struggle with weaknesses to their mastery. Then only, when he has done by himself what he should do, may he cease his efforts, be still, and await the influx of Grace. Then comes light and the second birth.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > The truth about sudden enlightenment

    #29306 – 15.23.2.65

    BN – X – DEK

  • Those who believe that they have the right to demand a full and immediate enlightenment without previously setting up the conditions favourable to its reception, will either become disappointed by their failure or hallucinated by their imagined success. "Nothing for nothing" is Nature's law. They must give if they want to get—give up some of the barriers to enlightenment which exist in their own ego and to which they cling.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > The truth about sudden enlightenment

    #29320 – 15.23.2.79

    BN – Z – DEK

  • It is true that enlightenment can remove our accumulated moral defects all at once in a sudden and single joyous experience. But it is also true that we are unlikely to get more than the first degree if we have not previously worked upon ourselves to prepare properly for it.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > The truth about sudden enlightenment

    #29326 – 15.23.2.85

    BN – X – D

  • Nowhere in physical nature do we observe this leap across a chasm but everywhere everything passes gradually and little by little from one condition to the next. Why should the transition from ego to Overself contradict this universal fact?

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > The truth about sudden enlightenment

    #29339 – 15.23.2.98

    BN – ZZ – D

  • This constant preoccupation with the ego gives a subtle power and importance to it, and draws him away from his real being in the Overself. For it is what he takes into his consciousness which affects him in character and body, in thought and conduct.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29342 – 15.23.2.101

    BN – Z – D

  • The Long Path, despite its magnificent ideals of self-improvement and self-control, is still egoistic. For this determination to rise spiritually is directed by willed ambition—willed by the higher part of the ego.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29346 – 15.23.2.105

    BN – Z – D

  • The follower of the Long Path may become filled with anxiety about his future progress and guilt about his past or present history. Or, like the early Stoics and the medieval ascetics, he may be continually engaged in fighting himself. Struggle and war then become the miserable climate in which he lives. Real peace of mind is far from him. If we penetrate analytically to the base of this situation, we find that it exists because he depends primarily on his ego's strength, not on the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29348 – 15.23.2.107

    BN – Z – K

  • Saint Teresa perfectly understood the nature of, and difference between, the two paths, and described them well and briefly. She wrote: "It is a great grace of God to practice self-examination, but too much is as bad as too little, as they say: believe me, by God's help, we shall accomplish more by contemplating the Divinity than by keeping our eyes fixed on ourselves."

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29349 – 15.23.2.108

    BN – X – DEK

  • It is certainly better to remove faults and remedy weaknesses than to leave them as they are. But it is not enough to improve, refine, ennoble, and even spiritualize the ego. For all such activity takes place under the illusion that the ego possesses reality. This illusion needs to be eliminated, not merely changed for another one.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29360 – 15.23.2.119

    BA12 – ZZ – DEK

  • The Long Path creates a condition favourable to enlightenment, but since it is concerned with ego, it cannot directly yield enlightenment. For its work of purifying the ego, however necessary and noble, still keeps the aspirant's face turned egoward.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29361 – 15.23.2.120

    BN – Z – D

  • A knowledge of the heavenly Overself cannot be had by studying, improving, or developing the benighted and fictitious ego. The only way in which it can be got is by direct experience of it. This axiom is the basis of the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29363 – 15.23.2.122

    BN – Z – D

  • The ego cannot produce an egoless result. This is why the Long Path is only preparatory and cannot be a sufficient means to a successful end.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29366 – 15.23.2.125

    BN – Z – D

  • These Long Pathers, these self-conscious strivers after near-perfection, are still striving within the ego and, in the end, however nobly, for the ego. For they are trying to improve it, not lose it. If the latter were their real goal they would be interested in neither its improvement nor its worsening since both activities are only aspects. Why should they deal with it at all? Why not try the opposite course, the Short Path, which silences the ego, not by striving to do so but by ignoring it through fastening attention upon the Overself?

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29372 – 15.23.2.131

    BN – Z – DEK

  • Spirituality needs time to develop; the spark needs fanning; but this need not be turned into an excuse for surrendering completely to the Long Path's limitations.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29375 – 15.23.2.134

    BN – Z – D

  • On the Long Path the aspirant is likely to probe some of his shortcomings too pessimistically, to condemn himself for them, but to be blind altogether to the most serious shortcoming of all—that of clinging to the personal ego in all circumstances.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29378 – 15.23.2.137

    BN – Z – D

  • Time continues itself, and the time-bound consciousness with it. The Long Path does not liberate a man from it but only improves him, at the best, prepares him. For what? For the Short Path, which alone offers freedom.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29382 – 15.23.2.141

    BN – Z – D

  • The root of all his efforts in self-improvement and self-purification is still the egoistic consciousness. Since that is the very consciousness which must be given up to let in the egoless Spirit, he must abandon these efforts and turn sooner or later to the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29383 – 15.23.2.142

    BN – Z – D

  • It is not enough to uncover his faults and confess his weaknesses, not even enough to correct the one and remedy the other. After all, these things concern only the stage of development he has already reached, and the ego only. He must also turn toward higher stages and also the egoless self.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29388 – 15.23.2.147

    BN – ZZ – D

  • The labours of the Long Path are good and necessary. They weaken the ego and bring him part of the way toward the goal. But they will end in despair if he does not learn that they cannot bring him the rest of the way.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29390 – 15.23.2.149

    BN – Z – D

  • Moral disciplines have a definite place in life to make us better human beings but they do not lift us to the Overself's level. The Long Path, to which they belong, has a humanitarian value but not a magically transcendent one.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29391 – 15.23.2.150

    BN – ZZ – D

  • If he takes an excessive clinical interest in his own moral and spiritual state, continually observing his conduct and analysing his feelings to find the flaws in them, he loses his balance and becomes inwardly unhealthy. In putting too much emphasis upon his failings, he is giving too much attention to his own ego.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29393 – 15.23.2.152

    BN – ZZ – D

  • The idea that a man's own virtue can bring him to the goal belongs to the Long Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29394 – 15.23.2.153

    BN – X – D

  • It is not any kind of activity of the ego which brings salvation. How could that happen? How can a man lift himself up by the hair upon his own head? Just the same he cannot touch the Overself spirit by his own virtue. It is only the activity of the Overself which will save him from the ego. But this he must provoke or invoke by taking to the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29396 – 15.23.2.155

    BN – ZZ – D

  • The Long Path gives many benefits and bestows many virtues but it does not give the vision of truth, the realization of the Overself, nor does it bestow Grace. For these things we must turn to the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Pitfalls and Limitations > Limitations of the Long Path

    #29397 – 15.23.2.156

    BN – ZZ – D

  • Even during the longest dark night of the soul, the Overself is not a whit less close to him than it was when it revealed its presence amid ecstasy and joy.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Dark Night of The Soul > The Dark Night of The Soul

    #29403 – 15.23.3.6

    BN – X – D

  • When the fruits of the glimpse are seemingly withdrawn—and especially so when this happens if the glimpse has been brought on by the work of meditation—a deadness will seem to close in on the feeling and a dullness on the mind. If this condition goes deep enough, it becomes depressive and is more or less what the saints have called the Dark Night of the Soul. This is not permanent. The seeker should not despair, but his patience will be stretched and he must accept its happening. If he sees no cause for which he is to blame, then the acceptance becomes an act of faith and it will not be in vain.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Dark Night of The Soul > The Dark Night of The Soul

    #29409 – 15.23.3.12

    B_05 – ZZ – K

  • To the informed quester, the dark night of the soul inside him is simply another phase of his growth. It is no more to be feared than the coming of dark night of the world outside him is to be feared.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Dark Night of The Soul > Its significance

    #29438 – 15.23.3.41

    A240229 – ZZ – K

  • The Dark Night is much less a dark night when he believes, understands, or possibly knows that it is a work of the Overself, a movement of Its grace.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Dark Night of The Soul > Its significance

    #29444 – 15.23.3.47

    BN – Z – D

  • I have always preached the gospel of hope, because if it does nothing more, it encourages effort, gives a tonic to one's spirit, and helps one through the darkest moments. As the Comte de Saint Germain said: "Every tunnel has its end."

    Advanced Contemplation > The Dark Night of The Soul > Its significance

    #29447 – 15.23.3.50

    BN – ZZ – D

  • If the Overself did not lead him into and through the final dark night, where he becomes as helpless as an infant, as bereft of interior personal possessions as a destitute pauper, how else would he learn that it is not by his own powers and capacities that he can rise at last into enduring illumination?

    Advanced Contemplation > The Dark Night of The Soul > Its significance

    #29451 – 15.23.3.54

    BN – Z – D

  • Dark Night of the Soul: In passing through this, the greatest humiliation he has ever experienced, and passing through it resignedly, patiently, and without rebellion, he reduces the ego to a cipher, and destroys its power over him.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Dark Night of The Soul > Its significance

    #29464 – 15.23.3.67

    A240229 – Z – D

  • It would be wonderful if everyone, everywhere, could slip so easily into the kingdom of heaven, and just as easily stay there forever. But alas! the facts of human nature forbid it. People require teaching, training, purifying, disciplining, and preparing, before they can do so. And the course needed is a lifetime's, the work needed much and varied. That is why the Long Path is needed.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29472 – 15.23.4.1

    BN – Z – D

  • While giving all attention to the Overself, or to its remembrance, or to its various aspects, or to the idea of it, he forgets himself. This makes it possible to transcend the ego. And this is why the Short Path must be travelled if the preparatory work of the other Path is to be completed.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29473 – 15.23.4.2

    BN – Z – D

  • Purification of the heart and calming of the mind are necessary prerequisites for penetrating into the Overself. They belong to the Long Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29475 – 15.23.4.4

    BN – Z – D

  • The Long Path calls on him to give up whatever is holding him in bondage, whatever is keeping him back, and, thus released, he will be free to go his way towards the specifically positive work of the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29476 – 15.23.4.5

    BN – Z – D

  • The Long Path is taught to beginners and others in the earlier and middle stages of the quest. This is because they are ready for the idea of self-improvement and not for the higher one of the unreality of the self. So the latter is taught on the Short Path, where attention is turned away from the little self and from the idea of perfecting it, to the essence, the real being.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29477 – 15.23.4.6

    BN – Z – DK1

  • Nature cannot be hastened. The bloom of a flower opens in its own proper time. If the Short Path yields immediate or quick results to some aspirants, it is only because they are persons of superior development. They have served their apprenticeship on the Long Path already, either in this life or previous lives.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29480 – 15.23.4.9

    BN – ZZ – D

  • The Long Path covers all the preparatory stages leading up to but not including the decisive attempts. It is concerned with the removal of obstructions to the coming of enlightenment, whereas these attempts, which belong to the Short Path, are concerned with the conclusive formulae of enlightenment.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29481 – 15.23.4.10

    BN – X – D

  • If the Long Path equips him with the necessary strength, purity, and concentration, the Short Path makes use of this equipment to unite his consciousness directly with the Overself.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29482 – 15.23.4.11

    BN – Z – D

  • Many fixations created in the past have to be removed before we can truly live in the present. This is Long Path work.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29487 – 15.23.4.16

    BN – X – D

  • Miguel de Molinos: "It is useless to trust in the interior way of contemplation if the obstacles which hinder their progress and spiritual blight be not removed from the path of those souls that are called." In other words, the Long Path work must clear a way for the Short Path work.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29489 – 15.23.4.18

    BN – X – D

  • The way to the goal does not lie through a cleansing of the ego alone: it lies also through a desertion of it. The first way is necessary only because it helps to make the second one possible.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29490 – 15.23.4.19

    BN – Z – D

  • He is to keep the thought of the goal itself continually before him, to give the mental consciousness as its principal occupation a meditation on the Overself. This is the basis of Short Path work and this is why, before he can hope to succeed, he must first have set himself the Long Path task of gaining some control over his thoughts.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29491 – 15.23.4.20

    BN – X – D

  • If the Grace of the Overself is to take hold of the man, no part of his ego ought to offer resistance. This is why a preparation for the event is needed, a process of taking out of him those things which are certain to instigate such resistance. In other words, the activity of the Long Path is necessary to the successful treading of the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29492 – 15.23.4.21

    BN – X – D

  • The Long Path is needed because it leads to a measure of release from egoism and animalism. But it does not directly lead to the discovery of the Overself, its truth and reality. That is the Short Path's work.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29498 – 15.23.4.27

    BSG_4 – P – D

  • It needs some strength to deflect the onset of negative moods and to refuse to sit in darkness. It needs some patience to sit quietly waiting until one feels an entry into the presence of the Source of one's being. Only a few are born with these qualities ready-made. Others must attain them slowly by passing through stages of training and self-discipline.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29501 – 15.23.4.30

    BN – Z – D

  • Every negative thought and base desire is an obstacle to the attainment of the higher consciousness. This is why the Long Path's work is needed, for it is intended to remove all such obstacles. How can one invite that Consciousness to dwell in a body enslaved by lusts, or in a mind darkened by hates?

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29507 – 15.23.4.36

    BN – Z – D

  • Seekers do not come under the power of Grace until they have done, to a sufficient extent, what the Long Path requires from them. Then only are they likely to be ready for the Short Path, and to benefit by the Grace associated with it.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29515 – 15.23.4.44

    BN – X – D

  • What is the purpose of this Long Path inner work upon himself? It is to clear a way for the inflow of grace, even to the most hidden parts of his character.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29517 – 15.23.4.46

    BN – X – D

  • Although the Long Path does not directly lead to Enlightenment, it reduces obstacles, prepares the seeker, and opens his way for entry to the Short Path, which in turn can subsequently lead to enlightenment.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29519 – 15.23.4.48

    BN – Z – D

  • Not many are intuitive enough, developed enough, knowledgeable enough, and strong enough to take to the Short Path without previous preparation through the Long Path's disciplines.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > The preparation on the Long Path

    #29520 – 15.23.4.49

    BN – Z – K

  • He stands athwart the door and blocks it from opening to the gentle pressure of the very Grace which can bring him the help for which he calls out. Less preoccupation with his own ego and more with the Overself is what he really needs. This is the same as saying that the Long Path work now needs balancing with Short Path work.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29523 – 15.23.4.52

    BN – X – DEK

  • His quest 'for' God has reached its terminus but his quest 'in' God will now start its course. Henceforth his life, experience, and consciousness are wrapped in mystery.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29525 – 15.23.4.54

    BN – Z – D

  • The changeover to the Short Path does not entirely cancel out his Long Path work but affects it in three ways. First, it reduces the labours and disciplines involved. Second, the reduced work is done without anxiety and without tension. Third, it frees him from the excessive sense of self-responsibility for his inner and outer life—that is, from excessive ego-depending.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29529 – 15.23.4.58

    BN – X – D

  • He must call in a new power, and a higher power—Grace. He needs its help. For the ego will not willingly give up its sovereignty, however much it may become preoccupied with spiritual questions and even spiritual growth.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29530 – 15.23.4.59

    BN – X – D

  • The laborious, sometimes desperate self-discipline of the Long Path relaxes or even stops altogether. The effortless, sometimes ecstatic self-surrender to grace through faith, love, humility, and remembrance replaces it.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29534 – 15.23.4.63

    BN – X – D

  • Whatever you do to work upon the ego, whether you remove this weakness or improve that faculty, it will always be ego and your consciousness will always remain within its tightly closed circle. In the time you give to such work you could be occupying yourself with thought of the non-ego, the Overself, and dwelling in this thought until the sunshine behind it bursts through and you bask in the glory.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29535 – 15.23.4.64

    BN – X – D

  • He feels that a newer and other self is coming to birth.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29537 – 15.23.4.66

    BN – X – D

  • To mourn over the past's supposed errors for too long a time, to indulge in self-pitying remorse for the remainder of one's life, is another trick of the ego and merely strengthens it. Better take to the Short Path!

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29538 – 15.23.4.67

    BN – ZZ – DK

  • The Long Path developed in him through yoga-meditation the capacity to find the inner Stillness. The Short Path added to it (1) the knowledge that the Stillness is himself, and (2) the practice of continuing remembrance to be the Stillness.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29539 – 15.23.4.68

    BN – Z – D

  • If he keeps on fixing his attention upon fighting the wandering characteristic of his thoughts, he may find after many attempts that the task seems impossible. Why is this? It is because at the same time he is limiting himself to attention upon the ego. Let him move in the opposite direction and turn to the Short Path, let the thoughts fix themselves on the Overself, upon Its great stillness, Its serene impersonality. The ego will not and cannot remove itself by itself but by going outside to THAT which is its origin. The thoughts in the end are led into surrender to the power which transcends it and will master it.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29543 – 15.23.4.72

    BN – Z – DEK

  • Let him rejoice at having found the Short Path with its freedoms and at having let go of the Long Path with its difficulties and tensions.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29548 – 15.23.4.77

    BN – X – D

  • What a relief he feels when the strain and tension of the Long Path give place to the sweetness and detachment of the Short one!

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29549 – 15.23.4.78

    BN – Z – D

  • It is not necessary to go through the struggles and toils of the Long Path after we have travelled it sufficiently far to develop some amount of the qualifications needed for the Short one. We can then desert it and, by Grace, go quickly through the change of outlook, standpoint, and consciousness necessary to travel the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29550 – 15.23.4.79

    BN – X – D

  • The same Grace which starts us off on the Quest carries us through to its end. The Short Path phase begins when we awaken to the presence of the Grace's source.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29551 – 15.23.4.80

    BN – X – D

  • They would like the change to take place dramatically, in a moment of time. "The wind bloweth where it listeth", said Jesus, and Grace comes here or there at an unpredictable hour.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29563 – 15.23.4.92

    B_11 – ZZ – DK

  • Not by his ego's own will can he take hold of this jewel, but only by the Grace substituting that other Consciousness for his ego's.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29564 – 15.23.4.93

    BN – X – D

  • Although in the earlier stages and also in the middle stages of the quest it has to be consciously and deliberately followed, in the later, the more advanced stages where the Short Path comes into operation, the seeker must begin to forget himself and his efforts, must not come between the goal and its pursuits, must identify himself with the Overself by giving himself wholly to the idea of manifesting it in his inner and outer life. Therefore, he must be free of the kind of self-consciousness which makes him aware that he is a Quester. On the contrary, he has to make spirituality a natural thing, free from self-consciousness.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29565 – 15.23.4.94

    BN – Z – DEK

  • The man who seeks his soul or his God or his truth with such thirst, and for so long, could find it if he stops, waits patiently, looks deeply within, and lets it appear of its own accord. For he, the seeker, 'is its concern'.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29566 – 15.23.4.95

    B_05 – Z – K

  • The Intermediate Path is a transition from the Long to the Short one. It consists in identifying oneself mentally with the higher self. This is immeasurably farther than identification with the ego but it is still tainted with a kind of self-centeredness. That is revealed when the pilgrim travels to the Short Path, where he seeks no identification of any sort whatsoever, bestows no more attention upon the "I," but thinks only of the higher self as it is in itself and not about its relationship with him.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29567 – 15.23.4.96

    BN – Z – DK

  • A time may come when his own personality is distasteful to him, when he begins to dislike his own traits of instinctive negative reaction and innate negative character. This is naturally understandable on the Long Path, but it may be minimized on the Short one.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29570 – 15.23.4.99

    BN – X – D

  • To become their ruler you may fight desires. This is the harder way. Or you may forget them. This is the easier way. To follow it you must practise remembering the Overself constantly.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29571 – 15.23.4.100

    BN – Z – D

  • A great humility comes into him when at long last he steps aside from his ego sufficiently to allow the perception that it is not in his own power to enter the ultimate Enlightenment. Grace is the arbiter.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29572 – 15.23.4.101

    BN – Z – D

  • The Short Path requires him to fall into amnesia about his spiritual past. The attempt to produce a perfect being and an impeccable character need not trouble him any farther.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29576 – 15.23.4.105

    BN – Z – D

  • But while philosophy includes both paths, the aspirant's individual need will indicate on which one the emphasis should be laid and when it should be transferred to the other path.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29579 – 15.23.4.108

    BSG_4 – P – D

  • The Long Path strivings are lesser ones and must, at the due time, be absorbed in the Short Path's larger ones.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29580 – 15.23.4.109

    BN – X – D

  • The end of the Long Path is frustration. This may be an emotionally disappointing blessing, since it forces the man to turn eventually to the Short Path, whose end is fulfilment.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29583 – 15.23.4.112

    BN – Z – DK

  • The average man is the victim of his own past, the slave of his personal history. He is conditioned by its thinking, molded by its disciplines, and dominated by its traditions. Its influence fades all too slowly. This is why the transition from the Long to the Short Path is so often the consequence of some unusual upheaval or some mesmeric contact.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29585 – 15.23.4.114

    BN – Z – D

  • It is not a question of choice between the two paths. The beginner can hardly comprehend what the Short Path means, let alone practise it. So perforce he must take to the Long one. But the intermediate, weary of its toils and defeats, turns with relief to the other path, for which his studies and experiences have now prepared him.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29586 – 15.23.4.115

    BN – Z – D

  • The end of all his efforts on the Long Path will be the discovery that although the ego can be refined, thinned, and disciplined, it will still remain highly rarefied and extremely subtle. The disciplining of the self can go on and on and on. There will be no end to it. For the ego will always be able to find ways to keep the aspirant busy in self-improvement, thus blinding him to the fact that the self is still there behind all his improvements. For why should the ego kill itself? Yet the enlightenment which is the goal he strives to reach can never be obtained unless the ego ceases to bar the way to it. At this discovery he will have no alternative to, and will be quite ready for, the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29590 – 15.23.4.119

    BN – Z – DEK

  • Once he realizes that he cannot face two ways simultaneously, he will force himself to make a choice between them. The ego or the Overself?

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29594 – 15.23.4.123

    BN – Z – D

  • Hopkins, the Jesuit priest-poet, abandoned meditation because of constantly recurring moods of self-disgust and hopelessness. This sounds exactly like the point where Long Path work should be brought to an end, being replaced by Short Path work.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29597 – 15.23.4.126

    BN – X – D

  • If the Long Path disciplines increase his anxieties and frustrations to an insupportable point, it is probably an indication that he needs a shift to the Short Path—with its effort to shift identity into the Overself and establish him there.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29600 – 15.23.4.129

    BN – Z – D

  • Through humiliation and despair, failure and mistakes, the ego may be crushed to the ground. But the aftermath of this apparently hopeless situation may be the end of the Long Path, with the subsequent transfer to the Short Path, with its new hope, pardon, and peace.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29601 – 15.23.4.130

    BN – X – D

  • When he has reached this stage he will begin to understand that his further spiritual progress does not impose special acts such as disciplinary regimes and meditation exercises—excellent and necessary though these were in their place as preparatory work—but requires him simply to stand aside and be an observing witness of life, including his own life.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29611 – 15.23.4.140

    BSG_4 – ZZ – D

  • The processes and procedures of the Long Path require time. But the Overself is outside of time. To identify yourself with them is to shut yourself out from it. It is consequently needful when a certain point is reached—either in experience or in preparation or in understanding—to abandon the Long Path and take to the Short Path, with its emphasis on living in the Eternal Now.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29615 – 15.23.4.144

    BN – Z – D

  • When the Quest begins to mean so much to him that other things mean less, he is ready for its more advanced phase.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29622 – 15.23.4.151

    BN – Z – DK

  • When too long a time is spent on the Long Path with too slow a progress, the urge arises to find another way. It is then that the Short Path becomes appropriate.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29624 – 15.23.4.153

    BSG_4 – P – D

  • Even those who are satisfied to continue permanently the Long Path's preparatory disciplines will one day find an inner impulsion rising spontaneously within themselves and leading them to the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29629 – 15.23.4.158

    BN – Z – D

  • When the Long Path work has been done to the point that it bores, depresses, or satiates him, admission must be made that he had better leave it for a while. Here is a turning point where the Short Path must be entered both for relief and for a fresh outlook.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29633 – 15.23.4.162

    BN – Z – D

  • Another sign that the time may have come for a change to the Short Path is when meditation no longer yields satisfying results but becomes irksome and difficult.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29635 – 15.23.4.164

    BN – ZZZ – D

  • When a man has come to the end of his tether, dry of all hope for accomplishment of his aim by self-effort, he is ripe for the Grace-invoking effort of the Short Path.

    Advanced Contemplation > The Changeover To the Short Path > Making the transition

    #29637 – 15.23.4.166

    BN – X – D

  • The Long Path is devoted to clearing away the obstructions in man's nature and to attacking the errors in his character. The Short Path is devoted to affirmatives, to the God-power as essence and in manifestation. It is mystical. It shows how the individual can come into harmonious relation with the Overself and the World-Idea. The first path shows seekers how to think rightly; the second gives power to those thoughts.

    Advanced Contemplation > Balancing the Paths > Their contrast and comparison

    #29641 – 15.23.5.1

    BN – Z – K1

  • Most people who start the short path have usually had a glimpse of the Overself, because otherwise they find it too difficult to understand what the short path is about. The long path, through its studies and practices, is the period of preparation for the advanced quest. It is called the long path because there is much work to be done on it and much development of character and emotions to go through. After some measure of this preparation the aspirants enter the short path to complete this work. This takes a comparatively much shorter time and, as it has the possibility of yielding the full self-enlightenment at any moment, it ends suddenly. What they are trying to do on the long path continues by itself once they have entered fully on the short path. On the long path they are concerned with the personal ego and as a result give the negative thoughts their attention. On the short path they refuse to accept these negatives and instead look to the Overself. Thus the struggles will disappear.

    Advanced Contemplation > Balancing the Paths > Their contrast and comparison

    #29642E – 15.23.5.2

    BN – ZEL1/4 – DEK

  • In order to understand the short path, it might be helpful to compare it to the long path which consists of a series of exercises and efforts which gradually develops concentration and character and knowledge. But the long path does not lead to the goal. On the long path you often measure your own progress. It is an endless path because there will always be new circumstances which bring new temptations and trials and confront the aspirant with new challenges. No matter how spiritual the ego becomes it does not enter the whitest light, but remains in the greyish light. On the long path you must deal with the urges of interference arising from the lower self and the negativity which enters from the surrounding environment. But the efforts on the long path will at last invoke the grace, which opens the perspective of the short path.

    Advanced Contemplation > Balancing the Paths > Their contrast and comparison

    #29642E – 15.23.5.2

    BN – ZEL2/4 – DEK

  • The short path is not an exercise but an inner standpoint to invoke, a state of consciousness where one comes closer or finds peace in the Overself. There are, however, two exercises which can be of help to lead to the short path, but they have quite a different character than the exercises on the long path. The short path takes less time because the aspirant turns around and faces the goal directly. The short path means that you begin to try to remember to live in the rarefied atmosphere of the Overself instead of worrying about the ego and measuring its spiritual development. You learn to trust more and more in the Higher Power. On the short path you ignore negativity and turn around 180 degrees, from the ego to the Overself. The visitations of the Overself are heralded through devotional feeling, but also through intuitive thought and action. Often the two paths can be treaded simultaneously, but not necessarily equally.

    Advanced Contemplation > Balancing the Paths > Their contrast and comparison

    #29642E – 15.23.5.2

    BN – ZEL3/4 – DEK

  • The "remembrance exercise" consists of trying to recall the glimpse of the Overself, not only during the set meditation periods but also in each moment during the whole working span of the day—in the same way as a mother who has lost her child can not let go of the thought of it no matter what she is doing outwardly, or as a lover who constantly holds the vivid image of the beloved in the back of his mind. In a similar way, you keep the memory of the Overself alive during this exercise and let it shine in the background while you go about your daily work. But the spirit of the exercise is not to be lost. It must not be mechanical and cold. The time may come later when the remembrance will cease as a consciously and deliberately willed exercise and pass by itself into a state which will be maintained without the help of the ego's will.

    Advanced Contemplation > Balancing the Paths > Their contrast and comparison

    #29642E – 15.23.5.2

    BN – ZEL4/4 – DEK

  • The Long Path gives him the chance to destroy the mental and emotional effects of the ego’s operation: the Short Path, to destroy the ego itself.

    Advanced Contemplation > Balancing the Paths > Their contrast and comparison

    #29643 – 15.23.5.3

    BN – X – D

  • On the Long Path the man is preoccupied with techniques to be practised and disciplines to be undergone. On the Short Path he is preoccupied with the Overself, with the study of its meaning, the remembrance of its presence, and the reflection upon its nature and attributes.

    Advanced Contemplation > Balancing the Paths > Their contrast and comparison

    #29646 – 15.23.5.6

    BN – Z – D

  • The essential features of the Long Path are its concern with moral effort and its emphasis on character building; its injunctions to pray and meditate; its insistence on the constant striving for self-mastery through physical, emotional, and mental disciplines. The essential feature of the Short Path is its quest of the flash of enlightenment through intuitive feeling and metaphysical thinking. Some believe, and would be satisfied with, this flash to be brief. Others hope for its permanent abidance.

    Advanced Contemplation > Balancing the Paths > Their contrast and comparison

    #29647 – 15.23.5.7

    BN – X – D