How shall he know and understand that this very awareness, of which so small is the fragment that he experiences, is a limited and conditioned part of the Great Awareness itself, of God?

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Overself and ego

#27843 – 14.22.3.375

BN – X – D

The inhabitant of this fleshly body, including its accompanying invisible "ghost," is a sacred one.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Overself and ego

#27844 – 14.22.3.376

BN – Z

There, within and yet behind his personal consciousness, is this other sphere of his own being into which he must one day be re-born as a chick from an egg.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Overself and ego

#27845 – 14.22.3.377

BN – Z – DEK*

This is his best self; this is what he really is under all the defects.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Overself and ego

#27846 – 14.22.3.378

BN – ZZ

The knowledge that no two human beings are alike refers to their bodies and minds. But this leaves out the part of their nature which is spiritual, which is found and experienced in deep meditation. In that, the deepest part of their conscious being, the personal self-vanishes; only consciousness-in-itself, thought-free, world-free, remains. This is the source of the "I" feeling, and it is exactly alike in the experience of all other human beings. This is the part which never dies, "where God and man may mingle".

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27848 – 14.22.3.380

BA11 – P – D

There is only one Overself for the whole race, but the point of contact with it is special and unique, and constitutes man's higher individuality.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27849 – 14.22.3.381

BN – ZZ – D

Whereas every human personality is different in its characteristics from every other one, no human Overself is different in its characteristics from any other one. The seekers of all times and all places have always found one and the same divine being when they found the Overself.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27850 – 14.22.3.382

BN – Z – D

This Overself is everywhere one and the same for all men. The experience of rising into awareness of it does not differ in actuality from one man to another, but the purity with which he absorbs it, interprets it, understands it, does.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27851E – 14.22.3.383

BA11 – P – DE

This is the paradox, that the Overself is at once universal and individual. It is the first because it overshadows all men as a single power. It is the second because it is found by each man within himself. It is both space and the point in space. It is infinite Spirit and yet it is also the holy presence in everyone's heart.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27852 – 14.22.3.384

BN – ZZ – D

The mysterious character of the Overself inevitably puzzles the intellect. We may appreciate it better if we accept the paradoxical fact that it unites a duality and that therefore there are two ways of thinking of it, both correct. There is the divine being which is entirely above all temporal concerns, absolute and universal, and there is also the demi-divine being which is in historical relation with the human ego.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27854 – 14.22.3.386

BN – X – D

At the end of all its adventures, the lower self may indeed have to go, but the indestructible higher self will not go. In this sense there is no utter annihilation of the individual, no complete mergence of it into an all-swallowing ocean of cosmic consciousness, as so many Western critics of Eastern wisdom believe to be the latter's last word.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27857 – 14.22.3.389

BN – Z – DEK

Because of the paradoxically dual nature which the Overself possesses, it is very difficult to make clear the concept of the Overself. Human beings are rooted in the ultimate mind through the Overself, which therefore partakes on the one hand of a relationship with a vibratory world and on the other of an existence which is above all relations. A difficulty is probably due to the vagueness or confusion about which standpoint it is to be regarded from. If it is thought of as the human soul, then the vibratory movement is connected with it. If it is thought of as transcending the very notion of humanity, and therefore in its undifferentiated character, the vibratory movement must disappear.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27858 – 14.22.3.390

BN – Z – DEK1

If we are to think correctly, we cannot stop with thinking of the Overself as being only within us. After this idea has become firmly established for its metaphysical and devotional value, we must complete the concept by thinking of the Overself as being also without us. If in the first concept it occupies a point in space, in the second one it is beyond all considerations of place.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27859 – 14.22.3.391

BN – Z – DK1

We may take comfort in the fact that the Overself never at any moment abandons or obliterates the human personality, however debased it becomes. Nor could it do so, whatever foolish cults say to the contrary, for through this medium it finds an expression in time-space.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27860 – 14.22.3.392

BN – Z – D

When we say that the Overself is within the heart, it would be a great error to think that we mean it is limited to the heart. For the heart is also within it. This seeming paradox will yield to reflection and intuition. The mysterious relationship between the ego and the Overself has been expressed by Jesus in the following words: "The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father".

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27861 – 14.22.3.393

B_11 – P – DE

The dictionary defines 'individuality' as separate and distinct existence. Both the ego and the Overself have such an existence. But whereas the ego has this and nothing more, the Overself has this consciousness within the universal existence. That is why we have called it the 'higher individuality'.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27862 – 14.22.3.394

BN – Z – D

The fact that after awaking the mind picks up the thoughts of the day before, that the individuality connects with the old individuality of pre-sleep, proves the continuity of existence of a part of Self both during sleep as during waking.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27863 – 14.22.3.395

BN – X – D

Every situation in human life can be approached from two possible points of view. The first is the limited one and is that of the personal self. The second is the larger one and is that of Universal Self. The larger and longer view always justifies itself in the end.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27864 – 14.22.3.396

BN – X – D

We must not imagine that the subordination of this sense of personal identity leads to any loss of consciousness—rather the reverse. Man becomes more, not less, for he emerges into the fullness and freedom of one universal life. He thinks of himself as: "I, A.B., am a point within the Overself," whereas before he only thought: "I am A.B."

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27866 – 14.22.3.398

BN – Z – D

The individuality is beyond the personality—its level is higher. The one must prompt while the other must watch the pitiless destruction of its wishes and hopes, its values and desires, until only the pure being of individuality is left.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27868 – 14.22.3.400

BN – Z – DK

It is a kind of impersonal being but it is not utterly devoid of all individuality.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27869 – 14.22.3.401

BN – Z

As a wave sinks back into the sea, so the consciousness which passes out of the personal self sinks back into its higher individuality.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27870 – 14.22.3.402

BN – Z – D

This is the general mind behind our small personal minds, the one behind the many.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Central and universal

#27871 – 14.22.3.403

BN – X – D

There is no other way to settle doubts concerning the soul with incontestable certainty than the way of getting personal knowledge of it by a mystical glimpse.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27872 – 14.22.3.404

BN – ZZ – D

Even when a man denies the Overself and thinks it out of his view of life, he is denying and thinking by means of the Overself's own power—attenuated and reflected though it be. He is able to reject the divine presence with his mind only because it is already in his mind.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27873 – 14.22.3.405

BN – ZZ – D

There is a long line of testimony, to which I must add my own, that the Overself is no metaphysical abstraction or mystical hallucination but a living and inspiring, if uncommon, part of human experience. To know it is to know one's best self.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27875 – 14.22.3.407

BN – ZZ – D

The Overself is not something imagined or supposed. Its presence is definitely felt.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27876 – 14.22.3.408

BN – ZZ – D

If a man asks why he can find no trace of God's presence in himself, I answer that he is full of evidence, not merely traces. God is present in him as consciousness, the state of being aware; as thought, the capacity to think; as activity, the power to move; and as stillness, the condition of ego, emotion, intellect, and body which finally and clearly reveals what these other things simply point to. "Be still and know that I am God" is a statement of being whose truth can be tested by experiment and whose value can be demonstrated by experience.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27877 – 14.22.3.409

B_03 – ZZ – K1

When we realize that the intellect can put forth as many arguments against this theme as for it, we realize that there is in the end only one perfect proof of the Overself's existence. The Overself must prove itself. This can come about faintly through the intuition or fully through the mystical experience.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27878D – 14.22.3.410

BN – Z – D

Whoever needs proofs of the authenticity of this experience has not had it.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27879 – 14.22.3.411

BN – ZZ

The difficulty of collecting and studying, sifting and describing the varieties of mystical experience which may be found today is a barrier to the expansion of scientific psychology. For those persons who are most eager to talk about their own experiences are the most dubious and unreliable source. Those who are the least eager, feeling the matter to be too private, personal, intimate, and sacred, are able to offer valuable evidence.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27880 – 14.22.3.412

B_03 – ZZ

Testimony to the existence and reality of the glimpse will be found in the literatures of all peoples through all times. It is not a newly manufactured idea, nor a newly manufactured fancy. A man who denies it is foolish so to limit his own possibilities, but he may learn better with time.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27881 – 14.22.3.413

BN – Z – D

These glimpses cannot rightly be dismissed by the scientist as merely self-suggested or wholly hallucinatory. Nor can they properly be regarded by the metaphysician as valueless for truth. As human beings we live by experience, and they are personal experiences which help to confirm the truth of the impersonal bases underneath them and which encourage us to continue on the same path.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27882 – 14.22.3.414

BN – Z – DEK

The Overself is a living reality. Nobody would waste his years, his endeavours, and his energies in its quest if it were merely an intellectual concept or an emotional fancy.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27883 – 14.22.3.415

BN – ZZ – D

The Overself is not only a necessary conception of logical thought. It is also a beautiful fact of personal experience.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27884 – 14.22.3.416

B_01 – ZZZ – DK

There are three signs, among others, of the Soul's presence in a Soul-denying generation. They are: moral conscience, artistic imagination, and metaphysical speculation.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27885 – 14.22.3.417

BN – X – D

Criticism which knows only sensuous and intellectual experience can be little valid here if, indeed, it is not entirely irrelevant.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27886 – 14.22.3.418

BN – Z

To the man of insight there is something strange, ironic, and yet pathetic in the spectacle of those who turn the consciousness and the understanding derived from Overself against the acknowledgment of Its existence.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27888 – 14.22.3.420

BN – X – D

It is not a dim abstraction but a real presence. Not a vague theory but a vital fact.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27889 – 14.22.3.421

BN – ZZ

That the Overself is not the product of an inflated imagination but has a real existence, is a truth which any man who has the required patience and submits to the indispensable training may verify himself.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27890 – 14.22.3.422

BN – ZZ – D

Because he regards the theory and practice of his subject from the inside, the mystic can discuss it with a correctness and authority which most critics do not possess because they are outside it. They are largely in the dark about it—he is actually in the light.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27891 – 14.22.3.423

BN – Z – DEK

Those who have never felt it in themselves nor seen it demonstrated in others cannot understand the blessedness of such a state.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27892 – 14.22.3.424

BN – ZZ

Those who have never experienced this state yet venture to criticize it as illusory are dealing with mere words, not facts.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27895 – 14.22.3.427

BN – Z

If the ordinary man seldom gets these subtler experiences it is because his nature is too coarse, his mind too physically based, his focus too personal to permit him to receive them.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27896 – 14.22.3.428

BN – Z

Do these moods of utter tranquillity have to repeat themselves again and again to convince doubting man that there is indeed a state of consciousness beyond the everyday so-called normal one? Is not such personal experience the best offering of testimony from the Soul to its own existence?

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27897 – 14.22.3.429

BN – Z – DEK

That arrogance which denies heaven to the unorthodox does not trouble the mystic. He finds heaven here in this life, now before the transition of death.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27898 – 14.22.3.430

BN – ZZ

At such times, unexpected and unsought though they are, he feels the nearness of God, the love of God, the reality of God. Whoever ventures to call them delusions is himself deluded.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27899 – 14.22.3.431

BN – Z – D

Deep within his own heart, hidden within his own consciousness, every person carries all the evidence for the truth of these teachings that he or she is ever likely to need.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27900 – 14.22.3.432

BN – Z – DK

Not only philosophy, but the teaching of all seers like Krishna and Jesus, would have to be pronounced fraudulent if the Overself were not a fact.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27901 – 14.22.3.433

B_11 – P – D

Men who pronounce judgements or write opinions upon mysticism without actual and personal experience of its mental states and phenomena, who interpret it only from the outside and only as observers, cannot be reliable authorities on the subject.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27903 – 14.22.3.435

BN – Z – D

There is only one way to settle his question of whether the Overself exists and that is the very way most moderns refuse to accept. Each must gain for himself the 'authentic' mystical experience. Sugar can really be known only by its sweet taste, the Overself only by opening the doors of the mind to consciousness of its presence.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27905 – 14.22.3.437

BN – ZZ – DK

Those who have had this overwhelming experience require no arguments to make them believe in the soul. They know that they 'are' the soul.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27906 – 14.22.3.438

BN – ZZ – D

An experience which is so convincing, so real, that no intellectual argument to the contrary can stand against it, is final. Let others say what they will, he remains unswayed.

Inspiration and the Overself > The Overself's Presence > Responding to critics

#27907 – 14.22.3.439

BN – 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 > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27908M – 14.22.4.1

UR_3.2 – ZZ – DXK

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 > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27909EM – 14.22.4.2

UR_3.2 – ZZ – DXK

These brief flashes bring with them great joy, great beauty, and great uplift. They are, for most people, their first clear vivid awakening to the existence and reality of a spiritual order of being. The contrast with their ordinary state is so tremendous as to shame it into pitiful drabness. The intention is to arouse and stimulate them into the longing for re-entry into the spirit, a longing which inevitably expresses itself in the quest.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27910 – 14.22.4.3

BN – X – DEK

All our ordinary experience comes to us through sense responses or intellectual workings. But here is a kind of experience which does not come through these two channels. It is not a series of sensations nor a series of thoughts. What is it, then? Philosophy says it belongs to the transcendental world.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27912 – 14.22.4.5

BN – X – D

The glimpse may be best compared to a moment of wakefulness in a long existence of sleep.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27914 – 14.22.4.7

BN – X – D

These glimpses, these transcendental visitations as the Hindu metaphysician calls them, bring joy, serenity, and understanding.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27916 – 14.22.4.9

BN – Z

How is one to describe this experience? It is an expansion, and yet also a concentration, of consciousness.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27921 – 14.22.4.14

BN – X – D

The experience is so beautiful that no description can transfer the feelings it awakens from one heart to another.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27923 – 14.22.4.16

BN – Z

These are the real waking moments of a man's life: for the rest he is asleep without ever guessing that he is.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27924 – 14.22.4.17

BN – X – D

These rare moments lift him out of his animal self and detach him from his lower human self.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27928 – 14.22.4.21

BN – Z

In religious language he is in God, and in mystical language God is in him.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27930 – 14.22.4.23

BN – Z – D

In the world's literatures there are many records left by persons who have had this glimpse, but each has interpreted it in his or her own way, each has reacted within the frame of his or her personal background.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27932 – 14.22.4.25

BN – X – D

These visitations of grace are intimations of reality.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27934 – 14.22.4.27

BN – Z

These moments of true consciousness free from the illusion unavoidable in ordinary experience are memorable.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27935 – 14.22.4.28

BN – Z

It is to experience while still in the flesh what some others will not experience until they are in the spirit.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27936 – 14.22.4.29

BN – Z – K

At such times he becomes aroused from the sleep of ignorance to the Overself's constant presence.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27937 – 14.22.4.30

BN – Z – D

Those strange visitations, when one is suddenly aware of a presence—close, powerful, yet immaterial—are not easily explicable.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27939 – 14.22.4.32

BN – Z

These are the moments which inspire a man, renew his dedication, strengthen his will, and give him integrity.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27940 – 14.22.4.33

BN – Z

The years of spiritual fulfilment may be far off still, but presages and tokens may come momentarily to hearten him at times.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27941 – 14.22.4.34

BN – Z

This is the sacred interlude when man transcends his isolation and feels the universe supporting him.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27942 – 14.22.4.35

BN – Z

It is the highest possible form of self-recognition. It is the discovery of who and what we really are.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses

#27943 – 14.22.4.36

BN – Z – D

That God is present in each person's life may seem unbelievable to so large a number of us. Yet it is for those undergoing the experience certitude, not theory. It is generally believed that hardly more than a few attain it, but as there are degrees of such an attainment one could say that in the lesser ones there are more successes than people generally know.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27945 – 14.22.4.38

BN – X – DEK

Even to ordinary persons moments can come which can pass very easily into glimpses. But their importance is not recognized and so the opportunities are missed. It is pitiful and pathetic that anyone should be so close to the diviner self and not take advantage of the propinquity by a pause of activity and a surrender to the delicate feeling which would develop of itself into a glimpse. It is pathetic, because these moments are in the nature of clues leading to the inward way; pitiful, because such people are living in a kind of blind alley and must one day retrace their steps.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27946 – 14.22.4.39

BN – X – D

Psychologists and psychoanalysts are beginning to find a minority among their ranks who put a high value upon these glimpses which they call "peak-experiences." Academically qualified, professionally trained, and science-oriented just like their colleagues, they yet differ in appreciating and studying such experiences as being important to an adequate knowledge of the human being.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27949 – 14.22.4.42

BN – X – D

The point which has yet to be made is that these glimpses are not supernatural superhuman and solely religious experiences. When scientific psychology has advanced to the point where it really understands the human being in all his height and depth, and not merely his surface, it will see this.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27952 – 14.22.4.45

BN – Z – DK1

Although he is normally quite unconscious of this connection with the Overself, once at least in a lifetime there is a flash which visits him and breaks the unconsciousness. He has a glimpse of his highest possibility. But the clearness and intensity of this glimpse depend upon his receptivity. They may amount to little or much.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27953 – 14.22.4.46

BN – Z – DM1

Many people without pretensions to mystical knowledge or belief have had this experience, this glimpse of timeless loveliness, through Nature, art, music, or even for no apparent reason at all.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27954 – 14.22.4.47

B_09 – ZZ – K1

Those who have followed the Quest in previous lives will generally receive a glimpse at least twice during the present one. They will receive it in early life during their teens or around the threshold of adult life. This will inspire them to seek anew. They will receive it again in late life during the closing years of the reincarnation. This will be bestowed as a Grace of the Overself. Those aspirants who bemoan the loss of their early glimpse should remind themselves, in hours of depression, that it will recur before they leave the body. In addition to those glimpses which attend the opening and closing years of a lifetime, a number of others may be had during the intervening period as a direct consequence and reward of the efforts, disciplines, aspirations, and self-denials practised in that time.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27955 – 14.22.4.48

BN – ZZ – DEK1

We ought not to mistake this for the exception; it is really the type. Most aspirants have experienced this mystical glimpse, brief and unexpected perhaps, which has started or kept them on this quest.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27956 – 14.22.4.49

BN – Z – DK

Even those men who assert or lament that they have never had a single glimpse during their whole lifetime will get it at the end. For it is a divinely ordained part of the process of dying.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27957 – 14.22.4.50

BN – Z – D

When the genuine mystical experience comes, it presents the student with the rare chance to know for himself a state in the evolution of consciousness which still lies far ahead of mankind generally.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27958 – 14.22.4.51

BN – Z – D

Such memorable glimpses of a higher state of Being, which encourage and reassure us, may occur not only at the beginning of our spiritual career but also at the beginning of each new cycle within it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27959 – 14.22.4.52

BSG_5 – Z – D

This mystical glimpse comes to most men only at death, or at the fraction of a fraction of a second during the highest pitch of sexual intercourse.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27961 – 14.22.4.54

BN – X – D

At present this mystic experience is a fugitive one in the human species. But because it is also the ultimate experience of that species, there is no reason why it should not become a common one in the course of evolutionary development.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27962 – 14.22.4.55

BN – X – D

My records, gleaned from correspondence or got from interviews, show that some persons have been started off by glimpses during surgical anaesthesia and others just after a near miss of death.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27965 – 14.22.4.58

BN – ZZ

What today is believed abnormal will, in a civilization ahead of ours, be regarded as quite natural. I refer to the transcendental experience.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27966 – 14.22.4.59

BN – ZZ – D

There are individuals scattered here and there who have found the Overself. It is certain that they are types as well as individuals—therefore, it is certain that the whole race will also one day find the Overself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27967 – 14.22.4.60

BN – Z – DEK

Even one who is active, efficient, practical, and worldly may also be touched by this heavenly light: it is not reserved for the dreamers and poets, the artists and saints alone. I have known men who blue-printed public buildings, engineered factories, managed office personnel, filled the lowest and the highest positions in a nation, who themselves had known ITS visitations, who recognized and revered it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27968 – 14.22.4.61

BN – Z

An aspirant wrote in a letter: "I went into a lawsuit upon which depended the existence of an entire business and my own ability to continue to support my family. Judgement was given against me. I experienced the most curious sensation that the whole thing did not matter at all, that I seemed to be the witness of it all, and I was utterly calm. In fact, I had never felt so calm in my entire life, and did not feel the least bit depressed. It seemed to me Mr. . . . [himself] was almost a stranger to me, and I was just a witness of what was happening to him." He had a glimpse of the way in which a sage would have treated the same event, and that glimpse came to him at the right moment, the moment he needed it most.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27969 – 14.22.4.62

BN – Z

Many people pass through these experiences of the glimpse and do not really know what is happening to them because they have never studied or been taught anything about such experiences.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27970 – 14.22.4.63

BN – X – D

If some have had a mystical glimpse before the age of ten, more have done so during adolescence, still more during their thirties or forties. If thereafter the experience is less known, it can still happen even in the seventies.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27971 – 14.22.4.64

BN – ZZ

It is a result which several persons have experienced that the Glimpse which came while reading some inspired passages of a book or verses of a poem, returns again at a later time.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27973 – 14.22.4.66

BN – ZZ

Those frightened away from the Quest by the high qualifications demanded, may find some comfort in the fact that these "glimpses" increasing in number depth and frequency can be had even at an early stage.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27975 – 14.22.4.68

BN – Z

How near to the glimpse do the mass of people come who claim they have never had one? Perhaps the feeling of awe to which certain buildings or persons or ideas may give rise is the nearest.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27977 – 14.22.4.70

BN – Z

Moments like this have come to many men who have not recognized the preciousness, the special value, and the uncommon nature of the experience.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27979 – 14.22.4.72

BN – Z – D

Often there are only half-glimpses, but even they afford a vague satisfaction.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27980 – 14.22.4.73

BN – Z

The time will come when it will be found that glimpses are a proper part of human existence, are within the area of a normal life, are valid topics for study and examination by science.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Part of natural life-experience

#27981 – 14.22.4.74

BN – Z – D

Everyone has the experience of doing, few of being. Yet that is the most precious, most important of all life's experiences.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27982 – 14.22.4.75

BN – Z

This is the experience which makes the fully mature man or woman happiest. It is usually short but its next advent will always be eagerly awaited. It is often isolated by long intervals of prosaic commonplace living, but they only serve to give it even greater value by contrast.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27983 – 14.22.4.76

BN – Z

Whether it is born out of appreciation of beauty or an infinite humiliation of the ego, or out of some totally different occasion, this awareness of the Overself's presence is essential to the completion and fulfilment of human life.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27985 – 14.22.4.78

BN – Z

To enter into Heaven is to enter into the fulfilment of our earthly life's unearthly purpose. And that is, simply, to become aware of the Overself. This holy awareness brings such joy with it that we then know why the true saints and the real ascetics were able to disdain all other joys. The contrast is too disproportionate. Nothing that the world offers to tempt us can be put on the same level.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27986 – 14.22.4.79

BN – Z – D

He will find that somewhere within there is a holy presence not himself, a sublime power not his own. He will understand then that no one is truly alive who has not made this discovery.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27987 – 14.22.4.80

BN – Z

A stillness which is not simply the absence of noise, but which is rich, fruitful, and uplifting in beauty and refinement of its presence—this is the best.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27989 – 14.22.4.82

B_01 – ZZ – K

No good fortune that comes his way will ever after be counted so great as the good fortune which he now feels to be his in the realization of the Overself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27990 – 14.22.4.83

BN – Z – K

We cannot know the fullness of God's Consciousness, but we can know the link which we have with God. Call it the Soul, if you must, or the Overself if you prefer, but to catch a glimpse of this link is to be reborn.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27993 – 14.22.4.86

UR_4map – ZZZ – DK

The glimpse gives him a journey to a land flowing not with milk and honey, but with goodness and beauty, with peace and wisdom. It is the best moment of his life.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27994 – 14.22.4.87

BN – ZZ – DK1

When a man's consciousness is turned upside-down by a glimpse, when what he thought most substantial is revealed as least so, when his values are reversed and the Good takes on a new definition, he writes that day down as his spiritual birthday.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27995 – 14.22.4.88

BN – ZZ – DK1

What better thing can he find than the divine Overself! That would be the decisive moment of his entire bodily existence, as establishing himself permanently in its fullness and finality would be the grandest sequel.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27996 – 14.22.4.89

BN – ZZ

There is no higher happiness than this discovery of the real man.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27997 – 14.22.4.90

BN – Z

These moments, when spiritual presence is distinctly felt, may be rare or frequent, misunderstood or recognized, but they are moments of blessing. And this is true even if they open the door only slightly and let in merely a chink of light.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#27999 – 14.22.4.92

BN – Z – D

In these moments of a glimpse, he discovers the very real presence of the Overself. They provide him with a joy, an amiability, which disarms the negative side of his character and brings forward the positive side. These are precious moments; they cannot be too highly valued. And though they must pass, some communication with them is always possible through memory.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28000 – 14.22.4.93

BSG_5 – Z – DK

The glimpse is of supreme worth morally, helping to free him, bestowing goodwill and humility, uplifting his ideals however fleetingly.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28001 – 14.22.4.94

BN – Z

It is far better than being ignorant to know what is read in books or heard at lectures on this topic, but far better than both of these is to 'feel' vividly the Overself's presence and reality, to know the truth of It with complete certainty.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28004 – 14.22.4.97

BN – ZZ – D

No better fortune can come to a man or woman than this serene inward well-being and this certitude of Universal Truth.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28005 – 14.22.4.98

B_01 – ZZZ – K

"He that loseth his life shall save it". Those who would translate Jesus' words into generous emotion and not into metaphysical insight have never known the real meaning of those words. For the philanthropic service of others is a noble but secondary ideal, whereas the mystical union with the Overself is a priceless and primary achievement.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28006 – 14.22.4.99

B_11 – P – D

The freedom he feels in such moments and the consolation he gets from them are indications of the value of the distant goal itself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28007 – 14.22.4.100

BN – Z – D

Try to describe a colour to someone who has never been able to see any colour at all. Your words will have no meaning for him, however accurate and expressive they may be. In the same way, most mystics are sceptical about the use of describing their experiences to those who have not already had some such experience. This is where the "glimpse" is of such tremendous value.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28008 – 14.22.4.101

BN – Z

He will know at the time, and come to confirm when the greater part of his life is already past, that the sacredness which infuses them and the beauty which permeates them make these his best moments.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28009 – 14.22.4.102

BN – Z

Those rare moments of exaltation and uplift, of spiritual glimpse and inward freedom, are of inestimable value. They show the aspirant what he may become, affirm the reality of the ideal and reveal its possibility.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28010 – 14.22.4.103

BN – X – D

There is a pure happiness in these moments of release which no earthly happiness can surpass.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28012 – 14.22.4.105

BN – Z

To become conscious of infinity is no mean achievement for a man even if he does so only for a single hour and cannot keep the glimpse longer.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28014 – 14.22.4.107

BN – Z

The primary value of life lies in these beautiful but brief moods when we lose touch with the world, and fortunate is that person who recognizes the higher authority of their accompanying clear insights.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28015 – 14.22.4.108

BN – Z

These glimpses come upon us unawares, inadvertently as it were. There is no higher experience in our past to compare with them, and no lovelier.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28016 – 14.22.4.109

BN – Z – DK

We need these occasional confirmations from the Overself of its own existence.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28020 – 14.22.4.113

BN – Z – D

We all need the calmness and the love associated with this experience.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28021 – 14.22.4.114

BN – Z

If he can penetrate to this inmost region of consciousness, he will penetrate also to the secret purpose of the few decades of earthly life.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28022 – 14.22.4.115

BN – Z – D

Some kind of awakening is the usual prelude before people take to the Quest in real earnest. The glimpse provides it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28023 – 14.22.4.116

BN – Z – D

There is an image of God within each man; once seen, he will forever after court union with it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28024 – 14.22.4.117

BN – Z – D

It is a blessed state unequalled by another experience, unexcelled by any other satisfaction.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28025 – 14.22.4.118

BN – Z

It is such glorious moments—refreshing to the will and revelatory to the mind—which alone can compensate for (or justify, if you prefer the word) the long littleness, the recurring torment of living.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28026 – 14.22.4.119

BSG_5 – Z – D

What we know is so little that it ought to make us intellectually humble. But that little is nevertheless of the highest importance to us. For we know that the Overself is, that the passage to its stillness from the ego's tumult is worthwhile, and that goodness and purity, prayer and meditation help us to find it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28028 – 14.22.4.121

BA12 – P – D

The fact or absence of enlightenment measures the real value of a person.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their importance

#28029 – 14.22.4.122

BN – Z

There are exalted but rare occasions when inspiration, peace, and spiritual majesty conjoin their blessed presence within us.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28030 – 14.22.4.123

BN – Z

How many have asked in puzzlement why the glimpses of reality cannot remain with them, how many have deplored its brevity! Plotinus long ago gave them his answer: "Man can cease to become man, and become God; but man cannot be God and man at the same time."

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28033 – 14.22.4.126

BN – X – D

He can hold himself in this egoless state for a brief while only. The ego soon rises up again and the glorious presence retires, for the two are incompatible.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28034 – 14.22.4.127

BN – Z – D

Such periods are short and uncommon but they lift us up and draw us in. We feel then that there is peace and joy for us as ultimate possibilities, even if they are not immediate actualities.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28035 – 14.22.4.128

BN – Z – DEK

It is true that the felicity and freedom of such glimpses are too often too momentary. Yet immense forces lie hidden beneath their brief but intense existence.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28036 – 14.22.4.129

BN – Z

These glimpses of Reality which wake us out of the world of illusion come to us only at intervals. We cannot hold them, but we can repeat them.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28037 – 14.22.4.130

BN – Z – D

All glimpses are not of equal duration nor of equal degree. One or the other or both may differ from person to person.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28038 – 14.22.4.131

BN – Z

The glimpse may last only an instant, or it may last a year.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28039 – 14.22.4.132

BN – Z

The glimpse lasts a moment, a minute, an hour, or a week—who can say, for it is a mysterious grace? But in that while, the oscillation of human thoughts is stilled and time takes a rest. It cannot be shared with others—although they may notice or sense some of its fruit—and to that extent it is a private experience.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28040 – 14.22.4.133

BN – ZZ – D

The fleeting beauty of these moments veils the harsh greyness of the long periods between them.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28053 – 14.22.4.146

BN – Z

But the glimpse comes to an end. The glorious new identity which he took on for a while will be shed.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28055 – 14.22.4.148

BN – Z

These glimpses are often unexpected, usually isolated, and mostly brief.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28056 – 14.22.4.149

BN – Z

A brief release from the burdens of living, peace-bestowing and mentally illumining, a healing suspense of all negative traits—but soon gone.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28057 – 14.22.4.150

BN – Z

These moments are rare and beautiful. They can never come too soon nor stay too long.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Their frequency and duration

#28058 – 14.22.4.151

BN – Z

The energy which appears to us as light is the basis of the universe, the principle from which all things are made.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28059 – 14.22.4.152

BN – Z – D

The first aspect of God is Light; the first contact of man with the Supreme Being is Light.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28060 – 14.22.4.153

BN – Z

The light streaming from a table lamp proves the existence of electricity. The light streaming into the mind in these exalted moments proves the existence of the Soul.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28062 – 14.22.4.155

BN – Z – D

Whoever approaches the Divine Source of all things comes into the aura of its Power and the perception of its Light.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28063 – 14.22.4.156

BN – Z – D

This is not ordinary light: it is holy, transcendental, and awe-inspiring.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28064 – 14.22.4.157

BN – Z

The experience of divine Light is no hallucination but an actuality, an entirely real one, even a thrilling one.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28065 – 14.22.4.158

BN – Z

If the Light is not resisted, by timidity, ignorance, or egoism, it will work upon the entire human being, radically transforming his outlook, life, and consciousness.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28066 – 14.22.4.159

BN – Z – D

In its Light man begins to see what he has not seen with the body's eyes, the intellect's understanding.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28067 – 14.22.4.160

BN – Z

If he can hold himself in the Light steadily and unfalteringly, his consciousness will be raised to a higher plane.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28068 – 14.22.4.161

BN – Z – D

The inner light will give him a glimpse of an ennobled and purified life and inspire him with the urge to realize it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28069 – 14.22.4.162

BN – Z – D

The Light is felt as energy pulsing in space and tingling in the body; it is seen, usually with the mind's eye but sometimes with the body's, as an unearthly radiance; it is intuited as a glory filling the whole of one's inner being.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28072 – 14.22.4.165

BN – Z

One who beholds the Light may be grateful for several reasons. First, it is the only occult experience of which it may be said that it is entirely without risk or peril. Second, it is the loftiest of all clairvoyant visions. Third, it confers the feeling of perfect felicity, not in the worldly sense, but of an ethereal unearthly kind. Fourth, it is a direct manifestation of God to man, being the first of his outpourings, hence an uncommon blessing, a grace. Fifth, if it appears in consciousness as Power, the recipient may feel a tremendous force, unknown otherwise, throbbing all around and within him, or a sudden lightning-like flash of complete comprehension: he understands what neither bodily sense nor intellectual faculty can understand—the supernatural meaning of Spirit, of eternity, of transfiguration, and of reality.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28075 – 14.22.4.168

BN – Z – DEK

The Light may be sent forth as a ray to touch the heart or head of any particular person to uplift or console, pacify emotions or exalt ideas; it may also be sent to encircle a person protectively.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28076 – 14.22.4.169

BN – Z

A young, innocent, well-educated girl of good family found herself pregnant after being seduced by a sophisticated man. She was too ignorant to know what to do, and too ashamed to confess to her parents. In despair, she decided to kill herself. When the fatal day arrived, she called out several times in prayer and agony to whatever God there be, to give some evidence of Its existence so that she should not feel utterly alone and to help her. About one hour later, to her astonishment, the room became filled with an unearthly light for a few minutes. With it came the feeling of being in the presence of the Higher Power, of not being alone any more, and an assurance of help. She slept heavily the rest of the day and all that night, and next morning awoke with a clear guidance of what to do. She went to her parents and in great calmness told them of the trouble which had befallen her. They treated her well and took appropriate measures to deal with it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28094E – 14.22.4.187

BN – EL1/2

A young, innocent, well-educated girl of good family found herself pregnant after being seduced by a sophisticated man. In despair, she decided to kill herself. When the fatal day arrived, she called out several times in prayer and agony to whatever God there be, to give some evidence of Its existence so that she should not feel utterly alone and to help her. About one hour later, to her astonishment, the room became filled with an unearthly light for a few minutes. With it came the feeling of being in the presence of the Higher Power, of not being alone any more, and an assurance of help. She slept heavily the rest of the day and all that night, and next morning awoke with a clear guidance of what to do. Thirty years after this event, she related the story to me, after I had described the experience of a titled English lady, who told me how she was saved from committing suicide because of the death of all her babies one after another by the manifestation of Light, along with a Voice that spoke the saving words.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28094E – 14.22.4.187

BN – EL2/2

Saint John of the Cross, held unjustly as a prisoner, found his cell filled with light as he dreamed one night that the Virgin appeared to him promising help if he escaped. Martinus, the Danish mystic, told me that Jesus appeared to him in meditation surrounded by a ball of light.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28100 – 14.22.4.193

BN – X – D

… that God's reality is the overwhelming fact of existence.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28110E – 14.22.4.203

BSG_4 – P – DE

Seeing the Light in front of him is one state; being merged into it is another, and superior.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28111 – 14.22.4.204

BN – ZZ – DK1

Where the Greek Orthodox Church regards the Light experience as the highest point reachable by man, the Indian Philosophic Teaching regards it as the last stage before the highest. For anything which is "seen" implies the existence of a "seer" as separate from it. This is not less so even in the case of the Holy Light. Not seeing but be-ing is the final experience according to this Teaching. "You have to go beyond seeing and find out who is the 'I' who experiences this light," said Ramana Maharshi to a disciple.

Inspiration and the Overself > Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > Glimpses and Light

#28113 – 14.22.4.206

BN – Z – DEK1

To describe the wonders and benefits, the delights and beauties of these glimpses will whet the appetite of people without satisfying it. Hence they will then be led to ask how such a glimpse is to be obtained.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28114 – 14.22.5.1

BN – X – D

The principle which makes union with the Overself possible is always the same, albeit on different levels. Whether it appears as humility in prayer, passivity to intuition, stillness in meditation, or serenity despite untoward circumstances, these attitudes temporarily weaken the ego and lessen its domination. They temporarily silence the ego and give the Overself the opportunity to touch us or work through us. So long as the ego dominates us, we are outside the reach of the Overself and separated from its help.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28116 – 14.22.5.3

BN – ZZ – D

The notion that it is first necessary to become a monk or to live like a saint before one can hope to acquire this knowledge is erroneous. One must find the inner self, and this of itself will purify us, subdue passions, and tame selfishness. When the magic touch of the Overself falls upon us, our long-held foolishness withers away, and our tightly clutched vices die off and disappear.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28117 – 14.22.5.4

BA11 – ZZ – D

That which is aware of the world is not the world. That which is aware of the ego is not the ego. When this awareness is isolated, the man "experiences" the Overself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28118 – 14.22.5.5

BN – X – D

If he will try to perceive the mind by which he perceives the world, he will be practising the shortest, most direct technique of discovering the Overself. This is what Ramana Maharshi meant when he taught, "Trace the 'I' to its source."

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28119 – 14.22.5.6

BN – Z – DK*

All that a man knows and experiences is a series of thoughts. There is only one exception and that, in most cases, remains usually as an unrealized possibility. It is when he discovers his 'being'. Here thinking is not active, would in fact prevent the discovery if not reined in at the proper point. Here, in this private paradise, knowing and experiencing are one.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28120 – 14.22.5.7

BN – X – D

He should send out experimental feelers in his mental-emotional world until he recognizes an element that seems different from all the others—subtler, grander, nobler, and more divine than all the others. Then, catching firm hold of it, he should try to trace its course back to its source. > >The point where the personal ego establishes contact with the Overself is reached and passed only through a momentary lapse of consciousness. But this lapse is so brief—a mere fraction of a second—that it may be unnoticed. > >A presence enters his consciousness and comes over him, a benign feeling to which he is glad to surrender himself, a mysterious solvent of his egotism and desires.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28121 – 14.22.5.8

BN – X – DEK

Those who seek this mystic communion with the Overself, this sublime glimpse of its hidden face, must make the Quest their chosen path.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28124 – 14.22.5.11

BN – X – D

If you have enough confidence to trust in the teaching, and to move in the direction toward which it guides you, sooner or later the future will be lighted by these small fugitive glimpses.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28125 – 14.22.5.12

BN – X – D

What, it has been asked, if I get no glimpses? What can I do to break this barren, monotonous, dreary, and sterile spiritual desert of my existence? The answer is if you cannot meditate successfully go to nature, where she is quiet or beautiful; go to art where it is majestic, exalting; go to hear some great soul speak, whether in private talk or public address; go to literature, find a great inspired book written by someone who has had the glimpses.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28126D – 14.22.5.13

BN – Z – D

The fact that we know our bodies is a guarantee that we can know our souls. For the knowing principle in us is derived from the soul itself. We have only to search our own minds deeply enough and ardently enough to discover it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28127 – 14.22.5.14

BN – Z – DK1

When you begin to seek the Knower, who is within you, and to sever yourself from the seen, which is both without and within you, you begin to pass from illusion to reality.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28128 – 14.22.5.15

BN – ZZ – DK1

The mind's chief distinguishing power is to know—whether the object known is the world around or the ideas within. When this is turned in still deeper upon itself, subject and object are one, the thought-making activity comes to rest, and the "I" mystery is solved. Man discovers his real self, or being—his soul.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28129 – 14.22.5.16

BN – Z – DM1

Without learning, studying, or practising yoga, Heisenberg, famed nuclear physicist, formulator of the Law of Indeterminacy, unwittingly entered what is a high goal to yogis, Nirvikalpa Samadhi. This happened at times at the end of the deepest abstract thinking about his subject. Thoughts themselves ceased to be active. He found himself in the Stillness of the Void. He knew then, and knows today, his spiritual being.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28130 – 14.22.5.17

BN – Z – K1

Hugh Shearman: "There is no self. But, when told this, we still remain ourselves; and the utterance of this truth is again only a thought-form in a world of other thought-forms. What, then, is to be done? There can be no ending of karma by karma, no ceasing of thought-forms by creating counteracting thought-forms. The only effective thing is to come self-consciously awake at the point within ourselves at which thought itself is set in motion, to discover in ourselves the thought-producer, to find the fundamental answer to 'Who Am I?'"

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28131 – 14.22.5.18

BN – Z – K

It cannot come to those who live on the surface of things, for merely to discover and recognize its existence requires the deepest attentiveness and the strongest love. All the human forces must unite and look for this divine event.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28132 – 14.22.5.19

BN – X – D

If he has freed himself from the ego's domination, he is entitled to receive the Overself's benedictory influx.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28134 – 14.22.5.21

BN – Z – D

His contemplation of the Divine has to become so absorbing as to end in self-forgetfulness.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28135 – 14.22.5.22

BN – X – K

While most glimpses come naturally and unexpectedly, it is possible to develop the experience systematically by the technique of meditation.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28137 – 14.22.5.24

BN – X – D

Later I intellectually pulled my own inner experiences to pieces to show them to others in the hope that it would help them either obtain or understand such experiences for themselves—and to do this in a scientific way by cultivating a habit of precise observation which rigorously sought to exclude personal prepossession and imaginative intrusion.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28138 – 14.22.5.25

BN – Z

If the glimpse is not to remain an isolated event, he must try to put less of his mind on himself and more on the Overself, less into emotional reactions to it and more into pure contemplation of it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28139 – 14.22.5.26

BN – X – D

Once a man has had this sacred experience he will naturally want to provoke it again. But how? He will find meditation to be part of the answer.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28141 – 14.22.5.28

BN – X – D

If he is tempted by these sudden glimpses to enquire whether there is a method or technique whereby they may be repeated at will, he will find that there is and that it is called meditation. If he wishes to go farther and enquire whether his whole life could continuously enjoy them all the time, the answer is that it could and that to bring it about he needs to follow a way of life called The Quest.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28142 – 14.22.5.29

BA11 – ZZ – DK1

If few attain the wonder of Overself consciousness, it is because few can lift their minds to the level of impersonality and anonymity. But what all cannot do with their minds, they can do much more easily with their hearts. Let them approach enveloped in love, and the grace will come forward to meet them. By its power, the ego which they could not bring themselves to renounce will be forgotten.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28145 – 14.22.5.32

BN – X – D

These glimpses will last longer and come more easily, hence more often, if the mind and the feelings are properly balanced, and if, at the same time, the body is purified, its organs co-operated with, and its forces regenerated.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28146 – 14.22.5.33

BN – X – D

When the glimpse happens, a man comes out of himself. It may follow his admiration of a beautiful scene in Nature or his appreciation of a beautiful poem or his simple relaxed mood, but in each case he lets go of his taut self-consciousness. This allows the entry of grace.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28147 – 14.22.5.34

BN – Z – D

The Soul has its chance to have its voice heard also when the conscious self is too fatigued by the troubles of life to offer resistance.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28151 – 14.22.5.38

BN – ZZ

If he understands that the origin of these mystical moments is his own best self, he will understand too that the shortest and quickest way to recapture them is to go directly to that self, while the surest way to keep their happiness for life is to keep constantly aware of that self.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28152 – 14.22.5.39

BN – ZZ – D

Only when the heart has been utterly emptied of all its ties can the divine presence come into it. If you can empty it only for a few moments, do not lament in despair when the visit of the presence comes to an end after a few moments.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28153 – 14.22.5.40

BN – Z – D

Sometimes he is lifted up by the beauty of Nature's forms or man's arts, sometimes by the discipline of moral experience or religious worship, sometimes by the personal impact of a great soul.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28154 – 14.22.5.41

BN – Z

If he understands the process whereby he arrived at illumination, he will know how to recover it if and when it fades away. But if he arrived at it by an unconscious process, then when he loses it he will not know how to help himself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28156 – 14.22.5.43

BN – Z – K

It should be remembered that whatever kind of meditation is adopted, the glimpse which comes from it comes because we have provided the right condition for its appearance, not because our own doing makes the glimpse appear. For it comes from the realm of timelessness with which we come into some sort of harmony through the intuitive nature. What we do is in the realm of time, and it can only produce effects of a like nature.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28159 – 14.22.5.46

BN – X – D

In contacting the Overself, he does not really sense a bigger "I." He senses SOMETHING which is. This is first achieved by forgetting the ego, the personality, the "I." But at a later stage, there is nothing to forget for then he finds that the ego, the personality, and the "I" are of the same stuff as this SOMETHING.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28160 – 14.22.5.47

BN – Z

All thinking keeps one's awareness out of the Overself. That is why even thinking about the Overself merely produces another thought. Only in the case of the sage, who has established himself in the Overself, is thinking no barrier at all. In this case, thinking may coexist with the larger awareness. So it is not enough to be a good thinker; one also has to learn how to be a good non-thinker. Of course, the way to do this is through the practice of meditation.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28161 – 14.22.5.48

BN – X – D

It is not by any kind of privilege that anyone obtains the glimpse but by preparation and equilibration, with some amount of purification. To equilibrate is to calm feelings as and when necessary and render them deeper, exquisitely delicate.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28163 – 14.22.5.50

BN – X – D

The glimpse comes and the glimpse goes, suddenly or slowly, and this coming and this going are independent of his will. This does not, however, mean that he is totally helpless in the matter. Instruction or experience or both can teach him what those conditions are which assist the onset of the glimpse and those which obstruct it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28165 – 14.22.5.52

BN – X – D

In The Spiritual Crisis of Man, a chapter was devoted to the topic of glimpses. It was also touched on briefly in earlier books although not under that name, but when dealing with meditation. I tried to tell what could be done to get more out of a glimpse and mentioned recapturing the memory of it as part of an exercise. It ought to be added that the best time to do such an exercise is before falling asleep at night and on waking up in the morning. It is then easier to recapture such a memory.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28166 – 14.22.5.53

BN – X – DEK

If we want to hear the voice of the Overself, we have to create a quiet all around us and all within us and we have to listen and go on listening with patience.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28167 – 14.22.5.54

BN – ZZ – D

Some, like the poet Keats, find Truth through beauty while others, like the poet Dante, find it through suffering.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28169 – 14.22.5.56

BN – X – DK

That is a valuable meditation which, whether at odd moments or for fixed periods, returns again and again to dwell on the nature of the Overself and disregards all lesser topics. Such frequent remembrances and such fixed meditations become indeed a kind of communion and are usually rewarded sooner or later by a glimpse.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28170 – 14.22.5.57

BN – X – D

The contemplation in memory of those glimpses will help him to weaken the power of negative thoughts and to weaken, however slightly, the very source of those thoughts, the ego.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28171 – 14.22.5.58

BN – X – D

The Lightning-flash may occur either after reason reaches the peak of its performance and has been exhausted, or by deliberately abandoning intellectual activity for the utmost faith and devotion. In both cases, one has to let go and sink back into the Nothing and stop further efforts on one's own. Sometimes, by destiny, the Lightning-flash can occur unexpectedly when no effort is made.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28172 – 14.22.5.59

BN – Z – DK

If he can come to this belief in the reality of his own higher self, he can come into all the knowledge he needs, all the help he needs, by heeding its guidance (felt intuitively) and by applying its injunctions to his daily life.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28173 – 14.22.5.60

BN – X – D

If the ego would be willing to abdicate its rule for a short period, the way to a glimpse would be opened.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28174 – 14.22.5.61

BN – Z – D

The paradox is perfect: when he is most empty of petty ends, the shining glimpse reveals itself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28175 – 14.22.5.62

BN – X – D

He must look ardently forward to, and eagerly await, each time when the Overself takes over more and more.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28176 – 14.22.5.63

BN – X – DM

Ever drawing us toward Itself, Its power to attract blocked by the layers of thoughts, emotions, desires, and passions which compose the personal self, much time and many lives are needed to unblock a passage to It.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28177 – 14.22.5.64

BN – ZZ

Follow the self's track within, not slipping down into its muddy bogs but ascending up to its diviner sources.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28178 – 14.22.5.65

BN – Z

Know Consciousness without its objects—and you are free!

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28179 – 14.22.5.66

BN – Z – D

In that condition of passive emotions and paralysed thoughts, consciousness can receive That which otherwise it shuts out.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28182 – 14.22.5.69

BN – Z

When he retreats to his centre, he has retreated to the point where the Glimpse of truth may be had.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28183 – 14.22.5.70

BN – Z

An event, a book or a person, a piece of music or a piece of landscape may bring the mind to brief spiritual consciousness.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28184 – 14.22.5.71

B_09 – ZZ

Believe in the higher Self and look up to it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28187 – 14.22.5.74

BN – Z

Sometimes one word may flash a light into his mind which goes far and wide. At other times a short phrase may do the same work for him.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28188 – 14.22.5.75

UR_6 – ZZZ – K

He realizes that he has had an important experience which will be followed at intervals by others, when he stands on the fringe of cosmic consciousness. Through proper metaphysical study, meditation practice, and philosophic action, it will not be difficult for him to come into the awareness of his own Overself to some extent, although it is difficult to acquire full consciousness in the present age, when the opposition of a materialistic society is so strong and intense. However, even to enjoy a fraction of this wider consciousness is to transform his life in every way.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28189 – 14.22.5.76

BN – X – DEK

Look back in imagination upon those wonderful glimpses and try to recapture the feeling they produced.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28190 – 14.22.5.77

BN – Z – D

Just as the lotus flower opens its buds bit by bit, so should he open his mind to this great truth.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28191 – 14.22.5.78

BN – ZZ

In becoming conscious of the not-thinking hinterground of my personality, I attain true being.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28192 – 14.22.5.79

BN – X – DK

What peace fills the mind when its thinking faculty is put out of gear in the proper way! What ever-remembered moments of illumination this happening may produce!

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > How to attract a glimpse

#28193 – 14.22.5.80

BN – Z

Everywhere in the Orient as well as the Occident, men and women seek for this glimpse but most of their attempts to gain it are unavailing ones. The explanations usually offered them for this frustrating result fall into four categories. First, they need to look harder into themselves and persevere longer at the practices. Second, they need to get God's grace. Third, they need to get a Master's grace. Fourth, their destiny was unfavourable in this matter or, if favourable, was due to maturate at a later time. All these explanations seem to have some truth in them, but which aspirant knows with any certainty which one of them—or which two in combination—apply to his or her own particular case? It seemed to me that, as with every other major event in human life obeying some law of nature, some process operated by infinite intelligence, there must be an invisible pattern behind these mystical happenings too. And when the truths of the higher philosophy were unveiled to me, I found that this was indeed so.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28194 – 14.22.5.81

BN – Z

These revealings of inner life, which put its truths before the mind so vividly, seem to come by chance to some, by working for them to others. Faith in a divinely-ordered universe tells us, and philosophy confirms, that we may be sure that they follow certain laws even when we know nothing about those laws.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28195 – 14.22.5.82

BN – Z – DEK

The glimpse is as much subject to grace as the Enlightenment which endures forever. It happens outside the man's own will, although inside his consciousness.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28196 – 14.22.5.83

BN – X – D

The gifted—rather than achieved—nature of the glimpse is much more frequent and may be seen from its unexpected manifestation at unforeseen times.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28199 – 14.22.5.86

BN – Z

The glimpse does not necessarily have to come to you during meditation, even though the work in meditation helps to bring about its occurrence. It may come at any time.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28200 – 14.22.5.87

BN – ZZ – DK1

Many Yogis are made but some are also born. Destiny transcends all training and often it needs but a mere touch of an illuminate's finger to release the pent-up stores of secret power within a soul.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28201 – 14.22.5.88

BN – Z

These glimpses come on rare occasions, for the mind's tumult is hard to still—only the Overself's Grace can do so.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28202 – 14.22.5.89

BN – Z – D

The glimpse is a blessing which is given to those who have earned it, or those who have sought it in the right spirit.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28203 – 14.22.5.90

BN – Z

These illuminative glimpses do not come at will or at once. They do not come once for all or when it pleases us. They come and go like the wind and when it pleases them. For they come by Grace.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28204 – 14.22.5.91

BN – Z

Such a mystical experience is not an after-effect of illness but the latter is used by the Overself to open the way for its reception in the conscious mentality. It is an uncommon experience, a visitation of the Overself, and a manifestation of its grace. Why it occurs could only be explained in terms of the theory of reincarnation.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28207 – 14.22.5.94

BN – Z – D

There will be a precise moment when he knows with a certitude totally and unequivocally unwavering, but until then it will more likely be unplanned, uncertain explorations. This may surprise some persons but it is still true that "the wind bloweth where it listeth. Of such is the kingdom of heaven." Or, going still farther East, in Hindu terms, "The Spirit enlightens whom it chooseth." Of course the human element of seeking and trying must be there, but in the end it is the divine element which wins out.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28208 – 14.22.5.95

BN – Z

Out of visible light which rapidly increased in intensity and drew nearer, the face and form of Jesus appeared in this twentieth century of ours to two mystics, Sundar Singh in India and Martinus in Denmark. They saw him plainly, heard him speak clearly. In both cases they were already familiar with his name and story. Out of a not very dissimilar light, Jesus appeared to Saul on the Damascus Road. He too was familiar with them. A part of the source of these visions is to be traced back to the suggestive power of the thought-form already implanted in the mind; but the other part, the sudden and dramatic and total change of heart and shift of outlook, has still to be accounted for. What is the secret? It is contact with the Overself, Grace.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28209 – 14.22.5.96

BN – X – DEK

The divine moment happens. It is the gift of grace. Its arrival is unbidden. Yet the previous longing and working for it have not been futile.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28210 – 14.22.5.97

BN – Z – DK

The significant flash of insight may come at any moment, the sacred presence of the Overself may be felt when it is not being sought, and the noble peace of reality may even visit one who has never practised any technique at all. For as the New Testament has warned him, "The wind bloweth where it listeth," and as the Katha Upanishad has informed him, "Whomsoever the Divine chooses, by him alone is It reached."

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28211 – 14.22.5.98

BN – Z – DEK

The Glimpse is sometimes given to him and sometimes created by him. Sometimes the connection between his effort and its appearance may not be visible and yet it may be there.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28212 – 14.22.5.99

BN – Z

The glimpses are not directly caused by his own endeavours. They are experiences of the working of Grace, gifts from the Overself, echoes from former lives on earth, or belated responses to his knocking on the door.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28214 – 14.22.5.101

BN – Z – D

One day there will be a response to the search of his mind for its creative inspirational source.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28216 – 14.22.5.103

BN – Z

His "I," hemmed in by its ignorance and limitations, is a small affair compared with the "I" which is drawing him onward and upward through the quest and which he must one day become. His personal self, controlled and purified, kept in its place, humbly prostrating itself before the Overself, can gratefully receive even now glimpses of that day, momentary revelations that bless the mind and put intense peace in the heart. Whoever does not feel that these affirmations apply to him but who is yet able to believe in their truth, will be befriended by grace at the time of death.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28217 – 14.22.5.104

BN – X – DEK*

The good karma or God allows him this glimpse of a loftier world in which he could live and thus put his personal turmoil to flight.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28218 – 14.22.5.105

BN – ZZ – DK

If with the purpose of seeking to disidentify himself with the ego a man practises the necessary self-denial, makes the requisite sacrifices, and trains his thoughts and feelings, after a certain time and at a certain point of his path the forces of heaven will come to him to complete the work which he has started.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28219 – 14.22.5.106

BN – X – D

One should be profoundly grateful for even a single glimpse. It is a grant of grace.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Essentially grace-given

#28220 – 14.22.5.107

BN – X – D

When the sacred moment comes, let him not hesitate to let himself go, to adore the Overself ecstatically, and to let his heart be ravished.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28221 – 14.22.5.108

BN – X – D

The Overself throws out a clue to its existence and presence. This comes in various ways to different persons. One form is a delicate feeling drawing him inward either to deeper thought or to no thought at all. If he goes along with it even though hardly aware and half-involuntarily, he will be led by this clue to a glimpse.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28223 – 14.22.5.110

BN – X – D

He should learn to recognize that these moments, which come so suddenly and so delightfully, have a special value. As soon as they come he ought to suspend all activities, put aside whatever it is that he is doing, even stop what he is speaking, and concentrate all his attention in a passive submissive way upon the delicate feelings and deep understanding that come with them.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28224 – 14.22.5.111

BN – X – D

He may feel his attention being suddenly but gently drawn inwards. The moment this occurs, he should at once pay the fullest heed to this subtle whisper from the Overself, which it really is. It will pay him handsomely to drop for a few minutes whatever else he may be doing at that time. For if he does turn inwards, as he is directed to do, the whisper will grow quickly into a loud call, which will overwhelm his whole being. And as he gives himself up utterly to such listening, he will—and here we are speaking metaphorically only—be led into the sacred precincts of the Overself. The visit may be very brief, but it will also be very beautiful, finely refreshing, and greatly enlightening.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28226 – 14.22.5.113

BN – X – D

There are moments when the Overself gets at a man's consciousness, and rarer moments when he gets at Its consciousness. It is his profit to extend them, if he can, or to dwell long and often on their memory, if he cannot. What he needs to cultivate is both the facility and the capacity to expand the slightest premonitory movement of the door of intuitive awareness to the widest opening of it. Whenever he notices the very slightest indrawing to the Overself, whenever the least feeling of Its onset appears, he should at once begin to wrap himself around with the felt influence to the exclusion of everything else.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28227 – 14.22.5.114

BN – X – DEK

Let go, let thoughts come to rest, let the ego go. This is the best preparation to receive the glimpse, to invite and feel its bliss, wiping out the memories of suffering.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28228 – 14.22.5.115

B_01 – ZZZ – DK

Whenever a glimpse is given to him, he should stretch its duration to the utmost. This can be markedly helped by being very careful to keep his physical position unchanged, by not even slightly moving hand or foot or trunk. The perfectly still body offers the best condition for retaining the perfectly still mind. If attention is to be placed anywhere in the body, it should be placed in the region of the heart.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28229 – 14.22.5.116

BN – X – D

The sudden but gentle drawing away from outer activity to the inner one, "the melting away in the heart," as Oriental mystics call it, felt actually inside the middle-chest region, may make itself felt occasionally, or, in an advanced or regular meditator, every day. In the last case it will tend to appear at around the same hour each time. This is a call which ought to be treated properly with all the reverence it deserves. But before it can be honoured it must be recognized. Its marks of identification must be studied in books, learned from experience, gleaned from the statements of other persons, or obtained from a personal teacher. When it comes, the man should heed the signal, drop whatever he is doing, and obey the unuttered command to turn inwards, to practise remembrance, or to enter meditation.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28230 – 14.22.5.117

BN – Z – K1

The experience is capturable not by the self's grasping hand but by its loving surrender. This is the paradox.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28235 – 14.22.5.122

BN – Z

It must be something which 'possesses him', not something which he possesses.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28236 – 14.22.5.123

BN – X – K

These glorious moments must be appraised for what they are, and not received with just casual enjoyment. They are gifts from heaven.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28237 – 14.22.5.124

BN – Z

Anti-technique': If he regards it egoistically as a new "experience," then it will have to share the transient character of all experience and come to an inevitable end. If, however, he has been taught and trained by metaphysical reflection to regard it impersonally as a realization of something which was always there, which always was and shall be, and if he is morally ready for it—if, in short, he recognizes it as the experience of his own self to which he did not attend before—then it may not lapse.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28238 – 14.22.5.125

BN – Z

As he receives an influx of light from the Overself, the Glimpse is experienced. But only to the degree that he has previously prepared, molded, and purified himself will he experience it correctly, completely, and safely.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28239 – 14.22.5.126

BN – Z – D

The less he lets anything disturb the full impact of this experience, the deeper will be the impression it makes. The glimpse requires a complete concentration.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28242 – 14.22.5.129

BN – Z – DK

Meet these first moments of the Glimpse's onset with instant acceptance and warm love. Then you cannot fail to enter the experience itself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28243 – 14.22.5.130

BN – X – D

When this glorious feeling comes over him, whether at a gentle pace or with a lively rush, he should accept the gift straightaway.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28244 – 14.22.5.131

BN – Z

He may sit or stand there, where it caught him, mesmerized by the glimpse, permeated by its tranquillity.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28245 – 14.22.5.132

BN – Z

When the personal "me" stops the endless struggle for a while and remains quiet, inactive, and passive, the impersonal "I Who Am" arises and, little by little, gently suffuses it with new life and heals it with great love.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28246 – 14.22.5.133

BN – ZZ – DK

When the feel of this unusual and ethereal presence suffuses the heart, the first duty is to drop all attention elsewhere and respond to it. This response is not only to be immediate, unhesitating, and unquestioning; it must also be warm, loving, grateful, and joyous.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28247 – 14.22.5.134

BN – X – D

Once he catches that feeling of happy stillness, he should not let himself leave it on any excuse whatever—for thoughts will invade him and try to drag him away. He should refuse to disturb his tranquillity even for thoughts about the nature, working, and effects of the stillness itself! One objective alone should be with him, and that is to become absorbed more and more deeply in this happy state, until every idea, concept, decision, or impulse is dissolved in it. Any other objective will only invite loss of the Glimpse.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28248 – 14.22.5.135

BN – Z – D

If it comes without preliminary meditation, then it will probably come unexpectedly and suddenly. Therefore a certain amount of either knowledge or experience is required to recognize the authentic signs of its onset and to detect the precious opportunity which offers itself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28249 – 14.22.5.136

BN – ZZ – DK

He must first identify its real character when he feels its presence, and then be passive to facilitate its onset.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28250 – 14.22.5.137

BN – Z

In this experience, the more he can let himself be lost in the feeling of ecstatic peace and egoless understanding, opening his total personality to it, the more will it become a milestone on his road. As such he will look for its inspiration again and again in memory.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28252 – 14.22.5.139

BN – Z

Sometimes sleep must be sacrificed to let the glimpse become more than a flash, to let it expand and settle a while in all its healing serenity. This is important, for it is a special opportunity although seldom understood at its true value.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28254 – 14.22.5.141

BN – Z

Acknowledge the inner call when it comes by simply dropping whatever you are doing and relax, be it for a minute or a half-hour. Let consciousness turn away from the world to Consciousness, attend to Attention, but do it all passively, receptively.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28255 – 14.22.5.142

BN – X – D

These glimpses do not come often enough to be treated casually. Their importance is easily missed in their subtle outset, but the intuitive mind will begin to learn to recognize the signs of these beginnings, to consider them sacred, and to let them do their work unhindered. This work is something like a magician's throwing of a spell over the mind.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28257 – 14.22.5.144

BN – Z – K

Surrender to it as to a piece of music. Let it take possession of you while it lasts, for it will not last. The music reaches its finale and so does the glimpse. The oscillation that is life in the body, the movement to-and-fro between the pairs of opposites, cannot be kept still, inoperative, for more than a fraction of time.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28259 – 14.22.5.146

B_09 – ZZ

When the glimpse starts, it is best to remain still, and in the same bodily position whether sitting or standing, with eyes fixed at the same point.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28260 – 14.22.5.147

BN – X – DK

The moment he feels this inner hush, the possibility of developing it is presented to him. But will he use it? Or will he ignore it and thus remain unmindful of his divine source?

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28264 – 14.22.5.151

BN – Z

If the signals show the probability of an impending glimpse, it is an error to neglect them just because he is preoccupied with something. Better to lay aside the immediate activity and wait, relaxed and receptive, to welcome the likely visitation.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Accepting, cultivating the glimpse

#28271 – 14.22.5.158

BN – X – D

The Glimpse will be at its best when his ego is not present to interfere with it. Such interference can not only come from its misinterpretations and distortions, against which philosophy so constantly warns its disciples, but also from the self-consciousness which wants him to notice how the experience is happening, to analyse what effect it is having, and to observe the reactions of other people to it. All these may be done but not then, not at the same time as the glimpse itself. Instead, they may be studied afterwards, when his consciousness has resumed its ordinary state. During the glimpse, he must let himself be completely surrendered to it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28278 – 14.22.5.165

BN – X – DM1

Why try to predetermine what, by its very nature, is beyond your reach? Why not let the Overself reveal its existence in its own way? For the moment you introduce your own conception of what it ought to be and insist that it shall be allied to, or governed by, this conception, in that moment you become diverted from the pure and true mystical experience of the Overself into an adulterated and imperfect one.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28279 – 14.22.5.166

BN – Z

The concentration upon the glimpse must be full, complete, and sustained. If, for only a single moment, he allows his attention to be diverted toward some outer thing or person, or to be divided with some inner idea, the glimpse may instantly disappear.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28281 – 14.22.5.168

BN – Z – DM1

It is not that they are wholly insensitive to the touch of the Overself, but that they keep on pushing it away from themselves. And this they do for various reasons, according to their individual nature and situation.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28282 – 14.22.5.169

BN – Z

The moment you seek to keep the glimpse as your own, it is gone.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28283 – 14.22.5.170

BN – Z

If he complains that the glimpse does not last, he should understand that it cannot last. Unless the mind and the heart are previously put into a properly prepared state to receive it, they will soon reject it. The process of rejection, however, is an unconscious one, for the active agents in it are the restlessness of his thoughts, the negativity of his emotions, the identification with the body, the strength of his desires and, in fact, all those things which constitute his ego. The forces which keep him apart from the higher state are within his personal self and not within that state. If he is unable to retain it, it is because he needs further purification and preparation, and its departure is really a signal indicating this need.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28284 – 14.22.5.171

BN – X – D

The glimpse is hard to get but easy to lose. It slips away if he interferes with it by becoming intellectually analytic or emotionally conceited during its brief reign.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28285 – 14.22.5.172

BN – Z – D

It is the easiest of things to lose the glimpse. For when attention is transferred from it to any physical activity whatever, and however necessary, if it is NOT guarded with the utmost care, it will slip from you.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28286 – 14.22.5.173

BN – Z

In the glow of the experience any attempt to analyse it destroys it. Let it explain itself. Do not bring it within the narrower walls of the intellect. For then you bring in the ego and unwittingly dismiss the Overself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28287 – 14.22.5.174

BN – Z

In those first few moments of its beginning the glimpse is so fragile, so vulnerable, that even a small movement of interest elsewhere is likely to bring it to a premature end.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28289 – 14.22.5.176

BN – X – D

This inward feeling may easily be lost if he gives himself up wholly to the world, if he lets life's trivialities or difficulties absorb it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28292 – 14.22.5.179

BN – Z

Many have experienced the early beginnings of a glimpse but, failing to recognize it, have aborted it unwittingly by inattention to this delicate feeling.

Inspiration and the Overself > Preparing for Glimpses > Factors hindering the glimpse

#28295 – 14.22.5.182

BN – Z – DK

These glimpses come at the most unexpected of times and in the most unexpected places. It is not possible to be dogmatic about their appearance and be correct at the same time. Reports have been received which reveal that they may come abruptly during the strain and pressure of business or professional activity, as well as during the relaxation of leisure hours, at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the day, during pleasurable periods or amid great suffering.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28296 – 14.22.6.1

BSG_5 – P – DE

The Overself's take-over is not always the same but changes with the time and the occasion, the person and the place. It may be gentle, quiet, almost unmarked at first, or it may be like a tremendous force, commanding and irresistible.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28297 – 14.22.6.2

BN – Z – D

The experience may come on gently in moods of relaxation or flash abruptly after a period of emotional or intellectual tension.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28298 – 14.22.6.3

BN – Z

Sometimes he will definitely feel that he is being led into an experience, a mood, or an idea. At other times he may feel himself being drawn inward quite deeply as if the very roots of his egoic being were penetrated; more rarely as if he has been drawn beyond the ego itself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28299 – 14.22.6.4

BN – Z

When this consciousness takes hold of a man, it takes him by surprise. Infinity is so utterly different from what he was experiencing a few minutes earlier that its wonder, its truth, its beauty, its love fill him abruptly, as if in descent from the skies.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28300 – 14.22.6.5

BN – Z – D

When the humour of a particular situation or scene, happening or idea strikes a person he may burst out into sudden laughter. It is not long-forming but explosive, not built-up like a wall brick-by-brick but flashed across the darkness like lightning. His mind has this possibility of an abrupt move, an unexpected leap. Just so does it still possess this same possibility with regard to the discovery of truth.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28304 – 14.22.6.9

BN – Z

Enlightenment is always "sudden" in the sense that during meditation or reverie or relaxation the preliminary thought-concentrating gestatory period usually moves through consciousness quite slowly until, at some unexpected moment, there is an abrupt deepening, followed by a slipping into another dimension, a finding oneself alive in a new atmosphere.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28305 – 14.22.6.10

BN – Z

A passing sign of progress in arousing latent forces and a physical indication that he is on the eve of noteworthy mystical experience may be a sudden unexpected vibratory movement in the region of the abdomen, in the solar plexus. It usually comes when he has been relaxed for a short time from the daily cares, or after retiring to bed for the night. The diaphragmatic muscle will appear to tremble violently and something will seem to surge to and fro like a snake behind the solar plexus. This bodily agitation will soon subside and be followed by a pleasant calm and out of this calm there will presently arise a sense of unusual power, of heightened control over the animal nature and human self. With this there may also come a clear intuition about some truth needed at the time and a revelatory expansion of consciousness into supersensual reality.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28306 – 14.22.6.11

BN – X – K1

These moods descend without invitation and depart without permission.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28307 – 14.22.6.12

BN – Z

This is the crucial point when ordinary compulsive mental activity fades away and stillness supervenes, perhaps very briefly, perhaps for some minutes.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28308 – 14.22.6.13

BN – Z

For some time he is tense with the feeling of being about to receive a new revelation.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28309 – 14.22.6.14

BN – Z

Each time the glimpse comes, it is as if it had never come before, so fresh, so sparkling is its never-failing wonder.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28311 – 14.22.6.16

BN – Z

The belief, which prevails in Japan, China, and other lands, in a sudden abrupt enlightenment when one thinks quietly or says aloud, "Ah! so this is IT," has a factual basis. This 'satori', as the Japanese call it, may be either a temporary or a permanent glimpse.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28313 – 14.22.6.18

BN – Z

Although such glimpses come mostly when a man is alone, come in quiet solitude, they need not do so. They have sometimes come to him in a crowded street or on a well-filled ship.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28315 – 14.22.6.20

BN – Z

The beginner usually has to go through an emotional experience in order to receive a mystical experience, but the proficient is under no necessity to do so.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28317 – 14.22.6.22

BN – X – D

In that moment he feels on the very verge of eternity, about to lose himself in its impersonal depths.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28320 – 14.22.6.25

BN – Z – D

When the opportunity to gain a glimpse of his Overself draws near, it will be foreshadowed by certain happenings, either of an inward or an outward nature, or both.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28321 – 14.22.6.26

BN – Z – D

The glimpse often comes unexpectedly and suddenly. If it comes while he is outdoors and walking a city street, he will automatically and unconsciously slow his pace and sometimes even come to a complete standstill.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28322 – 14.22.6.27

BN – Z

They may come quite abruptly, those intensely lived moments of true vision, those spasmodic glimpses of a beauty and truth above the best which earthly life offers. The mind then rests and there is a gap in its usual activities, a Void out of which these heavenly experiences come to life as they overcome our ordinary feelings.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28323 – 14.22.6.28

BN – Z – DK

In those earlier days when I was struggling to get established, the glimpse would come upon me in the most incongruous as well as the most likely occasions. One of these frequent but strange times was when I bent down to tie or untie the laces of my shoes.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28324 – 14.22.6.29

BN – Z

The Overself takes over his identity not by obliterating it but by including it through its surrender.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28325 – 14.22.6.30

BN – Z – D

The glimpse state may come on in different ways. Sometimes it disinclines the man from moving. But if he must attend to some matter which requires him to go across a room or out of the house, his feet will seem to move of themselves, but very, very slowly.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28326 – 14.22.6.31

BN – Z

Before the glimpse can occur, the aspirant may have to pass through a major crisis of his inner life, sometimes of his outer life too. The mental pressure and emotional strain may leave him feeling utterly confused, perhaps even utterly forlorn. But its sudden culmination in the glimpse will replace darkness by light, chaos by direction, and blindness by sight.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28327 – 14.22.6.32

BN – ZZ

The idea, ideal person, inspired prophet, or human redeemer whose image is best established in a person's mind by custom and familiarity is in most cases the channel used by the Overself when bestowing the glimpse.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28332 – 14.22.6.37

BN – Z

Little by little the stress dissolves, the clamant duties to do this or that fall away as the recognition that this is a benedictory visitation comes closer.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28333 – 14.22.6.38

BN – Z

The glimpse may move so gently into awareness that the beginning is hardly noticed. Or it may move in with a rush that overwhelms him. With it, knowledge, understanding, meaning, nobility, and divinity fill the aura around him at the moment.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28334 – 14.22.6.39

BN – Z – D

It is the awareness of a Presence, a felt but hushed benignity, which signals this kind of entry, this glimpse; but there are other kinds, more forceful yet not more superior.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28335 – 14.22.6.40

BN – Z

If the glimpse comes unexpectedly in most cases, it comes unaccountedly in others.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28336 – 14.22.6.41

BN – Z

The glimpse may come in the depth of meditation where expectancy places it. But it may also come at unexpected moments.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28340 – 14.22.6.45

BN – Z – D

And then the long looked-for event will happen. A presence, nay a power, will suddenly make itself felt and control him out of himself by an irresistible impetus moving like a tidal wave.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28341 – 14.22.6.46

BN – Z

The glimpses are not controllable. They come or go without consulting us.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28343 – 14.22.6.48

BN – Z – D

The glimpse may come only once or twice in a lifetime to one quester yet repeat itself twentyfold to another person.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28344 – 14.22.6.49

BN – Z – D

There are scattered moments of inner rapture underived from earthly things, although they may be started off by earthly things.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28345 – 14.22.6.50

BN – Z

The coming of a glimpse is not predictable, although it may be encouraged by contact with Nature, appreciation of art, or practice of meditation. It is less predictable than the clearing of haze which so often hovers over the nearby Swiss lake. "The wind bloweth where it listeth," said Jesus in this connection.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28348 – 14.22.6.53

BN – Z

There are moments when all his acutest thought-movement is stilled and he finds himself bereft of power, forced into utter submission to the divine Overself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28349 – 14.22.6.54

BN – Z – DK

If it starts with a faint awareness of being caught in a still moment, it ends in a full experience.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28350 – 14.22.6.55

BN – Z

The glimpse shows up something of his higher identity. What is interesting also is that its advent is unpredictable, its form changeable: but it is always fascinating.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > How a glimpse comes in

#28351 – 14.22.6.56

BN – Z – DEK

The glimpse is what the name purports to be and should not be regarded as something more, as the fullest opening of the mind to divine truth. But naturally, because there are different capacities and temperaments in different persons, one glimpse may be wider than another, or take a less similar form.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28354 – 14.22.6.59

BN – Z

The Glimpses are not completely uniform in their details. In each one there is different emphasis on a particular aspect, such as its Beauty, Power, Impersonality, or Emptiness.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28355 – 14.22.6.60

BN – Z – D

Since no two human beings are exactly alike, whether in body or mind, the kind of glimpse which each one gets, the way in which he or she feels and finds the Overself's pressure, is entirely according to personal needs and not according to a fixed stereotyped pattern for all.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28356 – 14.22.6.61

BN – Z

All men who win through to the world of their higher self, enter the same world. If their reports differ, as they do, that is not because the experiences differ but because the men themselves differ. Nevertheless a comparative examination of all available reports will show that there is still a golden thread of similarity running through them, a highest common factor of perception.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28357 – 14.22.6.62

BN – Z

The first occasion when this happens brings a thrill of wonder. This is of course due in part to the tremendous nature of the Overself's discovery, but it is also due to its novelty, to the fact that it was never previously experienced. Hence the thrill cannot come again, cannot be repeated even though the experience itself may be repeated several times; but the wonder will always remain.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28358 – 14.22.6.63

BN – Z

There is the deepest feeling in the glimpse, but this does not at all mean it is hysterical. It may be extremely quiet. It may be strongly passionate, in which case it will be completely under control—not by the ego but by the higher power.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28359 – 14.22.6.64

BN – Z

When he begins to know himself as he really is, when he experiences this wondrous touch of the Untouch, he feels truly alive.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28360 – 14.22.6.65

BN – Z

The amazing clearness of the whole revelation and the certainty beyond all possible doubt which accompanies it are only two of its features. An extraordinary inspired elation—emotional, intellectual, and intuitive—is a third feature, with a diffused sense of well-being as its consequence or its corollary.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28361 – 14.22.6.66

BN – Z

The points of this experience are the difficulty of describing it precisely, the joy it yields and the peace it brings, the feeling of a finer self and the sense of a higher presence, the appraisal of its preciousness and the fading away of worldly desires.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28362 – 14.22.6.67

BN – Z – D

In that blessed moment he finds himself free in a way never before felt. For he finds himself without the perplexities of the intellect and without the schemings of the ego.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28363 – 14.22.6.68

BN – Z

When the two are one, when ego and Overself no longer remain at a distance from one another, man experiences his first illumination. What will happen thereafter is wrapped in mystery.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28364 – 14.22.6.69

BSG_4 – Z – D

In this brief interval when he feels himself to be in the presence of the Overself, when goodwill, peace, and wisdom become living eternal realities rather than mere mocking words, the littleness vanishes from life and a sacred grandeur replaces it.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28365 – 14.22.6.70

BN – Z – D

He feels elated, lifted up beyond his normal self, intensely happy without having any particular physical cause to account for his happiness. He feels too that there is goodness at the heart of things and an urge to share this goodness with all others. And lastly, the burden of past sins and ancient errors falls from his shoulders. He has become cleansed, purified, made whole.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28368 – 14.22.6.73

BN – Z

These splendid moments, so filled with flashes of beauty and goodness, so tremendous in meaning and perspective, are like peeps into Paradise.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28369 – 14.22.6.74

BN – Z – D

All through his spiritual career he has dreamt of this first blissful and unique moment when he would enter the Overself's awareness.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28370 – 14.22.6.75

BN – Z

In these blessed moments he loves God and knows that he is loved by God.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28371 – 14.22.6.76

BN – Z

The experience is feeling blent with knowing, but the feeling is as delicious as peach-blossom and the knowing is as certain as sunrise.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28372 – 14.22.6.77

BN – Z

In finding the godlike within himself, he finds also the Good. And from that stems forth goodwill toward all. It is really love active on a higher plane, love purified of self and cleansed of grossness.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28373 – 14.22.6.78

BN – Z

Glimpses vary much in their nature. Some are soft, mild and delicate, quiet and restrained; others are ecstatic, rapturous, and excited. All give some sort of uplift, exaltation, enlightenment, or revelation and also to varying degrees.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28374 – 14.22.6.79

BN – ZZ – DK1

PB: "I remember the first time I had this astonishing experience. I was fond of disappearing from London whenever the weather allowed and wandering alongside the river Thames in its more picturesque country parts. If the day was sunny I would stretch my feet out, lie down in the grass, pull out notebook and pen from my pocket—knowing that thoughts would eventually arise that would have for me an instructive or even revelatory nature, apart from those ordinary ones which were merely expressive. One day, while I was waiting for these thoughts to arise, I lost the feeling that I was there at all. I seemed to dissolve and vanish from that place, but not from consciousness. Something was there, a presence, certainly not me, but I was fully aware of it. It seemed to be something of the highest importance, the only thing that mattered. After a few minutes I came back, discovered myself in time and space again; but a great peace had touched me and a very benevolent feeling was still with me. I looked at the trees, the shrubs, the flowers, and the grass and felt a tremendous sympathy with them and then when I thought of other persons a tremendous benevolence towards them."

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28375 – 14.22.6.80

BN – ZZZ – DEK1

In this mysterious moment the two are one. He no longer abides with the mere images of reality. He is now in the authentic world of reality itself.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28376 – 14.22.6.81

BN – Z – DK1

There are three stages in each glimpse. The initial one brings a soft feeling of its gentle approach. The second carries the man to its peak of upliftment, enlightenment, and peace. The final one draws him down again into a fading glow which occupies the mind's background and later survives only in memory.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28377 – 14.22.6.82

BN – Z – DM1

It is a state of exquisite tenderness, of love welling up from an inner centre and radiating outward in all directions. If other human beings or animal creatures come within his contact at the time, they become recipients of this love without exception. For then no enemies are recognized, none are disliked, and it is not possible to regard anyone as repulsive.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28378 – 14.22.6.83

A250814 – ZZZ – DK1

The mood is exhilarative without being excitable, centered in reality without losing touch with this pseudo-real world.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28379 – 14.22.6.84

BN – Z

He may find himself lost at times in short periods of absent-mindedness. It may be in the sound of a bubbling brook or some lovely music or some striking lines of memorable prose. With that he forgets cares and peace wells up within him. Such an experience comes close to the mystical glimpse, only the mystic's consciousness moves on a higher level. He seeks a diviner life, a finer soul, inner peace.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28380 – 14.22.6.85

BN – Z

For a fraction of the hour, time suddenly and uniquely steps aside, Isis is unveiled and the real beauty of Being exhibits itself: All is suspended in this glimpse, all is stillness and grace.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28381 – 14.22.6.86

BN – Z

The memory of a first glimpse is imperishable. It is a love-experience along with a birth of knowledge, all under an enchanter's spell.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28382 – 14.22.6.87

BN – Z

When the highly personal egocentric attitude is first displaced by the Overself, there is a sense of sharp liberation and utter relief.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28383 – 14.22.6.88

BN – Z

In those glorious experiences, he seems to live a charmed existence, above all that distressed him before, beyond all the hideous negatives which the world obtrudes on his notice, secure in a spiritual ivory tower shimmering with inner light all around.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28384 – 14.22.6.89

BN – Z

There is the peace which comes from having a well-filled stomach. There is the peace of the graveyard. But a glimpse gives us the highest peace, the 'Shanti' of Indian sages, that 'which passeth understanding' of the New Testament.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28387 – 14.22.6.92

BN – Z

The world's dirt seems so remote from these moods of complete goodness as to seem non-existent, or a mere vaporous mist at most.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28388 – 14.22.6.93

BN – Z

With the glimpse a feeling overspreads his heart of benevolence towards all living creatures—not only human but also animal and not only animal but even plant. He would not, could not knowingly harm a single one. The Christians call this love, the Buddhists compassion, the Hindus oneness. My own term is goodwill, but all are right. These are different facets, as seen from different points.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28389 – 14.22.6.94

BN – Z – DEK

In this wonderful state he becomes keenly aware of the love that is at the core of the universe, and therefore at his own core too. But he not only absorbs it, he also radiates it. It is not something to be held selfishly, like a material possession. As it is received, so is it given.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28390 – 14.22.6.95

BN – Z

There are exquisite moments when all existence seems elevated to a higher plane, when one's individual being is absorbed in a harmony with all things.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28392 – 14.22.6.97

BN – Z – D

There is a self which he feels within him yet it is not himself. Something unknown yet joy-giving.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28395 – 14.22.6.100

BN – Z

Some dynamic force streams though the blood in his veins, the feeling in his heart, and the will in his innermost being. It is no ordinary force, for he knows that never or rarely has he experienced its like before. There is magic in its movement, enchantment in its effect.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28396 – 14.22.6.101

BN – Z

The things of the world fall far away from you and a great spell will seemingly be put upon the leaping mind till you remember little of name, or kin, or country, and care less. You lie in the lap of a shining mood, granted respite from heavy cares and given relaxation from corrosive thoughts. You become aware of the secret undercurrent of holy peace which flows silently beneath the heart.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28397 – 14.22.6.102

BN – Z

Although his general experience of it will be of its gentleness, there will be times when he will feel only an authoritative and commanding force in it, when tremendous power will manifest and rule in some episode or event.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28398 – 14.22.6.103

BN – Z

He may have a vague feeling of some immaterial presence around or within himself, a presence uplifting, ennobling, unworldly.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28399 – 14.22.6.104

BN – Z

Not only is the kingdom of heaven within us but we are ourselves within the kingdom. We may discover this as a psychic and visual experience, as some do, or simply as a feeling-and-knowing experience that All is God.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28400 – 14.22.6.105

BN – Z

It is a transparence because he feels open, letting in a rare mood. It is also a transcendence, because he feels lifted out of his ordinary "I" and put down again on a higher level.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28401 – 14.22.6.106

BN – Z

Reverence for the divine presence filled my heart, awe at the divine wonder permeated my mind.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28402 – 14.22.6.107

BN – Z

He will feel spontaneous peace that comes from he knows not where, intellectual conviction that the right path has been found, mysterious detachment that takes hold of him during worldly temptations and worldly tribulations alike.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28403 – 14.22.6.108

BN – Z – D

When you are in this wider consciousness you are at home. Outwardly you may be without a roof to shelter your head but still you will feel protected, secure, and provided for. Your feeling and your trust are not groundless. For the outward manifestation of this inward care will follow.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28404 – 14.22.6.109

BN – Z – DM*

You will comprehend that while the Overself thus enfolds you, you can never again feel lonely, never again find the sky turned black because some human love has been denied or been withdrawn from you.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28405 – 14.22.6.110

BN – Z – D

It is there, in the deep centre of himself, that he finds holiness and liberation.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28406 – 14.22.6.111

BN – Z

From the physical standpoint, the ego first becomes aware of the Overself as being located in the heart. But in higher mystical experience, this awareness is free from any bodily relationship.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28407 – 14.22.6.112

BN – Z

A feeling of lightness and freedom, of songlike well-being and perfect harmony, comes with this disidentification from the body.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28408 – 14.22.6.113

BN – Z – D

He feels a rightness about the world-plan and a loveliness in some deeper part of himself. It may remain for a little while only but its memory will remain for long years.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28410 – 14.22.6.115

BN – Z

In this lofty mood, bringing so much goodwill and insight with it, as it does, he is inclined to ignore misunderstanding and hostility from any quarter which caused him resentment or even suffering in the past.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28411 – 14.22.6.116

BN – ZZ

The illumination falls into the mind suddenly and I neither will it nor expect it. There is nothing of the "me" in it. That falls off my shoulders as if it were an extremely heavy and uncomfortable garment.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28412 – 14.22.6.117

BN – Z

In that great light all his ego's affairs and concerns seem of small dimension; beside that ethereal beneficence all the world's evil and madness seems like a quickly receding nightmare.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28413 – 14.22.6.118

BN – Z

This is his first thrilling discovery of the Overself's existence, his first incontestable evidence of its power. No later experience can equal it in emotional feeling. It is one of the really momentous points of his life.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28414 – 14.22.6.119

BN – ZZ – D

It is a glimpse of heaven, lifting the mind out of this world and liberating the heart from all that ties it down.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28415 – 14.22.6.120

BN – Z

This it is to be "born again," to transcend ordinary experience and become aware of a layer of being within the self which is neither sensual nor rational. Nor is it even emotional in the narrow sense except that egocentric feeling is quite definitely and quite richly present. But it is calm, quiet, deep, detached, and elevated.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28417 – 14.22.6.122

BN – Z

It is an ennobling experience, shaking out for a few minutes or hours all that is base in a man, all that is mean, small-hearted, and narrow-minded. But perhaps even more marvellous than that is the enormous contentment with which it fills him. Desires dissolve, and with them the frustration, the anxiety, the hopelessness, and the expectancy that accompany them when they remain unfulfilled.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28418 – 14.22.6.123

BN – Z

These glimpses are encounters with divinity. There is a quality about them which separates them from all the other contacts and encounters of life.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28420 – 14.22.6.125

BN – Z – D

This Stillness is called, in the New Testament, "the peace which passeth understanding." It is perhaps the chief feature of the glimpse.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28421 – 14.22.6.126

BN – Z

That memorable moment when he first opens the door of Consciousness will clear doubt, sanctify feeling, and balance the entire life.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28422 – 14.22.6.127

BN – Z

This new sense of being liberated from the confining measurements of his own ego, unimpeded by attachments and embroilments, carried beyond the vicious passions to inward equipoise, is unimaginably satisfying.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28423 – 14.22.6.128

BN – Z

In those moments of inward glory all his life expands. His intelligence advances and his goodness perceives new vistas of growth. Heaven opens out for a while in his emotional world.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28424 – 14.22.6.129

BN – Z

When he steps forth from the ego's timed life into the Overself's liberating timelessness, the feeling of confinement falls away like a heavy cloak. He enjoys an unimagined exhilaration.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28425 – 14.22.6.130

BN – ZZ – DK

This wonderful and exquisite feeling is really within himself, only he transfers it unconsciously to the scenes and persons outside himself and thus perceives goodness and beauty everywhere.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28427 – 14.22.6.132

BN – Z – D

If it begins quietly and unassumingly, it ends deeply—with the sensation of having entered briefly and memorably a higher world of being.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28428 – 14.22.6.133

BN – Z – D

If the intercourse of man and woman is the most intimate act in the lives of both, the conscious contact of a human being with the Overself is even more intimate still.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28429 – 14.22.6.134

BN – X – D

His consciousness is lifted up into another world of being; his little self is in communication with the Overself; his perception of truth is instantly translated into power to live that truth.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28430 – 14.22.6.135

BN – Z – D

The peace of these moments, whether achieved by meditation or received by grace, yields a rich satisfying happiness. Why? Because all those thoughts, desires, attachments, and aversions which compose the ego fade away and leave consciousness free.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28432 – 14.22.6.137

BN – Z

These first experiences of feeling raised to transfiguring peaks should not be expected to reproduce themselves often. They are necessarily rare sensations. Nor, when they do repeat themselves, can they come in precisely the same form and with the same initial intensity.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28434 – 14.22.6.139

BN – Z

At such moments he is filled with a flowing inspiration, a splendid hope, a vivid understanding.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28436 – 14.22.6.141

BN – Z

With both the brief Glimpse and the lasting Fulfilment comes a strong feeling of release. This refers to release from all the various kinds of limitation and restriction which have hemmed and oppressed him heretofore.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28437 – 14.22.6.142

BN – Z – D

Like a prisoner emerging from a gloomy cell after many years or an invalid liberated from long confinement in a hospital bed, he will feel an overwhelming sense of relief as the glimpse deepens and all cares, all burdens, fade away.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28438 – 14.22.6.143

BN – Z – DEK

There is an air of 'effectiveness' in the experience which accompanies the glimpse, a feeling that here is real power ready for use and easy to use, in the way that the Overself directs, of course.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28439 – 14.22.6.144

BN – Z

It is like the feeling of returning to a well-beloved home after long absence, a joy whose arisal is spontaneous and unavoidable.

Inspiration and the Overself > Experiencing a Glimpse > Characteristics of glimpses

#28440 – 14.22.6.145

BN – Z – D