CITAS - WEB-UR

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

When the glimpse is at its most, he hears within him the harmony of things like a joyous song.

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

#28441 – 14.22.6.146

BN – Z
The base, the mean, the unworthy, and the low seem alien and far from him: the noble, the high, the true, and the ideal seem to become his own very nature. From this rare contact he draws an unspeakable peace, a divine upliftment.

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

#28443 – 14.22.6.148

BN – Z – DK
Too many lives have a hard grey colour about them. The glimpse changes this, for an hour or a day, and puts a delicate pastel beauty in its place.

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

#28444 – 14.22.6.149

BN – Z
All that is negative in his character fades away for the time of this glimpse, as if it had never existed. For he feels that there is pure harmony at the heart of things, within the universe's Mind, and that he has momentarily touched it.

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

#28445 – 14.22.6.150

BN – Z
In these enchanted moments, all life takes on the shadowlike quality of a dream.

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

#28446 – 14.22.6.151

BN – X – D
The gulf between the impersonal calm of his present state and the egotistical emotion of his earlier one, is immense.

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

#28447 – 14.22.6.152

BN – Z
The sudden Olympian elation which the glimpse gives, the unfamiliar feeling that it is like looking through a window on an entirely different and wholly glorious world of being, the inner knowing that this is reality—these things make it a benediction.

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

#28448 – 14.22.6.153

BN – Z – D
When he is in that consciousness, there is nothing either in place or time which he wants. For his mind is in peace.

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

#28449 – 14.22.6.154

BN – Z
It is a strange paradox that in this experience although a man becomes infinitely humbler—for he has to be passive to surrender, if it is to happen at all—he finds at the same time an immense dignity within himself.

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

#28450 – 14.22.6.155

BN – Z
The sense of well-being which comes with a glimpse spreads into the body, lights up the mind, glows in the emotions.

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

#28452 – 14.22.6.157

BN – Z
In its enfolding peace, he will lose his earthly burdens for a time; by its brooding wisdom, he will comprehend the necessity of renunciation; through its mysterious spell, he will confer grace on suffering men.

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

#28453 – 14.22.6.158

BN – Z
As its beauty seeps into him and affects his entire feeling-nature, all his grievances against other men, against life itself, dissolve.

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

#28454 – 14.22.6.159

BN – ZZ
All regrets for the past, complaints about the present, and grumbles over the future, pass away. Even more, all contempt or hatred for other men passes too.

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

#28455 – 14.22.6.160

BN – Z
With the discovery of this higher self, there comes a conviction of truth gained, a sense of perfect assurance, and a feeling of happy calmness.

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

#28457 – 14.22.6.162

BN – ZZ
The glimpse will affect each individual in a different way, although the feeling of stepping out of darkness into light will be common to all.

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

#28458 – 14.22.6.163

BN – X – D
It is not merely feeling to which he gives himself up, but being into which he settles.

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

#28459 – 14.22.6.164

BN – Z
The conception alone of a peace which is out of this world is simply daring: its realization is utterly gorgeous in beauty and joyous in remembrance.

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

#28460 – 14.22.6.165

BN – Z
Mostly as a result of meditation, but sometimes during an unexpected glimpse, a mystical experience of an unusual kind may develop. He feels transparent to the Overself; its light passes into and through him. He then finds that his ordinary condition was as if a thick wall surrounded him, devoid of windows and topped by a thick roof, a condition of imprisonment in limitation and ordinariness. But now the walls turn to glass, their density is miraculously gone, he is not only open to the light streaming in but lets it pass on, irradiating the world around.

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

#28461 – 14.22.6.166

BN – Z – D
Those mysterious divine moments are as the sudden arisal of a bridge flung from time into eternity.

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

#28462 – 14.22.6.167

BN – Z
He feels the presence within him of the mysterious entity which is his soul.

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

#28463 – 14.22.6.168

BN – Z
In those moods he will journey far from bodily conditions and environmental influences, far from human sins and social strife, to a place of sanctuary, peace, blessing, and love.

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

#28465 – 14.22.6.170

BN – Z
He touches the Permanent, feels that his true self is part of eternity and this other self is a foolish thing he is glad to be rid of.

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

#28466 – 14.22.6.171

BN – Z – D
There are several causes of this joyful feeling, but the primary one is that the prodigal son has returned to his father. Each is exceedingly happy to see the other again.

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

#28469 – 14.22.6.174

BN – Z
Something of the quiet joy with which one greets the first faint swelling of green buds on bare trees, comes into the heart with these moods.

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

#28470 – 14.22.6.175

BN – Z
There is something in man which does not belong to this world, something mysterious, holy, and serene. It is this that touches and holds him at certain unforgettable moments.

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

#28471 – 14.22.6.176

BN – Z – D
The sense of ever-continuing being into which he has been drawn and with which he is now identified overwhelms him.

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

#28478 – 14.22.6.183

BN – Z
Time is absolutely still. Mind is absolutely at peace. He feels in the midst of a miracle, one which embraces the whole world.

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

#28483 – 14.22.6.188

BN – Z
The discovery of timelessness, of its reality and factuality, is both a thing to wonder at and a joyful experience.

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

#28484 – 14.22.6.189

BN – Z – D
To call it an eternal moment may loosely describe it, but to call it timelessness does so more accurately.

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

#28485 – 14.22.6.190

BN – Z
The glimpse gives a person, for the short period while it exists, a different way of thought, a different attitude towards others, and a different measure for what the world cherishes or despises.

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

#28487 – 14.22.6.192

BN – Z
As his inner self is illumined he feels the nearness of God, experiences a loving relationship with God, knows the deathlessness of his own being, and accepts the rightness of all that is throughout the universe.

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

#28488 – 14.22.6.193

BN – ZZ
One feels gathered into the depths of the silence, enfolded by it and then, hidden within it, intuits the mysterious inexplicable invisible and higher power which must remain forever nameless.

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

#28489 – 14.22.6.194

BN – Z
These moments of divine glorification exalt us like moments of hearing fine music. They come with the force of revelations for which we have been waiting. They hold us with the spell of enchantment made by a wizard's hand. Their magical influence and mystical beauty pass all too soon, but the memory of them never does.

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

#28498 – 14.22.6.203

BSG_5 – ZZ
The ecstasy of that state is rare, the abundant happiness it yields is unforgettable.

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

#28499 – 14.22.6.204

BN – Z
Those who have lifted themselves up at times into the higher Mind know the paradox of the air in which it dwells. For if beneficent gentle peace is there, so too is invigorating immeasurable strength.

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

#28500 – 14.22.6.205

BN – Z
The Glimpse comes as a benediction and as a grace. The heart should be grateful, immensely grateful for its visitation. It possesses a beauty which is not of this world, which gives joy to the heart.

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

#28501 – 14.22.6.206

BN – X – D
The world stands still, the sense of time passing and events happening is suspended. Nothing exists but this Oneness.

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

#28504 – 14.22.6.209

BN – Z
Some are ready to enter the light and when—through the mediumship of Nature or Art, a man or a book—that happens, the experience is as enjoyable as entering an orchard of ripened apricots.

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

#28505 – 14.22.6.210

BN – Z
The joy comes upon him out of the unknown, gently, mysteriously, and sunnily.

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

#28506 – 14.22.6.211

BN – X – K
As this wonderful feeling steals over him, there is a clear and unmistakable sense that the Overself is displacing the ego. Hitherto he has obeyed the rule of the flesh and the brain and consequently has shared their pitiful limitations. Now he becomes acutely aware that a new sovereign is taking his place on the throne.

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

#28507 – 14.22.6.212

BN – Z – D
As he approaches nearer to awareness of the Overself, he approaches nearer to a cloistral inward stillness.

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

#28508 – 14.22.6.213

BN – Z – D
He feels that he has reached the very edge of another self, another world of being.

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

#28509 – 14.22.6.214

BN – Z
In its newly discovered presence, we are relieved of cares, immune to anxieties about the future, and liberated from regrets about the past.

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

#28510 – 14.22.6.215

BN – Z
If he or she is fortunate there may come to the waiting seeker a sense of uplift, an exalted mood, a feeling of support from a vast mysterious source.

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

#28512 – 14.22.6.217

BN – Z
There is a unique bliss in this new-found freedom of the second self, a sublime peace in this dissolution of old restraints.

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

#28513 – 14.22.6.218

BN – Z – D
He feels something of that sacred presence within him and around him. Its effect upon the mind is to leave a glow of benign goodwill to all beings.

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

#28514 – 14.22.6.219

BN – ZZ
What is the mystery of that state when the body sits, stands, or reclines without moving, when the thoughts come to rest and the feelings enter an exquisite calm? It has been given a variety of names, for it takes a man out of this familiar common world and puts him into a most mysterious one.

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

#28516 – 14.22.6.221

BN – Z
The ego slides from off his shoulders like a heavy overcoat and he feels delightfully free.

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

#28517 – 14.22.6.222

BN – Z – D
At the ordinary level he has the ordinary outlook, the habitual desires; but there are times when he finds himself at another and higher level where he is unsympathetic to both.

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

#28518 – 14.22.6.223

BN – Z
No theological difficulties can trouble this happy state, no religious doubts can enter into it.

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

#28519 – 14.22.6.224

BN – Z
The glimpse is like a first airplane ride. Looking down at the earthly scene far below, with its patch-like landscape dotted with black specks called houses and autos, and thinking of those millions of living creatures who live in one and drive in the other, one is overcome with humility.

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

#28520 – 14.22.6.225

BN – Z
It is the glorious moment when Adam re-enters Eden, even though he is only a visiting guest and not a permanent dweller therein.

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

#28521 – 14.22.6.226

BN – X – D
The Glimpse operates to cast an actual spell over him. He is enchanted not merely poetically but literally.

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

#28522 – 14.22.6.227

BN – Z – K
Hours that are so far from the common ones, so timeless in their quality, make him feel like an ageless Sphinx.

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

#28523 – 14.22.6.228

BN – Z
Time itself is suspended, and with it go the fears and worries, the unhappiness, which beset living in this world at this hour of its history.

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

#28524 – 14.22.6.229

BN – Z
It is a feeling of being right with the universe, with Life itself.

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

#28525 – 14.22.6.230

BN – Z
In this beautiful mood he becomes possessed of perfect leisure. He has all the time now that he needs. There is no need ever for hurry, strain, anxiety.

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

#28527 – 14.22.6.232

BN – Z
During these wonderful glimpses ordinary existence seems suspended.

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

#28529 – 14.22.6.234

BN – X – D
He finds a new joy deep within himself, a new and higher meaning deep within life.

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

#28530 – 14.22.6.235

BN – Z – DM
Whether he thinks that he has strayed by chance into this starry world or believes that God's grace has fallen upon him, he feels its beauty and peace.

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

#28531 – 14.22.6.236

BN – Z
The encounter with the Overself may be hushed and gentle or thrilling and dramatic. But it will certainly be absorbing.

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

#28532 – 14.22.6.237

BN – X – D
In that beautiful mood, he is wafted upward because his mind turns away from the earth, its interests and desires which ordinarily hold him down.

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

#28533 – 14.22.6.238

BN – Z
The glimpse is unquestionably a sort of spell put upon the mind and encircling the self, benign and healing and protective. It imparts a feeling of well-being.

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

#28534 – 14.22.6.239

BN – Z
How inadequate are constructed sentences to tell anyone the total wonder of a glimpse, of the I's departure and the Overself's arrival!

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

#28535 – 14.22.6.240

BN – ZZ – D
The peace descends, the cares are gone, the fears are shed, the avid desires enfeebled.

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

#28536 – 14.22.6.241

BN – Z
The experience of liberation yields a peace which lifts him into a detachment from the world never felt before, untouched by sights, persons, incidents, which hitherto produced repulsions, irritations, or rage.

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

#28537 – 14.22.6.242

BN – Z
Joy glows quietly on the face of one who is experiencing a glimpse.

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

#28538 – 14.22.6.243

BN – ZZ
He will experience a profound sense of release, a joyous exaltation of feeling, and a lofty soaring of thought.

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

#28540 – 14.22.6.245

BN – Z
The glimpse carries either a quiet intellectual rapture with it or a seething emotional one.

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

#28543 – 14.22.6.248

BN – Z – K
In such a benignant mood, it is easy to forgive one's enemies their vile conduct or to look at faithless friends in a kindlier light.

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

#28544 – 14.22.6.249

B_14 – ZZ
It lifts the egoistic out of their egoism for a while, the fearful out of their fears.

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

#28545 – 14.22.6.250

BN – Z
When we turn inwards, we turn in the direction of complete composure.

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

#28546 – 14.22.6.251

BN – Z – K
The discovery of the soul's truth carries with it an excitement which only those who spend their lives seeking it know.

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

#28548 – 14.22.6.253

BN – ZZ
It gives him, for a short while, an equanimity which he does not have at other times.

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

#28551 – 14.22.6.256

BN – Z
His heart is filled with the sense of this Presence and, for the few or many minutes this lasts, he is a changed person.

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

#28552 – 14.22.6.257

BN – Z
Some persons get their first glimpse by surprise, quite unexpectedly, and from then begins their quest. But others get it during the onward course of their quest, while searching or waiting for it, and hopefully expectant of it.

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

#28553 – 14.22.6.258

BN – Z
During these short glimpses no anxiety and uncertainty can affect him.

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

#28555 – 14.22.6.260

BN – Z
It is but a pause in the constant oscillation of life, a stilling of the ego's pursuits.

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

#28556 – 14.22.6.261

BN – Z
In these hushed moments a happiness steals over him, a glory is felt all around him.

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

#28558 – 14.22.6.263

BN – Z
'This' is his real being. He sought for it, prayed to it, and communed with it in the past as if it were something other than, and apart from, himself. Now he knows that it was himself, that there is no need for 'him' to do any of these things. All he needs is to recognize what he is and to realize it at every moment.

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

#28559 – 14.22.6.264

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

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

#28560 – 14.22.6.265

BN – Z – D
There is still a centre of consciousness in him, still a voice which can utter the words or hold the thought "I am I." The ego is lost in an ocean of being, but the ego's link with God, the Overself, still remains.

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

#28561 – 14.22.6.266

BN – Z
He loses his ego in the calm serenity of the Overself, yet at the same time it is, mysteriously, still with him.

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

#28562 – 14.22.6.267

BN – Z
With this displacement of ego he enters into the very presence of divinity.

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

#28563 – 14.22.6.268

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

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

#28564 – 14.22.6.269

BN – Z – D
For the brief period in which it prevails, the glimpse destroys the ego's dominance.

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

#28566 – 14.22.6.271

BN – X – D
His old centre in the ego has mysteriously gone. His new centre in the Overself has taken its place.

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

#28567 – 14.22.6.272

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

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

#28571 – 14.22.6.276

BN – X – D
In this ecstatic mental silence, the personal will is given up, the impersonal Overself is given mastery.

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

#28572 – 14.22.6.277

BN – X – D
His personal identity is taken away for a while, to be replaced by a higher one.

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

#28573 – 14.22.6.278

BSG_4 – P – D
To be born again, in the sense that Jesus used this phrase when speaking to Nicodemus, means to leave the ego's limited and outward awareness for the Overself's infinite and inward awareness.

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

#28574 – 14.22.6.279

B_11 – P – D
It is literally a going out of his little self into the liberating enlightening Overself.

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

#28576 – 14.22.6.281

BN – X – D
The search is at an end. The Overself has come toward us even as we went blindly toward It.

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

#28577 – 14.22.6.282

BN – Z
In that blessed moment he sinks his identity into the Reality which he has reached.

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

#28578 – 14.22.6.283

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

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

#28579 – 14.22.6.284

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

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

#28581 – 14.22.6.286

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

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

#28582 – 14.22.6.287

BN – X – D
He will see what he really is—the "I" of everyday experience with the mysterious being behind it.

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

#28583 – 14.22.6.288

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

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

#28584 – 14.22.6.289

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

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

#28586 – 14.22.6.291

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

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

#28587 – 14.22.6.292

BSG_5 – P – D
It is from such paradoxical moments that man learns both how insignificant he is and how great he is!

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

#28589 – 14.22.6.294

BN – X – D
In these few glorious and luminous moments the truth reveals itself, not to the intellect, but to the inner being.

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

#28591 – 14.22.6.296

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

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

#28592 – 14.22.6.297

BN – Z – D
It is not felt as just another experience only but also as a truth, so illuminative is it.

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

#28594 – 14.22.6.299

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

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

#28595 – 14.22.6.300

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

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

#28596 – 14.22.6.301

B_05 – ZZZ – DM1
Every man who passes through this experience and holds its memory, verifies for himself that there is an Infinite Life-Power pervading the entire universe—also that it is ever present, perfectly wise, and all-knowing. Its point of contact with him is his Overself.

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

#28597 – 14.22.6.302

BN – Z – DM1
In that sudden moment of spiritual awareness, or that longer period of spiritual ecstasy, he identifies himself no more with the projection from Mind but with pure Mind itself. In that severance from its projection, the shadow becomes the sun.

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

#28598 – 14.22.6.303

BN – X – DM1
During such unforgettable moments the Soul will speak plainly, if silently, to him. It may tell him about his true relationship to the universe and to his fellow creatures. It will certainly tell him about Itself. It may separate him from his body and let him gaze down upon it as from a height, long enough to permit him to comprehend that the flesh is quite the poorest and least significant part of him. And perhaps best of all it will certainly fill him with the assurance that after his return to the world of lonely struggle and quick forgetfulness, It will still remain beside and behind him.

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

#28599 – 14.22.6.304

BA11 – ZZ – DM1
A glimpse may exalt the man and give him inspiration, but above everything else it attests for him the fact that he is fundamentally Spirit. This is the commonest kind of Glimpse but there is another kind which, in addition to doing these things, opens mysterious doors and provides inlooks to the working of secret laws and occult processes in Nature, the world and the life of man. This kind of glimpse may fitly be termed "a revelation."

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

#28600 – 14.22.6.305

BN – ZZ – DK1
He sees the universe as he might see a great mosaic picture opening before him.

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

#28601 – 14.22.6.306

BN – X – K
This knowledge best comes to a man by interior revelation rather than by exterior instructions.

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

#28602 – 14.22.6.307

BN – ZZ
Thus the existence of a higher possibility for man, which our ethical sense demands and to which our metaphysical reasoning points, is confirmed at last by our best experience.

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

#28603 – 14.22.6.308

BN – Z
All that he now experiences will be seen by the glow of its better light, while the memory of all that he experienced in the past, however distressing or vile, will be transmuted into effective educational forms.

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

#28604 – 14.22.6.309

BN – Z
The light of truth removes the falsities in his world view, and diminishes the feebleness in his character. It brings him a new strength.

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

#28605 – 14.22.6.310

BN – ZZ
In this mood there is knowledge without thoughts, understanding without words.

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

#28607 – 14.22.6.312

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

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

#28608 – 14.22.6.313

BN – Z – D
In some way that he cannot tell, or technically define, by pure intuitive feeling authoritatively transcending the intellect's action, he 'knows'.

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

#28609 – 14.22.6.314

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

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

#28610 – 14.22.6.315

UR_3.2 – ZZ – DXK
The experience explains a man to himself for the first time, lights up the fact that he lives in two planes at one and the same time. It reveals his ego as the illusion which envelops his consciousness and his Overself as the reality behind his consciousness.

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

#28610 – 14.22.6.315

BSG_5 – ZZ – D
The Real was not only always present but always known, but unconsciously. It was the "I-myself," the little ego, the separate person that he thought himself to be and ignorantly superimposed on the Real. All this he comprehends quite plainly now.

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

#28611 – 14.22.6.316

BN – Z
These glimpses are moments of truth in a life founded on a conception which is so narrow as to be actually misleading, or even false.

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

#28615 – 14.22.6.320

BN – Z
These are the only moments in life when we catch hold almost at once of truth as it is, unspoiled by implantations from the ego.

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

#28616 – 14.22.6.321

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

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

#28617 – 14.22.6.322

BN – X – D
He will understand the meaning of this beatific experience without need of formulating it into thoughts. There is no necessity for him to tell it to himself in words.

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

#28618 – 14.22.6.323

BN – Z
These short glimpses do not belong to ordinary life; indeed, they glaringly show up its pitiful meanness and confusion, its miserable aimlessness and unsatisfaction.

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

#28619 – 14.22.6.324

BN – Z
He needs no religious authority to interfere with, or interrupt this glorious glimpse, no theologian to bring it down to the intellectual level and probably lose it for him.

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

#28620 – 14.22.6.325

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

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

#28621 – 14.22.6.326

BN – ZZ – D
There are some who, while reading inspired pages, may suddenly find that for a few brief instants the veil will fall from their eyes and the ideas which had formerly seemed so remote or so impossible will come alive with actuality.

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

#28622 – 14.22.6.327

BN – Z
As the light shines, showing the glory of the Overself, it also shows the inadequacies of the ego.

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

#28623 – 14.22.6.328

BN – Z
It tells him quite directly, quite intuitively, without the interference of logical thinking, what life is for and what man is here for.

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

#28624 – 14.22.6.329

BN – ZZ
He feels that he is absorbing the entire meaning of all human lives, all the world's operations, in one crystal-clear insight.

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

#28625 – 14.22.6.330

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

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

#28627 – 14.22.6.332

BN – Z – D
He has come-to-life, an experience which reconciles all the contradictions of thought and faith and which explains some of the most puzzling enigmas of human destiny.

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

#28628 – 14.22.6.333

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

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

#28629 – 14.22.6.334

BN – ZZ – D
These moments of spiritual insight give him more than much study could give him.

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

#28630 – 14.22.6.335

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

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

#28631 – 14.22.6.336

BN – ZZ – D
It is a mysterious condition of the mind, when the normal doubts and hesitations vanish, when certitude is complete and understanding direct, when he knows that truth has visited him and feels that peace has held him.

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

#28632 – 14.22.6.337

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

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

#28633 – 14.22.6.338

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

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

#28636 – 14.22.6.341

BSG_5 – ZZ – D
It is as if his inner being clears up, becomes transparent, and obscurities covering his essence roll away.

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

#28640 – 14.22.6.345

BN – Z
It is the will to believe and the determination that backs up its belief. We need a vision of the things to be to light up the rough pathway of the things that are. Without it no great work would be done.

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

#28642 – 14.22.6.347

BN – Z
If the glimpse is accompanied by a revelation, then he will understand more on the particular subject or subjects it concerns than he has ever understood before.

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

#28643 – 14.22.6.348

BN – Z
Each glimpse brings a grace. It may be a message or an awakening, a revelation or a warning, a reconciliation or a confirmation, a strengthening or a mellowing.

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

#28644 – 14.22.6.349

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

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

#28648 – 14.22.6.353

BSG_5 – Z – D
In these hallowed moments he learns his essential oneness with the Universal Mind.

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

#28649 – 14.22.6.354

BN – Z
He knows of what divine stuff he is inwardly made, in what starry direction he is daily going, and on what self-transforming task he is constantly working.

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

#28651 – 14.22.6.356

BN – Z
It can only reveal to him one or two facets of its nature at each glimpse. The power can touch his will, and the grace can move his heart, but that is all.

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

#28652 – 14.22.6.357

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

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

#28653 – 14.22.6.358

BN – X – D
His outlook becomes more spacious, his understanding more lucid, his intuition more immediate.

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

#28654 – 14.22.6.359

BN – Z
In those revelatory moments the "I," the essence of personality, is found to be only the thought of itself.

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

#28655 – 14.22.6.360

BN – Z
It is the difference between trying to know and actually knowing.

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

#28656 – 14.22.6.361

BN – ZZ – D
To see this truth for the first time is to experience something which will be long remembered. To find some higher meaning in his personal existence is to fortify his will and to buttress his ideals; to ascertain the fact that there is a link between this universe of time and space with a Mind which is above both, is to experience an indefinable satisfaction.

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

#28657 – 14.22.6.362

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

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

#28658M – 14.22.6.363

BSG_5 – P – DX
This experience of the ultimate oneness of all things and of one's own part in that oneness is, of course, well known in mystical experience—especially in nature mysticism but also in some kinds of religious mysticism, and certainly in philosophic mysticism. The first effect is to make one feel that one is not alone, that the universe is behind one and that one does not need to be crushed by anxieties, worries, and fears—all pertaining to the little self. Such an experience is indeed an excellent counter to them.

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

#28659 – 14.22.6.364

BN – ZZ – D
The fact is that all actual enlightenment is self-enlightenment; it is given to a man by himself, that is, by his own best self. It is generally brief, but enough to provide a glimpse of that self and a touch of its revelatory energy.

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

#28660 – 14.22.6.365

BN – Z
They are "glimpses of the eternal" and "peeps into timelessness," a development which we could not get as animals but only as humans. It is then only that man, interwoven with the World-Mind, deep in holy happy adoration, is sure.

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

#28661 – 14.22.6.366

BN – Z
A glimmering of what it means to see with the intelligence that there is a Higher Power and that it plays a role in human affairs not less than in the universe's, comes to him.

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

#28662 – 14.22.6.367

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

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

#28663 – 14.22.6.368

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

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

#28664 – 14.22.6.369

BN – ZZ – D
With this awakening he begins to relate his own purposes in life to the universal purpose.

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

#28666 – 14.22.6.371

BN – ZZ – D
Like the falling of a bandage from the eyes of a blindfolded man, there will come plainly into his understanding the recognition of his past misdeeds, foolhardiness, and failings—all of them the consequences of his ignorant clinging to the ego. This is the vision which may come to him before he begins to purify himself.

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

#28667 – 14.22.6.372

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

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

#28668 – 14.22.6.373

B_14 – Z – D
That glorious glimpse wherein the All becomes bathed in the light of meaning, when the reality behind comes through and leaves him enriched: it is as if a web of illusion spun around the mind falls away.

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

#28669 – 14.22.6.374

BN – Z
In short, he possesses a kind of double entity, harbouring at times within his breast a life and consciousness that seem higher than what was originally and still is normally his own.

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

#28671 – 14.22.6.376

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

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

#28673 – 14.22.6.378

BN – X – D
In this moment of illumination he is able to look into the image of his own self, to see what is best and highest in it and accept that as his goal and ideal henceforth.

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

#28674 – 14.22.6.379

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

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

#28676 – 14.22.6.381

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

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

#28677 – 14.22.6.382

BN – ZZ – D
These brief enlightenments give us clues to both the true way and the true goal. They point within.

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

#28678 – 14.22.6.383

BN – X – D
As the picture of the True comes forth, it obliterates the picture of the False which 'held him' so long.

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

#28679 – 14.22.6.384

BN – Z
The glimpse gives him an untrammelled consciousness of this freer and higher self.

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

#28680 – 14.22.6.385

BN – Z – D
The passing from hope to certainty comes with the glimpse.

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

#28682 – 14.22.6.387

BN – Z – D
From that time life is susceptible of a higher interpretation, and its situations of a psychological meaning.

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

#28685 – 14.22.6.390

BN – Z
The mind is irradiated with the light of a new understanding. The heart is lifted up into the joy of a new experience.

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

#28686 – 14.22.6.391

BN – Z
What he now knows, he knows outside all doubting, immovably and unshakeably.

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

#28687 – 14.22.6.392

BN – ZZ
He is now sure that there is a higher power behind this world.

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

#28688 – 14.22.6.393

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

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

#28689M – 14.22.6.394

BSG_5 – ZZ – DX
When this felicitous glimpse comes to a man it brings him 'certitude'. He knows now that God IS and 'where' he is.

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

#28689 – 14.22.6.394

BN – ZZ – D
The glimpse not only throws a fresh impersonal light on all the episodes of his personal history that went before, but also on those which are happening now.

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

#28690 – 14.22.6.395

BN – Z
At such times he feels the world mystery, for now that he knows so much esoteric truth he knows so little of THAT which is behind it all.

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

#28693 – 14.22.6.398

BN – Z
The rapture of finding truth comes because it is truth.

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

#28694 – 14.22.6.399

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

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

#28695 – 14.22.6.400

BN – Z – D
It is in such moments of enlightenment that he comes to see that all these evils may be there, but they will go.

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

#28696 – 14.22.6.401

BN – ZZ
Seeing the point which solves the problem of existence, suddenly getting the glimpse of what all this means, and noting how it was there all the time staring him in the face, may cause a man to break out abruptly into laughter at himself.

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

#28697 – 14.22.6.402

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

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

#28698 – 14.22.6.403

BN – Z – D
When these rare glimpses are granted, take from them as they leave all that you can get—all the strength, the wisdom, the support, and the goodwill that they can hold.

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

#28700 – 14.22.7.2

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

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

#28701 – 14.22.7.3

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

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

#28702 – 14.22.7.4

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

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

#28703 – 14.22.7.5

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

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

#28704 – 14.22.7.6

BN – Z – DK1
The holy feelings generated by the Glimpse ought to be protected against the world's disintegrating power and shielded against your own tendency to dissipate them by hasty violent movements or needless irrelevant chatter.

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

#28710 – 14.22.7.12

BN – Z – DK1
After such a glimpse there is enchantment in the air. The annoying or disagreeable happenings of the day fail to remove it.

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

#28712 – 14.22.7.14

BN – Z
When the inspiration derived from the glimpse is upon him, the unexpected and the unpredictable may happen for his benefit; but when it is gone, he is no more fortunate than his neighbour.

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

#28713 – 14.22.7.15

BN – Z
The glimpse goes and the habitual daily self returns. The single and simple largeness of the one is lost in the innumerable trivialities of the other.

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

#28714 – 14.22.7.16

BN – Z
As the glimpse fades away, he takes the ego back into consciousness again.

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

#28715 – 14.22.7.17

BN – Z
But the glimpse may not stand alone in its own full purity: he may put his own ideas into it as an accompaniment without knowing that he has done so.

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

#28716 – 14.22.7.18

BN – Z
The spiritual event, the mystical experience, is there but its presentation to the conscious mind—manipulated by his personal tendencies to an extent which exaggerates their importance—creates a mixed result.

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

#28717 – 14.22.7.19

BN – Z
When this mood is fully upon him, he may find it hard to talk to anyone for some time afterward.

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

#28719 – 14.22.7.21

BN – Z
He emerges from the experience feeling surrounded by peace and protected by supernormal powers.

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

#28720 – 14.22.7.22

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

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

#28721 – 14.22.7.23

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

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

#28722 – 14.22.7.24

BN – ZZ – DK
This wonderful and memorable experience, call it Void or call it God, will for some time afterwards become a kind of background to the events of his life and to him, himself.

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

#28723 – 14.22.7.25

BN – Z
Illumination arising from suffering seems to last longer than that arising from happiness because the latter is easier to lose. One is likely to become careless with that which comes from happiness.

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

#28724 – 14.22.7.26

BN – Z
He has seen some truth and may want to share it. But in what manner can he communicate that which is not intellectually measurable?

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

#28727 – 14.22.7.29

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

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

#28728 – 14.22.7.30

BN – X – D
In those glorious enchanted moments which immediately succeed the glimpse, almost anything seems possible.

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

#28730 – 14.22.7.32

BN – X – D
The glimpse comes to be treasured in memory as something very precious and quite unique, most intimate and not freely talked about with others.

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

#28731 – 14.22.7.33

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

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

#28733 – 14.22.7.35

BN – Z – D
The glimpse leaves an afterglow of truth, a reassurance of support.

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

#28734 – 14.22.7.36

BN – Z
His heart will be warmed and his will moved as a consequence of this experience.

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

#28735 – 14.22.7.37

BN – Z
The test will come when he has to descend from the mountain-peak of meditation into the valleys of prosaic everyday living. Can he adjust the greatness he has seen and felt to this smaller narrower world or will he lose it therein?

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

#28736 – 14.22.7.38

BN – Z
The closer he comes to the Overself the more reticent he becomes about it.

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

#28737 – 14.22.7.39

BN – Z – D
When the spark of inspiration fades out, new ideas often go with it, or if they come, the power to utilize them escapes him.

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

#28739 – 14.22.7.41

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

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

#28740 – 14.22.7.42

BN – Z – K1
From this inner world of Essence we descend to the outer world of Experience.

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

#28741 – 14.22.7.43

BN – Z
These holy visitations ought not to make him conceited or proud or fatten his ego or make him lose his wits. If they do he is in spiritual danger so that what ought to be a blessing becomes a curse.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Possible negative after-thoughts

#28748 – 14.22.7.50

BN – Z
These visitations of a higher presence may deceive him into thinking that he has reached a higher degree than he really has. If so, he may expect their light and strength to abide permanently with him. In that case he may plunge into emotional reactions of gloom and disappointment when they ebb. It would be better for him to receive them gratefully as well as to regard their passing as tests of his resignation to the higher self and of his trust that its inner working is not mistaken. It knows quite well what It is doing in and for him.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Possible negative after-thoughts

#28749 – 14.22.7.51

BN – Z
To have had the glimpse and yet to ignore it in subsequent life, or to utilize it only for the purpose of exalting the ego, is deliberately to tell a lie to oneself, consciously to be unfaithful to truth.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Possible negative after-thoughts

#28750 – 14.22.7.52

BN – Z
When a person gets this experience without guidelines and in total surprise, within a family living in the common ignorance of such matters, he may let bewilderment come in to destroy the new lucidity.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Possible negative after-thoughts

#28751 – 14.22.7.53

BN – Z
A wiser attitude understands that there is no need to grieve because the flash has gone, the ecstasy faded, the light shut out again. It knows that the Overself is still with him, even though these emotional or egoistic reactions try to trick him into believing otherwise.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Possible negative after-thoughts

#28757 – 14.22.7.59

BN – Z
A few days pass. The experience itself has now lodged in the shadows of memory. What is left to him as the after-effect of the Glimpse? What does he really possess as the gain from it?

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28758 – 14.22.7.60

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28759 – 14.22.7.61

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28761 – 14.22.7.63

BN – Z – D
The feeling that he 'belongs' to THAT to which all the universes also belong, is with him the moment the glimpse is over. If, as a full realization, it passes away with the experience, an afterglow remains as a residue, a strong conviction persists for years later.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28762 – 14.22.7.64

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28764 – 14.22.7.66

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28765 – 14.22.7.67

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28766 – 14.22.7.68

BN – ZZ – D
Even merely knowing that he has had such a glimpse gives him some kind of reassurance about life, some little security within himself, some degree of faith that a higher power is taking care of the universe—and hence of himself.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28767 – 14.22.7.69

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28769 – 14.22.7.71

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28771 – 14.22.7.73

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28772 – 14.22.7.74

BSG_4 – ZZ – DM1
He will, at the least, win an enlarged conception of life and, at the most, an ennobled character. Better still, he will feel for the first time what it is like to attain an inner equilibrium.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28773 – 14.22.7.75

BN – Z
The glimpse may give him a dynamic charge of power, or leave him bereft of all aggression—depending on the particular need or phase of the moment.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28774 – 14.22.7.76

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28775 – 14.22.7.77

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28776 – 14.22.7.78

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28777 – 14.22.7.79

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28778 – 14.22.7.80

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28779 – 14.22.7.81

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28782 – 14.22.7.84

BN – Z – D
If the first contribution of memory is an unconscious one, intuitively reminding man of what he really is but seems to have lost, the second is a conscious one. It is to keep up his interest in the establishment of the higher awareness and to stop him from forgetting the pursuit of this goal. That is, it is to keep him on the Quest.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28784 – 14.22.7.86

BN – Z
These experiences if taken aright will lead him not to spiritual pride but to spiritual humbleness.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28785 – 14.22.7.87

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28786 – 14.22.7.88

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28787 – 14.22.7.89

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28788 – 14.22.7.90

BN – ZZ – D
Those who catch this glimpse are not necessarily better persons than others, not even wiser persons. But, having caught it, the result cannot fail to make them better and wiser. Yet their goodness will not be of a kind that is outwardly measurable by worldly approval, nor their wisdom by worldly success.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28789 – 14.22.7.91

BN – ZZ
The rapturous exaltation soon dissolves in the humdrum toil and play of everyday. But its cleansing remembrance does not.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28790 – 14.22.7.92

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28792 – 14.22.7.94

BN – X – D
He must come to see that, by valuing and applying philosophic attitudes to the troubles and vexations of the world, he is truly recalling those moments of uplift and joy which glimpses provide. This is another way, and one of the best, in which they can bear good fruit for him. From these delicate dreamlike experiences he can draw strength and courage to endure either the world's buffeting or his personal difficulties.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28796 – 14.22.7.98

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28797 – 14.22.7.99

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28798 – 14.22.7.100

BN – ZZ – D
The glimpse will help him to live through the dark periods that may come, when otherwise he might succumb to despair.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28801 – 14.22.7.103

BN – Z
The remembrance of most of those years spent in the world is dim but the remembrance of these exquisite interludes is vivid.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28802 – 14.22.7.104

BN – Z
He will remember it as a momentary benediction, something to be saved from the tragic inexorable fleetingness of life.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28803 – 14.22.7.105

BN – Z
The extraordinary thing is that this illumination, the most important event that can happen to a human being, lessens his feeling of self-importance.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28807 – 14.22.7.109

BN – Z
Life can never again be just as ordinary, just as commonplace as before, nor just as if he had never passed through those vital moments of divine uplift. The white-hot point of their inspiration has faded, but it can never be forgotten. It will, nay it must, show itself powerfully in his directive purposes and in the quality of his living.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28810 – 14.22.7.112

BN – Z
He will want to keep this awakened consciousness at all times. This aspiration will instantaneously or eventually bring him to tread the Quest.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28811 – 14.22.7.113

BN – Z
Every glimpse of the Infinite helps him to let go of the finite, to detach himself from his possessions and passions.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28813 – 14.22.7.115

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28814 – 14.22.7.116

BN – Z – D
The glimpse has several results: it awakens sleeping minds, it encourages questing minds, it inspires earnest minds, and it quickens growing minds.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28816 – 14.22.7.118

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28820 – 14.22.7.122

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28821 – 14.22.7.123

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28822 – 14.22.7.124

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28825 – 14.22.7.127

BN – Z
The glimpse will fill his heart with a beautiful peace, his head with a larger understanding; but it will end and pass away, for it is only a glimpse gained for a few minutes' space. Nevertheless, memory will hold for years its wonderful afterglow.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28826 – 14.22.7.128

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28828 – 14.22.7.130

BN – ZZ – D
These lovely gleams, which gave him such joy and dignity, will flicker out and the spiritual night in which most men live will once again close in upon him. Nevertheless they have added a new kind of experience to his stock and revealed a new hope for his comfort.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28829 – 14.22.7.131

BN – Z
But when the years have passed and middle life falls upon him, he will remember those early flashes of something grandly exalted above the daily round, and, remembering, may seek out ways and means of recovering them.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28830 – 14.22.7.132

BN – Z
A flight into the stratosphere is a strange but fascinating experience for the first time but not so strange nor one-hundredth so fascinating as a flight into a higher level of consciousness. And if it happens not on some mountaintop surrounded by enchanting scenery but on a crowded noisy bustling and tumultuous city street, one is not only keenly conscious of the alteration within oneself but also feels that the world around as well as the people in it have altered in some mysterious way, too.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28831 – 14.22.7.133

BN – Z
It not only brings about a stupendous change in his view of life but also a corresponding change in his moral conscience and character.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28833 – 14.22.7.135

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28836 – 14.22.7.138

BN – X – D
It is a power which affects him in a strange way. At one and at the same time it isolates him from his fellow men, yet unites him with them as well. He is isolated because this functioning on a higher level of consciousness makes him feel like some strange visitor from outer space, just arrived on our ancient planet. But he can enjoy the sense of Being whether isolated or surrounded by others.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28838 – 14.22.7.140

BN – Z
The times when he is brought into memorable awareness and reverent worship of the true God, the moments when the illuminative flash permeates him utterly, may have far-reaching effects on his later years. For he can then see the ego's life as it really is and make new decisions concerning it which could only have been arrived at when out of the ego's clutches.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28840 – 14.22.7.142

BN – Z
The glimpse gives us new life and assists in the process of redemption, of what is called salvation in religious circles, but what happens when it is lost again? Well, something is left over, obviously the memory of it, but something more, difficult to describe, because it is in the subconscious.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28842 – 14.22.7.144

BN – Z
Uncertainties and fears beset the ordinary man. They come up in spite of himself, whether they refer to his fortunes or his health, his business or his relationships. In such a situation whatever peace of mind he finds does not last long and cannot unless he has looked for and found, at least from time to time, a measure of communion with the Overself. Even a glimpse, a single glimpse, which may happen only once during several years, gives him a measure of support whatever thoughts appear and disappear during the interval of years.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28844 – 14.22.7.146

BN – Z
The glimpse goes, but it remains in his mind as a point of reference, a criterion for the future, something with which he can compare his ordinary existence and his ordinary attitudes.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28845 – 14.22.7.147

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28846 – 14.22.7.148

BN – Z – DEK
The Truth itself is a cleansing agent, although its work on the emotions and thoughts and tendencies may be quite slow in many cases, because it is on a deep level. In some cases its effect is sudden, dynamic.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28847 – 14.22.7.149

BN – Z
At the very least the glimpse leaves a beautiful memory, at the most a divine inspiration.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28848 – 14.22.7.150

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28849 – 14.22.7.151

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28850 – 14.22.7.152

BN – Z – D
The glimpse is also a therapeutic experience.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28851 – 14.22.7.153

BN – Z
How can anyone who has gained entry into this sublime state ever again fall into the error of materialism?

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28852 – 14.22.7.154

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28854 – 14.22.7.156

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28856 – 14.22.7.158

BN – Z – D
When man is touched by the power of God, he is called a "Son of God."

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28857 – 14.22.7.159

BN – Z
Nothing can hold the experience. It evades his mental grasp, eludes his emotional hold. The Glimpse falls away and cannot be retained. But the minutes or hours during which he was exposed to it will long be associated in memory with a great joy, a grave stillness, and an acute understanding.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28858 – 14.22.7.160

BN – Z
There is this value of these glimpses at least, that forever after the man possesses their standard by which to judge all other experiences in life.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28860 – 14.22.7.162

BN – Z
The more he tastes these delightful unions, the less he will be able to endure these inevitable separations.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28862 – 14.22.7.164

BN – Z
The years will follow each other and his impressions of this divine day will blur. But its tremendous meaning will never blur.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28864 – 14.22.7.166

BN – Z
In this supreme moment he feels that so much in his life which mattered greatly now matters little, so many desires, aims, ambitions, and values now fall in the scale of things. The mood passes, his feet descend to earth, but he finds that at the back of his mind he is a little suspicious of them, a little sceptical of their promises.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28865 – 14.22.7.167

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28866 – 14.22.7.168

BN – Z – D
Out of the inner quietude have come the great decisions, the miraculous healings, the memorable awakenings, and the end of sorrows.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28868 – 14.22.7.170

BN – Z – D
He who is uplifted by this power will understand where others only condemn.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28870 – 14.22.7.172

BN – Z
Who can forget his first experience of the Glimpse? What a memory of gentleness, beauty, wonderment, and deeper understanding it leaves behind!

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28872 – 14.22.7.174

BN – ZZ
This balmy and relaxed experience may nevertheless have drastic and dramatic consequences. For it may drive the man to repudiate his former way of life and to initiate a reorientation of thought, habit, and conduct.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28874 – 14.22.7.176

BN – Z
The glimpse makes him feel exalted and strengthened, even though it thwarts his ego and weakens his lusts.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28876 – 14.22.7.178

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28877 – 14.22.7.179

BN – Z – D
The ordinary attitudes toward life suddenly desert him and no longer exist. New and strange ones just as suddenly arise within him.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28881 – 14.22.7.183

BN – Z
Sometimes experienced, always remembered, the glimpse has marked him for life with some positive and benign signs.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28883 – 14.22.7.185

BN – Z
Accept the historic fact that you had these experiences and glimpses—dozens of them—which revealed the Soul. What of worth life has given still stays in the mind, can still be recalled and be found there again.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28887 – 14.22.7.189

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28889 – 14.22.7.191

BN – Z – D
Such is the magic of that passing-over to the higher consciousness, that the most sinful character of the most sorrowful life is transformed overnight. Virtue redeems the one; serenity heals the other.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Lasting effects

#28890 – 14.22.7.192

BN – Z
For proof that the glimpse is a genuine fact and not a hallucinatory one, not only ought the experience itself to be analysed but the after-condition ought to be studied and the subsequent behaviour ought to be noted. Does it show less attachment to the ego and more devotion to the Overself, less emotional disturbance and more mental tranquillity?

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

#28893 – 14.22.7.195

BN – Z
If it is a genuine glimpse, its effect will be seen in his face, his gait, his talk, while the influence, and some of the aftermath, lasts. For his face will be transfigured, his gait will be slowed down, his talk will be restrained and wise.

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

#28894 – 14.22.7.196

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

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

#28895 – 14.22.7.197

BSG_5 – Z – D
The question whether someone is a mystic or yogi can be answered easily enough once we understand what is his state of consciousness and what the mystical condition really is. All the annals of the vanished past and all the experiences of the living present inform us that whoever enters into it feels his natural egotism subside, his fierce passions assuaged, his restless thoughts stilled, his troubled emotions pacified, his habitual world-view spiritualized, and his whole person caught up into a beatific supernal power. Did he ever have this kind of consciousness? His words and deeds, his personal presence and psychological self-betrayal should proclaim with a united voice what he is. No man who habitually enters such a blessed state could ever bring himself to hate or injure a fellow human being.

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

#28896 – 14.22.7.198

BN – Z – K1
What are the signs whereby he shall know that this is an authentic glimpse of Reality? First, it is and shall remain ever present. There is no future in it and no past. Second, the pure spiritual experience comes without excitement, is reported without exaggeration, and needs no external authority to authenticate it.

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

#28897 – 14.22.7.199

BSG_5 – ZZZ – DM1*
The glimpse also does in part for a human being what initiation did in some ancient mystical institutions. It sets him on the road of a new life, a life more earnestly and more consciously devoted to the Quest of Overself. It silently bids him dedicate, or rededicate anew, the remainder of his life on earth to this undertaking. It is a baptism with inner light more far-reaching than the baptism with physical water.

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

#28898 – 14.22.7.200

BSG_5 – ZZ – DK1
And once you are reborn in the heart, life will become what it should be—the realization that you are outworking a higher destiny than the merely personal one.

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

#28900 – 14.22.7.202

BN – ZZ
When he has this first unprecedented experience, when he knows and feels that he is a part of divine being, he is born "in Christ." But it is not for him to stand at street corners and announce to the multitude that he has had this glimpse.

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

#28902 – 14.22.7.204

BN – ZZ
He emerges from the old man that he was, from the ego-ridden nature, as a snake emerges from its old skin.

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

#28905 – 14.22.7.207

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

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

#28906 – 14.22.7.208

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

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

#28907 – 14.22.7.209

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

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

#28908 – 14.22.7.210

BN – Z – D
He who has been touched by the goddess comes out of his sleep, says the Oriental wisdom. For he has a knowledge which appears as a special and unusual kind of awareness that escapes most other people.

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

#28910 – 14.22.7.212

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

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

#28911 – 14.22.7.213

BN – ZZZ – DEK
You are saved the moment this divine power takes possession of you, but not otherwise.

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

#28912 – 14.22.7.214

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28913 – 14.22.7.215

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28914 – 14.22.7.216

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28915 – 14.22.7.217

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28916 – 14.22.7.218

BN – Z – D
What he feels during those moments he has to become during the years that follow.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28917 – 14.22.7.219

BN – Z
All his life has to converge upon this divine focus, all his experience has to draw its supreme significance from it.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28918 – 14.22.7.220

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28919 – 14.22.7.221

BN – Z – DEK1
Another purpose of these glimpses is to show him how ignorant of truth he really is, and, having so shown, to stimulate his effort to get rid of this ignorance. For they will light up the fanciful or opinionative nature of so much that he hitherto took to be true.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28920 – 14.22.7.222

BN – ZZ – DK1
The bestowal of a glimpse is not merely for his pleasure and satisfaction: there are certain self-cleansing duties and self-improving obligations which follow in its train. The light it throws into him is thrown on his sins and weaknesses too. He sees them more plainly for what they are, as well as the amendment he must make. But he sees also the forgiveness which grace grants.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28921 – 14.22.7.223

BN – Z – D
The glimpse affords its own proof, supplies its own evidence, certifies by itself the truths it yields. But if its experiencer falls back into his ego and lets its prejudice, opinion, and expectation intrude into those truths, that is his own fault, not the Glimpse's.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28922 – 14.22.7.224

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28923 – 14.22.7.225

BN – Z – D
One of the first consequences of the glimpse ought to be—if it is properly received and sufficiently understood—a resolve to improve himself, to be more truthful and less excitable, for instance.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28924 – 14.22.7.226

BN – Z
It is of particular importance to every man to whom a glimpse has been vouchsafed, that after it he is summoned to begin his life afresh, to try a new start. If he heeds the summons no matter how unpromising his circumstances are for such a start—and this requires both faith and courage—eventually help will come, a change for the better.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28926 – 14.22.7.228

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28927 – 14.22.7.229

BN – Z – DK
What was seen in the glimpse must now be taken into the heart and mind, the thought and memory, the whole being of the man. Henceforth he is to live and act among other men as one who is marked for a higher destiny then semi-animal, incompletely human, blind existence.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28928 – 14.22.7.230

BN – Z
The more glimpses he gets, the more will he want to become like the ideal in all its beauty, and the longer each glimpse lasts, the longer will he seek to use its light and strength to make himself a better man or build a better world.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28929 – 14.22.7.231

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28930 – 14.22.7.232

BN – Z – D
Wisdom does not come overnight. It needs time to ripen. But Revelation can come in that way. But its recipient will still need time to adjust to it, and to integrate with it.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28931 – 14.22.7.233

BN – Z
What he has learned from the glimpse must be applied to life, to action and attitude. It is not enough merely to enjoy its memory, as if it made no difference.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28932 – 14.22.7.234

BN – Z
Whatever happens to himself or to others, whether he rises or falls, whether they hurt or help him, let him keep the hope that the glimpse gave him and continue to love the highest, remote though it may seem.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28934 – 14.22.7.236

BN – ZZ
Some among us must seek a higher quality of thought and being, a better way of life and action, in obedience to this call which is heard most clearly during the period of a glimpse.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28937 – 14.22.7.239

BN – Z
Now and then if the glimpse is granted in response to his patient endeavours, his trust will be strengthened and he will know that he is neither crazy nor wrong to follow this quest.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28938 – 14.22.7.240

BN – Z
When a glimpse comes to a man, from whatever cause and in whatever way, its effects show themselves variously. One very important effect is that whether he wants to or not, and despite negative passing moods of frustration or depression, if the man to whom it has come has consciously entered on the Quest he cannot desert it but must sooner or later enter upon it again.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28940 – 14.22.7.242

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28941 – 14.22.7.243

BN – Z – K1
These glimpses are only occasional. They take us unawares and depart from us unexpectedly. But the joy they bring with them, the insight they bestow, make us yearn for a permanent and unbroken attainment of the state they tell us about.

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28942 – 14.22.7.244

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

Inspiration and the Overself > After the Glimpse > Following through

#28943 – 14.22.7.245

BN – Z – K1
Some (perhaps too many) believe that the glimpse has permanently changed them, made "the new man" out of the old Adam. But what is to outlast time itself takes time. A pathetic self-deception may delight the ego, but breaks down in the end.

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

#28944 – 14.22.8.1

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

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

#28948 – 14.22.8.5

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

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

#28949 – 14.22.8.6

BN – Z – D
Enlightenment may come suddenly to a man, but then it is usually a temporary glimpse. Only rarely does it stay and never leave him. The normal way is a gradual one. The experience of Ramana Maharshi, Atmananda, and Aurobindo illustrates this rare fated exception, and can only be looked for at the risk of frustration.

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

#28950 – 14.22.8.7

BN – Z
Glimpses will come to him now and then; they will cheer his heart and enlighten his mind; but a constant level of serene perception will be quite beyond the orbit of his experience.

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

#28951 – 14.22.8.8

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

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

#28954 – 14.22.8.11

BSG_4 – P – DE
These flashes of light, peace, bliss, and understanding are brief but they have the intended effect. They encourage the aspirant to continue his quest and they implant in him a deep yearning to gain entry into the world to which they belong. They will be brief because the ordinary condition of thought and feeling is still far below the exalted condition revealed during these flashes. In other words, he has still to toil away at self-improvement so as to deserve the treasures which have been momentarily shown him.

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

#28956 – 14.22.8.13

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

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

#28957 – 14.22.8.14

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

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

#28958 – 14.22.8.15

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

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

#28959D – 14.22.8.16

BN – Z – D
The glimpse comes spontaneously and outside of his control, but to the master it comes at will and by command.

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

#28960 – 14.22.8.17

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

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

#28961 – 14.22.8.18

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

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

#28962 – 14.22.8.19

BN – X – D
In each of these glimpses, his quest attains a minor climax, for each is a step towards full illumination.

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

#28963 – 14.22.8.20

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

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

#28964 – 14.22.8.21

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

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

#28966 – 14.22.8.23

BN – Z – DEK1
It would be unreasonable to expect anyone to give up his worldly attachments until he sees something more worthwhile. Consequently his soul gives him a foretaste, as it were, through these ecstatic moments and brief enlightenments, of its own higher values.

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

#28968 – 14.22.8.25

BN – Z – DK1
That glimpse is his initiation into the spiritual life and therefore into the sacrificial life. It is but the first step in a long process wherein he will have to part with his lower tendencies, give up his ignoble passions, surrender his baser inclinations, and renounce egoistic views.

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

#28969 – 14.22.8.26

BN – ZZ – DK1
Under the emotional thrill of a religious conversion, many people have thought themselves saved and have believed they live in Christ. Yet how many of them have later fallen away! They thought the conversion was enough to bring about a permanent result, whereas it was only the first step toward such a result in reality. The same situation holds with those who have undergone the emotional thrill of a mystical experience. The illumination they have achieved is not the end of the road for them but the beginning. It gives them a picture of the goal and a glimpse of the course to it. It gives them right direction and an inspirational impetus to move towards it. But still it is only the first step, not the last one. They should beware of the personal ego's vanity which would tell them otherwise, or of its deceitfulness, which would tell it to others.

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

#28970 – 14.22.8.27

BN – Z – K1
Islamic mystics called Sufis differentiate between glimpses, which they call "states," and permanent advances on the path, which they call "stations." The former are described as being not only temporary but also fragmentary, while the latter are described as bearing results which cannot be lost. There are three main stations along the path. The first is annihilation of the ego; the second is rebirth in the Overself; and the third is fully grown union with the Overself. The Sufis assert that this final state can never be reached without the Grace of the Higher Power and that it is complete, lasting, and unchangeable.

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

#28971 – 14.22.8.28

BN – Z – DEK1
If illumination does not become permanent, if it does not stay with its host, that is because it does not find a proper place within him for such abiding stay. His heart is still too impure, his character still too imperfect for the consciousness of the Overself to associate constantly with him.

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

#28972 – 14.22.8.29

BN – ZZ – DK1
He must finish what he has started. He must go on until the peace, the understanding, the strength, and the benevolence of these rare uplifted moods have become a continuous presence within him.

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

#28973 – 14.22.8.30

BN – ZZ – DK1
We cannot see the Truth and still be what we were before we saw it. That is why Truth comes in glimpses, for we cannot sustain staying away from ourselves too long, that is to say, from our egos.

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

#28974 – 14.22.8.31

BN – ZZ – DM1
When he is willing to let go of the self-centered ego and the grace can manifest, there may be this union with his higher nature, with the Overself. It is usually not a permanent experience but the possibility of its becoming one is always there. Then the new outlook seems perfectly natural.

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

#28976 – 14.22.8.33

BN – ZZ – D
Let him not be presumptuous. He has not attained the true goal yet despite these noteworthy experiences. For his present knowledge of the Overself comes to him partly through the imagination, partly through the emotions, partly through the intellect, and only partly through the Overself. It is authentic but inferior. He must learn to get it through the understanding which is also authentic, but superior.

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

#28977 – 14.22.8.34

BN – Z
A continuous Insight, present all the time, is the goal, not a passing glimpse.

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

#28978 – 14.22.8.35

BSG_4 – P – D
What he has gained is good but not enough, is mystical but not philosophically mystical. For it is now but a flash when it has yet to become constant; it is now partial when it has yet to become full. Its felt presence should be intimate and inseparable as well as clear and complete. When insight continues whatever his occupation of the hour may be, it can be called philosophic.

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

#28979 – 14.22.8.36

BN – Z
A glimpse is only a beginning, and those who are willing to follow it up may be ready to study philosophy and learn why this world is only a husk. It must be penetrated, the husk removed and the kernel revealed, for a truer understanding, both of the world and oneself, to be gained.

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

#28981 – 14.22.8.38

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

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

#28984 – 14.22.8.41

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

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

#28985 – 14.22.8.42

BN – ZZ – K
He may be lifted up by the light of a great experience or the presence of a great soul, but in the end he falls back to the consciousness he ordinarily has, to the self he ordinarily is. This is not to say that what has happened is without value—on the contrary, such a glimpse is very important—but that under the thrill of its emotional accompaniments he may easily miscomprehend a part of it to the point of self-deception.

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

#28987 – 14.22.8.44

BN – Z
The error is to believe that he has now been put in possession of all truth, or the highest truth, for all time. But it is only a transient glimpse!

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

#28988 – 14.22.8.45

BN – Z
If he were pure enough and prepared enough to receive the light in all its fullness and in all the parts of his being, the glimpse would not leave him. But he is not.

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

#28989 – 14.22.8.46

BN – Z
If the glimpse is intermittent, let him not mourn the fact but remember that he was fortunate enough to get it. If the glimpse becomes a continuous thing, he will accept it humbly because of its very mysteriousness to himself.

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

#28990 – 14.22.8.47

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

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

#28991 – 14.22.8.48

BN – Z – D
This illumination does not make him an adept at the end of his path. He is a seeker still, albeit a highly advanced seeker.

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

#28992 – 14.22.8.49

BN – Z
These experiences are only foretastes of the farthest one which lies at the end of this quest, and only limited partial tastes at that.

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

#28993 – 14.22.8.50

BN – Z
The mystical feeling of divine presence and the direct revelation of divine truth for which they long may come but, unless they are among the rare exceptions, will also wane and finally get lost. In most cases the Glimpse is but transitory.

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

#28994 – 14.22.8.51

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

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

#28996 – 14.22.8.53

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

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

#28998 – 14.22.8.55

BN – ZZ – DK1
The failure to sustain this glimpse is not due to his personal demerit but to his system's limitation. For only by passing from yoga to philosophy, or rather by widening it, can permanence of result be had.

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

#28999 – 14.22.8.56

BN – Z
If it soon fades away, it is a glimpse. If he can stay in it every minute of his waking life, it is illumination.

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

#29000 – 14.22.8.57

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

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

#29001 – 14.22.8.58

BA12 – Z – D
In these glimpses he only looks at the Infinite Beauty, but in the final realization he become unified with it.

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

#29005 – 14.22.8.62

BA11 – Z – DK
Once he has experienced the glimpse he will understand why his next goal is to experience it again, and why his final goal is to attain it in permanence.

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

#29006 – 14.22.8.63

BN – X – D
That initial realization has henceforth to be established and made his own under all kinds of diverse conditions and in all kinds of places. Hence his life may be broken up for years by a wide range of vicissitudes, pains, pleasures, tests, temptations, and tribulations.

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

#29007 – 14.22.8.64

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

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

#29010 – 14.22.8.67

BN – Z – D
Let us value these encounters with the divine and be glad and truly grateful when they happen. They are significant and important. But they are special events. The quest does not run through them alone. It runs just as much through ordinary daily life in which our experiences are shared in common with so many people.

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

#29011 – 14.22.8.68

BN – Z
The momentary feeling of peace he experienced may be an intimation of the still greater peace he may know if he takes the trouble to pursue the opportunity of developing it through the Quest.

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

#29012 – 14.22.8.69

BN – Z
The luminous understanding of cosmic truths given him by this experience has still to be connected to, and brought into relation with, his everyday human character.

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

#29013 – 14.22.8.70

BN – Z
What he feels in these beautiful minutes is really a far-off echo from a higher, diviner world. The echo wanes and vanishes but its origin does not. One day, soon or late, he may pick it up again and this time learn of the greatness secreted within him.

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

#29014 – 14.22.8.71

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

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

#29015 – 14.22.8.72

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

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

#29016 – 14.22.8.73

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

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

#29021 – 14.22.8.78

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

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

#29026 – 14.22.8.83

BN – X – D