Let him walk forward slowly or quickly, as suits him best, and also in his own way, again as suits his individuality which he has fashioned through the reincarnations to its present image and from which he has to begin and proceed farther.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Unique person: unique path

#1366 – 2.1.5.194

B_06 – P – D

There is no single universal rule for all men: their outer circumstances and inner conditions, their historical background and geographical locality, their karmic destiny and evolutionary need, their differences in competence, render it unwise, unfair, and impracticable to write a single prescription for them.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Unique person: unique path

#1369 – 2.1.5.197

B_06 – ZZZ – K

Every man's individual life-path is unique. It may not be to his best interests to conform to a technique imposed upon him by another man or to confine his efforts to a pattern which has suited others. What may be right for another man who is at a different stage of development may be wrong for the aspirant.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Unique person: unique path

#1378 – 2.1.5.206

BA12 – P – D

Changes of circumstances which bring uncertainty of the future will not frighten him. They will interest him. He will seek to discover if they point the way to an incoming of new forces of experience necessary for his further development.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Unique person: unique path

#1388 – 2.1.5.216

BN – Z – D

The claims that these simpler paths like devotion or repeating a declaration can lead to the goal, are neither true nor untrue. For they lead to the philosophic path which, in its own turn, leads directly to the goal.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Unique person: unique path

#1397 – 2.1.5.225

BN – X – D

In short, let him know himself. He may then have a key to better knowledge of other things, especially of the meaning of his own life.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Knowing and working within one's limitations

#1420E – 2.1.5.248

BA11 – P – DE

If he is unable to gather enough strength to seek the Truth, then let him seek it for the sake of the services it can render to him.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Knowing and working within one's limitations

#1422 – 2.1.5.250

BN – Z

Do not let the past hold you down. Do not let dust-laden memories keep you down. Make today a fresh day, a new beginning.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Knowing and working within one's limitations

#1433 – 2.1.5.261

BN – X – D

He should not be discouraged because others have gone ahead on the path more quickly than he, any more than he should be gratified because some have gone ahead more slowly than he, for the fact is that the goal he seeks is already within his grasp. He is the Overself that he seeks to unite with, and the time it seems to take to realize this is itself an illusion of the mind. Let him, therefore, go forward at his own rate and within the limits of his own strength, leaving the result in the hands of God.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Knowing and working within one's limitations

#1439 – 2.1.5.267

BN – X – DEK

From a long-range point of view, is anyone really "lost"? It is sometimes consoling to remember that we have Eternity before us, and we can only do what we are capable of at a given time.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Knowing and working within one's limitations

#1452 – 2.1.5.280

B_13 – ZZ – K

From a long-range point of view, is anyone really lost? It is sometimes consoling to remember that we have Eternity before us, and we can only do what we are capable of at a given time.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Knowing and working within one's limitations

#1455 – 2.1.5.283

BN – X – D

What is the Overself telling me through this experience? What does it want me to learn, know, do, or avoid? Your environment is really a testing-place and a disciplinary school.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Knowing and working within one's limitations

#1457ME – 2.1.5.285

B_15 – ZZ – DEXK

The question of how far he would be prepared to travel in this quest has no geographical reference. It is a metaphorical one and refers only to the time he can give each day to the exercises, studies, and devotions, as well as to the moral ideals he can bring himself to pursue. He is not asked for more than he feels he can humanly give under his present circumstances and responsibilities. As for going to India or elsewhere, that is unnecessary and even inadvisable. One of the greatest Western mystics I ever knew spent every day in the city of London, where he had a business to manage. He did his job and made a success of it, stuck to his ideals and became spiritually "aware." He was indeed an adept at meditation but he had never set foot in the Orient. The seeker has indeed not very far to travel. Four hundred years ago Sebastian Franck, a German who had attained the full spiritual realization, wrote: "We do not need to cross the sea to find Him—the Word is nigh thee, is 'in thy heart'."

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Knowing and working within one's limitations

#1458 – 2.1.5.286

B_08 – ZZ – DEK*

The belief that we have to travel to far places for the light of Truth is not really true but our own feebleness may have to make it true. As soon as we settle down in hope and confidence to discover the deeper forces within ourselves they begin to become active.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Knowing and working within one's limitations

#1459 – 2.1.5.287

BN – ZZ – DEK

To those who want to travel to India or elsewhere in search of salvation, or of a master who shall lead them to it, the question must be asked, "Can you not see that if you take yourself there you will still have to cope with your ego there as here? Look deeper into your own heart, for that is where what you seek really is."

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Knowing and working within one's limitations

#1463 – 2.1.5.291

BA12 – ZZ – D

One man may go to the Orient and gain nothing. It is not emotional exuberance which produces a high spiritual result, nor visits to many ashrams, but the depth and concentration with which the truth is seen.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Knowing and working within one's limitations

#1467 – 2.1.5.295

BN – Z – D

There is an Indian formula covering three progressive stages of the quest: Hearing, Reflection, Enlightenment. It means: Receiving instruction (from guru or text), Thinking constantly over the teachings until they are thoroughly assimilated, Experiencing glimpses of a mystical nature. With the end of this third phase, the aspirant has not only to repeat and prolong the glimpses until his whole life is permeated by the wisdom and peace which is their fruit, but also to receive and apply the highest and final philosophic doctrine. With this, his enlightenment becomes natural, effortless, unbroken. It is unified with his activity, established whether he is busy in the world or seated in meditation.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1472 – 2.1.5.300

BN – X – D

In the course of his life the student will pass from one phase of development to another, thus gradually enriching and expanding his whole character.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1474 – 2.1.5.302

BN – X – D

The attitude of faith in another person is undoubtedly helpful to beginners, provided the faith is justified. But it is a stage necessarily inferior to the attitude of faith in one's own soul. To turn inwards rather than outwards, to overcome the tendency towards externality, is to ascend to a higher stage.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1480 – 2.1.5.308

BN – X – D

Although the movement towards enlightenment goes forward by stages, the actual moment of enlightenment comes abruptly with a sudden transcendence of the darkness in which men ordinarily live.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1486 – 2.1.5.314

BA11 – P – D

The time will come, if he perseveres, when his mind will naturally orient itself toward the spiritual pole of being. And this will happen by itself, without any urging on his part. No outer activity will be able to stop the process, for to make it possible his mind will apparently double its activity. In the foreground, it will attend to the outer world, but in the background it will attend to the Overself.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1487 – 2.1.5.315

BN – X – D

The ascending degrees of initiation into higher understanding of truth and large capacity to receive contemplative awareness open themselves to him one by one as he passes each successive test leading to it. These tests consist, in the lower grades, of willingness to submit physical habits, passions, and desires to discipline and, in higher grades, willingness to submit thoughts and feelings to it. In all, they lead to a progressive detachment from the animal and the ego.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1489 – 2.1.5.317

BN – Z – DK*

This momentary glimpse of the Overself provides the real beginning of his quest. The uninterrupted realization of it provides the final ending.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1492 – 2.1.5.320

B_04 – P – D

When he begins to sense the inner peace and exaltation which is a perfume, as it were, upon the threshold of the Overself, he may understand how real this inner life is and paradoxically how unintelligible, indescribable, and immaterial from the ordinary standpoint. It is something, and yet not something which can be put into shape or form graspable by the five senses. Anyway it is there and it is the Immortal Soul.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1493 – 2.1.5.321

BN – X – D

The personal man needs to grow and develop adequately as man. Only after this does he reach the stage when it is safe, and not premature, to undo the ego, and destroy its rule. For after this point the latter becomes a tyranny when the task now is to make it a subserviency.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1494 – 2.1.5.322

BN – X – D

It is good as a beginning to believe in God. It is admirable as the next step to try to come closer to God by worship—but it is not enough. It is a fulfilment of a still higher duty to try to know that in us which is the link with God, which in contrast to man is of a godlike nature.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1498 – 2.1.5.326

BN – X – D

The order of progress is from belief to knowledge, and thence to love of that which is known.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1499 – 2.1.5.327

BN – X – D

If a man comes to this quest by thought or by suffering or by fate, he will end by love if he remains with it, love of that which shines forth during his first glimpse, love of the Overself. It is like the child losing, then finding, its parent.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1500 – 2.1.5.328

BN – X – D

First, he has a vague feeling of being attracted towards the Overself. Then he bestows more attention upon it, thinks of it frequently; at length attention grows into concentration and this, in turn, culminates in absorption. In the end, he can say, with al Hallaj: “I live not in myself, only in Thee. Last night I loved. This morning I am Love.”

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1501 – 2.1.5.329

BN – X – D

The stages in philosophic training usually begin with gaining a theoretical knowledge of the teachings. When this is well established, it grows in time into an aspiration for self-improvement and into an effort to mold character and conduct in conformity with the philosophic ideal. Such a maturation period is often a long and difficult one. In the third stage the “glimpse” of enlightenment begins to be experienced. The first glimpse has a far-reaching effect and is likely to be associated with the first contact with an inspired spiritual guide, or with the writings of such a man. In the case of some persons there is a different series of steps. The glimpse comes first, the theoretical study next, striving to express through living comes last.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1502 – 2.1.5.330

BN – X – D

That a higher existence is possible for mankind may be a strong intuitive feeling or a strong religious belief. It can develop through experience of a mystical glimpse into personal realization or more lastingly, more truthfully, through experience of philosophic insight.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Stages of development

#1504 – 2.1.5.332

BN – X – D

The whole psyche of man must get into this task of self-spiritualization. Feeling alone cannot do it, will alone cannot do it, thinking alone cannot do it, and intuiting alone cannot do it. Every element must contribute to it and be shaped by it.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Only whole person finds whole truth

#1513 – 2.1.5.341

BN – Z – DK

If he comes to the quest with his whole being, turning every side of it to the quest's light and discipline, he may confidently expect the full insight, the full transformation and not a partial, incomplete result.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Only whole person finds whole truth

#1525 – 2.1.5.353

BN – X – DEK

The first reward is truth realized in every part of his being, the lower self becoming the instrument of the Soul. The second reward is peace, intensely satisfying and joyous. A keen and constant longing after the Soul’s consciousness, a willingness to surrender all to it inwardly, are however necessary prerequisites.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1526 – 2.1.5.354

BN – X – D

When this truth is at last seen, that heaven is not a place in space but a condition of being, and that therefore it can to a certain extent be realized even before death, a feeling of joy and a sense of adventure are felt. The joy arises because we are no longer restricted by time, and the adventuresomeness arises because a vista of the quest's possibilities opens up.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1533 – 2.1.5.361

UR_3.2 – Z – DEK

He whose resort is solely the personal ego is constantly subject to its limitations and narrowness and, consequently, is afflicted with strains and anxieties. He who lets it go and opens himself up, whose resort is to his Higher Self, finds it infinite and boundless and, consequently, is filled with inward peace.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1536 – 2.1.5.364

BN – X – D

The quest often begins with a great sadness but always ends with a great happiness. Its course may flow through both dark and bright moods at times, but its terminus will be unbelievably serene.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1537 – 2.1.5.365

B_04 – P – DE

When he has brought the host of conflicting emotions to rest, when he has trained the thoughts to obedience, when he has fought and beaten the ego itself, he comes to a state of peace.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1540 – 2.1.5.368

BN – X – D

To enter into the presence of a high inspiration, feel its ennoblement, and understand its message, brings a deeply satisfying joy.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1541 – 2.1.5.369

BN – X – D

Nobody can earnestly work through a course in the higher philosophy without finding oneself a better and wiser person at the end than he or she was at the beginning. And this result will come to him/her almost unconsciously, little by little, through the creative power of right thinking.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1548 – 2.1.5.376

BSG_4 – P – D

Here on the quest, it is not only possible for him to meet the profoundest thoughts of the human mind but also its highest experiences.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1550 – 2.1.5.378

BN – X – D

He who finds the Overself, loses the burdens, the miseries, and the fears of the ego.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1551 – 2.1.5.379

BN – X – D

How does the quest remove his fears? By providing him sooner or later with firm assurance that the Overself's gracious power is not only illuminative but also protective.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1552 – 2.1.5.380

BN – X – D

Slowly, as he strives onward with this inner work, his faults and frailties will fall away and this ever-shining better self hidden behind them will begin to be revealed.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1553 – 2.1.5.381

BN – X – D

His meditations tend to make him sensitive and his studies sympathetic; the two qualities combine well so that others notice how kindly he is in personal relations.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1556 – 2.1.5.384

BN – X – D

The time will come when values will change, when ambitions, powers, possessions, and acquisitions will all be put back into their proper places, when their tyranny over the will and the feelings will be put to an end.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1558 – 2.1.5.386

BA12 – P – D

Those who will take the trouble to comprehend what all this means, and who will do what they can to practise the requisite exercises, will find with increasing joy that new life opening up to them.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1560 – 2.1.5.388

BN – X – D

When this inner work is sufficiently advanced, certain traits of character will either advance in strength or appear for the first time. Among them are patience, goodwill, stability, self-control, peacefulness, and equableness.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1561 – 2.1.5.389

BN – X – D

Any man may detect the presence of divinity within himself, if he will patiently work through the course prescribed by authoritative books or a competent guide. It is not the prerogative of spiritual genius alone to detect it.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1571 – 2.1.5.399

BN – X – D

From the first momentary glimpse of the soul till the final rest in it, he is being led to accept the truth that the love which he wants and hopes to find outside himself must be found within himself. The true beloved is not a person but a presence. When genuine love in its most intense form utterly overwhelms him, he will find that its physical form is a mere caricature of it and that its human form is a pale reflection from it. Instead of having to beg some woman or some man for crumbs of affection from their table, he will find a veritable fountain of everflowing love deep within his heart, and therefore ever available to him in the fullest measure. This is the one beloved who can never desert him, the unique soul-mate who will forever remain with him, the only twin soul he can seek with the absolute certainty that it is truly his own.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1578 – 2.1.5.406

B_10 – P – DEK

Instead of having to beg some woman or some man for crumbs of affection from their table, he will find a veritable fountain of everflowing love deep within his heart, and therefore ever available to him in the fullest measure. This is the one beloved who can never desert him, the unique soul-mate who will forever remain with him, the only twin soul he can seek with the absolute certainty that it is truly his own.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1578E – 2.1.5.406

BA12 – P – DEK

He will expand the meaning of his own habitual life-experience as he expands the awareness of the divine in himself.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1582 – 2.1.5.410

BN – ZZ – DK

He who is sufficiently ready to recognize the Higher Purpose of Life, and who has the courage to change and improve his way of thinking, thereby replacing negative thoughts by positive ones, will certainly be rewarded by improved circumstances and greater happiness than he may already enjoy.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1587 – 2.1.5.415

BN – X – D

No one who feels that his inner weakness or outer circumstances prevent him from applying this teaching should therefore refrain from studying it. That would not only be a mistake but also a loss on his part. For as the Bhagavad Gita truly says, "A little of this knowledge saves from much danger." Even a few years' study of philosophy will bring definite benefit into the life of a student. It will help him in all sorts of ways, unconsciously, here on earth and it will help him very definitely after death during his life in the next world of being.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1588D – 2.1.5.416

BN – ZZZ – DEK

Although its promises and experiences may not appear glamorous in a worldly sense, the Quest reveals itself to be the best of all possible ways of living.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1589 – 2.1.5.417

BN – X – D

In meditation practice, metaphysical study, and right conduct we have the triune path which brings satisfaction, peace, wisdom, and true prosperity. Jesus taught us all this long ago but unfortunately his message has been largely misunderstood, distorted, and even falsified. However he also taught that we are all the children of God. It is a Father's business to look after his children. Despite the tragedy and horror of our times, those who have eyes to see can still see the divine arms enfolding us. Despite the presence of monstrosities in the world, there is also the presence of the Overself—beautiful, radiant, benign, and indestructible.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1593 – 2.1.5.421

BN – ZZ

Despite the tragedy and horror of our times, those who have eyes to see can still see the divine arms enfolding us. Despite the presence of monstrosities in the world, there is also the presence of the Overself―beautiful, radiant, benign, and indestructible.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1594E – 2.1.5.422

BSG_4 – ZZ – DEK

In meditation practice, metaphysical study, and right conduct we have the triune path which brings satisfaction, peace, wisdom, and true prosperity. Jesus taught us all this long ago but unfortunately his message has been largely misunderstood, distorted, and even falsified. However he also taught that we are all the children of God. It is a Father's business to look after his children. Despite the tragedy and horror of our times, those who have eyes to see can still see the divine arms enfolding us. Despite the presence of monstrosities in the world, there is also the presence of the Overself—beautiful, radiant, benign, and indestructible.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#1594 – 2.1.5.422

B_12 – ZZ – DEK

Keep away from psychic practices and occult explorations. They are filled with dangers and pitfalls. First devote your energies to the foundational work of learning philosophy, improving character, disciplining emotion, and cultivating calmness. Only after this work has been well advanced will it ever be safe for you to take up occultism, for only then will you be properly equipped to do so.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Dangers

#1604 – 2.1.5.432

BN – X – DEK

The deepest spiritual experience goes beneath thought and emotion and especially beneath the personal ego. Only then does one come in contact with the Infinite life-power which is behind everything, and which is the true goal of this Quest.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Dangers

#1605E – 2.1.5.433

BSG_4 – P – DE

In the case of mentally disturbed or emotionally unbalanced persons, trust in their own ego may easily be misread as trust in the Overself—with correspondingly lamentable results.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Dangers

#1610 – 2.1.5.438

BN – Z

We are not left to find out for ourselves what the truth is. Now and then messengers appear among us, each bearing his own personal communication about the existence of a higher power and the need of a higher life.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > General notes

#1632 – 2.1.6.4

BN – X – D

We may help the Overself in drawing us to the goal by surrendering to the guidance of a competent spiritual adviser or we may obstruct it by clinging to the ego's. But an incompetent adviser will also obstruct it, and in fact become a channel for the ego's truth-obscuring tactics.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > General notes

#1633 – 2.1.6.5

BN – X – D

Happiness depends on our understanding of life, understanding depends upon the penetration of insight, insight depends upon right instructions received from a competent teacher.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > The need for a teacher

#1640 – 2.1.6.12

UR_4map – ZZZ – DEK

Heaven lies within and without us, it is true. But in most cases, only by the intervention of some authentic spiritual genius do we seem able to translate this into actuality for ourselves.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > The need for a teacher

#1644 – 2.1.6.16

BN – X – D

Most men find they need a concrete symbol to receive their devotion and concentrate their aspiration. In short, they find they need a Spiritual Leader, be he historical and of the past, or contemporary and of the present.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > The need for a teacher

#1650 – 2.1.6.22

BN – Z – K

Something or someone is needed to draw us from the ego to the Overself behind it.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > The need for a teacher

#1653 – 2.1.6.25

BN – X – D

Whoever seeks to raise his own consciousness to the Overself’s, will get most help from seeking out an individual who has already accomplished that task. In the presence of someone whose own consciousness is in the Overself, he will receive the inward inspiration which can energize and lead his personal efforts in the same direction.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > The need for a teacher

#1677 – 2.1.6.49

BN – X – D

The beginning aspirant lacks the experience to judge himself aright and even the intermediate lacks the impersonal view to judge himself correctly.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > The need for a teacher

#1682 – 2.1.6.54

BN – ZZ

A phrase or two, coming from an inspired man, may set a subconscious process working in the mind of another and lead him in the end to acquire a new truth or a new view.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > The need for a teacher

#1691 – 2.1.6.63

BN – X – D

We need to build up an intimate inner relationship with a being whose compassion is wide enough to understand us and whose power is developed enough to help us. It does not matter that he is dead.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > The need for a teacher

#1706 – 2.1.6.78

BN – X – D

It is not essential to find a teacher in the flesh—he may be in print. A book may become a quite effective teacher and guide.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Books as teachers

#1709 – 2.1.6.81

BN – X – D

In the absence of a sage's personal society, one may have recourse to the best substitute—a sage's printed writings.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Books as teachers

#1710 – 2.1.6.82

BN – X – D

The personal contact with a master does not necessarily require a face-to-face meeting. It can also be effected through a letter written by him—nay, to some degree, even through a book written by him. For his mind incarnates itself in these productions. Thus, those who are prevented by circumstances from meeting him physically, may meet him mentally and gain the same results.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Books as teachers

#1714 – 2.1.6.86

BN – X – D

The perspicacious student will cling steadfastly throughout his life to the writings of illumined masters, returning to them again and again. Their works are the truest of all, pure gold and not alloys.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Books as teachers

#1715 – 2.1.6.87

UR_6 – ZZZ – DK

The very fine writings of philosophers and mystics of all times may bring into one's life some emotional inspirational and intellectual guidance, even, possibly, stimulating his power of will. Through the long, unavoidable years of struggle on the Quest, they can, to that extent, act the part of a teacher or guide. However, it must be remembered that some are infinitely more worthwhile than others, and it is essential for one to be able to discriminate between what is true and helpful and what is false and worthless.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Books as teachers

#1728 – 2.1.6.100

BN – Z

From these great writings, he will receive impulses of spiritual renewal. From these strong paragraphs and lovely words he will receive incitement to make himself better than he is. Their every page will carry a message to him; indeed, they will seem to be written for him.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Books as teachers

#1734 – 2.1.6.106

BN – ZZZ

One of the helps to kindle this spark into a flame is the reading of inspired literature, whether scripture or not—the mental association through books with men who have themselves been wholly possessed by this love.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Books as teachers

#1735 – 2.1.6.107

BN – Z

One of the helps to kindle this spark into a flame is the reading of inspired literature, whether scripture or not—the mental association through books with men who have themselves been wholly possessed by this love.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Books as teachers

#1737 – 2.1.6.109

BN – X – D

The words of inspired men are like a lighthouse to those seekers who are still groping in the dark.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Books as teachers

#1739 – 2.1.6.111

B_05 – ZZ – D

It is a man's own fault if, through his failure to seek spiritual guidance or understanding, none is vouchsafed to him. "Ask, and it shall be given unto you", said Jesus in this reference, which complements and is necessary to the assertion of the Chinese sage: "Those who know do not speak".

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1747 – 2.1.6.119

B_11 – Z – K

If the strong yearning for truth be absent, a man may meet a thousand masters of the quest but he will neither recognize them for what they are nor experience any exaltation in their presence. This yearning must indeed be as strong as the hunger of a starving man or the desperation of a traveller lost in the desert.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1749 – 2.1.6.121

BA12 – P – D

The seeker who is fumbling for the right direction to take should welcome the help of a competent guide. But where such a guide is not personally forthcoming, the best substitute is a personal disciple of his or, failing that, a book written by him.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1791 – 2.1.6.163

B_07 – P – D

It is often said that when the pupil is ready the Master will appear. But I have not yet read anyone's additional statement—that he may be invisible and unhearable—that is, he may be entirely within you.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1795 – 2.1.6.167

BA12 – P – D

The difficulty which you mention about finding a teacher need not be overrated. You have within yourself a ray of God, which is your own soul. If you pray to and beseech it constantly for guidance, it will surely lead you to all that you really need to know.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1801 – 2.1.6.173

BN – ZZ – DK

Something within seems to recognize the true teacher when he appears. This is not miraculous when one understands that the visible present has its root in the invisible past and that discipleship is a relation which reappears in birth after birth. However, the philosophic path does not depend only on faith or intuition but also on rational appeal and proved fact. Therefore, some time must elapse before one knows thoroughly that he has found the right path and the right teacher.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1855 – 2.1.6.227

BN – X – DEK

Another sign that you have found the right master is when you find that he is the one who inspires you to go more deeply into yourself during meditation than any other.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1856 – 2.1.6.228

BN – X – D

A student is often dismayed, anxious, or upset by the aura of apparent impersonality which surrounds the Teacher. Such reactions are natural but also must be checked—which can be done by learning to smile at oneself and be at peace.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1867 – 2.1.6.239

BN – ZZ

How honest was that reputedly wise man Socrates in saying what so few gurus have ever said. He had just answered Xenophon's request for advice on a certain matter and concluded: "But my opinion is only that of a man."

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1905 – 2.1.6.277

A241129 – Z

Where is the man who is wise enough to give everyone else spiritual guidance, personal advice, marital counsel, and prediction of future? Who with a single look knows all about you as he already knows all about God and the universe? Let us not look for fantasies of wishful thinking but see humans as humans.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1909 – 2.1.6.281

BN – ZZ – K

Behind the majestic phrases of most of these spiritual teachers, we usually find in the end of a searching investigation based on living with them or on the historic facts of their lives, that there stand poor frail mortals. Hence those few who emerge as being one with, and not inferior to, their teachings stand out all the more as truly great men.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1913 – 2.1.6.285

BN – ZZZ – K

"Why, if we concede that the adepts have a right to hide from the multitude, do they also seem to hide from the earnest seeking few?" The adepts are confident that those individuals who are really ready for them will meet them when the right time comes. They know that this will happen not only under the direct working of karma, not only under the impulsions of the seeker's own higher self, but also under the wise laws which govern the quest itself. These are high and hard truths. But they are the realities of life, not dreams for those who like to be self-deluded. Whoever rejects them for such a reason does so at the risk of being harshly shocked into awakening one day.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1918E – 2.1.6.290

BN – Z

The mystical and cultist circles which talk much about these matters use the name 'Master' to trail such an accumulation behind it of falsified facts, superstitious notions, and nonsensical thinking, that it is needful to be on guard for semantic definition whenever this term is heard.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Issues in seeking a teacher

#1944 – 2.1.6.316

UR_3.2 – Z – K

He is a true messenger who seeks to keep his ego out of his work, who tries to bring God and man together without himself getting in between them.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#1970D – 2.1.6.342

BSG_4 – P – D

A true teacher will practise the utmost self-abnegation and will seek and work for the day when his influence or interference are brought down to nothing.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#1992 – 2.1.6.364

BN – Z

He understands the feeling of love which a disciple expresses and he accepts it on the level of the same feeling which he himself gives in turn to Those who are his leaders. The attraction is inevitable. But in the case of female disciples, it must be kept on a high level and never allowed to mix with lower emotions. It must be pure and, in a certain sense, even impersonal. The teacher walks the path of life outwardly alone and uninvolved with any "person" as such. The only way anyone can come closer to him is to approach the attainment of union with his own higher self. Do not expect the adept to behave as ordinary human beings, with their desires and emotions, behave. He has committed suicide in that direction. It was the price demanded of him for what little peace he has found.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2025 – 2.1.6.397

BN – ZZ

It is the will of a higher power that he, whose own inner eye is open, shall be instrumental in opening that eye for others wherein it is closed.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2027 – 2.1.6.399

BN – X – D

What a guide may be able to do in certain cases is to facilitate the awakening of higher consciousness and to make easier the entry of higher truths.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2029 – 2.1.6.401

BN – X – D

It is usually quite impossible for the average aspirant to determine who is a fully qualified master. But it is sometimes quite possible to determine who is not a master. He may apply this negative test to the supposed master's personal conduct and public teaching.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2034 – 2.1.6.406

BN – X – D

If the truly advanced mystic ever gives the impression that he frowns on any person who has erred, a totally false impression has been received. For he knows that it is through that small part of evolution which is devoted to free will that we learn and grow. He who has himself learnt and grown in this way never frowns at the mistakes of others, but, instead, forgives them.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2048 – 2.1.6.420

B_14 – ZZ

The Overself is costless. It is, as Jesus pointed out, as free as the wind which comes and goes. Whoever has realized it will gladly teach the way to anyone who is ripe and ready for his teaching. If any man puts a price on it and offers to sell it to you, be sure he is offering a false or shoddy imitation.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2065 – 2.1.6.437

BN – Z – K

The first service of the Master is to point out the way, both inwardly and outwardly, to the disciple. This shortens his journey by several lifetimes, which would otherwise have to be spent in wanderings, explorings, gropings, and searchings.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2070 – 2.1.6.442

BSG_4 – P – D

A guru who is quite competent does help the learner: he shows the way, illuminates problems, untangles knots, dispels confusions, explains meanings, and encourages effort. Tutelage has its place.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2080 – 2.1.6.452

BN – Z

He who would appear publicly as a religious prophet or mystical teacher must deal with the people of his century as he finds them, must speak to them in a language which they can understand. But even though he thus tries to conform to the requirements of those he has come to help, he cannot give them the intuition, the sensitivity, and the intelligence needed to understand his message, nor the aspiration and reverence needed to appreciate it.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2088 – 2.1.6.460

BN – Z

It is an important part of his task to show men what their personal lives look like from an impersonal standpoint. Hence he points out the fallacy of their egotistic actions and the foolishness of their egotistic purposes.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2105 – 2.1.6.477

BN – ZZ – DK

The first task of a genuine guide is not to flatter the seeker but to criticize him, not to let him remain ignorantly in the grip of his unrecognized weaknesses but to point them out relentlessly to him.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2108 – 2.1.6.481

B_07 – Z

The spiritual leader who is always soft and sentimental may help some of his pupils, but he would help them more if, at the same time, he were also hard and firm. The first attitude will attract more to him, but without the second to balance it neither he nor they will get the proper view of life.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2116 – 2.1.6.489

B_01 – ZZ – K

The title "leader" implies its corollary "follower." but a spiritual leader of the kind here described does not want a mass of followers trailing behind him in a partisan spirit. It is enough for him to give others a few inspirations, ideas, insights, and yet leave them free to work on the material as they wish, unobligated to join any movement.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2124 – 2.1.6.497

B_01 – ZZZ – DK

It is needful for you to understand that a philosophic teacher never really wants anyone to follow him but only to follow Truth. Socrates humorously described himself as practising the same vocation as his mother who was a midwife—the only difference between them being that whereas she helped women to deliver themselves of infants, he helped men to deliver themselves of the true ideas with which their minds were in labour. His business, like that of all genuine teachers, was not to impart truth as something new and foreign but to assist the student to elicit it from within himself. Every genuine teacher tries in his work to lead the student's mind in such a way that his thinking gradually changes without his becoming conscious of the fact at the time, although he will recognize it in retrospect later. He makes students think for themselves; stimulates them to solve their own metaphysical, personal, and emotional problems; and points out the pitfalls and fallacies which lie in their life-path.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2125E – 2.1.6.498

BN – ZEL1/2 – K

Every genuine teacher tries in his work to lead the student's mind in such a way that his thinking gradually changes without his becoming conscious of the fact at the time, although he will recognize it in retrospect later. He makes students think for themselves; stimulates them to solve their own metaphysical, personal, and emotional problems; and points out the pitfalls and fallacies which lie in their life-path. Because his outlook is so disinterested, because his primary purpose is to liberate and not limit them, to give and not get, such a teacher's services can never be bought by anyone—although they may be claimed by those who are prepared to cast off the shoes of conventional prejudice at his door and who are willing to refrain loyally from imposing upon him their preconceived notions of what characteristics the teaching, the teacher, and the quest should possess. Thus if he will not shackle them, they in their turn must not shackle him. Such would-be disciples are rare, but such teachers who practise what they preach are rarer still.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2125E – 2.1.6.498

BN – ZEL2/2 – K

A prudent master prefers not to help people but to help them to help themselves.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2137 – 2.1.6.510

BN – Z

It is the teacher's duty to foster his disciple's creativeness, not his imitativeness—to encourage the disciple to develop his own inspiration.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2139 – 2.1.6.512

B_07 – P – D

A teacher of spiritual culture, ideals, principles, and practices must think of the intellectual level of those he seeks to instruct and address his message to that. Because there are different levels of aspirants, different levels of teaching are necessary.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2154 – 2.1.6.527

B_07 – ZZ

To explain such subtle teachings in all their fullness to anyone who will not be able to understand them or to feel as interested as the student does, would be foolish. Nevertheless, he is not the proprietor of them so he cannot keep them solely for his own use; nor is he so separate from others that their inner fate is not his concern. If someone comes who asks questions sincerely or needs comfort spiritually or seeks guidance in bewilderment, the student must give what he can. But he must give it prudently, not pouring out one drop more of his knowledge or power than is needed for the particular person at this particular stage in evolution. There is no necessity to keep truth jealously guarded, as in medieval times, nor to rush to the opposite extreme and give everything to everyone.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a teacher

#2160 – 2.1.6.534

BN – Z

The master will teach with love what the student must learn with reverence.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master-disciple relationship

#2179 – 2.1.6.553

BN – X – D

There is no tie so strong, no attraction so deep as that between Master and pupil. Consequently it persists through incarnation after incarnation.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master-disciple relationship

#2186 – 2.1.6.560

BN – X – D

The relationship between them is a beautiful but free one. If the disciple takes a possessive attitude and tries to annex the teacher, if he betrays jealousy of other disciples or demands as much attention as they get, he substitutes an egoistic for an impersonal relationship, fails to understand its distinctively and uniquely free nature, and thus spoils it.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master-disciple relationship

#2213 – 2.1.6.587

BN – ZZ

This eagerness to become a disciple and learn truth is the first necessary qualification. Without it nothing can be done; with it everything will come naturally in automatic response from the Overself.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2264 – 2.1.6.638

BN – X – D

If the disciple feels personally humiliated or becomes hysterically tearful at the teacher's well-meant fair and constructive criticisms, he is not only suffering needlessly but also rejecting the expert help for which he came to the teacher, even though the form it takes is unexpected and disagreeable. Good advice is still good even when unpalatable.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2272 – 2.1.6.646

B_07 – Z

Of all the many forms of work which a man can find to do, of all the several ways in which his active functions can express themselves, there is none higher than this, that he guide men out of illusion into reality. It is not wrong therefore to give his office great reverence and himself great devotion.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2285 – 2.1.6.659

BN – ZZ – DMK

To listen properly to a guru, is not to bring in the ego with its interpretations. To read correctly from an inspired guru's book is to keep out the common tendency to put in one's own personal meanings. In short, let the mind Be Still and know the Truth!

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2296 – 2.1.6.670

UR_2.4 – ZZZ – K

If a person is strongly egoistic and arrogantly self-opinionated, if he lacks humility even when he approaches a Master, then not only can he not follow the path, but he must circle around looking for its gate. Such a person, uneducable and unteachable, is unfit for the path of discipleship. Life is the only teacher he is ready for. Life is intelligent enough to bring him exactly the kind of experiences he needs—crushing disappointments, frustrations, humiliations, and disasters.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2300 – 2.1.6.674

B_01 – ZZZ – K

Despite the absence of a teacher, it is still possible to intensify his efforts. His surroundings offer part of the material for study; his personal history can be explored for a greater awareness of the meanings of his past and present experiences; and every situation offers an opportunity for a more objective observation of himself.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2309 – 2.1.6.683

BN – Z – DK

The teacher can only help one to help himself. 'Ultimately' it will be by his own efforts alone that the student uncovers the wisdom and beauty he is seeking—and which are even now within him. Such efforts, in order to be successful, must be courageous and continuous: repeated failures should serve only to stimulate deeper determination.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2340E – 2.1.6.714

B_07 – P – D

The teacher can only help you to help yourself. Ultimately it will be by your own efforts alone that you uncover the wisdom and beauty you are seeking -and which are even now within you.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2340E – 2.1.6.714

BSG_4 – P – DE

It is not enough to receive a teaching from someone else. The truth of the teaching must be tested by personal experience, the worth of it should be measured by personal knowledge.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2343 – 2.1.6.717

B_03 – ZZ – DK

The disciple will learn in the end, by experience, that he must look to himself alone for salvation. The last words of the dying Buddha, addressed though they were to his own disciples, have been a useful guide to me: “Look not for refuge to anyone besides yourselves.”

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2346 – 2.1.6.720

BN – ZZ – DK

The kind of teacher who is really useful will put no emphasis upon himself but upon the aspirant's own work, and then see him at intervals only. Once the materials needed are pointed out, the student should teach himself; and this he can do only through self-practice.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2348 – 2.1.6.722

B_07 – P – DE

Whatever is called for to bring on enlightenment exists within yourself already, but it is latent and undeveloped. By study, reflection and meditation, exercise and practice, you can become your own teacher. Sooner or later, you will have to take this work into your own hands. The notion that someone else can or will do it all for you is delusory…

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2348E – 2.1.6.722

UR_4map – ZZZ – DEK

You must play the teacher to yourself. He cannot tread the path for you: you must walk and work by your own effort. The mother cannot grow up on behalf of the child, no matter how greatly she loves it. The adept cannot do your growing-up for you. Nature's laws must prevail. He has shown you the way: use your will to follow it. But devote a little time each day to keeping open the channel of communication with him and thus receive his impetus, his inspiration to help you. So although you must strive by your own use of free will, do not imagine that you need strive unaided.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2349 – 2.1.6.723

B_07 – Z – K

Whoever does not understand that the guide must lead him to where he will seek his own way, will go on endlessly looking for teachers, one after the other, or else become a spiritual hypochondriac, a semi-invalid needing the guru-doctor to dance constantly in attendance on his ego-centered symptoms.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Qualifications, duties of a disciple

#2357 – 2.1.6.731

B_07 – Z – K

Such communication between the teacher and student might be called "Telementation".

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Cultivating the inner link

#2367 – 2.1.6.741

B_07 – Z – K

It is also possible to take any revered person as a master and, in one’s own mind, make him the teacher. Even though no meeting on the physical level may occur, one’s attitude of attention and devotion in meditation will draw from him a reaction which will telepathically give whatever guidance is needed at the time.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Cultivating the inner link

#2375 – 2.1.6.749

BN – Z – DK

He must work harder than ever on his character and, by crushing his ego, sensitize his mind for the reception of the spiritual Grace that is to come during initiation.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Cultivating the inner link

#2387 – 2.1.6.761

BN – Z – DK

In the end, the only way the earnest seeker can find a teacher is to find himself. The deeper he penetrates into the mysterious recesses of his own spiritual being, the closer he comes to the ever-present master within—the higher self. The longer he looks, the more powerful will be its attraction, the more magnetic its spell over him.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Cultivating the inner link

#2395E – 2.1.6.769

B_07 – ZZ – K

Yet the deeper we travel, the less need have we of thoughts and words, for all multiplicity collapses in this marvelous unity. We can neither think nor talk of this sublime state with any accuracy. Hence the only medium whereby we can properly represent it is—silence!

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Cultivating the inner link

#2404 – 2.1.6.778

BN – Z – DK

The soul will lead him by stages to itself. Hence it may lead him to reverence for some scriptural personage or to devotion toward some living master and then, when these have fulfilled their purpose, away and beyond them. For the quest is from the world of things and men to the world of Mind’s void; from thoughts and forms to the thought-free formless Divine.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2422 – 2.1.6.796

BN – X – DK

It will not be until a late stage that he will wake up to the realization that the real giver of Grace, the real helper along this path, the real master is not the incarnated master outside but the Overself inside his own heart. What the living master does for him is only to arouse his sleeping intuition and awaken his latent aspiration, to give him the initial impetus and starting guidance on the new quest, to point out the obstructions to advancement in his individual character and to help him deal with them.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2442 – 2.1.6.816

BN – ZZ – DK

Think more deeply than the conventional mass of guru-followers dare to do and you will come to perceive that in the end there is only one Teacher for each man, his own Overself; that all other and outer gurus are merely channels which IT uses. "It is He who lives inside and speaks through the outer guru's voice," declares a Tibetan text. Why not go direct to the source?

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2447 – 2.1.6.821

BN – ZZ – DEK

The higher self is the ultimate spiritual guide whom he is to revere and the real spiritual helper on whom he is to rely.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2448 – 2.1.6.822

BN – ZZ – DMK

It is rarely and reluctantly that a true master will give personal interviews. He finds that so many enquirers come either with an idealized preconceived picture of what he looks like (or ought to look like) or with certain prejudices which are activated when they see him, that in many cases the good work done by his writings may be nullified by the disappointment consequent on the meeting. This is because few persons are sufficiently nonmaterialistic to look behind physical appearances for the mental reality of the man interviewed. Most come carrying a preconceived picture of some perfectly wonderful, perfectly handsome, perfectly saintlike Perfect Friend. The ideal is not realized. They leave the meeting disillusioned. It is better for their sakes that he remain behind the barrier of written words and not let them meet him face to face.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2456 – 2.1.6.830

BN – ZEL1/2

How many prefer pigmentation to proficiency as a standard of spiritual wisdom, as shown by the numbers who cannot accept a dark-skinned Indian for teacher! How many are held prisoners by their preconceptions! How many reject both a teacher and his truth merely because they dislike the shape of his nose! What hope could a bandy-legged master have to find any disciples? Of course, the seeker who confounds him with his body is really still unfit for philosophy and ought not be given any interview until life and reflection have prepared him to take proper advantage of it. It is unfortunate that this human weakness is so common. This is one of the lesser reasons why the philosophic discipline has to be imposed on candidates for philosophy as a preliminary to be undergone before its threshold can be crossed. The real teacher is hard to behold. For he can be seen partly with the heart, partly with the mind, but rarely with the eye of flesh. He is the invisible man, whom they can recognize only by sensing, not by seeing him.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2456 – 2.1.6.830

BN – ZEL2/2

In the final reckoning we are not the disciple of this or that man but rather the disciple of the Overself.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2458 – 2.1.6.832

BN – ZZZ – DK

The Master as Symbol: All this talk of master and disciple is vain and futile. You yourself, when attracted to a certain man in whom you have faith, set him up as a master in your own mind, keep him there for a number of years, and eventually drop him when you no longer feel the need of a human symbol of the Infinite. All this time it is your own higher self, which is guiding you, even when it is using the mental image of the guide you may have selected for the purpose. All this time you were moving in the direction of the discovery of your Overself inwardly even when you seemed to be moving towards an external master.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2463E – 2.1.6.837

B_07 – EL1/2

All this time you were moving in the direction of the discovery of your Overself inwardly even when you seemed to be moving towards an external master. If you find ABC a helpful symbol, use him as your master, but do not ask him to confirm this usage for the choice was yours. No confirmation from him is called for. Why doubt the guidance of your Overself? If you accept the master in full faith, by that very act you are showing faith in the leading given you by the Overself. Your obedience to it is enough. It has accepted you or it would not be drawing you inwards, as it is. ABC is one with it. Therefore how could the master refuse you? But do not lose sight of the inwardness of the whole process by going to him for an outward sign. Do not materialize it. Make use of him if you wish to, and if he is what you believe him to be, your faith will not be wasted. Your act of mental creation will not lead to hallucination so long as you know that the true ABC is not his body but his mind.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2463E – 2.1.6.837

B_07 – EL2/2

If discovery of Truth is the discovery of the answer to "Who Am I?" then what better Master can there be than the "I" itself—the unknown Knower rather than the familiar, known ego? Yet so few seekers have taken it on trust: nearly all venture it in dependence on some other man. And what can that Master do in the end better than teach his disciple to see his own divine face?

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2465 – 2.1.6.839

BN – ZZ – DEK

The argument as to whether a living master alone can "save" men or whether a dead one can also do so, is a fallacious one. No man is saved by another man. His own soul is his real saviour. When he believes that a master, living or dead, is saving him, his own soul is actually at work within him at the time but is using the mental image of the master to serve as a focus-point for his side—that is, the self-effort side—of the process. Thousands who never knew the living Jesus have felt the real presence and dynamic power of Jesus enough to convert them from sinful to Godly lives. It was the idea of Jesus which they really knew, not the man himself, as it was grace of their Overselves which was the true presence and power they admittedly felt.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2467E – 2.1.6.841

B_11 – EL1/2

Thousands who never knew the living Jesus have felt the real presence and dynamic power of Jesus enough to convert them from sinful to Godly lives. It was the idea of Jesus which they really knew, not the man himself, as it was grace of their Overselves which was the true presence and power they admittedly felt. They concentrated their faith on the idea but the reality behind it was the unknown Overself. They needed the idea—any idea—as a point in their own form-time-and-space personal consciousness where the formless, timeless, placeless, impersonal soul could manifest itself to them.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2467E – 2.1.6.841

B_11 – EL2/2

With the thought of the higher power, an image will spontaneously spring up in his mind. It will be the image of that man who manifests or represents it to him.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Master as symbol

#2470 – 2.1.6.844

BN – X – D

Whether or not it is historically true that there was the battle mentioned in the 'Bhagavad Gita' is unimportant to us of the twentieth century. But the psychological interpretation of it as meaning that Arjuna was ordered to fight not his parents and relatives but his attachment to them, is important. It is the same teaching as that of Jesus' hard saying about the necessity of taking up the cross and denying father and mother. All this we can understand even where we cannot follow it into practice. But it is bewildering to be told that a time comes in the disciple's development when attachment to the teacher must also be broken. He must free himself from the very man who has shown him the path to liberation from every other form of attachment. His liberation is to become total and absolute.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Graduation

#2495 – 2.1.6.869

BN – Z

Do not stray into waters that are too deep for you. Do not try to grasp the mystery of your master. You cannot do it and you will never do it, for if ever you came to the very edge of succeeding in doing it both you and he would disappear from your ken. Do not seek to touch the untouchable. It is better to accept him for what he is and let it go at that than to indulge in useless speculations and erroneous fancies. Not that you are to repress the faculty of enquiry, but that you are to exercise it in the right place and at the right time. Your task now is to understand yourself and to understand the world. When you have come near the close of completing those two tasks, you will then be faced with the further task of comprehending the true character of your master but not till then. For then only will you be able to comprehend him correctly; before then you will only get a wrong notion, which is far worse than no notion at all. The last lesson of these words is: trust him where you cannot understand; believe in him where you cannot follow, and no regret on this point need ever be yours.

Overview of the Quest > Student-Teacher > Graduation

#2497 – 2.1.6.871

BN – Z

Through establishing the correct inner attitude of faith and devotion, through correct methods of study both of general laws and of one's own weaknesses, with constant determination to correct these weaknesses through the pursuit of the ideal of a balanced psyche, and through the regular practice of prayer and meditation, one will be doing all that the ego can do by itself to establish the required conditions for the advent of help from higher sources.

Overview of Practices Involved > Overview of Practices Involved > Overview of Practices Involved

#2498 – 3.2.0.1

BN – Z

His first effort is to find the obstacles which retard the enlightenment; his second, to remove them. This constitutes the Long Path.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > What is the Long Path?

#2499 – 3.2.1.1

BN – X – D

The mind is prevented from knowing the truth by its own defects limitations or deficiencies, by its own passions self-centeredness and possessiveness. The philosophic discipline sets up as an objective the elimination of these hindrances. Such disciplines are physical, mental, and emotional.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > What is the Long Path?

#2501 – 3.2.1.3

BN – X – DEK

For the man or woman who truly desires to follow the Quest and who wonders how to begin, the present course should be to read and study the exercises given in my earlier books, going over them carefully again and again until all the basic concepts are familiar. At the same time, one should find a few minutes out of every day when it is possible to be alone, undisturbed and unobserved. Meditation should be opened by silent prayer, formulated to express spiritual yearnings for the higher way of life. This may be followed by concentrating on a chosen spiritual theme. Every endeavour should be made to keep thoughts from wandering and to bring them back whenever they do.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > What is the Long Path?

#2502 – 3.2.1.4

BN – X – DEK

If he can do little to bring on the advent of Grace, he can do much to remove the obstructions to it.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > What is the Long Path?

#2533 – 3.2.1.35

BN – X – D

The Quester cannot imitate the conventional lives of other people. He has to make some changes, and particularly some sacrifices, if he is to follow a path whose goal is different from theirs. He has to find some time for meditation and study, some time when he can fully and truly be himself, and this requires, however short, a daily period of solitude. He has to arrange his diet so that it will not provide more difficulty for his inner work. He has to be careful of what company he keeps, so that he will not be constantly responding to their auras, either in struggle or in defense.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > What is the Long Path?

#2538 – 3.2.1.40

BN – ZZZ – K

The rays of light would enter every man's conscious mind even now, were they not prevented by the extroversion of his attention, the upheavals of his emotion and passion, the narrow rigidities of his logical intellect, and the attachments of his ego. This is why the removal of these obstructions—which is the Long Path's special work—is indispensable to his progress.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > What is the Long Path?

#2541 – 3.2.1.43

BN – X – D

When he becomes dissatisfied with himself, when he feels that what he is doing, thinking, achieving is either not enough or too inferior or even too misguided, he may be ready for the Long Path of self-improvement.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > What is the Long Path?

#2546 – 3.2.1.48

BN – X – D

There are no practices that will reveal the meaning of life. The latter can come only from experience and reflection. But practices have secondary uses, such as helping to develop concentration, which is needed for right reflection.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > What is the Long Path?

#2549 – 3.2.1.51

BN – X – D

The quest of truth by a mind deformed by hate, anger, bias, bitterness, or greed, or deficient in concentration, calmness, or aspiration must end in a failure which will be partial or total to the extent that these negatives are partial or total. This is why the Long Path is needed.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Purification and development of character

#2557 – 3.2.1.59

BN – X – DEK

Certainly he must be eager to seek the truth, willing to give time for the search since it requires study and meditation, but equally he must be prepared to practise some self-discipline. This is partly because the quest of truth succeeds to the extent that he disengages himself from the ego and from the thoughts, the passions, and the moods it produces.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Purification and development of character

#2573 – 3.2.1.75

BN – ZZ – DK

It is easy and human to project our wishes on the universe of our experience and think our fancies into the universe of our ideas. Therefore, the quest of the Overself must begin with a discipline of the underself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Purification and development of character

#2579 – 3.2.1.81

BN – ZZ – DEK

He must put down the lower emotions every time they rear their heads. The ordinary unquesting man may allow resentment, jealousy, anger, lust, hate, and greed to appear and act without restraint on the scene of his life, but the disciple cannot. Self-purification is both his need and his duty.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Purification and development of character

#2605 – 3.2.1.107

BN – X – D

If the advances in understanding, the glimpses of higher states, and the improvements in mental attitudes are regarded egoistically, that is, with the smug complacence that it is "I" who has brought them about, then their value is only preparatory. For they still leave him self-enclosed and he still remains outside the Overself. The Long Path merely takes him to another part of the ego, even though it is the higher part.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2634 – 3.2.1.136

BN – X – DEK

Those who recur often to thoughts of their past get trapped by it and kept prisoner of the ego. Remorse for sins committed and self-pity for being the victim of other people's sinning—both are soon overdone and create more obstacles to be overcome on the quest.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2652 – 3.2.1.154

BA11 – P – D

Every negative thought which may arise within himself or be picked up unconsciously from others becomes an aggression against this quest.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2655 – 3.2.1.157

BN – Z – DK

Too much preoccupation with his own spiritual advancement, too much of self in his thoughts and too little of the Overself—this only binds him tighter to the ego.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2670 – 3.2.1.172

BN – X – D

Some things inside his own being are blocking his way to the Overself. An effort—determined, continuous, and daring—is needed to clear them. They are emotional and passional in appearance, egoistic in essence.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2679 – 3.2.1.181

BA11 – P – D

The seeker on the Long Path tries to eliminate his baser feelings and to cultivate his nobler ones. But in all this effort he is looking at himself alone, purifying and improving his ego but still his own ego.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2689 – 3.2.1.191

BSG_4 – P – D

If a scheme for progress, such as the Quest, remains intellectual alone and does not come down to the heart, and move it, the aspirant will continue to remain outside the precinct of the Overself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2693 – 3.2.1.195

B_04 – ZZZ – DK

The arc of his development usually begins with the Long Path and rises to the Short one, but theoretically it should begin with both together in harmonious combination.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2701 – 3.2.1.203

BN – X – D

At the end we have to be like little children and leave our Enlightenment to the Father and give up our lives to him.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2707E – 3.2.1.209

BN – Z – DEK

Because the ego lives in its own darkness, it cannot give light. The light may come only from the Overself, which is the Sun and Light of human existence.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2707E – 3.2.1.209

BN – Z – DEK

The best advice is, first, that it will not last forever; he must have patience. Second, he must have hope. Then he reaches a better level than ever before. The Dark Night of the Soul does not come to every seeker. It is like a shadow thrown by the Sun. When the Sun appears in the subconscious, the shadows arise. But it is the beginning of a great inner change. It is not a wasted time; there is a great deal of work going on—but in the subconscious—to root out the ego. It is being done by the Overself. It is a sign of Grace, but the aspirant nevertheless feels unhappy.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2707E – 3.2.1.209

A240229 – Z – DEK

The Short Path is a cheerful Path, a Path of happiness. Just before this begins, the aspirant may experience the Dark Night of the Soul. He feels utterly helpless, has no feeling of spiritual Reality. It is a melancholy time—no feeling of spirituality or longing for it. He is neither worldly nor spiritual. He feels alone and abandoned and separated by a wall from his Guru. He feels God has forgotten him. This dark night may last a short time or long years. He is unable to read spiritual things, or think about them. There is no desire for ordinary things either. He feels sad and disappointed and may even try suicide. In this unhappiness even those who love him cannot bring him comfort. In both hemispheres, Western and Eastern, there is a saying: the night is darkest just before dawn. He is on the lowest point. After that, the Short Path brings back the Joy—just like clouds moving away from the Sun.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2707E – 3.2.1.209

A240229 – Z – DE

On the Short Path the aspirants need the philosophical study to understand only one point: What is Reality. It is necessary to understand the difference between the Illusion and the Reality. Every teacher's biggest difficulty is to get the students to understand that not only the world but also the ego is illusion.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2707E – 3.2.1.209

BSG_4 – Z – DE

Therefore Jesus said: "If you want to find your true Self you have to deny yourselves", meaning deny the ego.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2707E – 3.2.1.209

B_11 – Z – DE

Wu-Wei, meaning inaction, not trying, is the highest teaching of Taoism and Zen. The Overself is already there. You as ego must get out of the way!

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2707E – 3.2.1.209

BSG_4 – Z – DE

We must be now guided by our inner feeling of what we need, or by our intuition. If people ask whether they have to study, the answer is that the books deal with the thoughts. What they give is not the Truth, but only intellectual statements of it. It will only prepare them for a better understanding. When they study these books they will only get more thoughts. In the end they have to come to the point where they need no books. There are good books but we must always discriminate between wrong teachings and right teachings, which may get mixed together in the same book. This is the highest we can go with such studies.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2707E – 3.2.1.209

UR_2.4 – ZZZ – DEK3

There is not one fixed rule for everyone. One person is suited for a little of the Short Path and more or longer of the Long Path; with the other person it is vice versa. With most people the combination is the best way. It depends partly on their feelings, their intuition, … In the end, everyone must come to the Short Path, the Inner Path.

Overview of Practices Involved > Ant's Long Path > Confronting the obstacles within

#2707E – 3.2.1.209

UR_4map – ZZZ – DEK

He will have to recognize that not only the universe outside but his own nature inside is governed by precise laws, and that his spiritual progression is subject to such laws, too.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Attitudes that help or hinder

#2708 – 3.2.2.1

BN – X – D

Progress along this path is not merely a matter of chronology; nobody may measure it with accuracy for nobody knows what forces may suddenly arise out of an individual's past to hinder him or what forces may suddenly arise out of the Overself to help him.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Attitudes that help or hinder

#2721 – 3.2.2.14

B_01 – ZZ – K

He who thinks only of the obstacles in his way will never attain the goal. It is necessary to meditate on, and work to develop, positive qualities which will make progress possible.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Attitudes that help or hinder

#2747 – 3.2.2.40

BSG_4 – P – D

If you find progress to be slow and the promised rewards still out of sight, do not despair. Be patient as Nature herself is patient. Find, if you can, the friendship of those more advanced than yourself and receive from their presence the stimulus to become unhurried by time and unhurt by moods of impatience. The path may be a long one, but when success comes it comes unexpectedly and the final stages are short and rapid. It is the earlier and more elementary stages which are long drawn out. You are not in a position to judge exactly what progress you have made. This is why you must have great patience.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Attitudes that help or hinder

#2756 – 3.2.2.49

BN – ZZ – DEK

Quite apart from the spiritual rewards, there are additional and tangible ones also—better health, greater achievement, and less avoidable self-earned trouble.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2764 – 3.2.2.57

BN – X – D

He has gone far on this path when his last thought on falling asleep at night is the Overself and his first thought on waking up in the morning is again the Overself.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2769 – 3.2.2.62

BN – X – D

You may certainly hope for success when the whole trend of your thinking and the whole trend of your action is strongly directed to this single purpose only, when you have resolutely subordinated personal feelings and temperamental predilections to the solution of the problem of truth.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2770 – 3.2.2.63

BN – X – D

He who has nurtured the thoughts and cultivated the stillness and behaved by the injunctions which philosophy has offered him will, when the late evening of his life comes, not only never regret it but be glad for it.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2774 – 3.2.2.67

BN – X – D

If anyone really wants to progress, let alone succeed, I do not know any way of escaping these two indispensable conditions: exercise and perseverance. There is good hope for a man no matter how much of a beginner he is, but only if he is eager to see his mistakes, if he is his own harshest critic, and if he puts forth a continuous and persistent effort to amend his life.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2779EM – 3.2.2.72

BA12 – ZZ – DM*

He may measure progress partly by the signs of strengthened intuition and partly by the signs of strengthened will.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2784 – 3.2.2.77

BN – X – D

It is true that no spiritual effort is ever made in vain either in the individual struggle for progress or in the way individual progress influences others.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2794 – 3.2.2.87

BN – Z – D

It often happens to one on this path that what he greatly needs does not come to him when he prematurely asks for it but only comes when the need is actually ripe. This combination of doing his bit and then trusting in God will carry him through all his difficulties.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2797E – 3.2.2.90

BA12 – ZZ – DE

Eventually, one will tend to dislodge oneself from less worthwhile pursuits. Ordinary automatic responses to these and other worldly affairs will cease as one feels the deepening need for thought-stilling and inner peace.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2798 – 3.2.2.91

BN – X – D

The mind must go on gradually parting with its ancient illusions, its time-fed prejudices, hardly aware of any progress, until one fateful day truth triumphs abruptly in a vivid flash of supreme illumination.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2799 – 3.2.2.92

BN – X – D

It takes much inner experience, much reflection on the immutable laws, and much outer experience that confirms those laws before his confidence in the divine wisdom becomes as unshakable as a rock, and before all negative moods become powerless to touch him.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2804 – 3.2.2.97

BN – Z – D

It is quite possible to make progress on the Quest without the aid of a teacher. The aspirant’s own higher self will give him the guidance and assistance he needs—provided he has sufficient faith in its existence.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2806 – 3.2.2.99

B_07 – ZZ – DK

How he is to apply this philosophy to particular situations in everyday living—for we live in practical times and a teaching is judged and tested not only by what it claims to do but also by what it actually does—is quite rightly a man's own business and responsibility.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2808E – 3.2.2.101

B_02 – P – DE

With continuous perseverance on the quest, his life becomes stabilized and his energies concentrated. His advance will be marked no less by deeper thoughts and steadier emotions, by kindlier words and nobler emotions in the ordinary round of daily life, as by subtler intuitions and serener meditations in the hidden life.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2808E – 3.2.2.101

BN – X – DEK

When the picture of himself is no longer pleasing to him but on the contrary, painful, he is beginning to see truly. When he passes from the stage of self-pity to that of self-loathing he is beginning to progress effectively.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2809 – 3.2.2.102

BN – X – D

A mere belief in the soul’s existence is the first and shortest step. An intellectual study of its nature and a devotional discipline of the self is the next and longest step. A direct intuitive understanding of the soul’s presence is the third and last one.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2817 – 3.2.2.110

BSG_4 – P – D

The Quester who has reached a sufficiently advanced stage becomes keenly aware of the paradoxes and contrarieties of his life.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2821 – 3.2.2.114

B_05 – Z

At first he will find nothing more on the path than what his efforts can secure for him. This is why the earlier years often seem so long, so sterile, and so monotonous. But during the next period grace mingles with his efforts and encouraging results then appear. The third and last stage witnesses the gifts of the Overself falling like ripe plums into his lap without any further efforts on his part. Here all is done by the simple working of grace. Then the major virtues of life will come into his possession, not as arbitrary compulsions of an unwilling ego, but as ripe fruit falling into his hands from a sap-filled tree. For although it is often said that the spiritually evolved man undergoes a profound self-loss, which penetrates his whole nature and affects his whole expression, the truth is that he does not really lose himself in the new consciousness which has taken possession of him. He loses only his frailty and ignorance, his egoistic pettiness and mental distractedness, his body-based materialism and useless sorrow.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Measure of Progress > Sources, signs, and stages of growth

#2824 – 3.2.2.117

BN – X – DEK

If the purpose of life on earth be a wide and deep spiritual growth, and if one attends above all else to that purpose, then whatever the future may bring it could only bring fresh material for such growth. Its own uncertainty cannot dissipate this certainty. One's growth is guaranteed, whether the future be pleasant or unpleasant, so long as one lives in the present strictly according to his dedicated ideal.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Understanding the pace of development

#2825 – 3.2.3.1

BN – X – D

There will always be opportunities for the follower of this path to put his philosophy into practice. Whether pleasant or unpleasant, they should be welcomed! The more he tries, the more he is likely to accomplish. He should take care not to depend upon his personal judgement alone. If he makes the beginnings of a right (that is, impersonal and egoless) response to each problem, help may mysteriously appear to guide him to a right solution. Even tests and trials will provide him with the chance to grow spiritually, and to bring him closer to his goal.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Understanding the pace of development

#2846 – 3.2.3.22

BN – ZZ – DEK

Man’s story is a serial one. It proceeds through body after body, birth after birth. But the fact is that once he really absorbs the spirit of this quest he will be unable to desert it for more than an interval, even should he wish to. He will be inexorably driven back to it by mysterious forces within his own psyche…

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Understanding the pace of development

#2849E – 3.2.3.25

BA11 – P – DE

Jesus said, "Except ye become as little children ye cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven". What did he mean? Consider the minds of children in whom the ego is but little developed. How egoless they are. How spontaneous and immediate is their knowledge of the world around them.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Understanding the pace of development

#2853E – 3.2.3.29

B_11 – P – DE

Consider what happens when we become intensely interested in a story unfolding itself on a cinema screen. What happens during the deepest points of such concentration? For the time being we actually forget ourselves, and we drop the whole burden of personal memories, relations, desires, anxieties, and pettinesses which constitute the ego. Temporarily the I is transcended. The attainment of the Overself is nothing more than the ability to detach, not destroy, the ego at will.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Understanding the pace of development

#2853E – 3.2.3.29

BA11 – P – DE

A ray from the Overself will shine upon our normal mind and transform and transfigure it. But moments of spiritual ecstasy are heralds of the high state which is yet to come when the Overself is taken fully into our councils and we have let go of the terrestrial ego with its dwarfed personal viewpoint.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Understanding the pace of development

#2853E – 3.2.3.29

BN – X – DEK

If he remains loyal to these ideals, then, through both dreary lapses and bright spurts alike, his spiritual life will grow in strong intensity and quality.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Understanding the pace of development

#2854 – 3.2.3.30

BN – X – D

It is important to let everything happen naturally, not to try to force an inner mystical experience, not to be anxious about its non-arisal.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Understanding the pace of development

#2866 – 3.2.3.42

BN – X – DK

We make growth only by degrees because we separate ourselves from the ego only by degrees. The notion that any man can annihilate the ego overnight is an illusory one. He only seems to do so. What actually happens in such a case is that the annihilation is the final culminating event of a long, hidden process—hidden, that is to say, in former incarnations and abruptly pushing its way into the surface consciousness of the present reincarnation. No man flies to such Himalayan altitudes; he can only climb to them.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Understanding the pace of development

#2870 – 3.2.3.46

BN – ZZ – DEK

We make growth only by degrees because we separate ourselves from the ego only by degrees. The notion that any man can annihilate the ego overnight is an illusory one. He only seems to do so. What actually happens in such a case is that the annihilation is the final culminating event of a long, hidden process—hidden, that is to say, in former incarnations …

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Understanding the pace of development

#2870E – 3.2.3.46

BN – ZZ – DEK

From the first moment that he sets foot on this inner path until the last one when he has finished it, he will at intervals be assailed by tests which will try the stuff he is made of. Such trials are sent to the student to examine his mettle, to show how much he is really worth, and to reveal the strength and weakness that are really his, not what he believes are his.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2891ED – 3.2.3.67

BSG_4 – P – DE

The tests show whether we become sufficiently strong to translate our ideals into action, whether we have conquered our passions and ruled our emotions at the bidding of those ideals, whether we will be willing to take the path of self-denial when the lower nature seeks to lure us away from the path.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2892 – 3.2.3.68

BSG_4 – P – DE

Once he has committed himself to this quest, he will find that events so arrange themselves as to indicate his sincerity, examine his motives, display his weaknesses, and find out his virtues. His devotion to the philosophic ideal will be tested, his loyalty to the goal will be tried.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2894E – 3.2.3.70

BA11 – P – DE

The manner in which he will approach trying, painful, or hostile situations will also betray the true measure of his spirituality, his devotion to higher values, and his comprehension of what he has undertaken. He has to show, by the way he meets these events and faces such conditions, what he really is and wants to be. He will adjust himself to such problems only according to the degree of maturity attained.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL01/12 – DEK

At certain times, during his exterior life, a crisis may occur which, though it may cause agony, will also provide opportunity. The challenge of opposition and adversity, of difficulty and suffering, provides opportunities to make progress through the struggle of overcoming them. But the art of rightly using these opportunities, instead of bungling them, is not easy to acquire.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL02/12 – K

The calamity, the bitterness, the despair, and the fatigue, which he may have to endure during these probationary years can all be turned to spiritual account, can all be made profitable in terms of better self-control, ennobled character, and truer values. Experience can be turned into a source of strength, wisdom, and growth; or it can remain a source of weakness, foolishness, and degeneration. It all depends upon the attitude he adopts toward it and the way he thinks and feels about it. Men have their faults in temperament and their defects in intelligence. Mistakes in action and errors in judgement, although never acceptable, are originally excusable. But continuance of the same mistakes and the same errors, despite repeated warnings in the shape of their results, is always inexcusable.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL03/12 – K

It is a painful process, this disentanglement from the lower human and merely animal natures, but it is a necessary one if inner peace is ever to be attained. Observation of other students' lives will be helpful in lessening its painfulness. The lessons he learns from the analytic contemplation of his own errors are excellent but costly, whereas those he learns from the contemplation of other men's errors are excellent and free. The chance to overcome difficulties and fight temptations is the chance both to test character and promote growth. The hours of trouble or distress shake up his psyche and, by enabling him to detect his weaknesses, by drawing attention to his faults, by forcing him to practise a stark self-examination, afford him the chance to get rid of them.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL04/12 – DEK

All through this quest, but especially at certain critical periods, events will so happen and situations will so arrange themselves that the aspirant's weaknesses of character will be brought out into the open. The experience may be painful and its results may be saddening, but only by thus learning to know and discriminate against his bad qualities can he set out to submit them to the formative discipline of philosophy. Only so can he realize vividly what are the weak places in his character and strengthen them. If these incidents make him aware how pitifully slender are his own resources, if they bring him to realize how weak and faulty his character really is, then there is compensation for their painfulness.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL05/12 – DEK

It is easy for him to believe he is virtuous or perceptive, but it is for life itself to reveal how far he is above temptation or error. Therefore, those experiences and events, contacts and persons, who afford the opportunity for this to be done, are indispensable. He may be strong in moral sincerity, but weak in critical judgement. It is his business now to become aware of this deficiency, to set about remedying it by attending to a co-equal cultivation of the different sides of personality.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL06/12 – K

If he succeeds in passing this probation, he will emerge stronger in the particular quality at stake than before. For it will have found fuller expression—it will have affected his practical will, his emotional feelings, his logical thinking, and even his capacity to receive and respond to intuitional guidance. Thus, to the extent that he is successful, to that extent will he bring the quality to a higher pitch of development. He may even learn to be grateful to time which brings healing, to afflictions which bring wisdom, and to opposition which elicits strength. If he is properly oriented, every external experience and every emotional and intellectual adventure will then help him towards a fuller and truer attitude towards life.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL07/12 – K

If he obeys the injunctions of philosophy, in spirit as well as in letter, those very situations which before aroused his lower nature will now awaken his higher one. Each trouble can become a challenge to provoke the response of that serene detachment which can handle it more wisely. Each temptation can sound a call to be active in that penetrative analysis which can master it more effectually. If this inner life can sufficiently possess him, he will gain an independence of external things and events which can carry him unaffected and undisturbed through the severest ordeals. But this inward detachment will not be the correct kind if it weakens his sense of responsibility or causes failure in the carrying out of duties.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL08/12 – K

If a man cannot be wise, let him not therefore be foolish. No statement in the foregoing pages should be misconstrued as an injunction to go seeking either temptations on the one hand or tribulations on the other. No one is called upon to become either an experimental hedonist or a sentimental martyr. It is enough to ask anyone who thinks otherwise: What guarantee is there that he will be able to stop at the point where he proposes to stop?

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL09/12 – K

He who has once embarked on this quest, may be diverted from it for a while, but he can never be driven from it forever. His eventual return is certain. Every fresh manifestation of human wrong-doing and human wickedness of which he is the sufferer, every new reverse of fortune and loss of possession, should only strengthen his determination to follow this quest and cultivate its calm detachment because it should strengthen his realization of the futility of basing his happiness on earthly things alone. He needs always to remember that the ordeal is transient but its prize is permanent, that if he succeeds in emerging from its tests still loyal to the ideal, he will also emerge with ennobled character, greater power, and increased faculty. When he wins through, in the end, then the long sufferings of past failures will bloom into pity for others and into strength for himself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL10/12 – DEK

Hitherto, he has always been liable to miss his steps or fall by the wayside. But when he is established in the final stage, he is established in security. The roots of evil have been totally destroyed within him. Never again will they have the chance to grow and yield bitter fruit. When memories of his past life recur, he will find it hard to believe that they did not happen to someone else rather than to himself. He will look back with astonishment at the man he formerly was, at the ignorance and weakness which held him in bonds.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL11/12 – DEK

Reaching this final paragraph and casting about in mind for a valedictory thought, it is a fact, and a most extraordinary one, that after this beautiful entry into the higher level of his being, the past loses its capacity to hurt him, memory can no longer depress him, and the host of old blunders, sins, or tragedies are blotted out as though they had never been. Thus, at long last, those trying years of toilsome exercises and studies, hard sacrifices and disappointments, show their pleasant, satisfying result. By his success in passing these recurring tests, he has thereby shown that he fully deserves the higher and holier consciousness which now follows them.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2898E – 3.2.3.74

A240107 – EL12/12 – K

You should not desert the Quest in resentment because earthly sufferings have come upon you. For if you do so, then you are inviting still further sufferings to come as a consequence of infidelity. Let you rather look upon them as mostly of your own making, through which you may learn lessons for the ultimate perfecting of your character, and always as tests of the sincerity with which you embarked on the quest. You must use these trials as opportunities to show forth endurance, steadfastness, and faithfulness, as well as to increase your wisdom. They do not come by chance. Earthly sufferings are as useful to you if not more so than the earthly joys which you so readily welcome.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2900 – 3.2.3.76

B_01 – ZZZ – K

If a man is seriously embarked on this quest, he will understand that when a desirable object is being put into his possession, or torn away from it, his sincerity will be tested by the impersonality with which he regards the event and deduces its meaning.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2905 – 3.2.3.81

BN – X – D

Why not apply creative imagination to these testing periods? When you know that you are about to enter one of them, imagine that you will pass through it quite successfully, see yourself in your mind's eye measuring up to ideal conduct.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2906 – 3.2.3.82

BN – X – DK

In each test there exists the chance, through success, to gain strength and pass up in Initiation to a higher level or, through failure, to display weakness and fall in conduct to a lower one.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2912 – 3.2.3.88

BN – X – D

In the Egyptian Mysteries, his capacity to resist a sexual temptation was deliberately tested. If he failed, the initiator would dismiss him, after addressing him thus: ”You have yielded to the attraction of the senses. Whoever lives in the senses remains in darkness.” If he succeeded, he would be granted leave to attend the temple college and receive instruction for some years in the mysteries of man and the universe.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2915 – 3.2.3.91

BN – X – D

Every test successfully met is rewarded by some growth in intuitive knowledge, strengthening of character, or initiation into a higher consciousness.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2916 – 3.2.3.92

BN – X – D

Every test is a teacher to guide us to a higher level, a providential friend to give us the quality we most need.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2920 – 3.2.3.96

BN – ZZ – D

The test will come with every major crisis, every minor ordeal. If his inner work has been well done he will be surprised at the calmness with which he meets and passes the event, astonished at his strength.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2921 – 3.2.3.97

BN – X – D

Before passing into a higher phase of his development, the disciple is usually confronted by life with a situation which will test his fitness for it. His success in meeting this test will open a gate leading to the next degree.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2923 – 3.2.3.99

BN – X – D

In every test he has the possible chance to reveal himself as he would like to be, as well as the certain chance to reveal what he already is.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2932 – 3.2.3.108

BN – ZZ – DK

Those who take to this spiritual road have to endure its tests. It is not enough to have faith or feel spiritual when life's course is smooth and fortunate. They must learn to hold their faith and feeling when its course runs through difficulties and sickness also. If the test reveals that they lose their hold at such times, then it shows their need of doing further work on themselves. For this failure shows that they want good fortune and good health even more than they want to fulfil the higher spiritual purpose of their incarnation.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2936 – 3.2.3.112

BN – ZZZ – K

At the very gate of this higher quest, you will find certain obstacles obstructing your entry. They are not alien to you, they are in your mind. Your primary duty, therefore, is to overcome them.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2938 – 3.2.3.114

BN – X – D

In one sense troubles are our teachers and the greater the trouble the greater the teaching impressioned upon us.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2946 – 3.2.3.122

BN – X – D

The aspirant must never give way to excessive grief. Any period of grave difficulty may be regarded, perhaps, as a test of his faith. At such a time, he should constantly practise his philosophy, while also praying for greater strength and understanding. In the Overself there is no agony or pain; these belong to the sphere of illusion.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2953 – 3.2.3.129

BN – X – DEK

When one is up against an especially difficult situation for which no immediate solution can be found, it will help him if he will use the time while waiting for the change—which will come—in order to deliberately cultivate greater patience and forebearance, as well as a more objective attitude.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2954 – 3.2.3.130

BN – X – D

A difficult or frightening situation must be considered a challenge. At such a time, the student should seek even more intensely through prayer, meditation, and faith—while also practising self-control to the best degree he is able—to achieve the needed spiritual strength and understanding in order to endure and overcome his troubles. In times of actual danger, the calm remembrance of the Overself will help to protect him.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2955 – 3.2.3.131

BN – X – DEM

His troubles may at times leave him with a sense of frustration and defeat. This is natural. It simply means that a difficult hand is being dealt out to him by fate. He should appraise it philosophically as a general indication of the unsatisfactoriness of earthly life in the Buddhistic sense. On this path he gets all kinds of vicissitudes and ups and downs, partly to demonstrate vividly that the inner reality is the only unchanging value and thus compel a resort to its quest, and partly to bring out latent qualities. But he will not be tried beyond what he can bear.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2959 – 3.2.3.135

BN – ZZ – DEK

Although worldly desires are all right in their place and may be legitimately satisfied, they must remain subordinate to the spiritual aspiration for self-realization. To help the individual to agree voluntarily to such subordination, the Overself, which has been invoked, deliberately arranges experience (under karma) in such a way as to underline spiritual values. Once he is able to bring feelings into accord with such values, he will find that the very things which eluded his grasp when he sought them, now come to him of their own accord. Thus sacrifices demanded turn out to be merely temporary, whereas the happiness obtained is double—both earthly and spiritual. This is why Jesus said: "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you."

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2963 – 3.2.3.139

BN – Z – DEK

In terrible times of suffering and anxiety it is more necessary than ever to cultivate receptivity to the divine forces within ourselves through spiritual studies and meditation.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2964 – 3.2.3.140

B_17 – P – D

The path is veritably a "razor's edge." One with limited awareness cannot know how grave his situation may be nor how narrow an escape he may, at some time, have had. If, at such a time, great efforts are put forth for him by someone highly advanced, satisfactory results may still be achieved, notwithstanding the student's mistakes. When his weaknesses are counterbalanced by earnest aspiration and faith, if he never deserts his Ideal no matter what happens, if he clings to his desire for conscious attainment of unity with the Overself as the highest goal life offers and measures all other rewards accordingly, then the student may always count on the assistance which brought him safely through his time of crisis.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2965 – 3.2.3.141

BN – Z – DEM

An experience which ended in disillusionment is not necessarily a wasted one. It may have its positive side: it may have contributed certain ideas.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2968 – 3.2.3.144

BN – ZZ – DK

Nothing but a great and unexpected upheaval will precipitate a change in their mental habits or impel a deviation from their physical habits. If it does come, they look upon it as a disaster, although when time gives them a longer perspective they look upon it as an enlightenment.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2972 – 3.2.3.148

BN – X – D

The particular problems which life has presented him with are exactly the ones suited to his own personal development. In their solution by his own efforts and his own thinking, lies his own advantage and growth. To turn them over to someone else is an evasive and undignified action, harmful in the end.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2973 – 3.2.3.149

BN – ZZ – DEK

He may be sure of one thing, that his fidelity to ideas and ideals, to teacher and teachings, will be tested. This is inescapable if his will is to be surrendered to the higher will, if his character is to be purified and his attitude cleansed of its egoism.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2975 – 3.2.3.151

BN – X – D

A missed chance or a failed test in one year may lead directly, if the lesson be heeded, to a used chance or a successful test in a later year.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2979 – 3.2.3.155

BN – ZZ – DM

At every important turn on his path the aspirant will find a choice awaiting him. He will find himself facing a set of circumstances which test his motive, strength, and attainment. These periodical tests can be neither evaded nor avoided, and often they are not recognized for what they are. Temptation may camouflage them under attractive colours. Nevertheless the student's conduct in regard to them will decide whether he passes onward and upward, or falls back into pain and purification.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2981 – 3.2.3.157

B_15 – P – D

Learn to penetrate within yourself, your deeper, almost unknown self. It will need patience to return day after day, not stopping until the truth is reached, the peace is felt, the blessing descends. It will need perseverance until the source of strength is found. Thereafter it will take you over: this is grace. But remember—with each return from the day's efforts you will be confronted by the world again, by its harsh reality yet glorious beauty, its stark conflicts yet benign interludes. So—know this world in which you have to live, its petty minds and noble souls. Learn from both. And when you have seen enough of the world's surface ask for its tremendous secret.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2988 – 3.2.3.164

BA12 – ZZZ – DEK

When Jesus declared, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you", he did not declare that this would happen after a single knock, nor even after a hundred knocks. If he meant anything at all, he meant ceaselessly repeated knocking.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2992 – 3.2.3.168

B_11 – Z – K

The more successful type of Quester is the one who can keep his interest, enthusiasm, and practices in a stable, unwaning condition.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2993 – 3.2.3.169

BN – X – D

He must refuse to follow the common error and identify himself with this one physical body of the present incarnation. Rather, he must identify himself with his mental being and feel this as something immortal, something reappearing on earth time after time and coming closer and closer, with each appearance, to the goal…

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2996E – 3.2.3.172

BA11 – P – DE

If he is not willing to wait, this quest does not offer much for him. It is not only in meditation—although primarily in it—that patience is a requisite, but also in the work of purifying and ennobling character.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#2999 – 3.2.3.175

BN – X – D

Pursue the quest, practise its exercises, and undergo its disciplines with a patience that does not halt for an instant. If you do this, the time will come when the Overself can hold out no longer. It will then no longer dwell in secret but in your heart.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#3000 – 3.2.3.176

BN – X – D

You must never give up the quest; no matter how long drawn out or how painful or how many disappointments and deceivings, you must still keep up the search after God or after a Master; this determination will receive its reward ultimately. Even a man who has practised meditation all his life and apparently got no results, may very likely be given the reward at the moment of death.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#3002 – 3.2.3.178

BN – Z – DEK

If one sticks to the Quest, come what may, he can be certain that his perseverance will eventually bring results. Some of the metaphysical studies and mystical exercises seem hard at first, but if one persists with them, the time will surely come when much which was hitherto obscure will suddenly become brilliantly clear and meaningful in a single instant before his eyes.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#3010 – 3.2.3.186

BN – X – D

An aspirant on this Quest must hold on to his determination to improve and discipline himself even amidst all the different temptations and difficulties which he comes up against from time to time. For this is the way he builds the foundation for his future. Students are often apt to forget that it is their present thoughts, feelings, and actions which are predetermining the favourable or unfavourable conditions of incarnations to come, as well as the remainder of this one.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#3011 – 3.2.3.187

BN – ZZ – DEK

To keep to this inner work steadfastly and persistently, to make of its exercises and practices a regular routine, is to make the undertaking easier for oneself in the end, as well as more successful in its results.

Overview of Practices Involved > Uncertainties of Progress > Facing the problems of development

#3023 – 3.2.3.199

BN – X – D

All quests involve some travelling, the periodical shift from one point to another. The spiritual quest involves constant intellectual travelling, but only a single important shift—that from the ego's standpoint to the Overself's.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3032 – 3.2.4.5

BA11 – P – D

What is the Overself waiting for, so long and so patiently? For our willingness to die in the ego that It may live in us. So soon as we make the signs of this willingness, by acceptance of each opportunity to achieve this destruction of egoism, the influx of new life begins to penetrate the vacated place.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3033 – 3.2.4.6

BN – X – D

Whatever helps to reduce the predominant influence of the ego helps his quest. Where the whole area of consciousness is taken up by it, attrition of the area is more important than the particular means used to secure it.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3034 – 3.2.4.7

BN – X – DEK

Let him face the fact that if he is seeking the Overself with one part of his being, he is also seeking his own ego with the other. He wants his desires satisfied and also wants That which is desireless at one and the same time. He is trying to walk in two different directions. One or the other must go.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3037 – 3.2.4.10

BN – X – D

In the effacement of his own egoism, brought about by a double discipline—first, the constant shaping of the character and second, learning to live in the deepest silence of meditation—he will allow the Overself to act within and through him.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3041 – 3.2.4.14

BN – X – D

Each time we attempt to deny the responsibility we bears for our own troubles and to shift it onto other people's shoulders, we make the repeated appearance of those troubles in our life a certainty. For the inner causes still remain.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3043 – 3.2.4.16

B_01 – ZZ – DK

Yes, the kingdom of heaven is certainly to be brought down and established on earth. But the meaning of Jesus was not social; it was individual. Each man is to establish it within his own sphere, within his own feelings thoughts and acts.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3045 – 3.2.4.18

BN – X – D

The vain man, the stupid man, or the lustful man cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. He must first be humble enough to silence the ego, intuitive enough to expose its deception, and strong enough to overcome its desires.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3046 – 3.2.4.19

BN – X – D

What does getting rid of the ego's dominance mean? Until we see this clearly, we shall not see what effort we have to make to achieve it. First, it means constant training to regard ourself and our fortunes as coolly, disinterestedly, and impartially as we regard other men and their fortunes. Second, it means constant vigilance to keep out the distorting, befogging, and perverting interference of personal habits of thought and feeling. It is the blind following of these tendencies of our nature, accumulated since a far past, that makes up most of the ego's life. Third, it means constant practice in repressing thoughts and emotions while cultivating mental stillness.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3048 – 3.2.4.21

BN – X – D

Watching his daily conduct and reviewing it in retrospect is not less needful than practising meditation.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3050 – 3.2.4.23

BN – Z – D

This is what Jesus meant when he declared, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." This is that crucifixion of the ego which is true Christianity and which leads directly to the resurrection in the reality of the Overself. Regard your worst, most irritating trouble as the voice of your Overself. Try to hear what It says. Try to remove the obstructions It is pointing to within yourself. Look on this special ordeal, this particular trial, as having the most important significance in your own spiritual growth. The more crushing it is, the more effort is being made to draw you nearer to the Overself. At every point of your life, from one event, situation, contact to another, the Infinite Intelligence provides you with the means of growth, if only you will get out of the egoistic rut and take them.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3051E – 3.2.4.24

B_11 – P – DE

The place where you are, the people who surround you, the problems you encounter, and the happenings that take place just now—all have their special meaning for you. They come about under the law of recompense as well as under the particular needs of your spiritual growth. Study them well but impersonally, egolessly, and adjust your reactions accordingly. This will be hard and perhaps even unpalatable, yet it is the certain way to solving all your problems.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3051E – 3.2.4.24

BA11 – ZZZ – DEK3

Do not be so rigidly closed in by your practical affairs and personal relations. Open your soul to the admiration of Nature, the high flights of art, and above all, to Stillness.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3054 – 3.2.4.27

BSG_4 – P – D

His work is to prepare the ground and sow the seed; Nature will do the rest. That is to say, he is to arrange the favourable physical circumstances and the proper psychological concentration in which inspiration can most easily be born.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3055 – 3.2.4.28

BN – X – D

Each man has to work on himself and leave others alone. To criticize and to condemn them is easy, but it is to fail to mind one's own business. And what is one's own business? It is to work on oneself until one is aware of the divine part of oneself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3061 – 3.2.4.34

B_13 – P – D

His task is to discover the presence within himself of a deeper and diviner layer of the mind.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3062 – 3.2.4.35

BN – X – D

He is situated in measurable time and in massed form, yet is trying to understand, reach, and identify that which is timeless and formless. How can it be done unless the seeking self is transformed? But that merely removes obstructions: the further proviso is acceptance; let the self be dissolved into That: merger is finally the only way.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3065 – 3.2.4.38

BN – X – DEK

When one is working without a teacher, he must necessarily intensify his efforts. He should strive to develop a greater awareness of the meaning of all past and present experiences in the light of his new knowledge, to be more objective in his observance of himself, his thoughts and actions in every situation, and, finally, to recognize the fact that his own daily life is the material presented him to work on.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3068 – 3.2.4.41

BN – X – D

Each individual has quite enough to do to carry out the higher purpose of life, which is clear and definite: to attain awareness of the Overself, to surrender the heart and will to it utterly, and to overcome the ego—which, in itself, calls for the whole nature of a man or a woman.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3072 – 3.2.4.45

BN – X – D

Everything that helps one to become more aware of the existence of something higher than his personal self, and every experience that induces him to aspire towards a more spiritual way of life should be cultivated. Here, religion, the arts, Nature, and contact with wiser, more experienced individuals than himself, are valuable aids.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3073 – 3.2.4.46

BN – ZZ – DEK

The philosophical discipline is intended to overcome this egoism, or as Jesus said: "Give up your Self if you would find it"

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3074E – 3.2.4.47

B_11 – P – DE

If he looks to final ends he will know the right means. If he finds out what is the larger purpose behind the smaller ones, it will be immensely easier to know what to do in any given situation when he has to choose between opposite courses.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3075E – 3.2.4.48

BA11 – ZZ – DEK

He must study his failures minutely, reflect upon them deeply, and ascertain the causes which led to those lapses. The more he understands them, the less likely is he to repeat them. He should not be downhearted, especially if he is young. There are few who do not make mistakes in youth. It does not so much matter how many mistakes he makes if they spur him on to try even harder and if they encourage him to determine to learn their lessons and root out their causes. Let him remember that he cannot conquer his desires nor subdue his animal nature by his own strength alone. In the final outcome, it is divine Grace which releases him from his bondage. Grace comes only after he himself has made every possible effort, after he has practised sacrificing his desires and has offered up his whole lower nature to the Overself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3077E – 3.2.4.50

BN – ZEL1/2 – DEK

Until he is freed from the chains of his ego, his strength may fail him in times of need. But when he finally and fully realizes his inadequacies and has done the very best that he knows how, then Grace will appear and assist him. 

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3077E – 3.2.4.50

BN – ZEL2/2 – DEK

Intuition, inspiration, and even grace may come directly to him through prayer, meditation, and reading.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3089 – 3.2.4.62

BN – X – D

To increase his personal capacities for undertaking tasks demanded by his environment may be a worthy ambition but is not the primary aim of this work. To move away from such identification with the ego is now to be his purpose.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3090 – 3.2.4.63

BN – X – D

We need not step outside the house, the rooms, or the tent wherein we live to look for God. They, too, can become a holy place and a sanctuary provided we turn our mind inwards every day for a while and seek that which is beyond all buildings made by human hands.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3095 – 3.2.4.68

BN – Z – D

Frankly, and without shame, he will acknowledge the animal within him. He knows its place in the long growth which he underwent through many an earth-birth. It served its purpose. But a higher purpose has now shown itself and must in its turn be fulfilled. The half-human must next become the fully human. For this, the control of self must be learnt, hard though it be.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its nature

#3098 – 3.2.4.71

BN – X – D

Intellectual definitions of transcendental states merely leave us in the dark. We must practise walking on the divine path, and not merely talk about it, if we would know what these states really are.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3102 – 3.2.4.75

BN – X – D

He should make his mind the host to beautiful thoughts and fine moods and thus keep it ready as a place where the soul can enter untroubled.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3108 – 3.2.4.81

BN – X – D

There are laws of higher spiritual development, but they reveal themselves only upon their own terms. The first is that he shall apply what he already knows, and not let it rest as mere theory.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3111 – 3.2.4.84

BN – X – D

He who has done his best to the limit of his possibilities may patiently wait for the time when those possibilities will stretch themselves of their own accord.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3113 – 3.2.4.86

BN – ZZ – K

It is his duty to watch that no negative thought slips past his guard and enters his consciousness, no false belief infiltrates into his outlook. Such thought control pays the highest profits, for its effects on his outer life will unfailingly appear.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3115 – 3.2.4.88

BN – Z – D

It is important for the study of philosophy and especially for the practice of its Short Path to avoid negative thoughts and feelings, to rebut them as soon and as often as they arise. This is not only a moral necessity but also a practical one. Such avoidance helps the mind to reach or keep the delicate condition of intuitive transcendent understanding.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3116 – 3.2.4.89

BN – X – D

If words alone could work this miracle of changing men's hearts then Jesus and Buddha would have worked it long ago.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3121 – 3.2.4.94

BN – Z – K

A real Understanding of the Truth can be developed in only one way, through activity on the intuitive level, as distinguished from efforts made on the intellectual or physical level.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3124 – 3.2.4.97

BSG_4 – P – D

The thoughts he takes into his consciousness should be of a kind to carry him farther on his quest of the Perfect.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3132 – 3.2.4.105

BN – X – D

The importance and emphasis which is, in the beginning, quite rightly attached to the question What Am I? will gradually be shifted to the more encompassing What is the meaning of this world-experience? and What is the object of all existence?

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3140 – 3.2.4.113

BN – X – D

The meditational aspect of the quest, one of its most important parts, is like a spiral: it goes down deeper and deeper, circling all the while, as in advancing from the level of 'the world of maya,' casting off the illusory, to 'the world is Brahman, the Real.' Growth accrues with each circulation and further penetration; it is a repetition of the same cycle, but on a deeper level.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3143 – 3.2.4.116

UR_3.2 – Z – K

It would be wrong to believe that it is sufficient for the aspirant to join right theory with self-correction and right action to secure the highest result. The fourth item needed to complete his effort is even more important. It is proper meditation.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3146 – 3.2.4.119

BN – X – D

To sit, completely immobile, for a half or three-quarters of an hour while attention and aspiration are concentrated and merged, is an exercise needing much practice if success is to come.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3148 – 3.2.4.121

BN – X – DK

We can discover for ourselves if these statements are true or not by actually leading the inner life. The importance of a little practice of mental quiet each day is high. It is this practice which brings definite results in time and this which gives one strength as well as understanding. Effort is required.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3151 – 3.2.4.124

BN – Z – DEK

From one point of view, the work done on the Quest is simply an uncovering of what is covered up: thoughts, emotions and passions, unceasing extroversion and never-ending egoism lie over the precious diamond like thick layers of earth. This is why the penetrative action of meditation is so necessary.

Overview of Practices Involved > Practise Mental Discipline > Its development

#3152 – 3.2.4.125

BN – X – D

Whoever wishes to develop beyond the spiritual level of the mass of mankind must begin by changing the normal routine of mankind. He must reflect, pray, and meditate daily. He must scrutinize all his activities by the light of philosophy's values and ethics. He may even have to change his residence, if possible, for serenity of mind and discipline of passion are more easily achievable in a rural village than in an urban city.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3156 – 3.2.5.4

BN – X – DEM

He has to learn how to surrender his egotism and swallow his pride. He has to cleanse his heart of impurity and then open it to divinity.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3157 – 3.2.5.5

BN – X – D

He should never forget that in his metaphysical studies or mystical practices he is working towards an ultimate goal which lies beyond both metaphysics and mysticism. He is preparing himself to become a philosopher, fitting himself to be granted the Overself’s Grace, unfolding passive intuition and critical intelligence only that the transcendental insight may itself be unfolded.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3158 – 3.2.5.6

BN – X – D

The aspiration has gotten into his bloodstream and every act, every thought follows inevitably from this one primal fact.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3160 – 3.2.5.8

BN – X – D

Make it a matter of habit, until it becomes a matter of inclination, to be kind, gentle, forgiving, and compassionate. What can you lose? A few things now and then, a little money here and there, an occasional hour or an argument? But see what you can gain! More release from the personal ego, more right to the Overself's grace, more loveliness in the world inside us, and more friends in the world outside us.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3164D – 3.2.5.12

BN – X – D

This Quest cannot be followed to success without the quality of courage. It is needed at the beginning, in the middle, and near the end. It is needed to think for oneself, to act in nonconformity to one's environment, and to obey intuitive leading toward new, unknown, or unfamiliar directions.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3165 – 3.2.5.13

BN – X – D

By the use of will, of force of a decision made and kept, a man may strive against his animal self to win peace. By the practice of mental quiet, of turning inward, of letting his higher nature emerge, he may win it, too.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3169 – 3.2.5.17

BN – X – D

Wisdom is needed to make the most of life. The discipline of character is needed to prevent avoidable suffering. The control of thought is needed to attain peace. Reverence for the highest is needed for spiritual fulfillment.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3178 – 3.2.5.26

BN – X – D

The man who takes his body for himself, misunderstands himself. Only a course of severe discipline will correct it and reveal to him by intense experience the power subtler than flesh, subtler even than intellect, which is at the vital centre deep within consciousness.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3179 – 3.2.5.27

BN – X – D

It is true that the aspiration for Overself is also a desire and must eventually also go. But it is useful and helpful in getting free from lesser or lower desires.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3183 – 3.2.5.31

BN – X – D

The means needed for the quest have been listed in Buddha's eightfold path: (1) right belief, (2) right decision, (3) right words, (4) right dealings, (5) right livelihood, (6) right tendency, (7) right thinking, (8) right meditative immersion into oneself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3184 – 3.2.5.32

BN – X – D

The student has to unfold a wider sense. He must begin to see the whole of which he forms a part, which means he must become more philosophical. His physical existence depends on the services of others, from the parents who rear him, the wife who mates him, the customer who buys his goods or services, the farmer who grows his food, the soldier who guards his country, to the undertaker who buries his body. No man can forever isolate himself from the rest of mankind. In some way or other, for one essential need or another, he will come to depend on it. The shoes he wears or the food he eats were prepared for him by somebody else. Thus he is mysteriously chained to his human kith and kin. Thus he is forced to learn the lesson of unity and compassion.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3185 – 3.2.5.33

BN – X – DEK

He is not only to seek the Real, but he is also to love the Real; not only to make it the subject of his constant thoughts but also the object of his devoted worship.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3191 – 3.2.5.39

BN – X – D

When we feel the littleness of our ego against the greatness of our Overself, we become humble. Therefore it is that to those who feel neither the one nor the other, the first prescription is: cultivate humility.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3193 – 3.2.5.41

BN – X – D

Those who cannot or will not learn to bow their heads in reverence at certain times like sunsets, in certain places like massive mountains, or before certain men like sages, will not be able to learn the highest wisdom.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3194 – 3.2.5.42

BN – X – D

The refinement and evolution of a human being requires not only a cultivation of his intellectual faculties, not only of his heart qualities, but also of his aesthetic faculties. All should be trained together at the same time. A love of the beautiful in nature and art, in sunsets and pictures, in flowers and music, lifts him nearer the ideal of perfection.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3195 – 3.2.5.43

B_09 – P – D

A love of the beautiful in Nature and art, in sunsets and pictures, in flowers and music, lifts us nearer the ideal of perfection.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3195E – 3.2.5.43

BSG_4 – P – DE

It may not be an axiom in many teachings, but it is in philosophy: to purify emotion, to refine feeling, to control attitude, and to uplift mood by accepting help from art and Nature are spiritual exercises.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3198 – 3.2.5.46

BSG_4 – P – D

The attitude of expectancy and hope in the matter of seeking illumination is a correct one. But the hour when this Grace will be bestowed is unpredictable; therefore, hope must be balanced with patience, and expectancy with perseverance. Meanwhile, there is all the work one can handle in attending to the improvement of character and understanding, the cultivation of intuition and practice of meditation, the prayers for Grace, and in self-humbling beneath the Will of the Overself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3205 – 3.2.5.53

BN – X – D

Until the time his karma brings him the indwelling Master, the seeker must continue to prepare for what will then happen. He must seek to uncover and uproot all faults and characteristic weaknesses. He must resolve to achieve the best life—that is, one that exemplifies truth, goodness, and beauty. He must understand well the proper values to be attached to worldly matters and to spiritual ones. He must face the difficulties of everyday life with courage and with the knowledge gleaned from his study.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3207 – 3.2.5.55

B_05 – ZZ – D

He must climb out of the dark pit of emotional resentment and self-pity into which the blows of life throw him. He should extirpate all the human and pardonable weakness which made him unhappy. He should be big-hearted and generous towards the failings of others who, he feels, have wronged him. It is a grand chance to make a quick spurt in his spiritual progress if he could change from the conventional emotional reaction to the philosophic and calmer one, if he could rise at one bound above what Rupert Brooke called "the long littleness of life." He should not continue to bear resentment against those who have wronged him, nor to brood over what they have done; let him forget the mean, the sordid, and the wicked things other people do and remember the great, the noble, and the virtuous things that he seeks to do.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3208E – 3.2.5.56

B_14 – ZEL1/2

Follow Jesus' example and cheerfully forgive, even unto seventy times seven. By his act of forgiveness to them, he will be forgiven himself for the wrongs he also has done. In their pardon lies his own. This is the law. In this way he demonstrates that he is able to leap swiftly from the present self-centered standpoint to a higher one, and he deals the personal ego a single paralysing blow. This is without doubt one of the hardest efforts anybody can be called upon to make. But the consequences will heal the wounds of memory and mitigate the pains of adversity.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3208E – 3.2.5.56

B_14 – ZEL2/2

In a certain type of person the most important factor in the inner life is the cultivation of the harder qualities like will, decision, execution, endurance, determination, energy, and the like.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3209 – 3.2.5.57

BN – Z – DM

Ultimately he will have to rise into that pure atmosphere whence he can survey his personal life as a thing apart. And, still more difficult as it is, he will have to live in such a way as to use personality to express the wisdom and goodness felt on that height. The second part of this program is almost beyond human strength to achieve. Therefore he has first to establish the connection with the Overself so that its strength and understanding will then rule him without requiring any effort on his part. The moment of this event is unpredictable. It depends on the Divine Grace. However, if he sticks to the Quest, its arrival is sure. After that, Fate re-adjusts his external circumstances in what may seem to be a miraculous manner and life becomes more satisfying.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3211 – 3.2.5.59

BN – ZZ – DEK

At last he finds that he must become as a little child and re-acquire faith. But this time it will not be blind faith; it will be intelligent. He must free himself from the pride, arrogance, and conceit of the intellect and bow in homage before the eternal Mystery; there is much that he can learn about himself, his mind, the laws of living, and the ways of Nature. Nothing is to be rejected. He needs to believe as well as to know. In the end, too, he has to drop all the isms, however much he may have got from them in the past, and think, feel, and live as a free being.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3212 – 3.2.5.60

BN – ZZ – DK

His personal duty is to grow spiritually all he can as quickly as possible. He must concentrate on himself, but always keep at the back of his mind the idea that one day he will be fit to serve others and do something for them too. Spiritual growth entails meditation practices kept up as regularly as possible, metaphysical study, cultivation of intuition, and a kindling of an ever increasing love for the divine soul, the true "I." It is this soul which is the ray of God reflected in him and it is as near to God as anyone can ever get. God is too great, too infinite, ever to be completely comprehended; but the Overself, which is God's representative here, can be comprehended.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3213E – 3.2.5.61

BN – EL1/1 – DEK

It is through heartfelt prayer and aspiration to become one with his own higher self that the student will eventually open the way for the further guidance he needs.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3214 – 3.2.5.62

BN – X – D

The fact that one may not have had any apparent mystical experience, even though he has tried practising concentration, need not dismay him. Concentration alone is not enough. It is no less important to practise prayer and aspiration, unremitting effort at improving character and eliminating weaknesses, strengthening the will and purifying the emotions. If he applies faithful and persistent effort in these directions, he will not only cultivate a properly balanced and well-developed personality, but he will eventually call forth the Grace and Guidance of the Overself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3216 – 3.2.5.64

BN – X – D

In what way and by what means can a man discover the truth? By an aspiration active enough and intelligent enough to penetrate both mysticism and philosophy while saturating itself in reverence.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3219 – 3.2.5.67

BN – X – D

Counsel to a seeker: First hear or study, reflect and understand what you, the world, and God are. Then enter the Stillness, love it. The Stillness will take care of you, and of your problems.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3220 – 3.2.5.68

B_01 – ZZ – DK

The Quest uses the whole of one's being, and when enlightenment comes, all parts are illumined by it. To prepare for this, one should continue the self-humbling prayers for Grace, the exercise of sudden remembrance of the Overself, the surrender of the lower nature to the Higher, and the never-ceasing yearning for Reality.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3222 – 3.2.5.70

BN – X – D

Our human nature is so pitifully limited and imperfect that only its most rigorous discipline will bring the infinite and perfect enlightenment into consciousness without spoiling it in some way.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3227 – 3.2.5.75

BN – X – DK

He needs a humbleness like that of the grass which is trodden by all feet, a patience like that of the tree which is exposed to all weathers.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3228 – 3.2.5.76

BN – X – D

It is a work upon himself, his character and outlook, his knowledge and capacity. But especially is it a work upon his faculty of attention, his control of thought, his delicate awareness.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3230 – 3.2.5.78

BN – Z – DK

We are living in wonderfully momentous times and it is the task of those on the Path to become bearers of the light in a dark age. But first, before that can be, each one must purify, ennoble, and instruct himself. He must fit himself for the divine grace because nothing can be done by his own personal power.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3235 – 3.2.5.83

BN – X – D

If daily work is accompanied by daily remembrance, and if detachment from the ego is practised along with both, this goal can be attained by a worldling as much as by a world-renouncer.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3240 – 3.2.5.88

BN – X – D

These teachings have first to become known, then understood, next accepted, and lastly made a part of day-to-day living. 

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3241 – 3.2.5.89

BN – Z – D

He should ask of each day what it has yielded in this lifelong struggle for the realization of higher values.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3244 – 3.2.5.92

BN – X – D

He need not torment himself trying to understand everything in the teaching, if he finds many parts too difficult. It is enough to start with what he can understand and apply that to daily living. This will lead later to increased intuitive capacity to receive such ideas as he had to pass by for the time being.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3246 – 3.2.5.94

BN – X – D

In the spiritualization of active life, through the deeds that come from him and the events that come to him, he has one effectual method of self-development. For a valuable part of the quest's technique is to treat each major experience as a means of lifting himself to a higher level. All depends not on the particular nature of the experience, but upon his reaction to it. It may be pleasurable or painful, a temptation or a tribulation, a caress by fortune or a blow of fate; whatever its nature he can use it to grow. As he moves from experience to experience, he may move from strength to strength. If he uses each situation aright—studying it analytically and impersonally, supplicating the higher self for help if the experience is in the form of temptation, or for wisdom if it is in the form of tribulation—his progress is assured. Thus action itself can be converted into a technique of self-purification instead of becoming, as so many monastics think it inevitably must become, a channel of self-pollution.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3248 – 3.2.5.96

BN – Z – DE

There is great profit in the coinage of spiritual self-growth waiting to be picked up at every turn. The method is a simple one. Consider every person who makes an impact on your life as a messenger from the Overself, every happening which leaves its mark as a divinely-sent teacher.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3249 – 3.2.5.97

BN – X – D

We must endeavour to find this divinity within, not merely at set times of meditation, but also amid the press of the marketplaces.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3250 – 3.2.5.98

BN – X – D

Learn how to live the teaching out in the midst of the world, yes! with all the temptations and trials; to shun cloistered virtues which, because they are untested, may not be virtues at all; to stay amongst suffering ignorant men who need enlightenment and not to leave them to rot in their darkness; to face the difficulties of worldly life as brave students of philosophy and not as cowardly weaklings; to be too big-hearted and tolerant, too broad-minded and intelligent to separate yourselves; in short, to follow Jesus' advice and be in the world yet not of it.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3251 – 3.2.5.99

B_02 – ZZ – K

Since most of us have to live in the world as laymen, or even prefer to do so, we must learn how to make use of the world so that it will promote our spiritual aspirations and not obstruct them.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3253 – 3.2.5.101

BN – X – D

The beginner needs knowledge, needs to attend lectures, study books, discuss ideas, and even debate the criticism of them. But the man who has done all that needs to move on, to get into the testing ground where teachings and values must prove themselves—that is, into life itself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3255 – 3.2.5.103

BA11 – P – D

And the Gita tells us that no efforts are in vain; all bring their fruit sometime, somewhere—if not in this birth then in another, if not in this world then in the next.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Engage the whole being

#3259E – 3.2.5.107

BA11 – P – DE

When the will is feebler than the imagination, the life loses its balance.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3278 – 3.2.5.126

BN – X – D

To promote his idealistic tendencies and to neglect his realistic ones, to achieve a high level of intellectuality and to remain at a low level of morality, to be over-critical of others and under-critical of oneself—these are types of unbalance which he should adjust as soon as possible.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3280 – 3.2.5.128

BN – Z – DK

He may have difficulty in the world in generating the necessary ambition for pushing ahead with the business side of life. However, the strain and pain of his efforts will pass away eventually whereas the fruits in developed faculties and increased balance will remain as permanent possessions. He must stick to the task of rebuilding his personality on a more solid basis. He must take as his symbol the great pyramid with its huge square base but narrow pointed apex signifying that the broader and bigger the personality the more inspired the service that can be accomplished through it.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3281E – 3.2.5.129

BN – Z – K

The ideal is the fullness and harmony of balanced qualities, wasting none, denying none: the active will companioned by the mystical intuition, the pleasure-loving senses steadied by the truth-loving reason.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3283 – 3.2.5.131

BN – X – D

Whatever faculty, quality, function, or aspect he is deficient in, he should seek to cultivate it. Whatever is present to excess, he should seek to curb or modify it. Harmony, Balance, and Completeness characterize the idea.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3295 – 3.2.5.143

BN – X – D

The virtue of balance is neither easily nor quickly bought, but its cost is repaid by the values it yields—greater security, more endurance, less error, and better progress.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3300 – 3.2.5.148

BSG_4 – P – D

Without this proper balance, he may easily mistake being sentimental for being compassionate.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3303 – 3.2.5.151

BN – ZZ

He has to train himself to catch what the soul intuits as clearly as he can already catch what the intellect thinks and the body reports.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3305 – 3.2.5.153

BN – X – D

Whenever he observes too much one-sidedness in his being or living, he must attend to its balance and make needed adjustments.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3308 – 3.2.5.156

BN – X – DK*

Balance is needed in all ways on this Quest. The students must not overvalue their emotional experiences, nor overconcentrate upon their metaphysical studies. They must strive for Balance in all things and at all times…

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3310E – 3.2.5.158

BSG_4 – P – DE

Balance is needed in all ways on this quest. The student must not overvalue his emotional experiences, nor overconcentrate upon his metaphysical studies. He must strive for poise in all things and at all times. To lose it is to lose that integrality of character which is the mark of the true philosopher. The mournful consequences which follow are apparent in the fantastic cults which pass for mysticism, as well as in the fantastic movements which distort modern art; they can be seen also in the dry barren field of academic metaphysics as well as in the ugly earth-tied materialism of utilitarian science.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3310 – 3.2.5.158

BN – Z – DEK

In the well-formed and well-informed aspirant the activities of both paths will be subtly blended. This is part of what is meant when it is said that he is properly balanced. And out of this union will come the second birth, the new man who reflects at last the glorious consciousness of the Overself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3315 – 3.2.5.163

BN – X – D

Even when one’s deep sincerity and earnest aspiration are beyond question, and even though one may have already travelled fast and far in certain directions, this may not be enough to attain enlightenment. All sides of the psyche—including some previously neglected—must be evenly balanced and developed in order to lead one to a full and lasting illumination of the whole.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3316 – 3.2.5.164

BN – X – D

Energy and drive in action, calm and patience in meditation—this is the combination he ought to achieve.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3317 – 3.2.5.165

BN – X – D

Salvation does not depend on any one factor but on a balanced total of several factors. The devotional temperament is not enough. The disciplined will is not enough. The moral virtues are not enough. The trained intellect is not enough.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3322 – 3.2.5.170

BN – X – D

The more intellectual a man is, the more does he need to bring a devotional element into the studies and practices.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3336 – 3.2.5.184

BN – X – DK

All influences, contacts, persons, or places which destroy our balance are to be shunned as undesirable, if not evil.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3338 – 3.2.5.186

BN – X – D

A well-developed critical intellect in combination with over-concentration produces an exceptionally strong ego. Such a person should cultivate a little more humility so as to improve the natural balance of his personality. He must humble the ego. He should do this himself, secretly, and through calm, reflective meditation; then life will not do it to him openly and through bitter external circumstances.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3343 – 3.2.5.191

BN – ZZ – DEK

He must humble the ego. He should do this himself, secretly, and through calm, reflective meditation; then life will not do it to him openly and through bitter external circumstances.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3343E – 3.2.5.191

BA12 – ZZZ – DEK

Evolution is working along three lines in the human being: the intellectual, the mystical, and the moral-physical. All must be attended to. Hence it is not enough to develop any single part of one's being alone. The threefold path is what philosophy asks for although religion, science, or mysticism is usually satisfied with a single path. Meditation is the most important of all as without it one cannot transcend the intellect, but it is not enough by itself. He has to practise meditation, cultivate knowledge, and shape conduct aright—all these being directed towards the quest of the Overself. The combination of all three will yield results far in advance of those which a separate development could yield.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3347 – 3.2.5.195

BN – X – DEK

He must not only do so far as he can all that the Long Path demands from him but he must also step outside it altogether and do those totally different things that the Short Path demands.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3351 – 3.2.5.199

BN – X – D

But finding the higher presence within the heart is only the first step. The next is to surrender oneself to it, to be passive in its hands, to let it direct the course of thought, feeling, and conduct. This is a task which is not less hard, and will take not less time, than the first one. It is indeed an art to be learnt by unremitting practice.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3354 – 3.2.5.202

BN – X – D

The philosophic life accepts, combines, and follows all these four dictates: The Christian self-giving, the Roman-Stoic self-control, the Grecian self-balancing, and the Hindu self-knowledge.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3356 – 3.2.5.204

BN – X – K

The Quest has two aspects. One is the constant accumulation of right thoughts, feelings, and acts, along with the constant elimination of wrong ones. The other aspect called the Short Path is the constant remembrance and contemplation of the Overself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3361 – 3.2.5.209

BN – X – D

If he can bring himself to desert his habitual standpoint and begin to think as a sage thinks, his battle will be over bloodlessly. But if he cannot do so, cannot let go so abruptly of his old egoisms and animalisms, then there will be a long struggle, with its attendant wounds and inescapable sufferings.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Be objective

#3365 – 3.2.6.1

B_01 – ZZ – DEK

He will have to learn the art of standing aside from himself, of observing his actions and analysing his motives as though they belonged to some other person. He may cease to practise this art only when his actions reflect the calm wisdom of the Overself and when his motives reflect its detached impersonality.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Be objective

#3375 – 3.2.6.11

BN – ZZ – *DK

Once the past is properly, impersonally, understood; once the logic of its consequences is traced; once the implication of all this is practically applied, especially in self-discipline: let it go.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Be objective

#3376 – 3.2.6.12

BN – ZZ – DK

If he is to save himself he will need a relentless honesty about, and toward, himself. He must be uncompromising in getting at true appraisals of his motives, his actions, and his feelings.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Be objective

#3381 – 3.2.6.17

BN – Z – D

"Straight is the way and narrow the gate thereof" said Jesus. The Hindu Upanishads, the sacred and formerly secret works containing some of the highest wisdom of India, have a similar phrase: "The path which is as narrow as the edge of a razor". What do these words mean? They do not tell of a path to moral perfection, however desirable it may be to be morally perfect. No! the way they speak of is the Ultimate Path which demands from us utter and complete rectitude of thought and feeling. Every movement made in the heart and mind must be completely straight, undeflected, and undistorted. The mental activity must be true in every sense of the word.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Be objective

#3384E – 3.2.6.20

B_11 – EL1/2

Life must become one-pointed, perfectly concentrated, moving always in a straight line. When ideas are warped by prejudices, or distorted by preconceptions, or clouded by illusions, or inflamed by excitements, then the movement of the mind is not straight but wavering from side to side. It may even turn round and move backwards. We inevitably approach life with a predetermined outlook which has gradually developed from the many influences played upon us since childhood. Rare indeed is the man who is immune to them. This bias tends to overload with personal feeling all judgement, and to raise selfish emotion to the status of a test of truth.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Be objective

#3384E – 3.2.6.20

B_11 – EL2/2

The obstacles which he has put in his own path can be removed by no one but himself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Be objective

#3386 – 3.2.6.22

BA12 – P – D

Concepts and procedures which served him on the Quest in the past—ideas symbols names and forms which helped him then—have become rigidly fixed in his mind and he himself has become so attached to them as to be dependent upon them. He has lost openness of mind and become dogmatic, the victim of his own jargon. Thus the very things which were of service to him are no longer so and, in fact, constitute barriers stopping his further progress towards the true freedom.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Be objective

#3394 – 3.2.6.30

BN – Z – K

The right creative use of faith and will, exercise and effort can work wonders in leading us out of the enslavement, the blindness, and the ignorance of the lower nature back to the enlightenment, the freedom, and the wisdom of the higher self.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3395 – 3.2.6.31

BN – X – D

Practice is the first requisite. Day after day one must dig into one's mind. One cannot learn swimming from a printed book alone, nor can one learn to know the Overself merely by reading about it.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3396 – 3.2.6.32

BN – X – D

Anyone who pursued the Quest with the same zeal with which everyone pursues earthly things, would soon come within sight of its goal.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3405 – 3.2.6.41

BN – X – D

There is a weapon which we can place in our hands that will render us independent of external patronage and make us master of circumstance's ebb and flow. This is the power of persistent Will.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3406 – 3.2.6.42

BA12 – P – D

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

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3408D – 3.2.6.44

BN – X – D

If we were static beings fixed and chained by Nature, nothing would be worth the effort of trying. But we are not. We are dynamic centres of intelligence. Most of us revolve at low speeds. All of us could revolve more quickly. Some of us could even revolve at high speeds. For we can will ourselves into anything. In the silence of our heart we must will that this thing be accomplished, and lo, it is. "I will" carries man onward and upward, and defeat only spurs to further endeavour.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3409 – 3.2.6.45

BA12 – P – D

The iron strength of his purpose will shield him from temptations, the intense force of his loyalty to the truth will carry him through obstacles and barriers. He is astonished to find how easily the man who knows what he wants can conquer his way to it, if his will is able to go straight to its mark.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3410 – 3.2.6.46

BN – Z – DK

We have to demonstrate by our lives and to exemplify in our attitudes not only the truth of the ideas which rule our minds, but also the inherent power of these ideas.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3411 – 3.2.6.47

BN – X – D

The power to commune with the Overself is within us all, but most do not trouble to exert themselves in the nurture and cultivation of it. Hence they do not possess it in actuality.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3413 – 3.2.6.49

BN – X – D

The quest is a deliberate attempt to shorten the passage from life in the underself to life in the Overself. Therefore it involves a constant discipline of actions, feelings, thoughts, and words.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3414 – 3.2.6.50

BN – X – D

There is no room for spiritual lethargy and personal laziness in the philosophical aspirant's life. First, they will labour incessantly at the improvement of themselves; when this has been accomplished, they will labour incessantly at the improvement of others.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3415 – 3.2.6.51

BSG_4 – P – D

Form a plan of life and carry it out.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3417 – 3.2.6.53

BN – X – D

Nothing is more fortifying to the will than to do something every day along the lines of a declared intention to which all habit and environment are opposed.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3419 – 3.2.6.55

BA12 – P – D

To take up the practice every day afresh requires a certain strength of will, a certain stubbornness of purpose, and a certain appreciation of its worth. Few have this staying power.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3421 – 3.2.6.57

BN – Z – DEK

To believe that such a great task can be achieved without personal effort and self-control is merely to deceive themselves. It is to deny the biblical statement that only what they sow can they reap.

Overview of Practices Involved > Self-Reflection and Action > Apply the will

#3425 – 3.2.6.61

BN – X – D