If he has succeeded in holding his mind somewhat still and empty, his next step is to find his centre.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30475 – 15.23.8.6

BN – Z – DK1

The inner movement is like no other which he has experienced for it must guide itself, must move forward searchingly into darkness without knowing where it will arrive. He must take some chances here, yet he need not be afraid. They will be reasonable and safe chances if he abides by the advice given in these pages.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30476 – 15.23.8.7

BN – Z – K1

We must move from consciousness to its hidden reality, the mind-essence which is alone true consciousness because it shines by its own and not by a borrowed light. When we cease to consider Mind as this or that particular mind but as all-Mind; when we cease to consider Thought as this thought or that but as the common power which makes thinking possible; and when we cease to consider this or that idea as such but as pure Idea, we apprehend the absolute existence through profound insight. Insight, at this stage, has no particular object to be conscious of. In this sense it is a Void. When the personal mind is stripped of its memories and anticipations, when all sense-impressions and thoughts entirely drop away from it, then it enters the realm of empty unnameable Nothingness. It is really a kind of self-contemplation. But this self is not finite and individual, it is cosmic and infinite.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30477 – 15.23.8.8

BN – X – DEK1

When he attains the state of void, all thoughts cease for then pure Thought thinks itself alone.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30478 – 15.23.8.9

BN – X – K1

God as MIND fills that void. In being deprived first of his ego and then of his ecstatic emotional union with the Overself, the mystic who is thereby inwardly reduced to a state of nothingness comes as near to God's 'state' as he can. However this does not mean that he comes to God's consciousness.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30479 – 15.23.8.10

BN – Z – K1

We cannot enter the Void if we carry any possessions—material or intellectual, emotional or social—with us. This is surely what Jesus meant when he said that the rich man could not enter the kingdom of heaven. It is not the bank book that can prevent anyone's entry, but rather the heart that is unable to leave the bank book.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30497 – 15.23.8.28

B_12 – X – K

Those who can pass in to the Void with eager anticipation and glad acceptance of it are few. Those who hover at its brink, terrified, refusing to make the plunge, are inevitably more.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30502 – 15.23.8.33

BN – X – D

The first contact of the student with the Void will probably frighten him. The sense of being alone—a disembodied spirit—in an immense abyss of limitless space gives a kind of shock to him unless he comes well prepared by metaphysical understanding and well fortified by a resolve to reach the supreme reality. His terror is, however, unjustified. In the act of projecting the personal ego the Overself has necessarily to veil itself from the ego at the same time. Thus ignorance is born.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30504 – 15.23.8.35

BN – X – DEK

In the nihilistic experience of void, the mystic finds memory sense and thought utterly closed, he knows no separate thing and no particular person; he is blank to all lower phenomena but it is a conscious living rich blissful sublime blankness; it is simply consciousness freed from both the pleasant and the unpleasant burdens of earthly existence.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30505 – 15.23.8.36

BA11 – ZZ – DEM*

The threshold of this inner being cannot be crossed without overcoming the fear that arises on reaching it. This is a fear of the unknown, the unfamiliar, the fantastic, and the illusory. The ego shrinks back from what is so strange to its past experience. It is afraid of losing itself in this emptiness that confronts it, and with that losing hold of the solid ground of physical life. Only by calling up all its inner courage and inner strength can these enemies be conquered.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30518 – 15.23.8.49

BN – Z – D

He stands on the very verge of non-existence. Shall he take the plunge? The courageous aspirant must not waver at this crucial moment. He must gather up all his force and draw the veil which conceals the face of Isis. A moment more—and he stands in the presence of the Unknown God!

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30520 – 15.23.8.51

BN – Z – D

If he is willing to accept this emptiness with all the annihilation of self that goes with it, he will succeed in passing the hardest of ordeals and the most rigorous of tests.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30522 – 15.23.8.53

BN – Z – K

So many mystics are quite unnecessarily frightened by this concept of the Void that it is necessary to reassure them. They halt on the very threshold of their high attainment and go no farther, because they fear they will be extinguished, annihilated. The truth is that this will happen only to their lower nature. They themselves will remain very much alive. Thus it is not the best part of their nature which really dreads the experience of the Void, but the worst part.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30526 – 15.23.8.57

BN – X – DEK

The fear of losing individuality and dissolving in a mass consciousness, or of losing identity and disappearing as a personal self, comes up as an obstacle in a certain deep stage of meditation—but not the deepest. It has to be overcome, transcended.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30527 – 15.23.8.58

BN – Z – D

There is no need to yield to the fear of the void, which comes in the deepest meditation. That is merely the personal ego offering its resistance to the higher self. That same fear of never being able to come back has to be faced by all advanced mystics when they reach this stage of meditation, but it is utterly groundless and is really a test of faith in God to protect them in a most laudable endeavour: to come closer to him and to advance farther from their lower self. Having once yielded to the fear and failed to make the necessary advance, the aspirant has failed in the test and it may be a long time before a similar opportunity will present itself again, if at all. Nevertheless, the memory of that great experience should always be an inspiration toward a more impersonal life.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Entering the Void

#30531 – 15.23.8.62

BN – Z – DEK

When he experiences the deepest possible state, all mental acts are suspended, all mental activities ended. This includes the act of identifying oneself with the ego. There is then nothing more to prevent the coming of enlightenment.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Nirvikalpa Samadhi

#30545 – 15.23.8.76

BA11 – ZZ – DK

What we call here the Void, following the Mongolian-Tibetan tradition, is not dissimilar from what Spanish Saint John of the Cross called "complete detachment and emptiness of spirit." It is a casting-out of all impressions from the mind, an elimination of every remembered or imagined experience from it, a turning-away from every idea even psychically referable to the five senses and the ego; finally, even a loss of personal identity.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Nirvikalpa Samadhi

#30552 – 15.23.8.83

UR_3.2 – Z – K1

In this experience he finds himself in sheer nothingness. There is not even the comfort of having a personal identity. Yet it is a paradoxical experience, for despite the total nothingness, he is neither asleep nor dead nor unconscious. Something 'is', but 'what' it is, or how, or anything else about it, stays an unravelled mystery.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Nirvikalpa Samadhi

#30553 – 15.23.8.84

BN – ZZ – K1

In that sacred moment when an awed silence grips the soul, we are undone. The small and narrow bricks with which we have built our house of personal life collapse and tumble to the ground. The things we worked and hungered for slip into the limbo of undesired and undesirable relics. The world of achievement, flickering with the activities of ambition, pales away into the pettiness of a third-rate play.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Nirvikalpa Samadhi

#30554 – 15.23.8.85

BN – ZZ – K1

This mysterious experience seems also to have been known to Dionysius the Areopagite. It is definitely an experience terminating the process of meditation, for the mystic can then go no higher and no deeper. It is variously called 'the Nought' in the West and 'Nirvikalpa Samadhi' in the East. Everything in the world vanishes and along with the world goes the personal ego; nothing indeed is left except Consciousness-in-itself. If anything can burrow under the foundation of the ego and unsettle its present and future stability, it is this awesome event.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Nirvikalpa Samadhi

#30557 – 15.23.8.88

UR_3.2 – Z – K

The world abruptly vanishes from his ken. He is poised for a few minutes in No-thing, the same great Void in which God is eternally poised. His contemplation has succeeded and, succeeding, has led him from self to Overself.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Nirvikalpa Samadhi

#30563 – 15.23.8.94

BN – Z – D

This condition, this entry into the Void, is a kind of death. Everything is taken away from him; he is nothing and has nothing; yet he still feels one thing which utterly compensates for this loss. We feel the presence of the Overself.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Nirvikalpa Samadhi

#30567 – 15.23.8.98

BSG_5 – Z – D

So many conversations on the words of Jesus have taken his sentence "I and my Father are one" to mean a kind of union like marriage. But they overlook the fact that married couples still remain couples, still express the number two. Jesus did not say, "I and my father are two". The number one is definitely not two. For Jesus found, as every other man who attains that stage of consciousness finds, that when contemplating the Infinite Life-Power (which he named the Father) he himself vanished. There was then no other consciousness except that of the Infinite itself. For That was the substratum of his own "I". But what happened in his contemplation two thousand years ago still happens today; the same discovery is made when the illusion of egoity (individuality) vanishes.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Nirvikalpa Samadhi

#30571 – 15.23.8.102

A231220 – Z – K

It is consciousness almost without content, what there is of the latter being perhaps the point from which all this began and rippled out.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Nirvikalpa Samadhi

#30573 – 15.23.8.104

BN – X – K

To enter this strange state, a primeval yet delightful void, where the ego, the intellect, the emotional desires, and the body do not intrude, is to be born again.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Nirvikalpa Samadhi

#30578 – 15.23.8.109

BN – Z – D

Through repeated contemplation of the void, the mind rids itself of the illusions of matter time space and personality and eventually the truth is reached.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30583 – 15.23.8.114

BN – Z – D

The adverse force present in his ego will continually try to draw him away from positive concentration on pure being into negative consideration of lower topics. Each time he must become aware of what is happening, of the change in trend, and resist it at once. Out of this wearying conflict will eventually be born fresh inner strength if he succeeds, but only more mental weakness if he fails. For meditation is potently creative.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30586 – 15.23.8.117

BN – Z – DK1

We must withdraw every thing and thought from the mind except this single thought of trying to achieve the absence of what is not the Absolute. This is called Gnana Yoga: "Neti, Neti" (It is not this), as Shankara called it. And he must go on with this negative elimination until he reaches the stage where a great Void envelops him. If he can succeed in holding resolutely to this Void in sustained concentration—and he will discover it is one of the hardest things in the world to do so—he will abruptly find that it is not a mere mental abstraction but something real, not a dream but the most concrete thing in his experience. Then and then only can he declare positively, "It is 'This'." For he has found the Overself.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30587 – 15.23.8.118

BN – ZZ – DEK1

Mystic experience has its limitation. It still remains within the realm of duality. This is because the subject-object relationship still remains. How is this limitation to be removed? The answer is only by being Being, only by transcending this relation.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30588 – 15.23.8.119

BN – Z – D

Knowledge of and deep meditation upon understanding the Void lead in the end, and more quickly than by wearisome yoga methods, to the dissolution of the thinking process.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30592 – 15.23.8.123

BN – Z – D

The best meditation in forgetting our personal miseries is the meditation on the Void. For if we succeed in it to only a partial degree, we succeed to that extent in forgetting the ego, who also is the sufferer, and his miseries vanish with it.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30593 – 15.23.8.124

BN – Z – D

It is not the objects of conscious attention which are to be allowed to trap the mind forever and divert the man from his higher duty. It is the consciousness itself which ought to engage his interest and hold his deepest concentration.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30598 – 15.23.8.129

BN – Z – DK1

When we comprehend that the pure essence of mind is reality, then we can also comprehend the rationale of the higher yoga which would settle attention in pure thought itself rather than in finite thoughts. When this is done the mind becomes vacant, still, and utterly undisturbed. This grand calm of nonduality comes to the philosophic yogi alone and is not to be confused with the lower-mystical experience of emotional ecstasy, clairvoyant vision, and inner voice. For in the latter the ego is present as its enjoyer, whereas in the former it is absent because the philosophic discipline has led to its denial. The lower type of mystic must make a special effort to gain his ecstatic experience, but the higher type finds it arises spontaneously without personal effort at all. The first is in the realm of duality, whilst the second has realized nonduality.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30599 – 15.23.8.130

BN – X – DEK1

In this exercise he first tries to comprehend that there is an immaterial and infinite Mind back of himself and, second, tries to identify himself with it. This he can successfully do only by an inner withdrawal in the one case and by a forgetting of personality in the other.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30601 – 15.23.8.132

BN – Z – D

He feels that he has touched something that always was even before his own body appeared on earth, something primeval and boundless.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30603 – 15.23.8.134

BN – Z – D

For when awareness is retracted into its source, all thoughts fall away and no second thing other than Mind itself is known to us.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30608 – 15.23.8.139

BN – Z – D

We have to seek Consciousness-in-itself, not those shadowy fragmentary and very limited expressions of it which are ideas. No collection of thoughts or combination of words can do other than misrepresent it.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30612 – 15.23.8.143

BN – Z – D

The best form of meditation is that which lifts us above time and into the Eternal Now.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30618 – 15.23.8.149

BN – Z – D

When all thoughts are extinguished; when even the thought of the quest itself vanishes; when even the final thought of seeking to control thoughts also subsides, then the great battle with the ego can take place. But the last scene of this invisible drama is always played by the Overself. For only when its Grace shoots forth and strikes down this final thought, does success come.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30621 – 15.23.8.152

BN – ZZZ – DK1

Everything that intrudes upon the mental stillness in this highly critical stage must be rejected, no matter how virtuous or how spiritual a face it puts on. Only by the lapse of all thought, by the loss of all thinking capacity can he maintain this rigid stillness as it should be maintained. It is here alone that the last great battle will be fought and that the first great fulfilment will be achieved. That battle will be the one which will give the final deathblow to the ego; that fulfilment will be the union with his Overself after the ego's death. Both the battle and the fulfilment must take place within the stillness; they must not be a merely intellectual matter of thought alone nor a merely emotional matter of feeling alone. Here in the stillness both thought and emotion must die and the ego will then lose their powerful support. Therefore here alone is it possible to tackle the ego with any possibility of victory.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30622 – 15.23.8.153

BN – ZZZ – DEMK1*

He separates the thought of his own existence from all other thoughts, then attacks and annuls it by the most penetrating insight he has ever shown.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30623 – 15.23.8.154

BN – Z – K1

The root-thought which underlies the ego that has to be slain is not that it is separate from all other creatures but that it is separate from the one infinite life-power.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30625 – 15.23.8.156

BN – Z – DK1

Hidden behind every particular thought there exists the divine element which makes possible our consciousness of that thought. If therefore we seek that element, we must seek it first by widening the gap between them and then dissolving all thoughts, and second by contemplating that out of which they have arisen.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30628 – 15.23.8.159

BN – Z – D

During the gap—infinitesimal though it be—between two thoughts, the ego vanishes. Hence it may truly be said that with each thought it reincarnates anew. There is no real need to wait for the series of long-lived births to be passed through before liberation can be achieved. The series of momentary births also offers this opportunity, provided a man knows how to use it.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30631 – 15.23.8.162

BN – Z – DK1

The succession of thoughts appears in time, but the gap between two of them is outside time. The gap itself is normally unobserved. The chance of enlightenment is missed.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30632 – 15.23.8.163

BN – Z – D

The exercise of watching a thought arise and vanish and then intently holding on to the interval before the next thought arises, is a hard one. It needs months and years of patient practice. But the reward, when it comes, is immense.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30637 – 15.23.8.168

BN – Z – D

When I wrote down the exercise in 'The Wisdom of the Overself' of concentrating on the gap between two thoughts, I did not know that the Buddha had stated that Nirvana exists "between two mind moments." I take this statement to confirm the usefulness of that exercise—admittedly a very difficult one.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Meditation upon the Void

#30638 – 15.23.8.169

BN – X – D

Paradoxically enough, tremendous forces lie latent here. Indeed the law is that the deeper a man penetrates into the void and the longer he sustains this penetration, the greater will be the power with which he will emerge from it.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Emerging from the Void

#30644 – 15.23.8.175

BN – X – D

We are meditating on something which will not arise and disappear, as ideas do and as material forms do, on something which is not ephemeral. Because that which vanishes contradicts its own arisal, we seek for that which does not contradict itself. Hence this kind of meditation which brings contemplation into action, sleep into wakefulness, has been called by the ancients "The Yoga of the Uncontradictable."

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Emerging from the Void

#30647 – 15.23.8.178

BN – X – K1

It comes as a state of intense bliss, and then you are your personal self no longer. The world is blotted out; Being alone exists. That Being has neither shape nor form. It is, shall we say, coexistent with space . . . in it you seem to fulfil the highest purpose of our Being. It is not the Ultimate, but for the sake of your meditation practice you nevertheless may regard it as the Ultimate. You will come back after a while. You cannot stay in it for long. You will come back and when you come back you will come back to the intellect; then you will begin to think very, very slowly at first, and each thought will be full of tremendous meaning, tremendous vitality, tremendous beauty and reality. You will be alive and inspired and you will know that you have had a transcendent experience. You will feel a great joy, and then for some time you may have to live on the memory of this glorious experience. Such experiences do not come often, but they will provide a memory that will act as a positive inspiration to you from time to time.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Emerging from the Void

#30648 – 15.23.8.179

BN – ZZ – K1

He who passes through these deeper phases of the Void can never again call anything or anyone his own. He becomes secretly and spiritually deprived of all personal possessions. This is because he has thoroughly realized the complete immateriality, spacelessness, timelessness, and formlessness of the Real—a realization which consequently leaves him nothing to take hold of, either within the world or within his personality. Not only does the possessive sense fall away from his attitude towards physical things but also towards intellectual ones.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Emerging from the Void

#30649 – 15.23.8.180

BSG_5 – ZZZ – K1

This raises the interesting question: what, then, is the Void? Ordinarily the term is used for that state where personal, physical, and mental experiences come to a stop but with a rarefied consciousness still remaining. There is no-thing to be known and no-one to know it, certainly no personal memory.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Emerging from the Void

#30652E – 15.23.8.183

BSG_5 – P – DE

I have often been asked what I thought was the secret of Buddha's smile. It is—it can only be—that he smiled at himself for searching all those years for what he already possessed.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Why Buddha smiled

#30658 – 15.23.8.189

BN – Z – DK1

As I gaze upon the rigid rapt figure of the Buddha upon my desk, I realize anew how much of Gautama's power is drawn from the practice of contemplation. It ties wings to the mind and sends the soul soaring up to its primal home. Gautama found his peace during that wonderful night when he came, weary of long search, dejected with six years of fruitless effort, to the Bo-tree near Gaya and sat in motionless meditation beneath its friendly branches, sinking the plummet of mind into the sacred well within. The true nature of human existence is obscured by the ceaseless changes of human thought. Whilst we remain embroiled in the multitude of thoughts which pass and re-pass, we cannot discover the pure unit of consciousness which exists beneath them all. These thoughts must first be steadied, next stilled. Every man has a fount within him. He has but to arise and go unto it. There he may find what he really needs.

Advanced Contemplation > The Void As Contemplative Experience > Why Buddha smiled

#30673 – 15.23.8.204

BN – Z – DEK

Outwardly we live and have to live in the very midst of cruel struggle and grievous conflict, for we share the planet's karma; but inwardly we can live by striking contrast in an intense stillness, a consecrated peace, a sublime security. The central stillness is always there, whether we are absorbed in bustling activity or not. Hence a part of this training consists in becoming conscious of its presence. Indeed only by bringing the mystical realization into the active life of the wakeful world can it attain its own fullness. The peaceful state must not only be attained during meditation, but also sustained during action.

The Peace within You > The Peace within You > The Peace within You

#30675 – 15.24.0.2

BN – ZZZ – DEK

He has learned through the experiences of many births not to cling desperately to anything, not to hold on stubbornly when life's clear indication is to let go, not to get so attached to persons or objects that all his happiness rests solely upon them.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The limitations of life

#30683 – 15.24.1.8

BN – X – D

The wisdom of experience teaches us that all things change. Friendship wanes and realized ambition brings its own new troubles or disappointments. A fixed and unalterable worldly happiness based on outward things is sought by many but found by none.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The limitations of life

#30685 – 15.24.1.10

B_01 – ZZZ – K

When one has received a terrible blow—such as losing someone very dear to him—he will understand better why the Buddha taught that all living is suffering. In pleasanter times, this truth goes unrecognized. It is only through heart-rending sorrow that many finally arrive at the gates of the Quest, for they have learned at last that only in seeking some knowledge of the Higher Power can they obtain an enduring measure of inner peace. In the calm heart of the inner life—in its strength and understanding—compensation may be found for our outward hardships, griefs, and losses.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The limitations of life

#30690 – 15.24.1.15

BN – Z – D

Young souls look for happiness, older ones for peace, calm, and equilibrium.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The limitations of life

#30691D – 15.24.1.16

BN – ZZ – K

No other person can bring us happiness if he or she does not possess it in himself or in herself. The romantic urge to seek in a second individual that which neither of the two has, can never find successful fulfilment.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The limitations of life

#30692D – 15.24.1.17

BN – ZZ – K

You may make yourself happy, by spiritual or other means, but will other human beings let you remain so? Not having accomplished this feat themselves, they are notorious for their interference in their neighbours' lives.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The limitations of life

#30693 – 15.24.1.18

BN – Z – K

If it be true, as the pessimist says, that life moves us from one trouble to another, it is also true that it moves us from one joy to another. But it is a question whether the anxieties and miseries of life are sufficiently compensated by its pleasures and satisfactions.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The limitations of life

#30695 – 15.24.1.20

BN – X – D

The Buddha tried to teach men to look only on the decay and death and suffering inherent in existence on this physical plane. This is as unfair and as extreme—if isolated—as the teaching of modern American cults which look only on the growth and life and joy which are also inherent here.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The limitations of life

#30701D – 15.24.1.26

BN – Z – K

Gautama's assertion that "life is suffering" may be matched with Socrates' assertion that "life is terrible." But both Indian and Greek sage referred solely to life in the ego. Is it quite fair to stress the misery of human existence without pointing to its mystery? For that is just as much there, even if attention is seldom turned toward it. Man, in order to complete and fulfil himself, will and must rise to life in the Overself with the ego put into place, belittled and broken.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The limitations of life

#30705D – 15.24.1.30

A241129 – ZZZ – DK

The criticism of life which the pessimists like Gautama and Schopenhauer make, is too negative. This is not because it is not true but because it is not complete and hence is lopsided.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The limitations of life

#30708 – 15.24.1.33

BN – X – D

"Sadness does not befit a sage" is the reminder of an ancient Confucian text. "He is a man inwardly free of sorrow and care. He should be like the sun at midday—illuminating and gladdening everyone. This is not given to every human—only one whose will is directed to 'The Great' is able to it. For the attribute of 'The Great' is joyousness."

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > Philosophic happiness

#30710D – 15.24.1.35

BN – ZZ – K

Because he is seeking the ultimate source of true joy, he is more likely to find it if he searches for it with a cheerful heart than if with a miserable one.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > Philosophic happiness

#30711 – 15.24.1.36

BN – X – DK

The attitude of Emerson, which induced him to call himself "a professor of the science of Joy," is more attractive than that of Schopenhauer, who taught the futility of life, proclaimed the vanity of existence, and spread the mood of despair. Emerson declined to accept the massive Oriental doctrine of melancholy resignation along with the Oriental gems of wisdom which he treasured. "This world belongs to the cheerful!" he said.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > Philosophic happiness

#30712D – 15.24.1.37

BN – Z – K

"I enjoy life and try to spend it in peace, joy, and cheerfulness," Spinoza wrote to a correspondent.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > Philosophic happiness

#30716 – 15.24.1.41

BN – X – DK*

When one finds a constant happiness within oneself, the pleasures of the senses will not be missed if they are not there. They are no longer necessary to stimulate him, although they will still be appreciated if they are there.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > Philosophic happiness

#30747 – 15.24.1.72

BN – X – D

If you investigate the matter deeply enough and widely enough, you will find that happiness eludes nearly all men despite the fact that they are forever seeking it. The fortunate and successful few are those who have stopped seeking with the ego alone and allow the search to be directed inwardly by the higher self. They alone can find a happiness unblemished by defects or deficiencies, a Supreme Good which is not a further source of pain and sorrow but an endless source of satisfaction and peace.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30749D – 15.24.1.74

BN – ZZZ – DK-1

Pleasure is satisfaction derived from the things and persons outside us. Happiness is satisfaction derived from the core of deepest being inside us. Because we get our pleasures through the five senses, they are more exciting and are sharper, more vivid, than the diffused self-induced thoughts and feelings which bring us happiness. In short, pleasure is of the body whereas something quite immaterial and impalpable is the source of our happiness. This is not to say that all pleasures are to be ascetically rejected, but that whereas we are helplessly dependent for them on some object or some person, we are dependent only on ourselves for happiness.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30750D – 15.24.1.75

BN – ZZ – K

He will be honest enough to admit that he does care if things are going wrong, if possessions are falling away, and if his desires are ending in frustration instead of fulfilment. But he will also be wise enough to declare that he knows that peace of mind is still worth seeking despite these disappointments and that intuitions of the Overself are no less necessary to his happiness and well-being than are the comforts of this world.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30751 – 15.24.1.76

BN – X – DK

If the mind can reach a state where it is free from its own ideas, projections, and wishes, it can reach true happiness.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30752D – 15.24.1.77

BN – ZZ – DK

In those moments when he touches the still centre of his being, he forgets his miseries and enjoys its happiness. This provides a clue to the correct way to find real happiness, which so many are seeking and so few are finding. It lies within.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30754 – 15.24.1.79

BN – X – D

Artificial pleasures are not the same as enduring happiness. They come from outside, from stimulated senses, whereas it comes from within.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30760 – 15.24.1.85

BN – X – D

No environment is ideal. Not in outward search but in deeper self-penetration shall we find true lasting happiness.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30763 – 15.24.1.88

BA12 – ZZ – DK

He who has learned how to enter at will into this silent inner world will return to it again and again. In no other way can such calm holy joy be felt, such deep meaning be known, such release from personal problems be secured.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30765 – 15.24.1.90

BN – X – D

We think that this or that will bring us to the great happiness. But the fortunate few know that in meditation the mind is at its most blissful when it is most empty.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30766D – 15.24.1.91

BN – X – D

He is happy even though he has no blessed consciousness of the Overself, no transcendental knowledge of it, but only secondhand news about it. Why, then, is he happy? Because he knows that he has found the way to both consciousness and knowledge. He is content to wait, working nevertheless as he waits; for if he remains faithful to the quest, what other result can there be than attainment? Even if he has to wait fifty years or fifty lifetimes, he will and must gain it.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30768 – 15.24.1.93

BN – X – D

When we find the still centre of our being, we find it to be all happiness. When we remain in the surface of our being, we yearn for happiness but never find it. For there the mind is always moving, restless, scattered.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30773 – 15.24.1.98

BN – X – D

The Overself is present with man, and life is nothing more, in the end, than a searching for this presence. He engages in this activity quite unconsciously in the belief that he is looking for happiness.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30774 – 15.24.1.99

BA11 – Z – DK

Hidden under its miseries, life keeps incredible happiness waiting for one who will search and work for it.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30775 – 15.24.1.100

BN – X – D

If suffering brings moods of dejection, it is only fulfilling its intention. This is part of its place in the scheme of things, leading to the awareness that underneath the sweet pleasures of life there is always pain. But thought would present only a half-truth if it stopped there. The other half is much harder to find: it is that underneath the surface sufferings which no one escapes, far deeper down than its counterpart, is a vast harmony, an immense love, an incredible peace, and a universal support.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30777 – 15.24.1.102

B_01 – ZZZ – DEK

The law which pushes us into, or out of, physical bodies is a cosmic law. There is no blind chance about it…; [there is] a vast harmony, an immense love, an incredible peace, and a universal support.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30777EM – 15.24.1.102

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DXK

In the universe there is joy and suffering: in that which transcends it there is only a higher pure joy. The pairs of opposites cannot be escaped 'in' the universe.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30778 – 15.24.1.103

BN – Z – DK

Joy and sorrow are, after all, only states of mind. He who gets his mind under control, keeping it unshakeably serene, will not let these usurpers gain entry. They do not come from the best part of himself. They come from the ego. How many persons could learn from him to give up their unhappiness if they learnt that most of their sorrows are mental states, the false ego pitying itself?

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30779D – 15.24.1.104

BN – ZZ – K

If the divine presence is dwelling at the core of his mind, then the divine bliss, peace, and strength are dwelling at the core of his mind too. Why then should he let outward troubles rob him of the chance to share them? Why should he let only the troubles enter his consciousness, and withdraw all attention from the bliss and peace and strength? The conditions of this world are subject to the cosmic law of change. They are temporary. But the bright core within him is not. Why then give a permanent meaning to those conditions by a total surrender to the sadness they cause?

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30781 – 15.24.1.106

BN – X – DEK

It is always hard to watch others who are near and dear to him suffer, but he must not let go of his own inner faith and peace, however little they be, because of having to witness such suffering. It ought not to take him by surprise if he remembers that earthly life is usually a mixture of pleasure and pain, and that only in the Overself is there lasting happiness.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30783 – 15.24.1.108

BN – X – D

The incentive to seek happiness will always be present so long as the consciousness of the Overself is absent. But so soon as that is found, the incentive vanishes. For then we are that which was sought—seeker, search, and object blend into one.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30784 – 15.24.1.109

B_05 – Z – DK

He will see that no affliction and no misfortune need be allowed to take away his happiness.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30786 – 15.24.1.111

BN – X – K

It is not enough to achieve peace of mind. He must penetrate the Real still farther and achieve joy of heart.

The Peace within You > The Search for Happiness > The heart of joy

#30787D – 15.24.1.112

BN – Z – K

After the brief hour of peace come the long months of storm: its purity is then contested by opposition, its light by the world's darkness. It is through the varying episodes of experience that he must struggle back to the peace and purity which he saw in vision and felt in meditation. True, he had found them even then but they were still only latent and undeveloped.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Be Calm

#30789D – 15.24.2.1

BN – Z – K

Is the search for inner peace a hopeless one? There is enough testimony to prove that it is not.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Be Calm

#30793 – 15.24.2.5

BN – X – DK

It is easy to attain a kind of artificial serenity while seated in the comfort of an armchair and reading a philosophic book, but to keep calm in the midst of provocation or peril is the test. So the would-be philosopher will try to keep an even mind at all times, to chill its passions and control its agitations.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Be Calm

#30804 – 15.24.2.16

BA12 – ZZ – DK

Seek the centre of inner gravity and try to stay in it. Try to avoid being pulled out of it by emotions and passions, whether your own or other people's, by anxieties and troubles—in short, by the ego.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The goal of tranquillity

#30809 – 15.24.2.21

BN – X – D

To attain knowledge of Brahman, the mind must be held in the prerequisite state of being calm, tranquil, and in equilibrium—not carried away by attachment to anything. 'After' this is established, and only then, can you begin enquiry with any hope of success. Unless the mind is balanced you cannot get Brahman.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The goal of tranquillity

#30812D – 15.24.2.24

BN – Z – K

The importance of cultivating calmness is well known in India. The Brahmin youth at puberty when initiated into his caste status and given the sacred thread is taught to make the first sought-for attribute calmness. Why is this? Because it helps a man to achieve self-control and because without it he becomes filled with tensions. These tensions come from the ego and prevent him from responding to intuitive feelings and intuitive ideas. For the student of philosophy it is of course absolutely essential to achieve a composed and relaxed inner habit.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The goal of tranquillity

#30813D – 15.24.2.25

BN – Z – K

The Psalmist’s advice, “Be still, and know that I am God,” may be taken on one level—the mystical—as a reference to the ultimate state achieved intermittently in contemplation; but on another level—the philosophical—the reference can be carried even deeper. For here it is a continuous state achieved not by quietening the mind for half an hour but by emptying the mind for all time of agitation and illusion. Towards this end the cultivation of calmness amid all circumstances makes a weighty contribution.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The goal of tranquillity

#30815 – 15.24.2.27

BN – Z – DK*

Half of Asia holds this faith, burns its sweet-scented incense before the firm conviction that the search for inner calm and emotional freedom is the highest duty of man.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The goal of tranquillity

#30816 – 15.24.2.28

BN – X – DK

He sets up the ideal of meeting events, be they favourable or adverse, with equanimity.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The goal of tranquillity

#30824 – 15.24.2.36

BN – Z – D

He should learn to cultivate the feelings of peace whenever they are strongly present. He should give himself to them completely, putting aside everything else. For they will bear to him something hidden inside of them that is even still more valuable.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The goal of tranquillity

#30826 – 15.24.2.38

BN – X – D

If at any time he feels the touch of Peace, he should stay where he is, forget all else, and surrender to it.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The goal of tranquillity

#30827 – 15.24.2.39

BN – X – D

If his daily life makes him feel that it is taking him farther away from this peace, this inner harmony, he may have to reconsider his situation, environment, and activities.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30839 – 15.24.2.51

BN – X – D

No pleasure which is brief, sensual, and fugitive is worth exchanging for equanimity and peace, not even if it is multiplied a thousand times during a lifetime's course.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30840D – 15.24.2.52

BA12 – ZZ – DK

The worst result of all this hurry and tumult and preoccupation with externals is that it leaves no time for intuitive living.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30844 – 15.24.2.56

BN – X – D

He must find and keep a centre within himself which he is determined to keep inviolate against the changes, alarms, and disturbances of the outside world. Human life being what it is, he knows that troubles may come but he is resolved that they shall not invade this inner sanctuary and shall be kept at a mental distance.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30848 – 15.24.2.60

BN – X – D

But such calm, such satisfying equanimity, can only be kept if he does not expect too much from others, does not make too many demands on life, and is not too fussy about trifles.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30851 – 15.24.2.63

BN – Z – DK

He trains himself to talk without rancour of those who criticize him, and without bias of those whose ideas or ideals are antithetic to his own. In the face of provocation he seeks to keep his equanimity. But such calm, such satisfying equanimity, can only be kept if he does not expect too much from others, does not make too many demands on life, and is not too fussy about trifles.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30851M – 15.24.2.63

BSG_4 – Z – DXK

Even when a situation becomes quite critical, a here-and-now matter, he should not give way to panic. The first move after the first shock should be to restore and maintain calm, the second to consider what he is to do—a question for which he should look not only to thinking for an answer but also to intuition.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30852 – 15.24.2.64

BN – ZZ – DK

If the world tires you, if the evil deeds of others torment you, you can find blessed peace and healing refuge by turning within.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30857 – 15.24.2.69

BN – X – D

In the Stillness we find the perfect shelter from the unease brought by so many human presences, with all their radiating auras.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30861 – 15.24.2.73

B_01 – ZZ – K

Remember to recess back into consciousness, to the centre, when other persons are present. This instantly subjugates nerve strain and self-consciousness.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30862 – 15.24.2.74

BN – X – D

When confronted by turmoil, he will remember to remain calm. When in the presence of ugliness, he will think of beauty. When others show forth their animality and brutality, he will show forth his spiritual refinement and gentleness. Above all, when all around seems dark and hopeless, he will remember that nothing can extinguish the Overself's light and that it will shine again as surely as spring follows winter.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30866 – 15.24.2.78

BA12 – ZZZ – DMK

When the evils or tribulations or disappointments of life become too heavy a weight, if he has made some advance he has only to pause, turn away and inward, and there he can find a radiant peace of mind which offsets the dark things and counterbalances the menacing depressions.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#30868 – 15.24.2.80

BN – X – D

Tranquillity—the first psychological quality taught at his caste-initiation to the Brahmin youth; much admired by Benjamin Disraeli because seldom met with in society; prized by Marcus Aurelius and his Stoic sect as the best of virtues—this is to be practised by those who would become philosophers and sought by those who would become saints. Yet for others, who must perforce stay, mix, and work in the world, it is not less valuable to smooth their path and reduce their difficulties. The first it does by putting men at their ease, the second by bestowing clearer sight. For them too it is the defense against rancour, the preserver of humour and peace, and, lastly, if they desire, the way to be in the world but not of it. As Lao Tzu wrote: "There is an Infinite Being which was before Heaven and Earth. How calm it is!"

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30884 – 15.24.2.96

BN – Z – K

He who attains this beautiful serenity is absolved from the misery of frustrated desires, is healed of the wounds of bitter memories, is liberated from the burden of earthly struggles. He has created a secret, invulnerable centre within himself, a garden of the spirit which neither the world's hurts nor the world's joys can touch. He has found a transcendental singleness of mind.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30885D – 15.24.2.97

BN – ZZ – DEK

As his centre moves to a profounder depth of being, peace of mind becomes increasingly a constant companion. This in turn influences the way in which he handles his share of the world's activities. Impatience and stupidity recede, wrath at malignity is disciplined; discouragement under adversity is controlled and stress under pressures relaxed.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30886D – 15.24.2.98

BN – ZZ – DK

Depression cannot coexist with this realization of the presence.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30888 – 15.24.2.100

BN – X – D

The fruits of the Spirit are several but the list begins with inner peace. The agitation and anxiety, the desires and passions are enfeebled or extinguished.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30894 – 15.24.2.106

BN – X – D

The man who is established in the Overself cannot be deflected from the calm which it gives into passions, angers, hatreds, and similar base things. Calmness has become his natural attitude.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30901 – 15.24.2.113

BN – ZZ – DK

Those desired moments of the mind when peace falls are rare, but they exist and are still to be found. The solace they can confer becomes with time the most prized possession of those few who have touched it.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30902 – 15.24.2.114

BN – Z – K

Where this attitude of philosophic detachment is lacking, one's sufferings under the blows of karma will inevitably be more intense.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30909 – 15.24.2.121

B_17 – Z – K

This freedom from inner conflict, this disburdenment of troubling complexes, this liberation from gnawing unrest, releases his mental and emotional energies for concentration upon his work.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30910 – 15.24.2.122

BN – Z – DK

If he has real inner peace he will never know the mental shock and nervous collapse which come to numbers of people when bereavement or loss of fortune comes. Such a calamity may not be preventable, but the emotional suffering it causes may be cut off at the very start by a philosophic attitude toward life generally.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30916 – 15.24.2.128

B_17 – Z – DK

As the inner peace advances, the outer problems recede; as truth permeates the mind, harmony re-arranges the life.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30919 – 15.24.2.131

BN – ZZ – DEK

Does the phrase "peace of mind" suggest that he will not suffer in a suffering world? This can hardly be true, or even possible. As actual experience, it means that his thoughts are brought under sufficient control to enable him to repel disturbance and to retain sensitivity. The sacred stillness behind them becomes the centre.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30930D – 15.24.2.142

B_17 – ZZ – K

It is not that he has no likes and dislikes—he is still human enough for them—but that he knows that they are secondary to a true and just view, and that his inner calm must not be disturbed by them.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30932D – 15.24.2.144

BN – ZZ – K

It is not that the years pass by unregarded, nor that he is dead to human feelings, but that at this centre of his being to which he now has access, there is utter calm, a high indifference to agitations which compels him to treat them with serene dignity. He is a dweller in two worlds more or less at the same time.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30933D – 15.24.2.145

BN – ZZZ – K

It is not correct to believe that the stricken body of a sage suffers no pain. It is there and it is felt, but it is enclosed by a larger peace-filled consciousness. The one is a witness of the other. So pain is countered but not removed.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30938 – 15.24.2.150

BN – X – D

Some people mistake philosophic calm for fatalistic resignation. This is because the philosopher will seem to endure some situations stoically unperturbed. They do not know that where he finds that he cannot work outwardly to improve a situation, he will work inwardly to extract the utmost spiritual profit from it.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30940 – 15.24.2.152

BN – ZZZ – K

The more he practises this inward calm, the less he shows concern about outward situations. If this seems to lead to a kind of casualness, it actually leads to inner peace.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > The qualities of calm

#30942 – 15.24.2.154

BN – X – D

Holding on to the future in anxiety and apprehension must be abandoned. It must be committed to the higher power completely and faithfully. Calmness comes easily to the man who really trusts the higher power. This is unarguable.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30946D – 15.24.2.158

BN – ZZ – DM

Think of the Overself as an ever-deepening calm. It may seem to come spontaneously after you have practised it much and found the helpfulness.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30948 – 15.24.2.160

BN – X – D

With sufficient intelligence, reverent devotion, and personal purification, it is possible to enter one day into this experience of being enclosed within the divine mystery, enravished by the divine peace.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30949 – 15.24.2.161

BN – X – D

This moving of consciousness to a higher level will come about by itself, if the calm is patiently allowed to settle itself down sufficiently, and if there has been preparation by study, aspiration, and purification.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30950 – 15.24.2.162

BN – X – D

Before the Overself can stay with you, the feelings must be brought to a condition of calm, the thoughts must be turned inwards and centered there. Otherwise the outer difficulties will not let go of your attention. All this often includes the disengagement from strong desires and sensual passions. This inner work leads the practitioner—if he is willing to go so far—deeper within the self. What does he find there if efforts are successful? A beautiful quietude, an unearthly sense of having moved to another plane of being, a closer communion with spirituality. It is true that at its deepest points the working of intellect gets suspended. It is, however, a temporary condition.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30952 – 15.24.2.164

BN – Z – DEK

He has brought over from earlier births a number of subconscious memories, tendencies and complexes, unfulfilled desires and unexpressed aspirations. These have to be dealt with, either by increasing eradication or by diminishing satisfaction, so that they no longer interrupt the calm tenor of the mind.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30955 – 15.24.2.167

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

The closer he comes to the source of his being, the farther he goes from depression and despair.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30956 – 15.24.2.168

BN – X – D

This evenness of temperament comes gradually of itself as he lives more and more with the deeper part of his being.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30969 – 15.24.2.181

BN – Z – D

When one knows that the Real always is and that all disappear back into it because there is nowhere else to go, then one ceases his terrific hurry to get somewhere and takes events more calmly. Patience comes with the fragrance of the eternal. One works at self-improvement all the same, but there need not be any desperate bother about the task. There is plenty of time. One can always do tomorrow what one needs to do today.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30976 – 15.24.2.188

BN – X – D

When the I is no longer felt then all the problems and burdens associated with it are also no longer felt. This is the state of inner calm which philosophy seeks to bring about in a man.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30980D – 15.24.2.192

BN – Z – K

If you would become a philosopher in practice, then the first step is to cultivate calmness.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30981 – 15.24.2.193

BN – X – D

The first fruit of philosophy is to bring the calm repose of the soul into the activity of the body.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30984 – 15.24.2.196

BN – X – D

With the passage of well-spent time and the coming of well-deserved Grace, he will finally reach the serenity and mastery that characterize the last stages of the path.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30985 – 15.24.2.197

BN – X – D

It is often not easy to preserve one’s calm amid provocative or passion-filled events, but that is precisely what a philosopher must set himself to do.

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30986 – 15.24.2.198

BN – Z – D

Even while you share in the life, the work, and the pleasures of this world, learn also to stand aside as a witness of them all. Learn how to be a spectator as well as a participator; in short, let detachment accompany your involvement, or rather let it hide secretly behind the other.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30990E – 15.24.3.1

BSG_4 – P – DE

There are two different ways of being detached: the ascetic's, which dissociates itself from the world and tries to live outside the world's activities; and the philosopher's, which accepts those activities but not the dependence which usually comes with them.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30992 – 15.24.3.3

BN – X – D

How trifling all the earthly successes must seem to a dying person! Such is the state of mind which may be called inner detachment and which the aspirant needs to cultivate.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30994 – 15.24.3.5

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DK

How trifling all his earthly successes must seem to a dying man! It is both the irony and tragedy of life that we use up its strictly limited quota of years in pursuits which we come later to see as worthless and in desires which we find bring pain with their fulfilment. The dying man, who sees the cinema-film of his past flash in review before his mental eyes, discovers this irony and feels this tragedy.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30994EM – 15.24.3.5

A250930 – ZZZ – DXK

Only he is able to think his own thought, uninfluenced by others, who has trained himself to enter the Stillness, where alone he is able to transcend all thought.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30995D – 15.24.3.6

BN – Z – DK

'Independent of' seems a better term than 'detached from' (outside things).

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30999 – 15.24.3.10

UR_3.2 – Z – K

Loneliness vanishes completely in the Stillness. He is then with the power behind the entire universe, with the Mind behind all human consciousness. He returns from the Stillness welcoming the condition of being free, unattached, unjoined—this is no longer the condition of being lonely.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31003 – 15.24.3.14

BN – ZZ – DEK

Although there are some points where they touch one another, there is a fundamental difference between philosophic detachment and the unassailable insensibility cultivated by the lower order of Hindu yogis or the invulnerable unfeelingness sought by the ancient Stoics. Some part of the philosopher remains an untouched, independent, and impartial observer. It notes the nature of things but does not allow itself to be swept away by the repulsiveness of unpleasant things or lost in the attractiveness of pleasant ones. But this does not prevent him from removing himself from the neighbourhood of the first kind, or from finding pleasure in the second kind. It is the same with his experience of persons. He is well aware of their characteristics; but however undesirable, faulty, or evil they may be, he makes no attempt to judge them. Indeed, he accepts them just as they are. This is inevitable since, being aware of his and their common origin in God, he practises goodwill towards everyone unremittingly.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31011 – 15.24.3.22

BN – ZZZ – DEK

He will mentally be in control of every situation, yielding no reaction to it which is not in accord with philosophical principles.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31015 – 15.24.3.26

BN – ZZZ – DM

The notion that the fortunes and misfortunes of life should be of little importance to a philosopher is not a correct one. To practise a calm detachment is not to ignore worldly values.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31018 – 15.24.3.29

BN – X – D

He will find, with time, that this increasing detachment from his own person will reflect itself back in an increasing detachment from other persons. Consequently, irritation with their faults, quarrels with their views, and interference with their lives will show themselves less and less. It is pertinent to note, however, the difference between the ordinary mystic's detachment from personalities and the philosophical mystic's. The first tends finally to become mere indifference, whereas the second always becomes compassionate.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31019 – 15.24.3.30

BN – ZZ – DEK

To be detached from the world does not mean to be uninterested in the world.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31021D – 15.24.3.32

BN – ZZ – K

Do not confuse inner detachment with callous indifference. Do not search after impossible results. A worthy goal for human beings cannot be devoid of human feelings, however elevated they may be: it cannot be a glacial one.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31022D – 15.24.3.33

BN – ZZ – K

He may become detached without becoming dehumanized. He may live inwardly apart from the rest of the world without lessening his goodwill and good feeling for others.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31023D – 15.24.3.34

BN – ZZZ – K

The world is told of the inner detachment which philosophy bestows, the deeper calm which it puts into a man's existence. Too often this is misread to mean a chilling remoteness from life's inescapable concerns, a feeble response to the personal demands which duty lays upon him.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31026 – 15.24.3.37

B_08 – Z – K

Whoever comes close to this uncovered goodness within his heart—can he have any other feeling towards others than that of goodwill?

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31030 – 15.24.3.41

BN – X – D

Whoever lives in the Spirit lives in its perennial peace. It is a happy peace, a smiling peace, but he is not lost in it. He is aware also of the suffering which exists around him and in the world at large. In just the same way, if he is responsive to the beauty which nature offers and man creates, he is also aware of the ugliness which exists.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31037 – 15.24.3.48

B_17 – ZZ – K

To turn one's mind instantly towards the divinity within, when in the presence of discordant people, is to silence harsh thoughts and to banish hurtful feelings. This frequent turning inward is necessary not only for spiritual growth, but for self-protection. Everything and everyone around us plays a potent influence upon our minds, and this is the best means of detaching oneself from this ceaseless flow of suggestions.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31042D – 15.24.3.53

BN – ZZ – DK

If he is to keep this wonderful inner calm, he must be vigilant that he does not accept from others the pressures they would put upon him. That is, he must be true to himself, his higher self.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31044 – 15.24.3.55

BN – X – D

One form of self-training to help acquire this inner detachment is to practise seeing and hearing no more of what is happening around one than is absolutely necessary for one's immediate purpose, duty, or activity.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31045 – 15.24.3.56

BN – X – D

The itch of curiosity which wants to know other people's private lives, the urge to meddle in their affairs or tamper with their lives, must be suppressed if one's own peace is ever to be found.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31054 – 15.24.3.65

BA12 – ZZ – DK

Nothing that his enemies say will ever have the power to wound him if he listens to it with the ear of inward detachment.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31060 – 15.24.3.71

BN – ZZ – K

Human frailty being what it is, human conduct should never surprise us and never amaze us. By not expecting too much from it, we save ourselves unnecessary bitterness or disappointment.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31062 – 15.24.3.73

BN – X – D

Jesus did not answer when malignment and malediction were hurled upon him. Buddha kept silence when vilification and abuse were uttered against him. These great souls did not live in the ego and therefore did not care to defend it.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31068 – 15.24.3.79

B_12 – ZZZ – DK

The more successfully he can keep himself free from worldly ties, the more extensively he will be able to serve mankind.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31072 – 15.24.3.83

BN – X – D

He who has attuned himself to the egoless life and pledged himself to the altruistic life will find that in abandoning the selfish motives which prompt men he has lost nothing after all. For whatever he really needs and whenever he really needs it, it will come to his hands. And this will be equally true whether it be something for himself or for fulfilment of that service to which he is dedicated. Hence a Persian scripture says: “When thou reachest this station [the abandonment of all mortal attachments], all that is thy highest wish shall be realized.”

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31074 – 15.24.3.85

BN – X – DK

Out of the continued practice of this inward detachment from his own actions and their results, there develops within him a sense of strength and mastery, a feeling of happy peace and being at ease.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31075 – 15.24.3.86

BN – X – D

The cool detachment which he feels in the presence of temptations is a very satisfying feeling, a worthwhile reward for the struggles to attain it.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31076 – 15.24.3.87

BN – X – D

If he establishes himself first in this vital creative centre, all else will be added unto him inevitably and inescapably.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31078 – 15.24.3.89

BN – X – D

The Gita enjoins unconcern about the results of activity not only because this leads to calm detached feelings as the large general result, but also because it leads to better ability to keep meditation continuously going on in the background of attention as the special result.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31079 – 15.24.3.90

BN – X – D

Those who can bring themselves to give up all, will receive all. Those who can dare to lift themselves out of emotional oscillation will find ”the peace which passeth understanding.” Those who can perceive that they are their own obstacles in the way will in no long time perceive the truth.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31081 – 15.24.3.92

BN – X – D

The man who knows how to live in his centre and not stray away from it, frequently finds that he need not make any move towards satisfying a need. It will often come by itself at the right moment drawn by the magnetic central power.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31085 – 15.24.3.96

BN – X – D

If a man understands that life is like a dream and is mental at bottom, and if as a result he practises a certain kind of detachment, there will descend upon his character a calmness and a serenity for which he will not even have to work, given sufficient time.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31092 – 15.24.3.103

BA11 – ZZ – DMK

If he can transcend himself, can rise to independence from the ego's attachments and desires and emotions, utter peace awaits him.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31093 – 15.24.3.104

BN – X – D

There is a materialistic serenity and a spiritual serenity. The first comes from the possession of money, property, position, or affection. The other comes from no outward possessions but from inward ones. The first can be shattered at a single blow; the other soon recovers.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Solving difficulties

#31095D – 15.24.3.106

BN – ZZ – DK

Can he detach himself from the personal aspects of the situation? Can he refuse to be guided by them or influenced by the feelings of the moment? This is his test.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Solving difficulties

#31102 – 15.24.3.113

BN – X – D

Is it at all possible that a human being, with flesh blood and nerves, living in a world and time like ours with all the inflamed discussions, the tensions and frictions, the sufferings and violence, can keep an inner aloofness?

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Solving difficulties

#31114 – 15.24.3.125

B_17 – Z – K

Whatever mental-emotional clouds the day may bring, he does not detain them but lets them pass over him. This would seem a superhuman feat, but it becomes possible when he turns them over to the higher power.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31117 – 15.24.3.128

BN – ZZ – D

No man can get out of his own sorrows unless he can get out of his own thoughts.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31121 – 15.24.3.132

BN – Z – DK

It is not only that he must remove the impurities, the faults and the weaknesses, which obstruct the divine entry or prevent the divine settlement, but also that he must, by continually training himself to remain undisturbed by troubles and unexcited by good fortune, keep mind and heart always calm so that the divine guest may be able to remain permanently.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31124 – 15.24.3.135

BN – X – D

If you will take care not to become too depressed when things go wrong, nor too elated when they go right, you will gradually achieve an equilibrium which later will assist you to remain always in touch with Reality.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31127 – 15.24.3.138

BN – X – D

This way of looking at all experiences for their inner meaning, of learning from all alike, causes him to reject nothing and to express tolerance. For all are valuable—even if not equally valuable—in serving his higher purpose and fulfilling his spiritual quest.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31131E – 15.24.3.142

BSG_4 – ZZ – K

There are disagreeable elements in our experience of life as well as pleasurable ones; but if we are ever to find peace of mind we must learn to put a reserve behind these feelings, to stand aside and scrutinize them, even in the midst of the events which produce them.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31135 – 15.24.3.146

BN – X – D

A human being is not necessarily unspiritual if he lives fully in the world, engaging in its activities and appreciating its satisfactions. Only, he must remember constantly who and what he really is and never forget his ultimate purpose.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31137 – 15.24.3.148

B_08 – ZZZ – DK

Although he should give his best to external life, he should not give the whole of himself to it. Somewhere within his heart he must keep a certain reserve, a spiritual independence. It is here, in this secret place, that the supreme value of the Overself is to be cherished, loved, and surrendered to.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31138 – 15.24.3.149

BN – Z – DK

Those activities which belong to a human existence in the world may still go on, and need not be renounced, although they may be modified or altered in certain ways as intuition directs. His business, professional, family, and social interests need not be given up. His appreciations or creations of art need not be abandoned. His intellectual and cultural life can remain. It is only demanded of him that none of these should be a self-sufficient thing, existing in total disregard of the Whole, of the ultimate and higher purpose which is behind reincarnation.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31139D – 15.24.3.150

UR_2 – ZZZ – DMK

Those activities which belong to a human existence in the world may still go on, and need not be renounced, although they may be modified or altered in certain ways as intuition directs. His business, professional, family, and social interests need not be given up. His appreciations or creations of art need not be abandoned. His intellectual and cultural life can remain. It is only demanded of him that none of these should be a self-sufficient thing, existing in total disregard of the Whole, of the ultimate and higher purpose which is behind reincarnation.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31139D – 15.24.3.150

B_08 – ZZZ – DMK1

However busily active we may have to be to fulfil our worldly duties, inwardly our mind will repose in perfect placidity. It is this ideal state that enables us to remain secretly detached from and emotionally uninvolved with the world. Without it, we would be caught up by temptations and tribulations, and affected by them as most human beings are affected.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31140 – 15.24.3.151

BSG_4 – ZZ – DK

He is not asked to abandon his social aspirations, for instance, in favour of his spiritual aspirations, but to balance them sanely. He is asked not to seek the one at the cost of the other, not to desert worthy ideals at important moments. The major decisions of his life must be grounded on a reconciliation of being in the world with not being of the world.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31148 – 15.24.3.159

B_08 – ZZZ – DEK

There is nothing wrong in the daily contact with the world, attending to duties, being practical, effective, even successful in profession, business, or other work, and rearing a family, provided all this is done within the remembrance of the Higher Power.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Training mind and heart

#31152 – 15.24.3.163

B_08 – ZZZ – DMK

We must use the material things, yes, and not abandon them; but we must do so without attachment. We may love the good things of life like other men, but we ought not to be in bondage to this love. We should be ready to abandon them at a moment's notice, if need be. It is not things that bind us, not marriage, wealth, or home, but our craving for marriage, wealth, or home. And what is such craving in the end but a line of thinking, a series of mental images?

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31153D – 15.24.3.164

BN – Z – DK

Where others get caught in this whirlpool and spend themselves, their energies, and their years in the piling-up of earthly possessions or the exhausting of earthly pleasures, he says to his instincts: "Thus far, and no farther." For him there is satisfaction in a restrained enjoyment of this world, with enough time and thought and strength for study of the great gospels and the practice of going into the Silence.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31154D – 15.24.3.165

B_05 – ZZZ – DK1

It is not necessary to disown all one's property and material possessions in order to qualify for the "poverty" to which monks vow themselves or to enlist oneself in the ranks of "the poor" whom Jesus described as being blessed. Correctly understood, the state of poverty is a spiritual one, and means inner detachment from outer things. It is the state of being free at heart from materialism and worldliness, ambition and egoism.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31163 – 15.24.3.174

B_11 – ZZ – K

I once knew a man who followed Jesus literally. What he received with his right hand he gave away with his left—such was his utter indifference to possessions or his complete charitableness to the needy, call it as you wish.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31165 – 15.24.3.176

B_11 – ZZ – K

When Christ taught that he who would find his life must first lose it, he meant simply that one must first lose his attachments.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31172 – 15.24.3.183

B_11 – Z – DK

Jesus declared clearly that those who could not forsake their earthly attachments could not become his disciples.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31173 – 15.24.3.184

B_11 – Z – DK

Jesus' saying, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" means: "Cast aside your burden of attachments, desires, thoughts; then the real I-nature will alone be left, and you will have true peace, rest from the ego's heaviness".

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31174 – 15.24.3.185

B_11 – Z – DK

A man may fall into the sin of vanity because of the facility with which he is able to work up the devotional feelings or excite the spiritually rapturous ones. But those who enter into the Void because they are able to enter into the innermost part of themselves, cannot fall into this sin. They are detached not only from the emotions but also from themselves. This is why they live in so great and so constant a peace.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31176D – 15.24.3.187

BN – Z – K

He becomes detached when he frees himself from the universally prevalent tendency to connect every experience with the personal ego. Detachment takes him out of himself and saves him from getting emotionally involved in his environment.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31178D – 15.24.3.189

BN – Z – DK

He is beginning to detach himself from his own ego when he is experiencing a strong self-distrust and a great doubt about the value of his own judgement.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31186 – 15.24.3.197

BN – ZZ – D

Those who try to grasp Tao, lose it, declared Lao Tzu. Why? Because they are using willpower, personal willpower, instead of becoming passive and letting the Tao use them, their minds and bodies, as if they were its instruments. This elimination of the self-will is what Jesus meant when he counselled his followers to lose their life in order to find life.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31188 – 15.24.3.199

B_11 – Z – DK

Don’t occupy yourself with things or thoughts, not even with the search for inner experiences, but be quiet and desireless.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31193 – 15.24.3.204

ME_01 – X – D

To witness what is happening around him without being influenced by it, or what is happening to him without being concerned about it—this is part of the practice of inward detachment.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31194 – 15.24.3.205

BN – X – D

He becomes not only a spectator of others, but also of himself. If such detachment is seldom seen, it may be because it is seldom sought.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31195D – 15.24.3.206

BN – ZZ – DM

To practise living in the world and yet not being of it involves becoming a spectator not only of the world but also of oneself. To the extent that he gets lost in the world-experience, to that extent he loses this deeper self-awareness.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31196 – 15.24.3.207

BN – X – D

When he can mentally withdraw at will from a situation where he is involved with others, so as to regard all the parties, including himself, with calm impartiality, he will have travelled far.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31201 – 15.24.3.212

BN – X – D

Dissociate yourself from the person who has to go through with the dream-drama of life. He is forced to act, but you can inwardly practise this dissociation.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31202 – 15.24.3.213

BN – X – D

He may come in time to feel a certain amusement at watching his own performance on the stage of life.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31204 – 15.24.3.215

BN – X – D

He sees his personality playing its role on the world stage and, although he recognizes its connection with him, it is felt as an object, as an ”other.”

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31205 – 15.24.3.216

BN – ZZ – D

Again and again he will have the extraordinary sensation of looking down at the game of human life as from a peak-like mental elevation. He will see the players—millions of them—vehemently struggling for trivial aims and painfully striving for futile ones. He sees how paltry is the sum-total of each individual life-activity, how bereft of mental greatness and moral grandeur it is. And, seeing, aspiration will re-dedicate itself to unfaltering devotion to the Quest within his own mind.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31206 – 15.24.3.217

BN – X – D

Whether he evokes the past or dreams the future, he will stand aside from his own ego and judge the one or plan the other with impersonal, detached wisdom.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31207 – 15.24.3.218

B_13 – ZZ – DK

By adopting a witness attitude he puts a distance between the day's activities and himself. This helps him bring them under control, prevents them from submerging his quest altogether, and preserves whatever inner peace he attains.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31211 – 15.24.3.222

BN – X – D

So far as past errors are concerned, forget them and start afresh, as if it were your first day in this body; but so far as your present contacts are concerned, be kind to them, as if it were your last day in this body.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31215 – 15.24.3.226

ME_01 – P – DK

The personal history which has gone before—let it really go and be free of the past, which can become a mental prison for unwary persons; learn to abide in the timeless, coming out of it as duties call but holding on to it as the background.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31216 – 15.24.3.227

BN – X – D

Do not give a single glance backward to the error-filled past, for the education given by it and the suffering from its consequences have led to the strength and wisdom of the Present.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31217 – 15.24.3.228

B_17 – ZZ – DK

The past has furnished its lessons, so why need there be regrets? Drink, sex, ambition, money, travel—they were all stations on the way to understanding. If they robbed, they also gave. If they disappointed, they also trained you. If the past showed weaknesses, it also showed you could tear them out.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31218 – 15.24.3.229

BN – X – D

How can he have fears for his future who knows that he is related to God, and that God is the same yesterday, and today, and forever?

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31221 – 15.24.3.232

BN – X – D

Both anxiety about the future and regret about the past are inconsistent with the state of serene detachment. It is uplifted beyond them, and free even from being affected by the day's changes and pressures.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31222 – 15.24.3.233

BN – X – D

To put anxiety aside, which follows naturally when our personal attachment to results and the eager desire for ends are laid aside, is to have the fullest faith that the higher power will take care of our true needs.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31224 – 15.24.3.235

ME_01 – ZZ – K

Past, present, future become mere dreams when considered against the background of THAT. If man could switch his thought of self over to the Source, and keep on identifying it with that, his consciousness would be transformed.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31229 – 15.24.3.240

BN – X – D

He feels that time has utterly ceased, that the whole world and its movement has become the mere shadow of a thought, that he has entered an untellable and unstrained silence.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31237 – 15.24.3.248

BN – X – D

Living in measured time as he does is the consequence of living in the movement of thought. But when this vanishes into the still centre of his being, he finds timelessness as its attribute. If there is any surprise, it is a flash only, for in the new consciousness he feels at home.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31241 – 15.24.3.252

BN – X – D

When this turning inwards completes itself in the final state of contemplation so that thought is stilled and breath is quiet, the sense of succession is dispelled, a kind of continuous now takes its place, and a stillness of the body corresponds with a stillness of the mind.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31244 – 15.24.3.255

BN – X – D

In this moment here and now, letting go of past and future, seeking the pure consciousness in itself, and not the identifications it gets mixed up with and eventually has to free itself from—in this moment he may affirm his true being and ascertain his true enlightenment without referring it to some future date.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31245 – 15.24.3.256

BN – X – D

If he can penetrate deep enough into the stillness he reaches a state of consciousness that is actually timeless. That must be the reference in the New Testament declaration that there shall be no more time.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31246 – 15.24.3.257

BN – X – D

Do not be anxious about making provision for the future, if you are in a state of surrender to the Overself; but if you are not, then indeed you need to be anxious. The first relies on a superior power, the second on an inferior. If you will trust the Overself today, it will provide for you tomorrow. If you repose trust in the Overself, it will never let you down and you may go forward in surety. It is indeed the "Father who gives us each day our daily bread."

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31250D – 15.24.3.261

BN – ZZ – DEM

To be at peace means to be empty of all desires—a state the ordinary man often ridicules as inhuman or dismisses as impossible. The spiritual seeker goes farther and understands better, so he desires to be without desire—but only to a limited extent. Moreover, some of his desires may be hidden from consciousness. Only the sage, by which I do not mean the saint, is completely free from desires because the empty void thus created is completely filled by the Overself.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31251D – 15.24.3.262

BN – ZZ – K

He can find the Overself even if he is caught up in the work of earning a livelihood. But his participation in the world's activity and pleasure will have to be a limited one. Not other men's voices but his own inner voice should say how far he should go along with the world.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31252D – 15.24.3.263

BN – ZZ – DK

The complete happiness which people look forward to as the objective of their life on earth can never be attained. For it is mostly based on things and persons, on what is outside the seeker, and on what is perishing. The happiness which they can truly attain is not of this kind, although it may include and does not exclude this kind. It is mostly based on thoughts and feelings, on what is inside the seeker, and on what is abiding.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31253ED – 15.24.3.264

B_05 – ZEL1/4 – DEK

The disciple's serenity must remain unbroken whether he succeeds in any enterprise or not, and whether he is able to do so soon or late. For it must not depend on these outward things; it must depend on inward realization of truth. He should do all that is humanly possible to succeed. But, this done, he should follow the Gita counsel and leave the results in the hands of God or fate. Thus, whatever the results may be, whether they are favourable or not, he can then accept them and keep his peace of mind.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31253ED – 15.24.3.264

B_05 – ZEL2/4 – DEK

Even if he is doubtful about a favourable result, he must resign himself to the situation as being truly the Overself's will for him just now. By this acceptance, the sting is removed, and patient resignation to the divine will is practised. He will then have no feeling of frustration but will retain his inner peace unshattered. He should remember, too, that he is not alone. He is under divine protection, for if he is a true disciple he has surrendered himself to his higher self. Therefore let him cast out all worry in connection with the matter, placing it in higher hands and leaving the issues to It. Let him refuse to accept the depression and anxiety. They belong to the ego which he has given up. They have no place in the quest's life of faith, trust, and obedience. Let him resort to prayer to express this humble resignation and trust in superior guidance, this belief in the Overself's manipulation of the results of this matter for what will be really the best in the end.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31253ED – 15.24.3.264

B_05 – ZEL3/4 – DEK

Fate provides him with difficulties from which it is often not possible to escape. But what must be borne may be borne in either of two ways. He may adjust his thinking so that the lessons of the experience are well learnt. Or he may drop it, for he need not carry the burden of anxiety, and remember the story of the man in the railway carriage who kept his trunk on his shoulders instead of putting it down and letting the train carry it. So let him put his trunk of trouble down and let the Overself carry it.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31253ED – 15.24.3.264

B_05 – ZEL4/4 – DEK

He should dismiss fears and anxieties concerning the present state or future destiny of anyone he loves. Let him do what he reasonably can to protect the other, then place him or her trustingly in the care and keeping of the higher power.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31259 – 15.24.3.270

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

He does not need to support a shaky ego by taking stimulants, talking loudly, or drawing attention to his past achievements. He has no need, and feels no need, to impress others, whether they be single persons or whole groups of persons, nor to ingratiate himself with them, nor to prop up their egos by pretending to agree with their opinions or to accept their actions. He cannot let them live off his integrity, and thus be a traitor to himself. His confidence in the higher laws and the Overself's power is complete.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31260 – 15.24.3.271

BN – ZZ – K

He cannot depend upon outward circumstances alone for his security, though he will not fail to give them their proper value and place. He knows that for total security he must also have, or at the very least have, the certitude of the Overself's protective presence.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31262 – 15.24.3.273

BN – X – D

As his interest in the Overself increases in depth, so his attachment to the things of this world decreases in passion and his interest in them becomes more serene.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31263 – 15.24.3.274

BN – X – D

The belief that perfect security exists is certainly a vain one so far as worldly life is concerned. But so far as the inner life is concerned, there is a full basis for it.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31265 – 15.24.3.276

BN – X – D

Whatever the trouble be which distresses anyone—be it physical or mental, personal or public, worldly or spiritual—there is one sure refuge to which one can always turn and return. If he has learnt the art of being still, he can carry his trouble to the mind’s outer threshold and leave it there, passing himself into its innermost recess of utter serenity and carefree tranquility. This is not a cowardly escapism or a foolish self-deception, although with the un-philosophical mystic it could be and often is. For when he emerges from the inner silence and picks up his trouble again, he will pick up also the strength to endure it bravely and the wisdom to deal with it rightly. This will always be the case if his approach is through philosophical mysticism, which makes inspired action and not inspired dreaming its goal. Furthermore, his contact with the inner Mind will set mysterious forces working on his behalf to solve the problem quite independently of his conscious effort and knowledge.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31267D – 15.24.3.278

ME_01 – Z – K

From the moment that a man begins to look less to his changeful outer possessions and more to his controllable internal ones, he begins to gain the chance for real happiness. When this truth breaks upon the intelligence, he learns to keep his final reserves hidden in his heart. Then whatever happens, whatever course fortune takes, no one and nothing can take it from him. So long as he can carry the knowledge of truth in his head and the peace of God in his heart, he can carry the best of all his possessions with him wherever he may go. Not having lodged his possessions—whether material things or human affections, capitalized wealth or social honours—in his heart but having kept them outside it where they belong, he can remain calm and unmoved when Fortune's caprice disturbs or even destroys them. He has learnt to keep within his heart only inalienable possessions like wisdom and virtue, only what renders him serenely independent of her revolutions.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31268ED – 15.24.3.279

ME_01 – ZEL1/2 – DEK

He who depends on externals plays dice with his happiness. He who depends on his own Overself attains unfailing serenity.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31268ED – 15.24.3.279

ME_01 – ZEL2/2 – DEK

He who depends on externals plays dice with his happiness. He who depends on his own Overself attains unfailing serenity.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31268ED – 15.24.3.279

BA12 – ZZZ – DEK

Whoever acts by becoming so pliable as to let the Overself hold his personal will, must necessarily become inwardly detached from the personal consequences of his deeds. This will be true whether those consequences be pleasant or unpleasant. Such detachment liberates him from the power of karma, which can no longer catch him in its web, for "he" is not there. His emotional consciousness preceding an action is always enlightened and characterized by sublime composure, whereas the unenlightened man's may be characterized by motivations of self-centered desire, ambition, fear, hope, greed, passion, dislike, or even hate–all of which are karma-making.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31269 – 15.24.3.280

BN – ZZZ – K

If he can act attentively and yet stand aside from the results of his actions; if he can discharge his responsibilities or carry out his duties without being swept into elation by success or into misery by failure; if he can move in the world, enjoy its pleasures and endure its pains, and yet hold unwaveringly to the quest of what transcends the world, then he has become what the Indians call a "karma yogi" and what the Greeks call a "man."

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31270 – 15.24.3.281

BN – ZZZ – K

Go out into the world, act and do your duty. So long as you are the impersonal 'Witness' of them, your actions will not add to your karma.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31274 – 15.24.3.285

BN – ZZZ – K

Desires die of themselves without struggle, karma comes to an end, the Stillness of the Overself settles in us.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31277 – 15.24.3.288

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DK

When all action comes to an end, when the body is immobile and the consciousness stilled, there is achieved what the Chinese have called Wu Wei, meaning non-doing. This brings a wonderful peace, for tied up with it is non-desiring and non-aspiring. The quester has then come close to the end, but until this peace is thoroughly and permanently established in him, the quest must go on. Let go of all negative thoughts, especially those which concern others. Cease from condemnation and criticism except where it is a necessary part of one's obligation, duty, or position in the world, such as a magistrate's.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31278 – 15.24.3.289

BN – ZZ – DEK

Let go of all negative thoughts, especially those which concern others. Cease from condemnation and criticism.

Emotions and Ethics > Spiritual Refinement > Refraining from criticism

#31278E – 15.24.3.289

B_01 – ZZZ – DK3

Do not strain yourself unduly; let the ego be passive to the intuitive influences so that actions are dictated by them without interference from it, rather than by aggressive desires, and hence become karma-free. This is the meaning of the Chinese expression Wu Wei, associated with the teaching of Taoism.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31279 – 15.24.3.290

BN – ZZZ – DEK

This is what he has to learn—and it can be learned only by personal practice, not from any book—how to keep in beautiful equipoise receptivity to his sacred Centre and efficiency in attending to the world's demands. This is answering Jesus' call to be in the world but not of it. This is the union of busy actuality with central tranquillity.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31286D – 15.24.3.297

UR_5 – ZZZ – K

In the foreground of his thought he deals with practical affairs in a practical way; in the background he remembers always that they are only transitory manifestations of an Element beyond all transitoriness, an Element to which he gives his deepest self. But only when his power of yogic concentration is complete and his knowledge of philosophic truth mature, does the possibility of achieving such harmony arrive—not before.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31287D – 15.24.3.298

BN – ZZ – K

If he is to keep his inner peace he must always keep the innermost part of himself aloof and deny the world any intimacy with it.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31288D – 15.24.3.299

BN – ZZ – K

To find the correct equilibrium, through knowledge and practice, which enables one to deal with the affairs at hand but never deviate from staying in the Presence—that is the art of life. That also is to become "natural" in the best sense, to possess an unself-conscious unadvertised. spirituality

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31289 – 15.24.3.300

B_08 – ZZZ – K

There is a fixed centre deep within every man. He may live in it, if he can find and keep to it, so tranquilly that all else in his thoughts and feelings and actions will be affected by its magic without being able to affect it.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31297 – 15.24.3.308

BN – Z – DK

The agitations of the emotional and passional nature prevent a man from attaining this mental quiet. If he has not built up its power by practice, or got it by grace, they cause him to lose it. These include both the pleasant and the unpleasant feelings, the desires and the cravings as well as the sorrows and anxieties and lusts, excessive pleasure and excessive pain. The art of mental quiet can be pushed to a deep inner stillness and by practice can be inwardly maintained in the midst of outward activity. This is why the value placed on keeping calm is very high in both yoga and philosophy.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31298 – 15.24.3.309

BN – ZZ – DEK

If the One Reality alone is, if even the world-illusion vanishes in deepest contemplation, how is he to deal with the world, since it awaits his attention whatever its status be? The answer is that he is to act in the world AS IF it were real: this is to be his working rule to enable him to carry on with everyday existence and perform all duties. This same practical rule was stated by Jesus in his succinct sentence: Be in the world but not of it.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31300 – 15.24.3.311

B_11 – ZZ – K

When everything within, when thoughts, emotions, and desires are silenced, it is inevitable that the personal will shall also be silenced. What then has to be done will be done, but it will be done through him.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31302 – 15.24.3.313

BN – X – D

The student should always remember that just as the World-Mind does not lose or alter its own nature even in the midst of world-making, so he also should hold reverently and unalterably to the thought of his own true mystical identity even in the midst of worldly activity. What he does outwardly must not for a moment detract from what he has to do inwardly. It is a matter of self-training.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31303 – 15.24.3.314

BN – ZZ – DEK

He will maintain a proper equilibrium between being aware of what is happening in the world, remaining in touch with it, and being imperturbable towards it, inwardly unaffected and inwardly detached from it.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31305 – 15.24.3.316

B_08 – ZZZ – K

In deepest contemplation, the Nirvikalpa Samadhi of the Indian yogis, both egolessness and blissful peace can be experienced. But it is a temporary state; return to the world must follow, so the quest is not finished. The next step or stage is 'application', putting into the active everyday life this egoless detachment and this satisfying calmness.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31308D – 15.24.3.319

UR_3.2 – Z – K

When he lives in this godlike being with the background of his mind and in the world’s activity with the foreground of it, he lives in the fullest sense.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31309 – 15.24.3.320

BN – X – D

It is not enough to become detached from the world, not even enough to meditate intermittently on the Overself. A man must remain every hour, every day, established in the fundamental attitude produced by the other two.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31311 – 15.24.3.322

BN – X – D

When the personal ego's thoughts and desires are stripped off, we behold ourselves as we were in the first state and as we shall be in the final one. We are then the Overself alone, in its Godlike solitude and stillness.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31317D – 15.24.4.1

BN – Z – DK

When the personal ego's thoughts and desires are stripped off, we behold ourselves as we were in the first state and as we shall be in the final one. We are then the Overself alone, in its Godlike solitude and stillness.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#34977D – 15.24.4.1

BN – Z – DK1

This stillness is the godlike part of every human being. In failing to look for it, he fails to make the most of his possibilities. If, looking, he misses it on the way, this happens because it is a vacuity: there is simply nothing there! That means no things, not even mental things, that is, thoughts.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31320D – 15.24.4.4

BN – Z – DK

The spirit (Brahman) is NOT the stillness, but is found by humans who are in the precondition of stillness. The latter is their human reaction to Brahman's presence coming into their field of awareness.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31321D – 15.24.4.5

BN – X – K

That beautiful state wherein the mind recognizes itself for what it is, wherein all activity is stilled except that of awareness alone, and even then it is an awareness without an object—this is the heart of the experience.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31322D – 15.24.4.6

BN – X – DK

The Overself is first and last felt or experienced as a deep peace within oneself. Hence the larger meaning of the greeting used in the Orient and in early Greek Mysteries that ”Peace be with you!”

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31328 – 15.24.4.12

BN – X – D

It is all the difference between living at the still centre and on the bustling circumference, at the mysterious core and on the prosaic surface.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31333 – 15.24.4.17

UR_5 – ZZ – DK

There is a silence born of ignorance and another born of knowledge—mystical knowledge. The right interpretation comes only through the intuitive faculty—not through the intellect.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31336D – 15.24.4.20

BN – ZZ – K

What men of our modern age, bewildered by tremendous world-wide happenings, crushed by the forces of an apparently uncontrollable destiny, deafened by the noises of a scientifically mechanical civilization, are really yearning after is simply Stillness. This, which would seem to be the simplest of all things, is inwardly the hardest to find of all things. This is what Jesus spoke of when he said, "Few there be that find it". Why is it so hard to find? The answer is that a price must be paid, as with all things. That price is the giving up of self. For Stillness is behind the self.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31341 – 15.24.4.25

B_11 – Z – K

It is far subtler than the first ecstasies of a newly made mystic, much more refined than the personal joys of a religious saint. It is deeper, quieter, more relaxed yet, withal exquisite—this peace.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31342D – 15.24.4.26

BN – Z – K

If he goes into the silence enough, he will become accustomed to the obstacles that bar entry and learn by practice how to deal with them.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31349 – 15.24.4.33

BN – X – D

In this deep stillness wherein every trace of the personal self dissolves, there is the true crucifixion of the ego. This is the real meaning of the crucifixion, as it was undergone in the ancient Mystery Temple initiations and as it was undergone by Jesus. The death implied is mental, not physical.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31355D – 15.24.4.39

B_11 – ZZ – DK

He feels that he is now in the very centre of his being, that he has shifted identity there. The ego no longer covers it over and occupies his whole view. Rather is it now transparent to the light radiating from this centre. This transparency is peace

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Seek the Deeper Stillness

#31357 – 15.24.4.41

UR_3.2 – Z – DK

The seeker after stillness should be told that the stillness is always there. Indeed it is in every man. But he has to learn, first, to let it in and, second, how to do so. The first beginning of this is to remember. The second is to recognize the inward pull. For the rest, the stillness itself will guide and lead him to itself.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31367 – 15.24.4.51

BN – X – D

The presence is always there, always waiting to be recognized and felt, but inner silence is needed to make this possible. And few persons possess it or seek it.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31368 – 15.24.4.52

BN – X – D

There is an area of peace hidden within every man. Its presence is the gracious gift of God but his task is to discover it.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31369 – 15.24.4.53

BN – X – D

There is a stillness in the depth of each man, but he has to find it for himself, a work demanding patience and humility.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31370 – 15.24.4.54

BN – X – D

He must begin this meditation by isolating himself in thought not only from the world but also from other people. He is not to be afraid of being inwardly alone. Only so can he find the great Friend who shall appear and speak to him out of the stillness.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31372 – 15.24.4.56

B_05 – Z – K

Far from the arguments of mind-narrowed men, he will find himself without a supporting group in the end. He is to meet God alone, for all his attention is to be held—so fully that there is nothing and no one else. Thus the three become two, who in turn become the One, which it always is. Truth is no longer needed; its seeker has vanished. The great Silent Timelessness reigns.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31377 – 15.24.4.61

B_05 – ZZ – K

The Quest will come to an end when he turns away from teachers and teachings and begins to receive instruction from within himself. Previously all that he got was someone else's idea; now he is acquiring firsthand knowledge.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31385 – 15.24.4.69

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

Let the personal will relax in this gentle peace.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31389 – 15.24.4.73

BN – X – D

"It is only because the sage does nothing that he can do everything. Nature never makes any fuss, and yet It does everything. If a ruler can cling to It, all things will grow of themselves." These are Lao Tzu's words. His advice to "do nothing" as the way to the best accomplishment simply means that ordinarily whatever we do is done at the ego's behest. It cannot therefore lead us into any happiness that will not be illusory in the end, any accomplishment that will not be destroyed in the end. To continue action in the old way is to perpetuate the ego's rule. But to refuse to do so, and to "be still," is to create the inner vacuum which allows the higher self to enter and work through us. This is inspired action.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31390 – 15.24.4.74

BN – ZZ – DEK

Once he has touched this stillness briefly, learned the way to it, and comprehended its nature, his next task is to develop it. This takes time and practice and knowledge. Or, rather, the work is done on him, not by him. He has to let be.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31391 – 15.24.4.75

BN – X – D

He does not, can not, fabricate this inner silence, but he provides the correct conditions of relaxed concentrated listening which allow it to be discovered as a presence within himself.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31393 – 15.24.4.77

BN – X – D

He must not only give up the slavery of passion, but also the slavery of intellect.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31395 – 15.24.4.79

BN – X – D

Thinking is mental action, just as moving is physical action. The admonition Be still and know that I am God refers not only to the body but also to the mind. Both are to cease from activity if the higher consciousness is to be attained.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31402 – 15.24.4.86

BN – X – D

Thinking can put together all sorts of theories and speculations and even discoveries. But only when it dies down and lets the pure quietened mind come to rest in the very essence of consciousness, at peace with itself, with nature, with the world, only then is there a deep sense of utter fulfillment.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31403 – 15.24.4.87

BN – X – D

The process acts with the sureness of a chemical combination; if you quiet the ego, the Overself becomes responsively active.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31405 – 15.24.4.89

BN – X – D

Where the heart goes, there soon or late the other faculties will follow. This is why it is so important to let the Overself take possession of the heart by its total surrender in, and to, the Stillness.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31406 – 15.24.4.90

BN – X – D

To the extent that a man keeps inwardly still, to that extent he unfolds himself and lets the ever-perfect Overself shine forth.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31409 – 15.24.4.93

BN – X – D

Putting aside one's own internal and personal pressures is a precondition which sooner or later lets in the Overself's peace.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > Quiet the ego

#31416 – 15.24.4.100

BN – X – D

However dark or blundering the past, however miserable the tangle one has made of one's life, this unutterable peace blots it all out. Within that seraphic embrace error cannot be known, misery cannot be felt, sin cannot be remembered. A great cleansing comes over the heart and mind.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31418D – 15.24.4.102

BN – ZZ – DK

There will be a zone of peace around him which some feel but others cannot. It seems to put him quite at his ease and free him from any trace of nervousness.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31421 – 15.24.4.105

BN – ZZ – DK

This beautiful peace is both the reward of his efforts and the atmosphere surrounding his higher nature.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31425 – 15.24.4.109

BN – X – D

There are situations which may seem beyond endurance and circumstances beyond sufferance. It is then that those who have learned how to withdraw into their interior being, how to return to their source, may find some measure of help and strength.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31428 – 15.24.4.112

BN – X – D

From this deep source, he nourishes the continuous tranquillity of the atmosphere he carries about with him; from it he gains the solid assurance that the quest is worthwhile and its goal very real.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31429 – 15.24.4.113

BA11 – Z – DK

When you have trained yourself to empty your consciousness of its thoughts at will, your worries will naturally be emptied along with them. This is one of the valuable practical fruits of yoga.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31430 – 15.24.4.114

BN – X – D

In this wonderful atmosphere of unimaginable intense peace, all that was negative in the past years is effaced so radically that it becomes as nothing.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31432 – 15.24.4.116

BN – X – D

Even if there were no joy in the realization of the Overself it would still be worth having, for it would still be richly loaded with other treasures. But the joy is also there and always there.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31433 – 15.24.4.117

BN – ZZ – DK

The Overself remains always the same and never changes in any way. It is the hunger for this quality, thought of as “peace of mind,” which drives men to seek the Overself amid the vicissitudes of health or fortune which they experience.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31439D – 15.24.4.123

BN – ZZ – DK

To complain that you get no answer, no result from going into the silence indicates two things: first, that you do not go far enough into it to reach the intuitive level; second, that you do not wait long enough for it to affect you.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31440D – 15.24.4.124

BN – Z – DK

The Stillness is not experienced in the same way as a mere lazy and idle reverie: it is dynamic, creative, and healing. The presence of one person who is able to attain it is a gift, a blessing, to all human beings, though they know it not.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31446 – 15.24.4.130

B_01 – ZZ – DK

Out of this stillness will come the light he seeks, the guide he needs, the strength he requires.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31453 – 15.24.4.137

BN – X – D

The first way of finding peace when harassed by a hard problem or situation is to turn away from the tumult of thoughts and look for the still centre within. When it is found and just when it leaves, or must be left, ask it for the guidance needed. Let it correct those thoughts.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31454 – 15.24.4.138

BN – ZZZ – DEK

From this inner stillness the highest truths have come forth and passed into human knowledge.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31455 – 15.24.4.139

BN – X – D

As a serious Quaker, John Woolman was, as he himself wrote, “a man taught to wait in silence, sometimes many weeks together, until he hears God’s voice.”

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31458 – 15.24.4.142

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31462 – 15.24.4.146

BN – ZZZ – DEK

In that peace-filled oblivion of the lesser self there is renewal of life and rebirth of goodness in, and by, the Overself.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31464 – 15.24.4.148

BN – X – D

Just as a man who has escaped from the inside of a burning house and finds himself in the cool outdoors understands that he has attained safety, so the man who has escaped from greed, lust, anger, illusion, selfishness, and ignorance into exalted peace and immediate insight, understands that he has attained heaven.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31466 – 15.24.4.150

BN – X – D

"I, the Homeless, have My home in each person's heart." This is what the Great Silence told me.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31475 – 15.24.4.159

BN – X – D

In the depths of meditation, when one is sitting still and enchanted, all egoism gone for the moment and all care suspended, it is possible to understand what the word 'Heaven' really means.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31482 – 15.24.4.166

UR_3.2 – Z – DK

The Stillness is both an Understanding, an Insight of the mind, and an Experience of the being. The whole movement or vibration comes to a stop.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31488D – 15.24.4.172

BN – Z – K

When he temporarily achieves this lofty condition, he ceases to think, for his mind becomes inarticulate with heavenly peace.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31489D – 15.24.4.173

BN – X – K

The effort should be to find inward stillness through a loving search within the heart's depths for what may be called "the soul," what I have called "the Overself." This is not the soul thought of by a judge when he passes the sentence of death and asks the Lord to have mercy on the condemned man's soul. It is the Holy Ghost of Christian faith, the diviner part of man which dwells in eternity. The nearer we get to it in our striving, the greater will be the mental peace we shall feel. It can be found and felt even whilst thoughts continue to move through the mind, although they will necessarily be thoughts of a most elevated nature for the baser ones could not obtain entry during this mood.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31490D – 15.24.4.174

BN – ZZ – DEK

This is the Great Silence. While he is under its spell, words will not come to his lips or pen, nor thoughts to his brain. They would only be disturbances.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31493 – 15.24.4.177

BN – Z – K

One may sink inward to the point of being tightly held by the delicious Stillness, unable for a while to move limb or body into activity.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The still centre within

#31498 – 15.24.4.182

BN – X – D

It is not easy to translate this sacred silence into comprehensible meaning, to describe a content where there is no form, to ascend from a region as deep as Atlantis is sunk today and speak openly in familiar, intelligible language; but I must try.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31511D – 15.24.4.195

BA13 – ZZZ – DK-1

The truth which leads a man to liberation from all illusions and enslavements is perceived in the innermost depths of his being, where he is shut off from all other men. The man who has attained to its knowledge finds himself in an exalted solitude. He is not likely to find his way out of it to the extent, and for the purpose, of enlightening his fellow men who are accustomed to, and quite at home in, their darkness unless some other propulsive force of compassion arises within him and causes him to do so.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31512D – 15.24.4.196

BN – ZZZ – K

We have heard much about the sayings of Jesus, nothing about his silences. Yet it was from the latter that they came and in the latter that he himself lived.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31513 – 15.24.4.197

B_11 – Z – K

The man who found his divine soul will not, unless he is divinely enjoined to do so as part of a special beneficent mission, publicly advertise the fact.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31515 – 15.24.4.199

BN – X – D

"Be ye as shrewd as serpents", Jesus warned the disciples. Therefore, avoid arguments and verbal traps. Keep answers to two or three words, even to the extreme of being evasive. Specimens are: "Perhaps", "A hard problem", "Yes", "No", "I do not know". Do not make statements on your own initiative—better to be silent, refer questioner to others as authorities, such as "Professor X" or "His Holiness the X".

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31516 – 15.24.4.200

B_11 – ZZ – K

Truth lies hidden in silence. Reveal it—and falsehood will creep in, withering the golden image. Communication by speech or paper was not necessary.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31521D – 15.24.4.205

BN – X – K

The deeper he penetrates into this inner being, the more will he feel inclined to keep the development quite secret. It is becoming too holy to be talked about.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31524 – 15.24.4.208

BN – Z – DK

He carries his secret as a woman carries her unborn child. Its importance is supreme.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31526 – 15.24.4.210

BN – Z – K

Is it not strange that the highest experience of an inner nature open to man is a completely secret one, a fully hushed one, and almost an indefinable one? Looking back upon it afterwards, knowing how profoundly beautiful and deeply moving it was at the time, he will find it difficult to speak about it to others.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31529 – 15.24.4.213

BN – X – D

Thoughts can be put into words, spoken, and written; but the truth about Reality must remain unworded, unspoken, and unwritten…

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31530E – 15.24.4.214

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DE

Thoughts can be put into words, spoken and written; but the truth about Reality must remain unworded, unspoken, and unwritten. All statements about it which the intellect can grasp are merely symbolic—just clues, hints. Only in the great stillness can it be known, understood.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31530 – 15.24.4.214

UR_1 – ZZZ – DMK

How extraordinary is this stillness that it can convey meaning without making use of words! For the communication is made through feeling, not through intellect. But inevitably, when the stillness ends, the mind begins to work, and the intellect begins to work upon the experience and translates it into words.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31533 – 15.24.4.217

BN – X – D

The reason why this silent, inward, and pictureless initiation in the stillness is so much more powerful ultimately, is that it reaches the man himself, whereas all other kinds reach only his instruments or vehicles or bodies.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31535D – 15.24.4.219

BN – Z – K

Truth may be written or spoken, preached or printed, but its most lasting expression and communication is transmitted through the deepest silence to the deepest nature in human being.

The Peace within You > Seek the Deeper Stillness > The Great Silence

#31536D – 15.24.4.220

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DK

The highest attainment in philosophy, that of the sage, comes from a union of the sharpest, subtlest thinking and of the capacity to enter the thought-free state—a combination of real knowledge and felt peace—balanced, united, yielding truth. This is what makes the sage, whose understanding and peace are his own, who does not depend upon any outside person. Yet it is not the little ego's emotion nor its intellectuality which has brought him to this truth. It is the highest human mind, the finest human feeling. The total man cannot lose what he has attained. It is the higher power working inside the human being.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > World-Mind in Individual Mind > World-Mind in Individual Mind

#31537 – 16.25.0.1

B_02 – ZZ – DK

He does not regard greatness to be in him but only behind him. Neither vain ambition nor false egoism can deceive him about the inner reality of his psychological situation. He understands and feels that a power not his own and not human is using him as its human instrument, that a larger mind is overshadowing his ego.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > World-Mind in Individual Mind > World-Mind in Individual Mind

#31538 – 16.25.0.2

BN – ZZZ – DK

It might well be said that I am connected with God on the one hand, with the world on the other hand, but both connections are highly ingenious inventions. God is literally in me. His "I" makes my "I" possible. My own sense of being is immersed in God's archetypal thought.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31541 – 16.25.1.3

BN – ZZ – DEK

Jesus' use of the metaphor, the Son and the Father, was intended to point out that man, in his inner self, was born of, and is still in relation to, the Higher power, God.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31543 – 16.25.1.5

B_11 – Z – DK

Something of that Mind is in us, as a parent has left some legacy in the child, but at the same time we are also in that Mind.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31545 – 16.25.1.7

BN – X – D

Gospel of John, chapter 17, verse 21: ”As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee.”

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31546 – 16.25.1.8

BN – X – D

The two are One: an ever-active Mind within an ever-still Mind―that is the Real Truth, not only about God but also about Human Being.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31547 – 16.25.1.9

BSG_4 – Z – DEK

The World-Mind reproduces something of itself in each individual entity we call the Soul, or Overself.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31548 – 16.25.1.10

BSG_4 – P – D

The World-Mind reproduces something of itself in each individual entity we call the Soul, or Overself. The soul in man, the Overself, is linked with, or rooted in, the soul in the universe, the World-Mind.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31548M – 16.25.1.10

BA11 – Z – DXK

The soul in man, the Overself, is linked with, or rooted in, the soul in the universe, the World-Mind.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31549 – 16.25.1.11

BN – Z – DK1

The World-Mind reproduces something of itself in each individual entity we call the Soul, or Overself. The soul in man, the Overself, is linked with, or rooted in, the soul in the universe, the World-Mind.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31549M – 16.25.1.11

BA11 – Z – DXK

The Infinite Mind is centered within its finited expression, the human ego.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31550 – 16.25.1.12

BN – X – D

How can a man escape from the World-Mind since he is indissolubly united with it? Through the Overself he is a very part of it, his consciousness could not work without it.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31552 – 16.25.1.14

BN – X – D

The Godlike deepest Self in us knows and feels on its own level; therefore the intellect’s reasonings and the aesthetic feelings are reflections on a lower level of spiritual activities.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31553 – 16.25.1.15

BN – X – D

So many human sufferings are the consequences of human errors, and so many of these errors arise from human ignorance. The supreme ignorance of all which leads to the greatest sins and sufferings is that he does not know he is an individualized part of a greater consciousness. Although this consciousness shines through his ego it is apart from the ego, for it stands in its own right and exists as an entity by itself. It is this consciousness which enables a man to act and think in the physical body and it is his diviner part. Blinded by the error of materialism, he identifies it with the body itself.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31554 – 16.25.1.16

BN – Z – DMK*

The self of every creature is divine Being, the ultimate Consciousness, but only when evolution brings it to the human level does it have the possibility of discovering this fact.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31555 – 16.25.1.17

BN – X – D

The omnipresence of the Infinite Mind carries great meaning for us individually. For it signifies that this Mind is not less present and not less active in us too.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31561 – 16.25.1.23

BN – X – D

The World-Mind cannot be separated from any point of the world. It is present in every point, every creature, now, at this very moment. There is no need for anyone to think himself cut off or apart or remote from this divine source of his being. This is just as true in his sorrowful hours as in his joyful ones.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31562 – 16.25.1.24

BN – Z – DK

It is because the World-Mind supports man, gives him consciousness and energy, that he is a sharer in divine existence.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31563 – 16.25.1.25

BN – X – D

Wang Yang-ming's disciples often remarked, The streets are full of enlightened men! By this they reiterated their Master's teaching that all men have the possibility of attaining enlightenment because all have the divine self hidden under their egoism.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31565 – 16.25.1.27

BN – Z – DM*

Each of us is linked with that Being, the Mover of all this moving universe. This link must be brought into our field of awareness. There lies the highest fulfilment of our lives.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31566 – 16.25.1.28

BN – Z – DK

The individual consciousness is not alone. It is fathered by a universal consciousness. Between the two there is this link. To awaken one day and discover (in several cases, rediscover) it will be a man's most satisfying experience.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31567 – 16.25.1.29

BN – Z – DK

The World-Mind is omnipresent. There is a point where every man touches it. When he attains awareness of this point, he is at last attending the true Holy Communion service.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31568 – 16.25.1.30

BN – X – D

The little centre of consciousness that is myself rests in and lives by the infinite ocean of consciousness that is God. The first momentary discovery of this relationship constitutes a genuine religious experience, and its expansion into a final, full disclosure constitutes a philosophic one.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31569 – 16.25.1.31

BN – Z – DEK

If God is everywhere, as He must be, then He is in man too. This fact makes possible his discovery, under certain conditions, of a diviner element in his being which is ordinarily obscured.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31570 – 16.25.1.32

BN – X – D

In the end, no man can miss being in the presence of, or confronted by, the divine power. It is a fact which, whether he accepts or denies the idea of its existence, he must one day reckon with. This is because he has never really been separated from it, never been aware of any thing or thought except by virtue of consciousness derived from it.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31571 – 16.25.1.33

BN – Z – D

What we know through the senses as forms points to the existence of the mind. What we know through the intellect as thoughts points to the mind. What does the individual mind itself point to? We can find the answer by plunging deep into its core, deeper and ever deeper in the practice of contemplation until we come to its ultimate source. There, where the world vanishes and the ego is stilled, we become one with the infinite and eternal Mind behind the universe.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31572 – 16.25.1.34

BN – X – D

The human mind, finite and limited though it be, can become an inlet to the universal Mind. Such a happening is attended by blissful yet tranquil feelings. This little being that is me merges into larger consciousness that is pure infinite Being—until the body calls me back.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31574 – 16.25.1.36

BN – X – D

There is something deeper than our ordinary thoughts and feelings, something that is our inmost essential self. It is the soul. It is here, if we can reach to it, that we may meet in fellowship with the Divine. Through it the World-Mind reveals something of its own mysterious nature.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31575 – 16.25.1.37

BA11 – ZZ – DK

He has come far when he has come to 'feel' not only that divinity truly is but also that it is as near as his own being.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31576 – 16.25.1.38

BN – Z – DK

He discovers that Consciousness, the very nature of mind under all its aspects, the very essence of be-ing under the personal selfhood, is where man and God finally meet. He knows that God indisputably exists, not because some religious dogma avers it but because his own experience proves it.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31577 – 16.25.1.39

BN – X – D

There is a vital and definite connection between every man's mind and the Universal Mind, between his individual existence and Its existence. Because of this connection he is called upon to worship It to commune with It and to love It.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31578 – 16.25.1.40

BN – X – D

Only as a result of being liberated from himself, taken out of himself, can he find the universal being.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31579 – 16.25.1.41

BN – X – D

The illuminated men of earlier generations, who usually appeared at the beginning of each historical epoch and from whose ranks the great social lawgivers and religion-founders were drawn, had no personal master for none was available at the time. Who taught them? It was none other than the World-Mind, operating directly through each man’s Overself and within his human consciousness. Whoever is unable to find an outward master in our own times may still find, when he has worked on himself sufficiently to be ready for it, this same direct inward help (grace) from the World-Mind if he turns to that Mind.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31580 – 16.25.1.42

BN – Z – DK

Socrates got his wisdom from within himself. He had no master.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31583 – 16.25.1.45

A241129 – Z – DK

The teachings of Jesus were not based on any of the ancient doctrines—that is, those of the Jews, Egyptians, or Indians. They were entirely Self-inspired.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31584 – 16.25.1.46

B_11 – ZZ – K

The human mind is fortunate in this, that it has a connection with the Divine Mind. It can become his spiritual teacher and moral guide. But he must be careful: first, not to mix his own opinion with what he receives; second, and not less but more important, to put himself through a preparatory and purificatory discipline to make the connection vitalized.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31585 – 16.25.1.47

BN – X – DEK

God is in your very being. To know him as something apart or far-away in time and distance or as an object outside yourself, separate from you—that is not the Way—impossible. Jesus gave away the secret: he is within you.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31588 – 16.25.1.50

B_11 – ZZ – DK

It is surprising how widely people have ignored Jesus' message ("The kingdom of heaven is within you") when its meaning is so clear, its phrasing so strong.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31589 – 16.25.1.51

B_11 – ZZ – DK

If a man lives in harmony with the divine World-Idea, he may also live in trust that he will receive that which belongs to him. This will be brought about either by guiding him to it or guiding it to him.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31590 – 16.25.1.52

BN – X – D

“All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine.” That which you need is yours now—if only you could raise yourself to the recognition of your true relation to your Overself.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > God is in Man

#31591 – 16.25.1.53

BN – X – D

We may dwell in mystical inner fellowship with God but we may not become as God. Those who proclaim such false self-deification needlessly make a grotesquely exaggerated statement of what is already by itself a sufficiently tremendous truth.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31593 – 16.25.1.55

BN – X – DEK

In my alleged claim that every human being can develop the divinity within himself, I do not mean that we poor mortals can ever rise to the stature of the Almighty, and I completely concur with the warning of Baha'u'llah against man's attempting to "join partners with God." I mean only that we have within us something that is linked with and related to God: it is our higher self, the discovery of and union with which represents the limit of our possible attainment.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31596 – 16.25.1.58

BN – Z – DEK

If it is wiser and humbler to leave some mystery at the bottom of all our intellectual understanding of life than to indulge in self-deceiving finality about it, then it is no less wiser and humbler to acknowledge the ultimate mystery at the heart of all our immediate mystical experience of life. The mystic's claim to know God when he knows only the deepest part of his own self, is his particular kind of vanity. Whatever terminous and transcendental consciousness he may discover there, something ever remains beyond it lost in utter inscrutability. The World-Mind is impenetrable by human power. This agnostic conclusion does not, however, touch the validity of the mystic's more legitimate claim, that the human soul is knowable and that an unshakeable union with it is attainable.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31597 – 16.25.1.59

BN – X – DEK

The mystic may indeed feel the very stuff of God in his rapture, but this does not supply him with the whole content of God's knowledge. If therefore he claims not only to be one with God but also to be one with God's entire consciousness, it is sheer presumption.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31598 – 16.25.1.60

BN – X – K1

No mortal may penetrate the mystery of the ultimate mind in its own nature—which means in its static inactive being. The Godhead is not only beyond human conception but also beyond mystic perception. But Mind in its active dynamic state, that is, the World-Mind, and rather its ray in us called the Overself, 'is' within range of human perception, communion, and even union. It is this that the mystic really finds when be believes that he has found God.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31609 – 16.25.1.71

BN – X – DEK1

This condition is commonly said to be nothing less than "union with God." What is really attained is the higher self, the ray of the divine sun reflected in man, the immortal soul in fact—God Himself being forever utterly beyond man's finite capacity to comprehend. However the mystical experience is an authentic one and the conflict between interpretations does not dissolve its authenticity.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31610 – 16.25.1.72

BN – Z – DEK1*

We exist always in utter dependence on the Universal Mind. Man and God may meet and mingle in his periods of supreme exaltation, he may feel the sacred presence within himself to the utmost degree, but he does not thereby abolish all the distinctions between them absolutely. For he arrives at the knowledge of the timeless spaceless divine infinitude after a process of graded personal effort, whereas the World-Mind's knowledge of itself has forever been what it was is and shall be, above all processes and beyond all efforts.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31611 – 16.25.1.73

BN – Z – K1

God, the World-Mind, knows all things in an eternal present at once. No mystic has ever claimed, no mystic has ever dared to claim, such total knowledge. Most mystics have, however, claimed union with God. If this be true, then quite clearly they can have had only a fragmentary, not a full union. > >Philosophy, being more precise in its statements, avers that they have really achieved union not with God, but with something Godlike—the soul.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31612 – 16.25.1.74

BN – Z – DEK1

Omar Khayyam’s agnostic position is perfectly in accord with philosophy’s position. Both his school of Sufism and our teaching declare the impossibility of man knowing God. We can discover only that God exists and that the Soul exists but not go farther.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31617 – 16.25.1.79

BN – X – D

Those mystics who talk of becoming united with God have fallen into the dualistic fallacy. They talk as though God were separate and apart from themselves. The truth is that they already exist within God and do not need to become united with Him. What they need is to become conscious of Him—which is a different matter.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31626 – 16.25.1.88

UR_3.2 – ZZ – DK

The danger of men's deifying themselves afflicts the mystic path. This mind-madness must first be frankly admitted as a danger, for then only can it be guarded against.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31631 – 16.25.1.93

BN – X – K1

Man is but a small token of the greater Mind which spawned him. He is but the merest hint of That which is behind him in the present, was in the past, and shall be in the future.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31635 – 16.25.1.97

BN – ZZ – DK

The true explanation of mystical ecstasy is not union with God but union with the Soul.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31636 – 16.25.1.98

BN – X – D

When consciousness is successfully turned in on its own deepest state, which is serene, impersonal, and unchanging, it receives the experience of the divine Soul, not of the Godhead. It brings us nearer to the Godhead but does not transform us into it. We discover the divine ray within, we do not become the sun itself.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31637 – 16.25.1.99

BN – X – D

The mystic attains knowledge and experience of his own soul. This is not the same as knowledge of the ultimate Reality. The two are akin, of course—much more closely than the little ego and the Real are akin. But the Godhead is the Flame of which the soul is only a spark; to claim complete union with it seems blasphemous.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31638 – 16.25.1.100

UR_2.2 – Z – DMK

When a man says that he has communed with God, be he a great prophet in trance or a humble layman in prayer, the truth is that he has really communed with something within himself which is so closely related to God that he may perhaps be pardoned for his error. But still it is not God. It is his soul, the Overself.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31639 – 16.25.1.101

UR_3.2 – ZZ – DK

When he believes he is communing with God he is actually communing with his own inner reality. The enlightenment that seems to come from outside actually comes from inside himself.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31640 – 16.25.1.102

BN – X – D

The human being cannot go farther in its pilgrimage than the discovery of his own origin, his Overself.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31642 – 16.25.1.104

BN – X – D

The Soul constitutes both the connection between human being and God and the ultimate attainment of human being.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31643 – 16.25.1.105

BSG_4 – P – D

The Overself is the representative of God in man. The soul constitutes both the connection between man and God and the ultimate attainment of man.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31643M – 16.25.1.105

BA11 – ZZ – DX

The best a man can hope for, in rising above the ego and the world, is to rise into awareness of his true soul. This is valuable enough but it is not the same as looking into God's mind or becoming united with God's being. Those theologians who describe the mind merely show us the capacity or quality of their speculations and imaginations. Those mystics who describe the being, really describe their own souls.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31644 – 16.25.1.106

BN – Z – DEK

His discovery of being born out of, and still remaining rooted in, the Infinite Mind of God, is a tremendous one but it does not make him identical with God.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Man is not, does not become, God

#31646 – 16.25.1.108

BN – X – DK