We daily dissipate our mental energies and throw our thoughts to the fickle winds. We debauch the potent power of Attention and let it waste daily away into the thousand futilities that fill our time.

#34542

BN – Z – K1

The ego ceaselessly invents one “duty” after another to keep him so involved in activities, often trivial, that he is never still enough to attend to the Overself’s presence and voice within. Even many so-called spiritual duties are its invention: they are not asked of him by the Overself.

#34543 – 1.3.0.17

BN – ZZ – DM1

Because all his meditation exercises can succeed only to the extent that he succeeds in becoming utterly relaxed, the importance of this ability must be noted.

#34544 – 1.3.0.18

BN – X – DK1

We truly relax from strains and strivings only when we relax in the inward stillness of the divine presence. Silently to declare the metaphysical truths about our personal life, quietly to affirm them in the midst of our active life, and deliberately to recognize them above the swirl of our emotional life is to achieve true repose.

#34545

BN – Z – K1

It is wiser to go to the fountainhead, to the source of all energies directly. There our fatigued mind or body can find its most life-giving recuperation.

#34546

BN – Z – K1

The stress of modern existence has made the need for regular mental rest not merely advisable, but vital. Unless our excessive external activity is counter-balanced by a little inward orientation, we shall be devastated by neurasthenic disease.

#34547

BN – ZZ – K1

The external segregation of spiritual aspirants for a whole lifetime is impracticable today. It is also undesirable. The ashram ideal suited a primitive society, but does not suit our complex one. What is really needed now is the establishment of "Houses of Retreat" where men of the world may pass a weekend, a week, or even a month, in a holy atmosphere under the helpful guidance of an experienced spiritual director.

#34548

BN – ZZ – K1

Ashram existence fails to impose any real test of character other than childish ones. Exposure to the corrosive acids of the world's tensions and temptations, conflicts and perils, would soon test the unworldliness of an ashramite's character and soon show the real worth of his pious attainments. A monastic life which possesses no perils, struggles, and constructive activity also possesses no intrinsic value, no ultimate worth apart from the temporary rest it gives. It takes no risks but gains no prizes.

#34549

BN – Z – K1

Having obtained a place where he may rest for a period, an environment suited to prayer and meditation, let him begin and end each day by a solemn silent call to the Overself for guidance, for enlightenment, and for help in overcoming the ego. Then let him give as much time as his capacity allows to meditation repeated twice and even thrice during the day.

#34550

BN – Z – K1

The need today is for philosophic retreats rather than monastic communities, for semi-retirement from the world rather than complete abandonment of the world, for limited and temporary periods of relaxation from personal activities.

#34551

BN – Z – K1

The true place of peace amid the bustle of modern life must be found within self, by external moderation and internal meditation.

Relax and Retreat > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure > The true place of peace

#34552D – 3.3.2.136

BN – Z – K1

Ram Gopal: "At many of the ashrams I visited in India I could plainly see that the vast majority of people milling around the central figure of the particular sage, all had the timid and cowardly expressions of escapists, running away from life. They were taking the easy way out by sitting at the feet of these holy ones. Such a negative attitude helped them merely to postpone what the true seeker faced boldly."

#34553

BN – X – K1

There is a need for spiritual retreats where laymen and laywomen, who do not wish to become monks or nuns, may come for a day or weekend or month or two, to search for truth, to study, and to meditate in an undistracting atmosphere.

#34554

BN – X – K1

There are some exceptions to this precept, of course. An old man, for instance, who feels he has done his principal work in life, is quite entitled to rest, to withdraw from the world and make his peace with God in solitude and repose.

#34555

BN – X – K1

The heart is my ashram. The higher self is the master who dwells within it.

#34556

BN – X – K1

The deepest solitudes do not always contain the divinest men. Renunciation of the world works most when it works in the heart, which unfortunately is not a visible thing. It is not always necessary to permit one's dress-suit to become covered with cobwebs in order to become a true devotee.

#34557

BN – X – K1

Alone and silent, with body and mind quiet, it would be unlikely and even difficult to become nervous, unstable, fidgety, and restless.

#34558

BN – X – K1

But a man cannot profit by this lonelier life, nor find it pleasurable, unless he has more inner reserves than most others or unless he actively seeks to gain them.

#34559

BN – X – K1

While he is still struggling to attain the light, the larger his acquaintance with people and the more they crowd his life, the less time and chance he has to know and find himself—if his relationship with them is the ordinary egoistic one. If it is not, but involves rendering them some sort of altruistic service which thins down his ego, the result will be better and more favourable to this purpose. Even so, it is an unbalanced existence and a day will come when he will have to take a vacation from them and make solitude and time for his own inner need of meditation, reflection, or study.

#34560

BN – Z – K1

It is not because he finds the company of most people disagreeable that he seeks solitude, that he separates himself from society, not because he is soured, vinegary and cynical in his attitude toward them, but because this inner work requires intense uninterrupted undisturbed and undistracted concentration.

#34561

BN – ZZ – K1

There is only one real loneliness and that is to feel cut off from the higher power.

#34562

BN – Z – K1

There is a vast difference between idle morbidly introspective solitude and the inwardly active creative solitude advocated here.

#34563

BN – Z – K1

"Let him be devoted to that quietude of heart which springs from within, let him not drive back the ecstasy of contemplation, let him look through things, let him be much alone." Such is Buddha's counsel to the student of the higher life.

#34564

BN – Z – K1

The man who does not learn how to be alone with himself cannot learn how to be alone with God.

#34565 – 1.3.0.39

BN – X – DK1

A man has to make his own inner solitude wherever he goes.

#34566

BN – Z – K1

There is always some feeling of mystery in the deep silent haunts of the forest. There is always some eerie sense of strangeness in its leaf-strewn shady paths. There is great age in its green bowers and mossy trunks, grave peace in its secluded recesses. There is great beauty in the tiny flowers set on their couches of grass and in the cheerful song which comes down from the boughs. It is a satisfying place, this home of dignity and decrepitude, this forest.

#34567

BN – Z – K1

The wise will turn to the mountains for rest as they will return to them from the ends of this earth when they are world-weary. For they are ancient souls of many births and their Methusalean propensities will find fit neighbour in those aged heights. And then they will sit upon the craggy stones and gaze up at the peaks' defiant heads and suck in peace as a bee sucks the pollen from a flower.

#34568

BN – Z – K1

They whose emotions can respond to the grandeur and sublimity of Nature in all her manifold expressions, in forest and mountain, river and lake, in sea and sky, and the beauty of flowers, are not materialists even though they may so call themselves. Unconsciously they offer their devotion to the Divine Reality, even though they may call it by some other name.

#34569 – 1.3.0.43

BN – X – DK1

Saint John of the Cross, whenever he stayed at the monastery of Iznatoraf, would climb to a tiny attic room in the belfry and there remain for a long time looking out fixedly through a tiny window at the silent valley. When he was prior of the Hermitage of El Calvario, in Andalusia, one of the exercises he taught the monks was to sit and contemplate where there was a view of open sky, hills, trees, fields, and growing plants and to call on the beauty of these things to praise God. We know from his writings that he made imageless contemplation the last stage in all such exercises.

#34570

BN – X – K1

The evening sunfall brings its own beauty, declaims its own poetry. It is worth the waiting in the short period before Nature's holy pause, when one can share her peace with one's soul, her mystery with one's mind, and feel her kinship with one's self. As the dusk deepens there is a shift of standpoint and basic truths come into sight or become more clear. The heart and its feelings are affected, too—purified, ennobled, enriched.

#34571

BN – Z – K1

As he gazes, the more attention gets concentrated, the more he sinks into finer and finer thought, honouring not only the visible sun outside but also the invisible soul inside.

#34572

BN – X – K1

I let time unfold and pass away into its source as, minute after minute, in the gathering dusk, the mountains slowly vanish, the room too, eyes close, contemplation ends, the Void takes over, and there is no one left to report.

#34573 – 1.3.0.47

BN – X – DK1

Meditation is not to be regarded as an end in itself but as one of the instruments wherewith the true end is to be attained.

#34574 – 1.0.4.2

BN – X – DK1

Among the values of meditation is that it carries consciousness down to a deeper level, thus letting a man live from his centre, not his surface alone. The result is that the physical sense-reactions do not dominate his outlook wholly, as they do an animal's. Mind begins to rule them. This leads more and more to self-control, self-knowledge, and self-pacification.

#34575

BN – X – K1

Meditation is merely a form of simple practice most Western people are too unfamiliar with to understand. What could be simpler than saying this: if you will look into your heart and mind, deep enough and long enough to penetrate beneath the tumult of desires that daily distract your attention, you may then discover peace.

#34576 – 1.4.0.5

BN – X – DEK1

When the mind is distracted by its surroundings, it is prevented from perceiving itself. This is easy to understand. When it is distracted by the body, it is also prevented from gaining such perception. This is harder but still possible to understand. But when the mind is distracted from attending to itself by its own thoughts, this is the hardest of all its situations to understand.

#34577

BN – X – K1

The meditation has been successfully accomplished when all thoughts have come to an end, and when the presence of Divinity is felt within this emptiness.

#34578 – 1.4.0.9

BN – X – DK1

Meditation in one sense is an effort. It seeks first to approach, by actively cutting a way through the jungle of irrelevant thoughts, and second to enter, by passively yielding to its outraying influence, the very core of oneself, the very centre of one's psyche, which is indeed the divine spirit. In the first stage, a resolute will is required to overcome and banish the eager intruders who would destroy his chances of success. In the second stage, the exercise of will would itself be just as destructive, for an opposite attitude is then called for—total surrender of the ego.

#34579

BN – Z – K1

During this brief period he is to undertake a strange task—to separate himself from the petty and the passional, from the affairs of his personal career and family relationship, and to seek to unite himself with the grand truths, the impersonal principles of spiritual being.

#34581

BN – X – K1

You begin your meditation by remembering its spiritual purpose and consequently by putting away all thoughts of your own affairs or of the world's affairs and paying attention only to the single thought of the Overself.

#34582

BN – Z – K1

No matter how limited the period available may be, whether five or fifty minutes, approach it with the deliberately induced feeling of complete leisureliness. Bring no attitude of haste into the work, or it will thwart your efforts from the start.

#34583

BN – X – K1

It is not possible to master the art of meditation without acquiring the virtue of patience. One has to learn first how to sit statue-still without fidgetting and without changes; second, how to endure the waiting period when the body's stillness is mocked by the mind's restlessness.

#34584

BN – X – K1

In theory the best time for meditation would be after sleep because the mind is then at its calmest. In practice, it may not be so if dreams have disturbed it, or if a very early start to activity is necessary or unavoidable. Further, there may be individual affinity with particular times, such as sunset or midnight, which render meditation more attractive then.

#34585

BN – X – K1

But on another plane of being there is a curious and more elevated quality during the meditations practised before the early hours of dawn while it is still dark. This is a period recommended in certain schools of Sufic and Hindu mysticism.

#34586

BN – X – K1

It is a common mistake to believe that because no fruit seems to grow out of the exercise, no feeling and no experience result from it, the time given to it is wasted. This is why so many abandon it after a short or long trial. But how can the ego know that even the simple act of sitting like a beggar at the Overself's door, in resigned humility and patience and perseverance, is an act of faith for which the reward is certain, even though the form of this reward may not be?

#34587

BN – Z – K1

To sit down for meditation with the secret expectation, the half-hidden hope, or the fully conscious desire for a dramatic glimpse, a sudden transformation, or a speedy result is to introduce the ego and thus block the way to the egoless plane of the Overself.

#34588 – 1.4.0.28

BN – X – DM1

The body's position is not without its influence upon the beginnings of meditation. All muscles should be relaxed, all limbs at ease, all fingers at rest, and the jaw unclenched. Any physical tenseness hinders the onset of contemplation.

#34589

BN – X – K1

What shall they do with their eyes during meditation? It is best for beginners to shut them entirely and thus avoid distracting sight-impressions from the outer world. For moderately advanced practisers it is better to begin with shut eyes and at an appropriate point sometime later in the meditation, to half-open them, directing the gaze downwards and some feet beyond, and to keep it so until the meditation period is ended. But it is easiest for highly advanced proficients to pass quickly through the earlier positions of shut and half-shut and then, at a time prompted for them by inward guidance to keep their eyes open fully until the practice period is over, or until the guidance reverses itself. These are the general rules governing the three chief degrees.

#34590

BN – X – K1

It is not enough to lull the mind: the heart’s feeling must be stimulated and directed in aspiration and devotion, warm and strong toward the Overself, which by reaction, arouses a certain force, the Spirit-Energy, which acts for a short time to prepare him for deeper, more concentrated contemplation.

#34591 – 1.4.0.34

BN – X – DK1

An aid is bhakti, love. Love is essential to meditation; it is a binding force comprised of devotion and reverence. The aim is to become united. Success in meditation is to become one with the Higher Self (unity). Meditation should be a yearning to come home to one's place in the universe.

#34592 – 1.4.0.35

BN – ZZ – DEK1

Meditation can be misused. It is then no longer a help toward the spiritual liberation of man but another captivity to keep him from it. It is misused when the object is to gain occult powers. These merely cater to the ego's aggrandizement. It is misused when the object is to become a prophet, teacher, or reformer who will influence or lead people. This merely caters to the ego's spiritual ambition, which is the same force as worldly ambition working on a higher level.

#34593

BN – X – K1

It is necessary to warn the beginner in meditation against the mistakes and perils into which he is liable to fall. The greatest mistake is to fail to realize the contributions of the ego to his own mystical experience; the greatest peril is to let himself be overcome by a mediumistic passivity under a belief that it is a mystical passivity.

#34594

BN – X – K1

There are certain persons who belong by birth and temperament to the type of spiritistic medium. Until they have strengthened their higher nature, purified their feelings, and obtained sufficient knowledge, they should avoid meditation. The risk of being used by inferior spirits, even of obsession, is present.

#34595

BN – X – K1

Those whose minds are neurotically or psychotically disordered, will do better to take some treatment first before embarking on a meditation course.

#34596

BN – X – K1

Too much attention is too often put upon the role of meditation itself. It is a necessary practice but it is only a part of the total work to be done. Balance, reverence, knowledge, virtue, and awareness despite or during activities are also parts.

#34597

BN – X – K1

It is necessary to pronounce certain words of caution to the novice in meditation. He is trying to penetrate the unknown parts of his being with a vehicle not only fashioned by himself but also fashioned out of himself. If the material is defective or the method inaccurate, the result will be disappointing and may even be harmful. Moreover, the journey itself is beset with certain risks and dangers for the man whose emotions are undisciplined, whose passions are ungoverned, whose ambition is to exploit other persons, whose critical judgement is poor, and whose knowledge is small. Therefore the traveller must safeguard himself by sufficient preparation and adequate equipment before beginning his journey, by a preliminary discipline to fit his mind and character for the effort.

#34598

BN – X – K1

If he can enter the state of contemplation at any time he wishes to do so, and can sustain it as long as desired, he is said to be an adept in meditation.

#34599

BN – X – K1

Exclude all thoughts other than the one which is the point of concentration. If, as is likely, you weaken and permit them to intrude, renew the battle and drive them out by will. Return again and again if necessary to your focus.

#34600

BN – X – K1

It is not enough to seek stillness for the body and mind alone: the attention and intention must be directed at the same time to that Overself which transcends body and mind.

#34601 – 1.4.0.48

B_01 – Z – DK1

He must lock himself in a room for a few minutes every day with the fierce determination to tame this mind which jumps about like a monkey. He must choose a topic and then keep his thoughts rigidly fixed on it. He should concentrate all his attention on it and try first to provoke and then to develop a sequential logical line of thought about it. He must wear down its resistance by unremitting daily practice of this kind.

#34602

BN – X – K1

Others know the condition in which the yogi is, when they are so absorbed in the story of a book as not to hear when spoken to; when they are so lost in a line of thought that the immediate surroundings are banished; when the imagined is the real; when tranced feeling and held mind alone exist, separated from the physical actuality. But there is this vital difference—that their total absorption usually concerns a personal or a worldly matter, whereas the yogi's concerns That which transcends both.

#34603

BN – X – K1

Stefan Zweig, the Austrian novelist, when still a youth, visited the sculptor Rodin and watched him at work in his Paris studio. He wrote of this visit: "I learned more that afternoon at Meudon than in all my years at school. For ever since then I have known how all human work must be done if it is to be good and worthwhile. > >"Nothing has ever so moved me as this realization that a man could so utterly forget time and place and the world. In that hour I grasped the secret of all art and of all earthly achievement—concentration, the rallying of all one's forces for accomplishment of one's task, large or small; capacity to direct one's will, so often dissipated and scattered, upon one thing."

#34604

BN – X – K1

The disciplined use of imagination will promote the attainment of ideals through imagination but the wild use of fancy will retard it.

#34605

BN – Z – K1

Getting intensely absorbed in a true spiritual idea may, if it penetrates to a sufficient depth, put one into communication with the Universal Mind. This in turn enables him to receive, intuitively, what could not be found intellectually.

#34606 – 1.4.0.58

BN – Z – DK1

Whatever he has experienced, thought, or done in the years which have been lived through can afford a subject for this kink of meditation – reflectie, analytic, and finally philosophic.

#34608

BN – Z – K1

We must get to the very source of those deep-seated karmic, mental, and emotional tendencies if we would attain the Real which they obscure. When this is done a tremendous sense of liberation is experienced, an inner revolution undergone, and then follows the "lighting flash" of insight into the nature of the Real.

#34609

BN – ZZ – K1

If he trains himself until he can see with the mind's eye a picture exactly like the one he saw with his physical eyes printed or drawn on paper, he will have achieved the object of this (visualization) exercise.

#34610

BN – X – K1

It is easier to meditate on Reality through a symbol than directly.

#34611

BN – X – K1

Concentrate on each symbol for seven minutes. (1) Think of a cross in a light blue colour, as pertaining to the crucifixion of the physical or bodily nature. Regular concentration may lead to a psychological change. (2) Picture a triangle of golden colour as representative of harmony and intellectual balance. (3) Picture a five-pointed Star of silver colour, as a symbol of the perfect man.

#34612

BN – X – K1

A flower is as good an object to concentrate on as any other. Indeed it is better, for he may also try to make his own heart one with the flower’s heart.

#34613 – 1.4.0.75

BN – X – DK1

To hold any idea in the mind during meditation, and to hold it with faith, sympathy, and pleasure, is to make it a part of oneself. If care is taken that these ideas shall be positive, constructive, and elevating, then the profits of meditation will show themselves in the character and the personality.

#34614 – 1.4.0.77

BN – X – DK1

The restless, ever-active intellect may turn its overactivity to good account by turning to this practice. When that is done, the very quality which seemed such a formidable antagonist on the quest becomes a formidable ally. If instead of constantly thinking of his personal affairs, the man will constantly think of his mantra or his master or of God's infinitude and eternity, the trick is done.

#34615

BN – X – K1

If a thought enters his mind or a desire stirs his feelings of which he is ashamed but too weak to resist, let him repeat at once an appropriate declaration, or his familiar habitual one, or any pertinent word, and go on repeating it until mind or feelings are again clear.

#34616

BN – X – K1

The effectiveness of a Declaration depends also upon its being repeated with a whole mind and an undivided heart, with confidence in its power and sincere desire to rise up.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#34617D – 4.4.6.111

BN – X – K1

In the earlier periods of his development, the higher self will become accessible to him under the form of some mental image registering on his human senses. In the later periods, however, it will be discerned as it is in itself and consequently as pure Being without any form whatever.

#34619

BN – X – K1

This work must begin with a discipline of the body because it is the servant of the ego. To the extent that we bring it to follow the Ideal, to that extent is the ego's path impeded and obstructed.

#34620

BN – X – K1

The tendency to neglect the body in the zeal to attain to the spiritual self is often seen among aspirants. Yet the two cannot rightly be separated and must be considered together if a successful result is to eventuate. Every man—and the aspirant is no exception to this rule—lives on both planes of being. The body's neglect cannot be justified by the assertion that there is no interest in it because all interest has been elevated above it. Whatever mental assertion or vocal pretext the aspirant delivers himself of, he still remains housed in the flesh and is still responsible for what he does—or fails to do—for the house itself. If he lets it deteriorate, clog with poisons and no longer carry on its organic functions properly, there will come a reaction upon mind and a rebound upon the feelings that must inevitably penetrate his view of things and force him to recognize that his feet are planted on earth, whatever his eyes may be gazing at.

#34621

BN – X – K1

The body is as much a divine projection as the planet on which it dwells. It is not demoniacal, nor even a symbol of man's sad downfall. Every tissue cell, bone cell, nerve cell, and muscle cell of which it is constructed is itself an expression of divine intelligence and purpose. It is a miniature copy of the universe.

#34622

BN – X – K1

Solicitude for the body to the extent of learning how to care properly for it, how to keep it in good health, how to keep up its strength, will only help and not obstruct solicitude for the soul. The person whose body is breaking down, whose organs are unable to work properly, whose vitality is poor, is likely to become more worried and preoccupied about his body than the person who is free from these troubles. How can he forget the flesh under such conditions? He will be miserably conscious of it far too often. Lofty advice which pays no heed to it and tells him nothing about how to deal with it may sound elevating to his ear but will not be alleviating to his problem. Any teaching which ignores the body, which leaves it an ever-present worry, must inevitably be a one-sided, incomplete one. Such indifference to the body's welfare cannot be the teaching of true wisdom and therefore cannot be defended.

#34623

BN – X – K1

A healthy asceticism which is in pursuit of sane self-mastery will always be harmonious with Nature; but an unhealthy, morbid, and twisted asceticism will always be conflicting with Nature.

#34624

BN – X – K1

It is as blasphemous to ignore, decry, or dismiss the physical side of human life as unimportant as it is to deny that the universe is a divine projection.

#34625

BN – X – K1

Bodily instincts concerning food have become so perverted by lifelong artificial habits, so deadened by old civilized so-called custom, that the bodily system no longer reacts to foods as it should. To regain the proper instincts and find out what really is a natural diet for man, a fast or series of fasts is necessary.

#34626

BN – X – K1

Fasting gives the body a chance to clarify its dietetic reactions and to regain its true instincts. It need not be extreme or long except in the worst and most hopeless chronic cases. It is easier, more comfortable, and just as effectual to take short fasts, each ranging from one to four days and spaced apart at intervals of a week to a month. A teaspoon of unsweetened lime juice in a tumbler of warm water may be drunk whenever thirsty to help dissolve the toxic deposits lining the internal organs.

#34627

BN – X – K1

The practice of meditation is undesirable when fasting as it may easily lead to a mediumistic condition or hallucinations. But, on the other hand, prayer can and should be increased when fasting. Usually, excellent results may follow.

#34628

BN – X – K1

Those first meals following a period of fasting are excellent for the purpose of learning what foods are really undesirable or harmful to one's own body. At such a time its instinct is much clearer and unperverted, while the ability to respond to its advice is much greater. Bad habits of feeding or living, such as gluttony or excessive smoking, can then be broken more easily. But it is necessary to concentrate all one's attention very carefully to note physical responses to each mouthful.

#34629

BN – X – K1

Those who really aspire towards a higher kind of life will have no alternative than to bring about a higher quality of the body in which they have to dwell and whose nerves and brain condition their very thinking. Such aspirants will have to stop being careless about the material that is fed to the body.

#34631 – 1.5.0.12

BN – X – DK1

It is not enough to eat sparingly: he must also eat consistently, if he would keep well. He should not eat rightly for several months or years and then suddenly plunge into wrong eating for a while. For then he may lose in a few days or weeks the good health he has gained, so powerful may the reaction be. To stay faithful to his regular regime in diet is one of the basic rules he must follow. Yet friends and relatives may insist on such a departure from what experience has taught him is best for his own body and mind, and he will need much strength of will to resist them. It will require from him an obstinate adherence to his initial resolve that nothing and no one may be allowed to make him break it.

#34632

BN – X – K1

The banishment of flesh from a correct diet has a thoroughly scientific basis. This kind of food has far too much poisonous uric acid in it, far too much toxic urine to make it a healthy constituent of such a diet. Moreover, it deteriorates the intestinal flora. This will not affect healthy manual-worker types who have enough resistance to throw it off, but it will affect sedentary weaker types.

#34633 – 1.5.0.15

BN – X – DK1

Thomas Jefferson's "Letters": "I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten. . . . which renders their characters insusceptible of civilization. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that missionaries of that description from hence would avail more than those who should endeavour to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy."

#34634

BN – X – K1

If men believe that they must eat meat because it is necessary to life, let them at least first remove the blood from it, as the first Bishop of the earliest Christian church, St. James, ruled to be a Christian duty, and as Moses, wise and powerful leader of those who escaped from Egyptian slavery, ruled to be a Hebrew duty. In this way they will reduce their chance of physical sickness and improve their chances of moral progress. Those who must have further authority for this bloodless diet from a Biblical text may consult their Genesis, I:29. Not for nothing is it that so many rites of black magic call for the use of blood, a sacrificial offering fit only for the dark principle of the universe but not for the maintenance of the human body. Still worse is it for the purpose of such maintenance when the blood is permeated with psychic horror, fear, and anguish generated during first the waiting period at the slaughterhouse and, more intensely, at the actual bloodstained spot itself.

#34635

BN – X – K1

Just before an animal meets its death in a slaughterhouse, it finds itself surrounded by the frightening cries and fear-raising scenes of past, present, and impending murder. Its own dread then mentally permeates the body with harmful influences while the subsequent shock of its own slaying causes an involuntary passage of some urine into the body itself. This uric acid is spread by the blood and then physically permeates the body with poisonous material.

#34636 – 1.5.0.18

BN – X – DM1

The eating of flesh foods and, to a lesser degree, of animal products tends to keep the human consciousness limited to an outlook which is influenced by the animal propensities. If it is to become truly human, it must free itself from dependence on such foods and such products whose cellular substance is naturally impregnated with such propensities.

#34637 – 1.5.0.19

BN – X – DEK1

The killing instinct in man is kept indirectly alive by the meat-eating appetite of man.

#34638

BN – X – K1

They beseech the Lord with whining prayers for compassionate help or gracious mercy, yet never for a moment ever think of themselves granting mercy to the innocent creatures which are bred and slaughtered for their benefit.

#34639 – 1.5.0.21

BN – X – DK1

So long as the slaughter of animals is really unnecessary for human food, so long does it remain a moral crime, an ancient shame upon whole nations, against which prophets and saints, seers and teachers have inveighed and warned. For under the Law of Recompense, the guilty—however unconscious—have had to suffer penalty. If they find their own prayers for mercy to the Higher Power remain unanswered, let them remember how they themselves showed no mercy.

#34640 – 1.5.0.22

BN – X – DEK1

The would-be-illumined person must conform to the double action of nature in him: to the outgoing and incoming breaths. So his illumination, when it happens, must be there and here: in the mind and in the body. The two together form the equilibrium of the double life we are called upon to live: that is, being in the world and yet not being of it. In the prolongation of the expiring breath we not only get rid of negative thought but also of the worldliness, the materialism, of keeping to the physical interests alone. With the incoming breath we draw positive, inspiring remembrance of the divine hidden in the Void. Hence we are there in the mind and here in the body. We recognize the truth of eternity, the act in time. We see the reality of the Void, yet know that the entire Universe comes forth from it.

#34642

BN – X – K1

The experience of human love between the two sexes is the nearest thing, perhaps, apart from artistic creativity, to the experience of divine love between the heart and soul. Therefore it should be regarded with an elevated and respectful mind, not with a degraded and coarse one. The cheap exploitation and cynical animalization of sex in the contemporary world of entertainment, as well as the deliberate stimulation of it in the contemporary worlds of commercial art, light literature, and the press, are evil things with evil results. To centre the attention of young impressionable people on the physical side of love as if it were the whole of love, to influence them to ignore the needs of the mind and cry of the heart when coupling for marriage or for passion, is to spread personal unhappiness and promote social wreckage.

#34643

BN – ZZ – K1

The religious sham, which offers mere prudery as if it were real purity, is closely followed by the social sham, which rejects both.

#34644

BN – ZZ – K1

Appetites of the body which are derived from merely physical habits tend to get mixed with emotions, which are of a different and higher kind. This is particularly true of one physical appetite—sex. If a man is to know and master himself, he will need to be clear as to the difference between a sexual affection, which is emotional, and sexual desire, which is physical. This knowledge is important to all Questers.

#34645

BN – X – K1

His passage from the common animality to a spiritualized humanity will necessarily involve a raising of force from the generative organ to the thinking organ. What was heretofore exteriorized must now be interiorized; what was wasted must be conserved, and what was physically spent must be spiritually transformed.

#34647

BN – X – K1

Philosophy recognizes that there are different stages on the path of dealing with sex, different needs which must be allowed for. But since those stages and needs are graded ones, it does not compromise on the rules for the last grade. Here, for those who are willing to do everything necessary and make every sacrifice required, it is not enough to discipline the sexual cravings, however severely. They must be brought to an end by a process of complete sublimation. Whereas it allows the young in years or the spiritually unready to abide by simple rules and lighter disciplines, it recommends to older persons or to the spiritually ready of any age to be the master of their animality in every sense. This applies whether they are married householders or not. It does not enforce a rule but simply makes a recommendation. Everyone has a perfect right to choose the stage which lies within his strength. But he must accept the results of his choice, which are governed by law.

#34648

BN – X – K1

The vital forces are dissipated unreasonably and stimulated excessively by turns, until the hapless victim mistakes for normal use what is really abnormal and unintended by Nature. The penalty has to be paid at some time and, spiritually, consists in his being blinded to the finer truths—metaphysical and mystical.

#34649

BN – X – K1

The power to control sex lies partly in the mind, where the media for this control are the imagination and the will united on the intuitive level, and partly in the body, where the media are dietetic restrictions, fasting, internal and external cleansings, and physical exercises.

#34650

BN – X – K1

An important part of the technique of redirecting perverted, vicious, or excessive sexual energies is active bodily exercise regularly done. Lack of it will not be sufficiently substituted for by dieting, fasting, or bathing.

#34651

BN – X – K1

"As a result of these experiments, I saw that the celibate's food should be limited, simple, spiceless and, if possible, uncooked. The ideal is fresh fruit and nuts. The immunity from passion that I enjoyed when I lived on this food was unknown to me after I changed this diet." —Gandhi

#34652

BN – X – K1

The masculine element in a woman and the feminine element in a man need to be as well developed and as actively expressed as the physical sex poles already are developed and expressed. And not only do these inner poles need this, but they need it to be done to the point of balancing the outer poles.

#34653

BN – X – K1

In the properly developed person, the strength of a man will be united with the tenderness of a woman.

#34654 – 1.5.0.45

BN – X – DK1

If some people have found their way to God through the acceptance of sex, many more people have found their way through the rejection of it.

#34655

BN – X – K1

The philosophical discipline seeks to build up a character which no weakness can undermine and from which all negative characteristics have been thrown out.

#34656

BN – Z – K1

If you want to obtain a good objective, you must use a good means as no other will bring the same result.

#34657

BN – X – K1

Such study of the ethics of philosophy will not, of course, give the student the power to be able to practise those ethics completely. He cannot always govern his own complexes or control his own desires or rule his own compulsions. Nevertheless, to know what he is expected to do and what he ought to do is a valuable first step towards doing it.

#34658

BN – Z – K1

Disinterested action does not mean renouncing all work that brings financial reward. How then could one earn a livelihood? It does not mean ascetic renunciation and monastic flight from personal responsibilities. The philosophic attitude is that a man shall perform his full duty to the world, but this will be done in such a way that it brings injury to none. Truth, honesty, and honour will not be sacrificed for money. Time, energy, capacity, and money will be used wisely in the best interests of mankind, and above all the philosopher will pray constantly that the Overself will accept him as a dedicated instrument of service. And it surely will.

Emotions and Ethics > Re-Educate Feelings > Detachment

#34659D – 5.6.2.151

BN – ZZZ – DEK1

He may look at what has happened in five different but equally valuable and equally necessary ways: (a) as a test, (b) as opposition of adverse force, (c) as a problem to adjust himself to psychologically, (d) as a temptation or tribulation to be met and overcome morally, (e) as the outworking of past karma to be intelligently endured or impersonally negotiated.

#34660 – 1.6.0.11

BN – X – DK1

The philosophic attitude is a curious and paradoxical one precisely because it is a complete one. It approaches the human situation with a mentality as practical and as cold-blooded as an engineer's, but steers its movement by a sensitivity to ideals as delicate as an artist's. It always considers the immediate, attainable objectives, but is not the less interested in distant, unrealizable ones.

#34661

BN – X – K1

Unless he passes through the portals of this discipline, he cannot receive truth, but only its parodies, distortions, and imitations.

#34662

BN – Z – K1

The first and immediate consequence of perceiving philosophic truth is a moral one. There is a strong appeal to the intellect and an equally strong appeal to the heart. These two viewpoints are not opposed to each other.

#34663

BN – X – K1

It is not enough to wish to better one's character. One must also know how to begin the task aright and how to continue it correctly. Otherwise he gropes blindly and falls into the old weaknesses, the old errors, even if they take new forms. > >He has to find out what unwise tendencies are operative in his character without his knowledge, what wrong impulses arise from his subconscious self and lead to harmful actions.

#34664 – 1.6.0.25

BN – ZZ – DEK1

At the beginning of each temptation there is a choice offered, as though one stood at the crossroads and must take one which leads upward to peace and well-being or the other which leads downward to hell. In the offering, the chance to escape from the oncoming temptation is given. If the chance is taken immediately, it can be escaped; but if there is the slightest dallying with the luring picture, then the chance is lost. Therefore, there should be instant rejection of it.

#34665

BN – X – K1

From Lord Beaconsfield’s novel: “Ah,” said Coningsby, “I should like to be a great man.” The stranger threw at him a scrutinizing glance. His countenance was serious. He said in a voice of most solemn melody, “Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.”

#34666 – 1.6.0.29

BN – X – DM1

The fundamental test and final measure of anyone's spirituality is provided by his character. And his character is tested and measured by his actions.

#34667 – 1.6.0.31

BN – Z – DK1

Those who underrate the difficulty of self-changing, who promise a simple and easy path to a successful result, render the flock of gullible aspirants only a disservice. Wishful thinking may bring such aspirants to this path but eventual disappointment will throw them off it.

#34668

BN – Z – K1

The forming of a good character is the beginning, the middle, and the end of this work.

#34669 – 1.6.0.36

BN – X – DK1

He who is jealous does not thereby show he loves the one on whose account he shows this emotion. He shows only that he loves himself. What he feels is selfish possessiveness. It is the same feeling which he manifests for his bank account. This is not love in any sense.

#34670

BN – Z – K1

Love of the divine is our primary duty. Love of our neighbour is only a secondary one.

#34673

BN – X – K1

Regard, affection and friendliness, sympathy, fellow-feeling and love are not feelings to be thrown away because he has taken to the philosophic quest. On the contrary, they may become valuable stepping-stones in his progress if he treats them aright, if he evaluates them correctly, purifies them emotionally, and ennobles them morally.

#34674 – 1.6.0.42

BN – X – DK1

One consequence of this compassionate habit is that an immense comprehension of human nature floods his whole being.

#34675

BN – X – K1

"Loving your neighbour as yourself" needs a careful interpretation. The verb "to love" holds widely different meanings for different people. It does not mean that he will feel very much more affectionate to everyone he meets, no matter who it be, than he formerly was. Its fundamental meaning is that one will so identify himself with another person, thing, or idea as to feel emotionally one with it and selflessly surrendered to it. This has little to do with his liking or disliking the object of his love. They affect the conditions under which his love operates, for liking makes the operation easier and disliking harder, but its essential attribute is self-identification with the beloved and selfless response to it. Loving starts and ends with giving up the ego to another.

#34676

BN – ZZ – K1

Compassion is the highest moral value, the noblest human feeling, the purest creature-love. It is the final social expression of man's divine soul. For he is able to feel with and for another man only because both are in reality related in harmony by the presence of that soul in each one.

Emotions and Ethics > Re-Educate Feelings > Love, compassion

#34677D – 5.6.2.131

BA11 – ZZ – DEMK1

He who can detach himself from emotion even while he continues to feel it, becomes its true master.

#34678

BN – X – K1

It is not that he is asked to rise above all emotions to attain the serenity and blessedness of such a life; it is rather that he is asked to rise above the lower emotions. For it is indispensable to cherish the higher ones. Indeed, it is in the complete overturn of his seat of feeling that the passage from earthly to spiritual life will most show itself. Without it, with a merely intellectual overturn alone, the Overself can never be realized.

#34679

BN – ZZ – K1

He will rise above personal emotion into perfect serenity rather than fall below it into dull apathy.

#34680

BN – Z – K1

Those who talk of liberating themselves from the moral repression of conventional society are right in some cases but wrong in most. For they chiefly mean that they want to be free to follow sensual desires without imposing any self-discipline. They do not see that to overcome those desires is the true self-liberation.

#34681

BN – Z – K1

The obligation is laid upon him to respond to the Overself's demand that he shall make an endeavour to rise above the animal level of his being. And this cannot be done upon a basis of mere emotion alone. It calls for an exercise of the higher will. He has indeed to engage in a holy war.

#34682 – 1.6.0.53

BN – Z – DEK1

Refinement of the way one lives, thinks, speaks, and acts is not only a positive value but in its indirect result actually contributes to the spiritual quest. Those who decry it as a mere superficiality confuse the imitated action with the real one.

#34683 – 1.6.0.54

BN – Z – DEK1

A high degree of refinement in morals, manners, and mind shows not merely human quality but also spiritual sensitivity.

#34684 – 1.6.0.55

BN – Z – DK1

In practising this large forbearance towards others, we need not allow them to practise imposition towards us. We should consider the circumstances and decide by wisdom how far it is wise to go and at what point to stop; in short, we should use discrimination.

#34685

BN – ZZZ – K1

His goodness, forgiveness, and comprehension should go out to those who seem to have misjudged him. What they feel about him seems to them to be the truth about him. It is the best they know—why blame them if appearances deceive them? If he continues to send them such kind thoughts, he actually lifts himself out of his own ego, he vanquishes his own egoism.

#34686

B_13 – ZZZ – K1

If some people regard him as a peculiar character and others as an eccentric individual, that will only be because he has failed to disguise his philosophic interests sufficiently in an unphilosophic world.

#34687

BN – ZZZ – K1

The idea that perfectly harmonious human relations can be established between human beings still dominated by egoism is a delusional one. Even where it seems to have been established, the true situation has been covered by romantic myth.

#34688

BN – ZZZ – K1

If what is right for the masses, with their limited standards, is not right for the disciple, with his loftier ones, then the reverse is also true. The code which he must apply to life is well beyond the understanding and reach of the masses. To attempt to impose it on them is to create moral or social confusion and to unbalance their minds.

#34690

BN – ZZ – K1

A training in logic may guard us against transgressing the rules of right thinking but it cannot guard us against ignorance.

#34691

BN – X – K1

Right thinking is not only an intellectual quality; it is almost a moral virtue.

#34692

BN – Z – K1

Intelligence is inspired intellectuality. It yields well-reasoned and divinely prompted ideas.

#34693

BN – Z – K1

Shallow thought, superficial reasoning, is the means to bondage, but hard thinking, deep reasoning, is the means to freedom.

#34694

BN – ZZ – K1

"Thinking," said Hegel (when his landlady worried about his absence from church service), "is also Divine Service."

#34695

BN – Z – K1

In this little head we must first conquer the larger world. From this obscure corner we may master life.

#34696

BN – X – K1

The philosophical aspirant turns these intellectual studies into acts of devotion.

#34697

BN – X – K1

It is fallacious to believe that clear and precise intellectual expression is inimical to, and hence unable to accompany, inspired and flashing mystical experience. It is true that many mystics have been intellectually hindered and limited and that this simplicity made their ascent easier. But it is not true that such a one-sided development will be the end of man's story. It is the whole of life which has to be experienced, and which the universal laws force everyone to experience in the end. The growth of intelligence—of which intellect is a limited but necessary part—can only be put aside or avoided for a time, not for all time.

#34698

BN – X – K1

There is nothing new in this requirement of philosophy. It has been voiced since antiquity by some of those who gave out publicly what they could or would from their philosophic initiation. Socrates spoke of the "incoherent notions" which filled human minds and which had to be cleared away before diviner ones could replace them. So he called for adequate statement of the definitions of general and abstract terms. Confucius, who was always the practical man rather than the pedant, said nevertheless: "It is most necessary to rectify names of things. If names are not correct, language will not be in accordance with the truth of things; if language is not in accordance with the truth of things, administration will not be successful." The untiring search for clearer meanings and more articulate definitions should not be confused with mere academic purism. It makes use of verbal precision only as a means of achieving truthful valuation.

#34699

A241129 – Z – K1

The analytical study of certain metaphysical conceptions such as God, the soul, and the ego, is necessary.

#34700 – 1.7.0.24

BN – Z – DK1

Unless he brings into his metaphysical studies a passionate appreciation of ultimate values and a profound feeling of reverence, they will not bear either a sound or a full fruit. In short, his thinking must be given a rich emotional, ethical, and intuitional content.

#34701

BN – Z – K1

The metaphysics of truth must not only be rightly grasped but also reverently grasped.

#34704

BN – Z – K1

If the ego is to perpetuate itself it must enter into all the mind's activities, not merely in the baser ones. This is exactly what does happen. The spiritual aspirations, the moral ideals, and even the mystical experiences are themselves inverted projections of the ego. Through them the "I" is able to expand itself into an "I" greater, grander, happier, and stronger than before. If they are not its own creations, providing shelter or disguise for it, then they are soon infiltrated and betrayed, undermined or permeated, until they feed and nourish the very self they were supposed to lead away from.

#34705

BN – Z – K1

Nothing that his own will can do brings about this displacement of the ego. The divine will must do it for him.

#34706

BN – X – K1

As the snake is never killed by its own poison, the Overself has never been deceived by this image-making power of its own ego, although the ego itself almost continually is.

#34707

BN – X – K1

The Sufis talk of an experience which they call annihilation ('fana' in Persian), meaning annihilation of the personal self. There is no doubt that in the Sufi mystic experience this is what is felt to happen, but if this really happened utterly and completely, would not the characteristics of the person disappear? We find that this disappearance does not in fact take place; the characteristics continue. What then has really happened, for it must have been a tremendous happening to have been likened to annihilation or death? The secret is that what took place was a change in the attitude towards the personal self. The personal self remained, but the attitude towards it was changed. The tyranny of the ego vanished, which is not the same thing as saying that the ego itself has vanished.

#34708

BN – Z – K1

The ego is not really killed—how without body and intellect, emotion and will, could anyone act in this world?—but the centre of being is moved out of it to the Overself.

#34709 – 1.8.0.20

BN – Z – DM1

Most aspirants will submit themselves to all sorts of disciplines for the body, the passions, and the mind but they will not submit to the one discipline that really matters. They cling to their precious ego like barnacles to a ship and will let everything else go except that.

#34710 – 1.8.0.30

BN – ZZ – DEK1

This is effected by voluntarily and deliberately regarding his person as the earth which is occupied with these space-time movements and the hidden observer as the sun which remains stationary all the while. This is the higher individuality which he shall always preserve whereas he will preserve the personality only intermittently. Thus the "I" is not excluded in the end but reinterpreted in a manner which completely transforms it. When a man has advanced to this Witness's standpoint, he understands the difference between the descriptive phrase, "I am the great Caesar" and the terse statement "I am."

#34711

BN – X – K1

When he begins to see that passion is something which arises within him and with which he involuntarily associates his whole selfhood, he begins to see that the metaphysical study of "I" and the mystical discipline of thought can help greatly to free him from it.

#34712

BN – X – K1

The ego turns ceaselessly around itself.

#34713

BN – X – K1

What a ridiculous psychological spectacle it is to see the ego preening itself at its spirituality!

#34714

BN – Z – K1

The ego is hard at work all the time—either blatantly and obviously or secretly and insidiously.

#34715

BN – ZZ – K1

The ego does not rule men through their animalistic and materialistic desires only. It takes charge, and actively manages, their spiritual aspirations also!

#34716 – 1.8.0.60

BN – Z – DK1

He must learn to face the startling fact that the human ego carries itself even into his loftiest aspirations for the Divine. Even there, in that rarefied atmosphere, it is seeking for itself, for what it wants, and always for its own preservation. This is merely to enlarge the area of the ego’s operations and not, to use Aurobindo’s word, to divinize it.

#34717 – 1.8.0.61

BN – Z – DK1

The ego worships no other God than itself.

#34718 – 1.8.0.64

BN – Z – DK1

All humans pass through the portals of death but which of them pass through it knowingly, consciously, and calmly?

#34719

BN – Z – K1

We think that birth is the beginning and death the end of all for us. Theologians and metaphysicians have argued and disputed over this as far back as the memory of human being can go, so who are we to say "yea" or "nay" to them? But when the noise and din of their jarring voices fade into the distance, when the quieter hours of evening wrap us around, fold upon fold, then it is that a strange and sublime sense steals upon us, if we will but permit its coming, and says: "my child, what they think and what they say does not really matter. I am by your side, and I shall never fail you. Smile at death if you wish or fear it—but I am with you always."

#34720 – 1.9.0.5

B_01 – ZZZ – DK1

What better death than to be drawn into the divine being, lost in its peace and radiance! What more miserable than to be wrenched away from earthly attachments while trying to clutch them!

#34721

BN – Z – K1

Our habitual trend of thinking on earth will necessarily be the habitual trend of thinking with which we shall start spirit-life although we shall not end that life with it.

#34722 – 1.9.0.10

BN – X – DK1

If you want to know where you will go after you are dead, I shall tell you for I have been there. You go nowhere, no place. As awareness of this earth and the earthly body fade away, soon after dying, you will simply enter the condition of awareness to which your character entitles you.

#34723 – 1.9.0.11

BSG_4 – ZZ – DK1

It is said death levels all. This is true only on the visible side of it, for on the other side each goes to his own state of consciousness—what he has fitted himself for. Untied from the body, he enters the atmosphere to which he belongs.

#34724 – 1.9.0.12

BN – ZZZ – K1

One must develop wisdom and self-control in this life, for if he does not, he may suffer after death. He may be full of animal appetites but have no body with which to satisfy them. Wisdom and discipline will enable him to find a relatively easy adjustment.

#34725

BN – Z – K1

The human mind is compelled by its own particular characteristics to create a picture of the outside world in a certain way and in no other way. The kind of world it experiences follows naturally from the kind of perceptions it exercises. Many different planes of existence would therefore be open to it were these characteristics to be altered abruptly in many different ways. We may be—indeed we are—living alongside of millions of other human minds of whom we are totally unaware merely because they do not come within the present restricted range of our perceptions. Life after death in another world is not merely a theological possibility but a scientific probability and a philosophic actuality.

#34726

BN – Z – K1

Death is the entrance to a new kind of being, a renewed form of life, another period in which old experience is assimilated and the next phase (reincarnation) prepared for.

#34727 – 1.9.0.15

BA11 – ZZZ – DK1

The first experience of death is not the last, for it is followed, after the due interval of appropriate experience in another condition of being, by a second death.

#34728

BN – X – K1

We need not always deplore the fact that we have to die. As Goethe remarked, "Nature is bound to give me another form of existence when the present one can no longer sustain my spirit." What we should deplore is dying without having known these best moments of living, these glimpses of the Overself.

#34729

BN – ZZ – K1

For those who have made sufficient progress with the Quest, death is not a frightening experience. Once the exit from the body has been made, the rest is pleasant and peaceful.

#34730 – 1.9.0.19

BA11 – ZZ – DK1

The man who has lived quite selfishly and without care for the rights of others will suffer from strange visions in the after-death state. Those whom he has seriously wronged will appear before him repeatedly, reproaching him in some cases or denouncing him in others. This will continue until it becomes a kind of ghost-haunted torment, at first fatiguing him and later wearing him out to such an extent that he will fall into a sickly, wretched, fear-ridden state. At the lowest point of his misery, some other discarnate being will be sent to help him, to lead him to recognize his sinfulness and persuade him to repent. This entity may be a loving relative, an advanced mystic out of the body temporarily in sleep, or the man's own guardian angel. When this change of heart is effected, when the man confesses, repents, and resolves to mend his character, his persecution will stop.

#34731

BN – Z – K1

Heredity can answer for a man's face and form and nervous type but it cannot answer for his genius. Here it is necessary to bring in something quite different—the development of his talent through repeated earth lives.

#34733 – 1.9.0.22

UR_5 – ZZZ – DK1

There is no need for anyone to seek to know what his previous incarnations were. If the memories should come, they represent something abnormal. Nature does not desire that we should be hampered in the present by the memory of the past, when the past itself stretches away for such a long time. You need not trouble yourself therefore about previous incarnations, but concentrate fully on your present one so as to make it as worthy as you can.

#34734 – 1.9.0.23

BN – ZZZ – DK1

We travel from one body to another, with suitable and necessary rest-periods in between them.

#34735E – 1.9.0.26

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DEK

We travel from one body to another, with suitable and necessary rest-periods in between them. From each we gather experiences; in each we learn and unlearn, sin and suffer, act aright and benefit. In the end, amid advance and relapse, there is the fullness and satisfaction of ripened manhood, cleaned, leaving behind more animality.

#34735 – 1.9.0.26

BA11 – ZZZ – DEK1

If the teaching of rebirths is false then the justice of God is false too. There is no other way in which tragic situations of human life can be equitably adjusted or reasonably explained in the human mind.

#34736

BN – ZZZ – K1

Each reincarnation unfolds its story largely prewritten though it may be and is weighted by the unseen past. Yet some fresh possibilities come with it also through the introduction of fresh environments, scenes, acts, and happenings.

#34737

BN – ZZ – K1

We return to birth so long as the ego is still our master and we tenant a form that is good or bad, whole or maimed, healthy or sick, in conformity with our just deserts under the law of Recompense.

#34738

BN – ZZ – K1

The ego's desires, habits, and ways of thought have been established through many earth lives.

#34740 – 1.9.0.32

BN – ZZ – DK1

The personal development and mental discoveries which have been made in past incarnations do not have to be repeated afresh in the same way with each new one. What happens however is a swift recapitulation or distillation of the whole historic previous experience during the first half of the new incarnation.

#34741 – 1.9.0.35

BN – ZZZ – K1

The tendencies brought over from earlier births determine his character and conduct but the impact of his present surroundings upon his personality, the influence of his latest race, religion, education, and class upon his psyche, the suggestions absorbed from this historical period, newspaper reading, and artistic culture modify or colour both.

#34742

BN – ZZZ – K1

The unity between our character and our destiny is inseparable; the connection between our way of thinking and the course of events is unerring.

#34743 – 1.9.0.38

BN – ZZZ – DK1

There are cosmic compulsions which none escape and which permeate human destiny, for they are part of the World-Idea.

#34744

BN – Z – K1

Those who are unaware of the penalties they incur by misuse of the power to think and the will to act are in urgent need of the teaching of karma.

#34745 – 1.9.0.44

BN – ZZ – DK1

Fate is what an outside will imposes upon us, irrespective of our merits or demerits. Karma is what unconsciously our own will has imposed upon us through the come-back of our actions.

#34746

BN – ZZ – K1

The Law of Karma makes each man responsible for his own life. The materialists who deny karma and place all the blame and burden upon the shoulders of environment and heredity deny responsibility. They begin and end with an illusion.

#34747 – 1.9.0.47

BSG_5 – ZZZ – DK1

If he accepts this tenet of karma coupled with rebirth, then his awakening to a sense of responsibility for his life and the course it takes should lead in turn to a feeling of the need for self-discipline.

#34748 – 1.9.0.52

B_01 – Z – DK1

If philosophy accepted the doctrine of complete fatalism, it could hold out no hope to mankind. If it said that every event in the history of the world was predestined from the very beginning; that each event in a man's life was preordained from before his birth; that no thought, no word, and no deed could have been avoided, then its mystical teaching would have been unnecessary, its metaphysical teaching would have been falsified, and its moral teaching would have been in vain. But philosophy has never been shipwrecked upon the rocks of such foolish fatalism. It says that what happens inside you is intimately connected with what happens outside you, that thought, feeling, will, intuition, or character makes its secret contributions towards the events of your life, and that to the extent to which you begin to control yourself, you will begin to control your personal welfare.

#34749

BN – ZZ – K1

If we look at men in the mass, we must believe in the doctrine of fatalism. It applies to them. They are compelled by their environments, they struggle like animals to survive precisely because they are not too far removed from the animal kingdom which was the field of their previous reincarnational activity. They react like automatons under a dead weight of karma, move like puppets out of the blind universal instincts of nature. But this is not the end of the story. It is indeed only its beginning. For here and there a man emerges from the herd who is becoming an individual, creatively making himself into a fully human being. For him each day is a fresh experience, each experience is unique, each tomorrow no longer the completely inevitable and quite foreseeable inheritance of all its yesterdays. From being enslaved by animality and fatality, he is becoming free in full humanity and creativity.

From Birth to Rebirth > Laws and Patterns of Experience > Defining karma, fate, and destiny

#34750E – 6.9.3.112

BN – ZZ – DEK

Karma compels us so long as we do not anticipate the direction of its course by intelligence, nor endeavour to divert its flow by self-determination.

#34751

BN – X – K1

"Where there is no choice, where circumstances make the decision, one must bow one's head to them. Fatalism is acceptable only in the sense of recognizing what is inevitable and what is not. But fatalism is unacceptable as a blind, unquestioning, helpless submission to every happening."

#34753

BN – ZZ – K1

The theoretical basis of this teaching about the physical manifestation of mental sickness lies in mentalism. The practical basis lies in observation and experience.

#34754

BN – Z – K1

A great rage or an overwhelming fear affects the heartbeat until it slows down or quickens dangerously. A sudden tremendous fright can cause syncope, even death. Such is the known power of emotion over functions of the body's organs. When living habits are reformed and brought to conform to the requirements of hygienic laws so that the patient stops doing those things which gave his disease the requisite conditions for it to take hold, and when the different systems of physical therapy are applied as required without prejudice against or favouritism for any particular one, and when this is combined with faith in the spiritual healing power invoked by a practitioner or by the patient himself, the chances of a cure are raised to the highest.

#34755

BN – Z – K1

It is more prudent and more conducive to a successful result if he is prepared to make necessary changes of thought and feeling and character. The greater the healing asked for, the greater the sacrifice he may in turn be asked to make. When, for instance Jesus asked the distressed sufferers to believe, they were not being asked to believe merely superficially, but rather so deeply that they would at least try to make the changes called for. Having contributed so much to the disease, they ought to contribute something to the cure.

#34756

BN – X – K1

An informed friend asked me to warn against egoistic healing; it is dangerous for people still in the ego to heal others, and safe only in self-healing.

#34757

BN – X – K1

Psychoanalysis is primarily a search for what is wrong with man; philosophic analysis is a search for what is right with him. Psychoanalysis seeks to correct the false self; philosophy to reveal the true one that is underneath it. Psychoanalysis probes the dead past of childhood; philosophy the living present of maturity.

#34759

BN – ZZ – K1

Humbled by feelings of personal littleness and moral unworthiness, he is awed by this discovery that he has become a channel though which a power that is not his own, and is indeed beyond his own, flows out for the helping and healing of other men.

#34760

BN – Z – K1

It is a great error for an ordinary person to sit down when confronted by practical problems and say, "God will take care of this for me." God may do so but it is just as likely that God will not do so. John Burroughs wrote the lines, "I sit serene, with folded hands and wait, My own, my own, shall come to me," as also found in the sayings of Lao Tzu: "He who takes a back seat shall be first. He who hides his own greatness shall be put in front," etc. These assertions are perfectly true—but only of the Adept. For him, he need only sit still and all things come to him; but for the others—the unrealized, the materialistic—they must strive, struggle, and suffer for everything they need.

#34761

BN – X – K1

Why does God allow the evil and suffering when the same result of spiritual advantage could be got in other ways? There are some questions to which there are no answers because God alone can answer them, and this is one. We can however find what human intuition, human mystical revelation, has to say about these things and accept such contributions at their own value.

#34762

B_17 – ZZ – K1

The dark and destructive forces show themselves in Nature and life. To leave them out, unaccounted for and ignored, is to leave a weak place in oneself.

#34763

BN – X – K1

You must plant your feet firmly on one definite purpose. Opposition will whirl around you, but hold on. Perverted Man is full of prejudice, and ninety-nine out of every one hundred you meet will unconsciously or consciously attempt to deflect you from your divine purpose.

#34764

BA12 – ZZZ – K1

Until such time as each member of a community, nation, or society practises sufficient self-control to bring about his own inner peace, it is illusory to expect outer peace in the world. This is why history is a record of conflict.

#34765

BN – ZZ – K1

The malign powers of evil in the world, which have been so widely spread, so active and so violent in our own generation, are not to be ignored by dreaming optimism.

#34766

BN – ZZ – K1

The world's evil and untruth are plainly there. The saint may not want to see them, because he does not want to think badly about other people; but the philosopher must distinguish them and harms no one by doing so, because he sees the Good and the True behind everything at the same time.

#34767

BN – ZZ – K1

The nihilistic nature of Existentialism is shown by its founder, Sartre, holding the opinion, according to Simone de Beauvoir, that if there was nothing to attack and destroy, the writing of books would not be worthwhile.

#34768

BN – X – K1

The Existentialists have given pessimism and nihilism a morbid prestige.

#34769

BN – X – K1

Throw out negative thoughts as they would hinder the uplift of your mind. Replace them by frequent and positive remembrance of the Overself.

#34770 – 1.11.0.38

BN – ZZ – DK1

What we see around us in the world today—poison in the air, water, soil, food, even in the stratosphere, and destroying the human body through disease—is but a reflected crystallization of poison in the human mind and heart. If the invisible evil were not present, the visible one would not have come into existence. Even those whose faith can not stretch so far, can trace the direct lines of connection by the use of reason alone.

#34771

BN – Z – K1

The evil forces working through mediums are cunning enough not to show their true ultimate aims all at once. These become clear to the observer only by successive stages, only gradually. Whoever has critically studied the ways of evil spirits will know that they first lure their mediumistic victims or gullible public along the path of self-injury or even self-destruction by winning their confidence with a series of successful predictions or favourable interventions. When this confidence has been well established, these dark forces then reveal their real intent by persuading their victims, through gigantic lies or false predictions, to commit a final act in which everything is staked on a single throw. The unhappy dupes invariably lose this last throw and are then overwhelmed by shattering disaster.

The Negatives > Their Presence in The World > World War II, Nazism, Fascism, Hitler

#34772ED – 7.11.3.195

B_16 – Z – K

Do not gaze overlong upon that person, that thing, that place, whose history is evil, whose nature is evil, lest you imperil yourself, or your health, or your fortunes. Better, avoid them if you can.

#34773

BN – Z – K1

This I may say that my work throughout has always been based on a firsthand knowledge of what I write about and not upon hearsay or tradition.

#34774

BN – ZZ – K1

There are times—and they are the times when, looking back, I love my profession most—when writing becomes for me not a profession at all but either a form of religious worship or a form of metaphysical enlightenment. It is then, as the pen moves along silently, that I become aware of a shining presence which calls forth all my holy reverence or pushes open the mind's doors.

Reflections > The Literary Work > A sacred vocation

#34775D

BA13 – ZZ – K1

The Writer who sometimes sits behind the writer of these lines smiling at my puny attempts to translate the Untranslatable, once bade me put away for an indefinite period the thought of any future publications. I obeyed and there was a long silence in the outer world—so long that two obituary notices were printed by newspapers! I had enough leisure to discover the faultiness of the earlier work and felt acutely that the world was better off without my lucubrations. But a day came when I felt the presence of the Presence and I received clear guidance to take the pen again.

#34776

BN – ZZ – K1

Writing, which is an exercise of the intellect to some, is an act of worship to me. I rise from my desk in the same mood as that in which I leave an hour of prayer in an old cathedral, or of meditation in a little wood.

Reflections > The Literary Work > A sacred vocation

#34777D – 8.12.5.301

BA13 – ZZ – DM1*

Much that was pertinent to the Quest was left unmentioned in the earlier books, partly through reluctance to speak of certain matters, partly through the writer's own need of further personal development to attain irrefragible conclusions about other matters. The reluctance has now been overcome and the development has been achieved.

#34778

BN – Z – K1

All the volumes that I have previously written belong to the formative stage. Only now, after thirty years of unceasing travail and fearless exploration, have I attained a satisfying fullness in my comprehension of this abstruse subject, a clear perspective of all its tangled ramifications, and a joyous new revelation from a higher source hitherto known only obscurely and distantly. All my further writings will bear the impress of this change and will show by their character how imperfect are my earlier ones. Nevertheless, on certain principal matters, what I then wrote has all along remained and still remains my settled view and indeed has been thoroughly confirmed by time. Such, for instance, are (1) the soul's real existence, (2) the necessity for and the great benefits arising from meditation, (3) the supreme value of the spiritual quest, and (4) the view that loyalty to mysticism need not entail disloyalty to reason.

Reflections > The Literary Work > Corrections, revisions, development

#34779D – 8.12.5.125

BN – ZZ – K1

It is regrettable in those early books that I over-estimated the pace of progress and brought the goal noticeably nearer than it really is.

#34780

BN – X – K1

There is no cult, organization, or group with which I associate myself or within whose limitations I would ask others to confine themselves.

#34781E

B_01 – ZZ – K

I have gathered my materials from the West as well as the East, from modern science as well as ancient metaphysics, from Christian mysticism as well as Hindu occultism. The narrowness which would set up any Indian yoga as being enough by itself is something which I reject. And there is no cult, organization, or group with which I associate myself or within whose limitations I would ask others to confine themselves.

#34781

BN – ZZ – K1

I have gathered my materials from the West as well as the East, from modern science as well as ancient metaphysics, from Christian mysticism as well as Hindu occultism. My researches were made not only amongst modern books and ancient texts and living men. They were also made in the mysterious within-ness of my own consciousness.

#34781EM

B_02 – ZZZ – K

The purpose of these pages is not to attack but to explain, to appeal, and to suggest. Their criticism is constructive and untouched by malice. It comes from a well-wisher and not from an opponent of religion: therefore it ought not to be resented.

#34782

BA13 – ZZ – K1

It demanded no less than hundreds of interviews with different teachers and hermits, thousands of miles of travel to reach them, and at least a hundred thousand pages of the most abstruse reading in the world before I could bring my course of personal study in the hidden philosophy to a final close. Today I have not got the time to take others through such a long and arduous course and they have probably not got the patience to endure it.

Reflections > Encounter With Destiny > The making of a messenger

#34783D – 8.12.3.103

BA13 – ZZ – K1

My researches were made not only amongst modern books and ancient texts and living men. They were also made in the mysterious within-ness of my own consciousness.

#34784

BA13 – ZZ – K1

The world-wide extent of my correspondence and travels; the extraordinary variety of Oriental and Occidental human contacts which has fallen to my lot; the narratives and information which have fallen from the lips of those who have sought me out for interviews and those whom I, too, have sought out for the same purpose; the knowledge which I have gleaned from ancient little-known texts and modern printed books in four continents; experiments made and observations recorded amongst mystics and devotees of the most varied types—from all these sources an immense amount of valuable mystical occult and metaphysical knowledge, theoretical and practical, has fallen into my hands. Had I known all this at the beginning of my own quest—now thirty years ago, I would have been saved much trouble, many errors and constant sufferings. However, others will profit by it for I intend to make the best fruit of my own experience available to genuine seekers.

#34785

BA13 – ZZ – K1

I am a researcher, that is my special job. Then I go on to convert the results of my researches into notes and reports, into analyses and reflections. Later I draw upon this material for my published writings.

Reflections > Encounter With Destiny > The making of a messenger

#34786D – 8.12.3.104

BA13 – Z – K1

I lay no special claim to virtue and piety which most men do not possess. But I do lay claim to indefatigable research into mystical truth, theory, and practice.

#34787

BN – Z – K1

I am only a generator of ideas, not a disseminator of them. My work is to inspire and direct others in private, that they might serve humanity spiritually in public.

#34789

BA13 – ZZZ – K1

Those who look in these pages for an exact presentation of the Oriental doctrines look in vain. Scholars, purists, and pundits had better beware of these pages. We do not write for them. For the teachings which we have drawn from the East have been used as a base upon which to build independently; but the responsibility for the superstructure rests solely with us, for it is a building intended for the Modern West. Nevertheless those who decry our writings cannot deny that they have contributed much towards the creation of a new interest in Oriental literature. They would do well also to place some of their censure upon destiny, which all along has used me as an agent at first unwitting but later clearly conscious.

#34791

BN – ZZ – K1

Not one but several minds will be needed to labour at the metaphysical foundation of the twentieth-century structure of philosophy. I can claim the merit only of being among the earliest of these pioneers. There are others yet to appear who will unquestionably do better and more valuable work.

Reflections > Philosophy and Contemporary Culture > The challenge of synthesis

#34793D – 8.12.2.187

BN – ZZ – K1

This synthesis has developed from the world-wide researches of this writer, plus the secret traditions of Oriental teachers, the personal experiences of Occidental adepts, and the needs of modern aspirants. It notes with approval the trend toward interest in yoga and mysticism, but with regret where so much of this interest is directed to antique or medieval types unsuited to those needs, which are based on professional business and occupational conditions unknown to such earlier types. Into this synthesis has gone the garnerings from great storehouses of the past, but added to them are the fresh creative findings of the present. Orient and Occident, ancient and modern, have joined together to produce this distinctive teaching. It is not enough to resuscitate the doctrines and methods of a bygone era; we must also evolve our own. And this can be done only out of firsthand experience of illumination under modern conditions.

#34795

B_02 – ZZ – K-1

I did not 'seek' to become the formulator of such a unique and priceless message to mankind. Indeed knowing myself in weakness as well as strength, I naturally shrink from seeking such an immense responsibility and would rather have helped and served a worthier man to formulate the message. This is not to say that I underrate its value, its dignity, its public prestige. But all my previous attempts to evade the task having ended in failure, I now positively and affirmatively—no longer reluctantly and hesitantly—step forward to its accomplishment. I do so moreover with tranquil joy, for I am utterly convinced in the deepest recess of my heart, no less than in the logical thinking of my brain, that the teaching is so greatly needed in our time by those who have sought in vain for comprehensive elucidation of the problem of their existence, that I feel the help it will give them constitutes the best possible use of my energies, talents, and days in this incarnation.

Reflections > Philosophy and Contemporary Culture > The need for spiritual education

#34796D – 8.12.2.60

BA13 – ZZZ – K1

Although I was already travelling the road to the self-discovery of these truths, it is true that an apparent fortuitous meeting with an extraordinary individual at Angkor saved me from some of the time and labour involved in this process. For he turned out to be an adept in the higher philosophy who had not only had a most unusual personal history but also a most unusual comprehension of the problems which were troubling me. He put me through strange initiatory experiences in a deserted temple and then, with a few brief explanations of the hidden teachings, placed the key to their solutions in my hands. But after all it was only a key to the door-chamber, and not the entire treasure itself. These I had to ferret out for myself. That is, to say, I was given the principle but had to work out the details, develop the applications, and trace out the ramifications for myself. I was provided with a foundation but had to erect the super-structure by my own efforts. And all this has been a task for many years, a task upon which I am still engaged.

#34797

BN – ZZ – K1

Henceforth the background of this teaching will be, nay must be, a universal one. It shall resist those who would label it Eastern because they will not be able to deny its Western contents, form, and spirit. It shall resist those who would label it Western, because they too shall not be able to deny its Eastern roots and contents.

#34798

BN – ZZZ – K1

Let them remember that the Truth comes not from any person but from the Holy Spirit. It is from such a source that what is worthy in my writings has come; the errors however are mine. Let them therefore describe themselves as students of philosophy, not as followers of Brunton.

Reflections > Reflections On Truth > Seeking the impersonal

#34799D – 8.12.4.38

BA13 – ZZZ – K1

I try to practise the advice I give others and to live according to the teachings I write down. This does not mean that I always succeed in doing so. But the endeavour being there, the ideas they concern have been put through some testing in action: they are not left in the air as mere untried theories. Today, through a world-wide correspondence and formerly through numerous interviews I have uncovered in addition to them the experiences of people standing in every grade of development.

#34800

BN – Z – K1

This book is but a mirror, in which I have shown the facts and events of a life devoted to the quest of Realization. Whether the conclusions it contains are to your taste or not, please deign to believe that as a record I have endeavoured to invest it with absolute verity.

#34802

BN – ZZ – K1

It is not without much reluctance that I have ventured to betray aloud the intimate experiences received in secret and solitary communion with nature. I would fain have harboured them until this body was gone, when their fate would carry no concern for me. But the bidding of my spiritual Guides was such that these words have gone out into print.

#34803

BA13 – ZZZ – K1

If this book can only make the Overself seem as real to the imagination of others as it is to me in actuality, as living a presence to their faith as it is to my meditation, it may be of some service to them. But if it fails to do so, it may still….

#34805

BN – X – K1

In this book I have considered myself to be a sensitive recording instrument, carefully and minutely registering the impressions received from these higher states of consciousness.

#34806 – 1.12.0.33

BN – ZZZ – DK1

My work is a "prophetic" message to our times, a religious revelatory work. An academic seal would put it on an intellectual and consequently lower plane.

Reflections > Encounter With Destiny > A mysterious presence

#34807D – 8.12.3.6

BA13 – ZZ – K1

If I make a first formal appearance as a teacher, it is only in deference to the mission now imposed on me and the mandate now given me.

#34808

BA13 – ZZ – K1

Have I not searched far and suffered much to prepare an easier path for you all, to cut through thick jungles a track which others could follow with less pain and less labour? Have I not gleaned sufficient knowledge at great cost to be worthy of a hearing? Have I not attained sufficient proficiency in yoga and philosophy to be worthy at least of a claim on truth-seekers' attention? Have I not toiled and over-toiled in the effort to share both the modicum of knowledge and the measure of proficiency with others to be worthy at least of their interest?

#34809

BN – ZZZ – K1

Now comes the crux of the whole matter. So far as I can follow the teachings of the ancient sages, the path which stretches before mankind appears to have four gates set at intervals along its course. The first is open to the great majority of mankind and might be named "religion, theology, and scholasticism." The second is open to a much smaller number of persons and could conveniently be named Mysticism. The third which is rarely opened (for it is heavy and hard to move) is "the philosophy of truth," whilst the final gate has been entered only by the supermen of our species; it may be titled "Realization". Few readers would care to wander with me into the wilderness whither it leads. I refuse to tarry in the limited phases of development and have gone forward in further quest of the sublime verity which is presented to us as life's goal by the sages. I value tolerance. Let others believe or follow what suits or pleases them most; I trust they will allow me the same freedom to continue my own quest.

Reflections > The Literary Work > Corrections, revisions, development

#34810D – 8.12.5.176

B_05 – ZZ – K1

It is precisely because we are entering an epoch when the common people are at last coming into their own and when the world's conscience about its duty toward the underprivileged has been tardily aroused, that I feel I am obeying a divine command when I write of sacred things in direct manner, of metaphysical themes in a plain manner, and of mystical experiences in a familiar manner. Spiritual snobs may call my treatment of these subjects, cheap, and my work, journalese, but its result—faintly indicated by the long record of help gratefully acknowledged—is their best answer.

#34811

BN – X – K1

I have written this book because in an age when the two opposed conceptions of man are throwing the world into strife and revolution and war, there is clear need for personal testimony from those who know the truth rather than those who believe in it.

#34812

BN – ZZ – K1

To attempt this book will be an adventure for the Warriors of Light, but the wanderers of night will put it down with much celerity. For these pages are enchanted with a white magic which can inflict no greater injury on adversaries than to permit them to resist the principles contained therein.

Reflections > The Literary Work > For kindred souls

#34813D – 8.12.5.6

BN – X – K1

To the outside observer, my declining years have been dead ones, apparently spent in inactivity and futility. But this is only one side of the picture. For they have also been spent in a hidden activity on a higher plane, as much for my own spiritual growth as for the world's peace.

Reflections > The Literary Work > The contribution of silence

#34814D – 8.12.5.351

BA13 – ZZ – K1

I have attempted to think out anew, and on the basis of my own experience and not that of men who lived five thousand years ago, what should be the attitude of a normal modern man toward life. Such blessed independence may be scorned by some, but it is a birthright which I jealously guard.

#34815

BN – Z – K1

I believe that there is a soul in man. This is a frank if commonplace avowal. Yet as I look again at these words, I find a false modesty in them. It is a poor tribute to truth to hesitate timidly in making the open declaration that I 'know' there is a soul because I daily commune with it as a real, living presence.

Reflections > Encounter With Destiny > Inside mystical experience

#34816D – 8.12.3.36

BN – Z – DEM1

Life remains what it is—deathless and unbound. We shall all meet again. Know what you are, and be free. The best counsel today is, keep calm, aware. Don't let the pressure of mental environment break into what you know and what is real and ultimately true. This is your magic talisman to safeguard you; cling to it. The last word is—Patience! The night is darkest before dawn. But dawn comes.

#34817 – 1.12.0.44

BA12 – ZZZ – DK1

I prefer anonymity for my work but fate has ignored my preference.

#34818

BA13 – ZZ – K1

I cannot reiterate enough that the fortunes, events, and experiences of human existence are controlled by higher laws, that there is meaning and purpose in them, and that it is the business of human intelligence to seek out and learn the reasons for them.

#34819

BN – ZZZ – K1

I am not one of those who deplore the modern way of life, who regret its increasing Americanization because of its emphasis on mechanical gadgets and conveniences. These things are good. But I do deplore the lack of a sense of proportion in pursuing these things, the lack of measure when these constitute the sole purpose of living.

#34820

BN – ZZ – K1

There is only room in your mind for a single thought at a time. Take care, then, that it be a positive one.

#34821 – 1.13.0.10

BN – ZZ – DK1

Should anyone lazily, passively, quietly, and cowardly accept things as they are? Or should he challenge them, rebel against them and criticize them irreverently, even scornfully? Are they correct, those saints who declare—or even Stoic thinkers like Seneca who accept—all suffering and pain not only as God's will for us but also as our own will? Seneca says, "Take all things as if desired and asked for." (He referred to tribulations.) But 'philosophy' teaches that if you accept life do not accept blindly. Seek the lesson, the instruction, the education, and karmic reason and cause behind it. Add knowledge to your faith.

#34822

B_17 – ZZ – K1

Out of suffering may come the transmutation of values, even the transfiguration of character. But these developments are possible only if the man co-operates. If he does not, then the suffering is in vain, fruitless.

#34823 – 1.13.0.13

B_17 – Z – DK1

When a human being is crushed to the ground, when his ego is deflated and he calls out in sheer desperation for guidance or for help, the answer may not come to him in the form that he wants or expects; it may come in the form of clues and hints at best, of suggestions. It is for him then to patiently take them up and follow them to where they lead. The suffering which has come to him is not meaningless. There is a sublime rationality behind it, even if it is only the specific effect of a cause which he set going in previous incarnations.

#34824

B_01 – ZZZ – K1

It is pardonable to wish a change of situation when it is grievous but it is better to enquire first what message the situation holds for us. Otherwise we may be attempting to elude the Overself's directive and thereby incurring the danger of an even greater disaster.

#34825

BN – ZZZ – K1

The kind of experience which man most dislikes to have is the very kind which forces him to seek out its cause, and thus begin unwittingly the search for life's meaning. The disappointments in his emotional life, the sufferings in his physical body, and the misfortunes in his personal fate ought to teach him to discriminate more carefully, to examine more deeply, and in the end to feel more sympathy with the sorrowing.

#34826

B_17 – ZZ – K1

The failures which everyone has left behind him—whether in career, relationship, or the quest itself—do not necessarily represent wasted effort. From each of them he can salvage the tuition for a fresh start, the caution for a wiser one, and more knowledge of himself.

#34827 – 1.13.0.22

BN – Z – DK1

Beware of your thoughts, for when long sustained and strongly felt, they may be reflected in external situations or embodied in other humans brought into your life. But they cannot, of themselves and devoid of physical acts, make the whole pattern of your life—only the adept can do that. For other factors are also contributing, such as the will of God—that is, evolutionary necessity, or the World-Idea.

#34828D

BN – X – K1

The experiences of life, ennobling some people but degrading others, can in the end affect our thoughts, desires, and feelings only as we let them. It is for us to say whether they shall call forth our divinity or our brutality. Our attitude of mind helps to determine our experience of the world.

#34829

BN – Z – K1

What happens to a man is important, but not quite so important as what he makes of it.

#34830 – 1.13.0.29

BN – Z – DK1

We shall not indulge the vain hope of guiding all humanity out of the chaos in which it now finds itself, for humanity will refuse to follow the light which is itself guiding us. Deluded by its lower nature, blinded by its hollow traditions and hypocritical conventions, indifferent to the still small voice of truth merely because the voice of untruth blares more impressively through the thousand loudspeakers of vested interests, the human race will continue to flounder confusedly and to suffer needlessly. But here and there are individuals who will nevertheless welcome the light we bring. For their sake we must patiently hold the torch aloft.

#34831

BN – ZZZ – K1

If industrial civilization has enriched our outer life it has also impoverished the inner life. It need not have done so if we had brought about a proper equilibrium between the two and if we had done so under the light of the guiding principle of what we are here on earth for. > >The composer of music or poetry, the thinker or sculptor who brings into the outer world what he has felt, glimpsed, thought in his own inner world, experiences a certain kind of satisfaction by that very act. The craftsman or the artisan who is able to make something by his own handiwork shares a measure of this satisfaction too. But the mass of workers packed away into a factory and occupied solely with machinery repeating the same movements dozens and dozens of times can hardly hope to get even an inkling of this satisfaction. If such monotonous work is essential, then let it be performed at intervals and let there be a rhythm of recuperation where the workers can return to themselves.

Human Experience > Living in The World > Status of the herd

#34832DP – 9.13.2.140

BN – ZZ – DEK1

Those whose good fortune has given them enough to satisfy many desires ought not wait for old age to see how these satisfactions were passing and uncertain. They ought to do the heroic thing and detach themselves from the desire while there is still vigour in their feeling and their will.

Human Experience > Youth and Age > Reflections in old age

#34833D – 9.13.3.124

BN – Z – K1

Young immature people lack balance, knowledge, experience, and responsibility so that they are more easily rushed into courses of action dictated by frantic passion or frenzied emotion. But if they live long enough, life itself will impose its own disciplines upon them and compel them to accept adult responsibility and make the necessary growth which goes with it. Otherwise they may come to write their lives off as failures in the real sense, which includes the visible results in the world and the invisible moral and mental consequences in themselves. Until the balance within themselves is got right, they are liable to make decisions and commit actions which will later be regretted.

#34834

BN – X – K1

I am in much sympathy with rebellions against much academic education, with protests against its dryness, its narrow limitations, its rigidities, its stuffiness, and its pedantic quibbling. But unless these protests and rebellions are led by older persons with enough experience, maturity, judgement, and balance, they fall into the hands of communists, na\i\rve liberals, and other politically minded destructive forces.

#34835

BN – Z – K1

I was critical of the sadhus in India on certain points—never mind what they were. The differences got aired in several Indian newspapers at the time rather sensationally, and with much miscomprehension—even malice. But I also admired them on other points, some of which I find present today among those young drop-outs who have a religious turn of mind. They are in rebellion against a materialistic society and refuse to join it. They remind us that Jesus was a drop-out too. They try to live by working on self, supporting themselves co-operatively and not competitively, without ambitions, without insurance, with only a few possessions—by sincerity and not by appearance.

#34836

B_12 – Z – K1

Where the physical body is cherished as the sole reality and made the sole basis for social and political reform, where hate-driven men advocate physical violence as the sole means of effecting progress, be sure of the presence of evil forces, dangers to society, ignorant opponents of truth, and enemies of the Light.

The Negatives > Their Presence in The World > Totalitarianism, Communism

#34837D – 7.11.3.119

B_16 – Z – K1

Of what use is an education if it does not teach the young how to use their minds so as to promote their own welfare, instead of their own harm? All ought to be made aware of the value and need of emotional and thought control, of discriminating between destructive or negative thoughts and constructive or positive ones.

#34838

BN – Z – K1

It is his choice whether to accept the trammels of family life or the freedom of celibate life. Both conditions have their advantages and disadvantages, their compensations and difficulties. Each is a valid form of experience. But because most scriptures of most religions have been written by monks, their own status has been favoured and set higher. But it must be repeated: there is no one way which is the only way.

#34839

BN – Z – K1

In one of his essays, Bacon delivers himself of the thought that the man who marries gives a hostage to fortune. This is so but it is part of the picture of the pairs of opposites which is universal throughout the world and inseparable from human existence. It is yin and yang—the duality of all manifested life. However there is an aspect of this topic which he might have included and that is that in marrying the man takes on another person's burdens in addition to his own. Yet this is equally true of all other forms of personal association with other human beings—of the hiring of assistants and the joining of an organization, of the making of friends and enjoyment of social contacts, of the working in a profession or the maintaining of a business. In all these activities a man takes on either a little or a large share of the problems of others.

#34840

BN – Z – K1

What Buddha taught about the transient, the changing, the elusive character of all human joy is plainly true: he went further and declared it unsatisfactory because of these reasons. Still further and on the same grounds, he rejected the attractions of the Beautiful Form. We are not to be ensnared by these perfections of form, that shapeliness of figure, that stateliness of architecture, and those symmetries of pattern such as engaged the ancient Greek artist. But the philosopher who cannot accept this further attitude is entitled to ask, "So long as we do not permit ourselves to be deceived into regarding them as the ultimate happiness, so long as we acknowledge their relativity and brevity, so what if they do pass, if they have their day? Why not enjoy them to the utmost while they are there? Why refuse an exquisite sight or an enchanting sound if, apart from the pleasure it affords, it might even be used as a stepping-stone to spiritual uplift?"

#34841

BN – ZZ – K1

Art fulfils its highest purpose, acquires more valuable significance, when it becomes a vehicle for spiritual beauty.

#34842

BN – Z – K1

The writer or artist or musician who is to stir up the intuitions in your mind must be the human receptacle of divine inspiration.

#34843

BN – Z – K1

It is a fact that beautiful surroundings create an atmosphere, benefit the emotional-mental state, and rest or stimulate a man according to their nature.

#34844

BN – X – K1

Whether it be a piece of glued furniture or a constructed building, a piece of written prose or a flying machine, it should serve not the functional alone nor the beautiful alone, but a blend of both together.

#34845

BN – X – K1

This is creative stillness; it is also magical, for it brings about the merging of yin and yang.

#34846

A240901 – Z – K1

The artist who is infatuated with himself uses his production to flatter and hence strengthen his ego.

#34847

BN – Z – K1

An artistic production that is really inspired must give joy to its creator at the time of creation equally as to its possessor, hearer, or beholder. If it does not, then it is not inspired.

The Arts in Culture > Creativity, Genius > Creativity

#34848D – 9.14.2.25

BN – ZZ – K1

Method and technique are necessary in themselves but incomplete; inspiration and intuition should shine behind them.

#34849

BN – ZZ – K1

Although technical equipment is not all there is to the practice of art, it must be mastered. Without it, inspiration suffers from a faulty or deficient medium.

The Arts in Culture > Creativity, Genius > Genius, inspiration, technique

#34850D – 9.14.2.81

BN – ZZ – K1

Music can express the mystical experience better than language; it can tell of its mystery, joy, sadness, and peace far better than words can utter. The fatigued intellect finds a tonic and the harassed emotions find comfort in music.

The Arts in Culture > Reflections On Specific Arts > Music

#34851D – 9.14.4.301

B_09 – ZZZ – DK1

Those Westerners who try to ape Indians—and not only Indians, but the ancient Indians at that—by adopting their dress, clothes, beliefs, and general way of life are putting themselves in a somewhat ridiculous position, if not a false one. We may give admiration and sympathy to Indian ideas and ideals up to a certain point, but we need not do it by throwing away completely all our Western heritage, which also has its substantial value. We need not let them prevent us from giving an adequate appreciation to the offerings of our own culture.

#34852

BN – X – K1

No one need find himself faced with the choice between Orient and Occident in his search for truth. It is a false choice—the real one is within himself.

#34853

BN – ZZ – K1

We hear of lamas in Tibet who immure themselves in sealed rooms, with but a small hole in the wall to receive their morsel of food, so that in total darkness and in total inactivity they may better concentrate all their attention on their inner practices. We hear of monks in the Zendo halls of Japan who sit half round the clock while holding the mind persistently to their meditations. We hear of yogis in India who forsake wife and home, position and possessions, and withdraw to forest, cave, or ashram. We shrink with terror from such hard exercises and abnegations. How puny seems our own effort by contrast, how paltry our own self-denial!

#34854

BN – X – K1

In the Musée Guimet in Paris, we may see a couple of ancient statuettes that perfectly portray Buddha's wonderful half-smile of happy deliverance from this world of ignorance, illusion, error, sin, and suffering.

#34855

BN – Z – K1

Those Indian religions which preach futility and enjoin renunciation are as much a product of their tropical enervating climate as the malarias and fevers and choleras which beset Indian bodies.

#34856

BN – X – K1

Why did Buddha not wait even a week after his enlightenment near Benares before going out to preach among the people? Why did he keep up this spreading of his message so incessantly for the remaining forty-five years of his life? Contrast this with the many Hindu sages and mystics, from his own time till this day, who sit and wait for would-be disciples to approach them. The answer lies only partly in the special mission and power with which he was invested by the World Mind.

The Orient > India Part 1 > Buddha, Buddhism

#34857D – 10.15.2.301

BN – Z – K1

It was our own widening experience and personal disillusionments that forced us to examine not only the profits of yoga and the successes of its followers, but also the deficiencies of yoga and the failures of its followers. Thus in this reconsideration there developed an attempt at a more scientific approach to the subject. And such were the practical observations which arose out of these experiences and out of the analysis of these failures, that they compelled us and must one day compel other seekers also to look for a corrective for the maladies which have affected the body of mysticism, as well as to discover a purgative for the primitive errors which have secured lodgement under its name.

#34859

BN – ZZ – K1

Revelations come from the Overself; messages are transmitted to us and they are true enough in their beginning. But personal desires seize on them instantly, change and fashion them to suit the ego.

#34860

BN – ZZZ – K1

We should distinguish the theories and doctrines woven round the mystic's experience from the significant features of the experience itself. And those features are: the awareness of another and deeper life, a sacred presence within the heart, the certitude of having found the Real, the gladness and freshness which follow the sense of this discovery.

The Sensitives > The Sensitives > The Sensitives

#34861D – 11.16.0.1

BN – Z – K1

However essential this seeking of the spiritual self must obviously be, however splendid the attainment of such a peace-filled, desire-free state must and will always seem, it cannot in itself constitute an adequate goal. Two important elements are lacking in it. The first is knowledge and the second is compassion. The first would show precisely what is the place of such an attainment in the full pattern of human existence; the second would bring it into active relation with the rest of social existence. Whilst these are lacking, this state can only partially understand itself and only negatively affect others. It keeps its own peace by ignoring the world's suffering.

#34862

BN – ZZ – K1

The mystical ideal of finding his relationship to the spiritual self must be broadened out to include the metaphysical ideal of finding his relationship to the universe.

#34863

BN – Z – K1

It is unjust to deny the truths of religion in efforts to show up its superstitions or to decry its services and contributions to human welfare in order to point at its persecutions.

#34864

BN – X – K1

God is Mind and they that would worship it in truth must worship it mentally. The ostentatious ceremonies set up by paid professionals enable men and women to obtain pleasing emotional effects but they do not enable them to worship God. A building becomes a sacred temple when it ceases to hear phonographic mumblings and when it ceases to witness theatrical mimicries, and when it provides a fitting place where its visitors can engage in undisturbed silent and inward-turned communion with their own deeper Mind.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Places of worship

#34865D – 12.17.2.62

BN – X – K1

It is something in history to ponder over that in the Alban hills, a few kilometres from Rome, there was once a Temple of Orpheus where, 3000 years ago, the Orphic mysteries were celebrated, where Orphic religion prevailed with its tenets of rebirth, fleshless diet, the quest, and inner reality. It is arguable whether the two other religions which followed it in that area have brought a better message.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Ancient religions

#34866D – 12.17.5.3

BN – X – K1

If the credo of a religion insists on keeping these allegorical, symbolical, or child-directed early myths even in an age like our own when knowledge, education, scientific discovery, and observed facts require higher mental satisfaction, the masses will consider themselves deceived and back away from their faith in the truly authentic beliefs; whereas if the religious authority has the courage to revalue its credo, explaining why it does so, it can continue to hold them.

#34867

BN – X – K1

What other way have undeveloped masses to enter into some kind of communion with God except the way of a church established by other men and of doctrines promulgated by other men, when the masses have not the necessary capacity for either an intellectual or a mystical communion? But when the established religious institution becomes a barrier to further inner growth of the masses and when the doctrines block the path for a more reasonable or more felt understanding of the Higher Power, then it is time for a revision of both things.

#34868

BN – X – K1

We do not feel the need of hallowing our days. That is our great loss.

#34869

BN – Z – K1

The devotee who is mainly trying to draw God's attention to himself is still ego-centered.

#34870

BN – Z – K1

At no level of his spiritual development need a man leave off the custom of prayer. The religious devotee, the mystical meditator, the metaphysical thinker, and the integrated philosopher alike need its fruits.

#34871

BN – Z – K1

God needs no worship, no praise, no thanksgiving. It is man himself who needs the benefit to be derived from these activities.

#34872

BN – Z – K1

He who sits with humbled, bowed head and folded, clasped, or knees-rested hands, with mind and heart in awed reverence, in sincere, worshipful, and rapt absorption which is aware of nothing else than the divine presence—he is praying, is meditating, is worshipping, is in heaven already.

The Reverential Life > The Reverential Life > The Reverential Life

#34873D – 12.18.0.1

BN – Z – K1

In the adoration of his higher self he reaches the apex of existence. It proves that he has found out the secret of his own personality and solved the mystery of his relation to God.

#34874

BN – Z – K1

But selflessness does not mean the surrender of one's own ego to someone else's ego. Renouncing the personal will does not mean becoming the creature of another person's will. Humility does not mean becoming the helpless victim of other people's wrong-doing. The only surrender that we are entitled to make is surrender to the Higher Power.

#34875

BN – ZZ – K1

To surrender a problem to the Overself is to cease worrying about it. If the worry still remains, its presence is proof that the surrender has not really been made.

#34876 – 1.18.0.37

BN – Z – DK1

It seems as if grace visits us at moments of its own choosing. That is the truth, but not the only truth. For study, practice of exercises, training, self-discipline, prayer, aspiration, and meditation also form a total effort which must attract grace as its reward eventually.

#34877 – 1.18.0.45

BN – X – DK1

There are different strata of the finite mind. He learns to see how the self is caught and works in them in order to go beyond them and become aware of That which is infinite Mind.

#34878

BN – X – K1

The first and root error which has vitiated the philosophy of the West is its assumption that the world of waking life is the only real world.

#34879

BN – Z – K1

As human life extends as an indivisible whole through all three states and is never limited to any one of them alone, it is unscientific and unphilosophic arbitrarily to select the waking condition and ignore the facts of the other two. All the data obtainable ought to be secured, and then integrated into a synthetic system by apprehending them simultaneously in their entirety. The synthesis of all life's states can alone produce sufficient data upon which to grasp the true nature of the world. Only a superior mind, free from vulgar prejudice against sleep and dream, will realize the immense importance of such co-ordination.

#34880

BN – Z – K1

A subtle, careful analysis of the three states of consciousness will show the logical need of a fourth, which is their hidden basis.

#34881

BN – X – K1

The real heaven is a state of delightful rest which the finite human mind cannot correctly imagine and usually misconceives as a state of perpetual idleness for the ego.

#34882 – 1.19.0.26

BA11 – Z – DK1

It is in the fullness of the eternal present, the eternal now, that a man can really live happily. For by seeking That which makes him conscious of the present moment, by remembering it as being the essence of his fleeting experience, he completes that experience and fulfils its lofty purpose.

#34883 – 1.19.0.7

BN – Z – DK1

The immediate present is not the eternal NOW.

#34884

BN – Z – K1

Life is changing dream-stuff to the thinker but it nevertheless is spun out of immutable reality.

#34885

BN – Z – K1

There is only one real presence, the divine Presence. This is the final truth we all have to learn, and to experience. When this happens we see the world as it is in appearance, just as other persons do, but we also intuit it at the same time as it is in essence and feel it held in that Presence.

#34886

BN – Z – K1

The apparent void out of which the universe seems to have been made, created, born, or evolved, is really the essence, the being, the life-power of God.

#34887

BN – X – K1

The Advaitin who declares that as such he has no point of view, has already adopted one by calling himself an Advaitin and by rejecting every other point of view as being dualistic. A human philosophy is neither dualistic alone nor nondualistic alone. It perceives the connection between the dream and the dreamer, the Real and the unreal, the consciousness and the thought. It accepts Advaita, but refuses to stop with it; it accepts duality, but refuses to remain limited to it; therefore it alone is free from a dogmatic point of view. But in attempting to bring into harmony that which forever is and that which is bound by time and space, it becomes a truly human philosophy of Truth.

What Is Philosophy? > Toward Defining Philosophy > Living synthesis, not anemic eclecticism

#34888D – 13.20.1.478

BN – X – K1

We may begin by asking what this philosophy offers us. It offers those who pursue it to the end a deep understanding of the world and a satisfying explanation of the significance of human experience. It offers them the power to penetrate appearances and to discover the genuinely real from the mere appearance of reality; it offers satisfaction of that desire which everyone, everywhere, holds somewhere in his heart—the desire to be free.

What Is Philosophy? > What Is Philosophy? > What Is Philosophy?

#34889D – 13.20.0.2

BA11 – ZZZ – DK1

In the first stage of progress we learn to stand aside from the world and to still our thoughts about it. This is the mystical stage. Next, we recognize the world as being but a series of ideas within the mind; this is the mentalist-metaphysical stage. Finally, we return to the world's activity without reacting mentally to its suggestions, working disinterestedly, and knowing always that all is One. This is the philosophical stage.

#34890

BN – ZZ – K1

We cannot afford to dispense with mysticism merely because we take to philosophy. Both are essential to this quest and both are vital in their respective places. The mystic's power to concentrate attention is needed throughout the study of philosophy. The philosopher's power to reason sharply is needed to give mystical reverie a content of world-understanding. And in the more advanced stages, when thinking has done its work and intellect has come to rest, we cease to be a philosopher and dwell self-absorbed in mystic trance, having taken with us the world-idea without which it would be empty. We can only afford to dispense with both mysticism and philosophy when we have perfectly done the work of both and when, amid the daily life of constant activity, we can keep unbroken the profound insight and selfless attitude which time and practice have now made natural.

#34891

BN – Z – K1

But it is of the highest importance to note that the principle of balance cannot be properly established in any man until each of the elements within him has been developed into its completeness. The failure to do so produces the type of man who knows truth intellectually, talks it fluently, and does the wrong in spite of it. A balance of immature and half-developed faculties is transitory by its very nature and never wholly satisfactory, whereas a balance of fully matured ones is necessarily durable and always perfectly gratifying.

#34892

BN – Z – K1

This perfect harmony between the various elements of his personality is not to be achieved with some in the state of half-development and others of full development. All are to be brought up to the same high level.

#34893 – 1.20.0.62

BN – Z – DK1

Manifested life remains no less real because we belittle it with the harsh cognomen of "illusion." Our active existence requires no apology on its behalf to the one-eyed philosophers who accuse Westerners of being entrapped by "Maya."

#34894

BN – Z – K1

When a certain balance of forces is achieved, something happens that can only be properly called "the birth of insight."

What Is Philosophy? > Its Realization Beyond Ecstasy > Insight

#34895D – 13.20.4.181

BN – ZZ – K1

Insight is a function of the entire psyche and not of any single part of it.

What Is Philosophy? > Its Realization Beyond Ecstasy > Insight

#34896D – 13.20.4.184

BN – ZZ – K1

Insight is the flower of reason and not its negation.

What Is Philosophy? > Its Realization Beyond Ecstasy > Insight

#34897D – 13.20.4.161

BN – Z – K1

Where we speak either metaphysically or meditationally of the experience of pure consciousness, we mean consciousness uncoloured by the ego.

#34898D

BN – Z – K1

The materialist's mistake primarily consists in this, that his mind considers its impressions and sensations—entirely dependent as they are on its own presence—as external realities, whilst dismissing its own independent reality as a fiction.

#34899

BN – X – K1

"Recent scientific theory calls attention not to the uniformity but to the indeterminacy of nature which, by transferring probability from human thought to objective reality, suggests that matter is mind externalized." —Times Literary Supplement, May 12, 1945.

#34900

BN – X – K1

The mysterious power of the mind, which makes us feel the world to be outside of and separate from ourselves, disappears during certain ultramystical experience.

#34901

BN – X – K1

Matter cannot be honestly denied by the ordinary man since it is fully real to his senses. Its reality but not its appearance can be denied by the scientist, since it is a compound of invisible and intangible forces to his intellect.

#34902

BN – Z – K1

Mentalism does not deny the existence of the natural universe. It denies the materialistic view of that universe. It refuses to attribute to matter a creative power to be found only in life, an intelligent consciousness to be found only in mind.

#34903

BN – ZZ – K1

We do not bring out the old arguments for the acceptance of an inner Reality to persuade anyone to drop his faith in the reality of the world without.

#34904

BN – Z – K1

The ignorance which accepts matter as a reality rather than as an idea can be overcome only by a course of emotional purification, mystical contemplation, and metaphysical reflection.

#34905

BN – ZZ – K1

Mind is the power to be conscious, to think, and to imagine. It is not the fleshly brain.

#34906

BN – Z – K1

If we want to think correctly of the form and dimensions of mind, we must try to think of it as unbounded space. Thus it is everywhere.

#34907

BN – Z – K1

Mind must precede any thought, any knowing. It must be there to make any thinking possible at all.

#34908

BN – X – K1

It is only after several years of constant reflection upon this topic, helped by occasional mystical glimpses or experiences, that anyone can dissolve such troubling questions about the truth of mentalism.

#34909

BN – Z – K1

The world must be present in my mind or it is not present at all to me. Only as an idea does it truly exist for me.

#34910

BN – Z – K1

Mentalism teaches that it is our thought activity which brings the whole world into our consciousness, and that when this thought activity comes to an end, the world also comes to an end, for us. It teaches that there is no other object than the thought itself.

#34911

BN – ZZ – K1

We have to overcome the habitual custom of thinking that the "I" is one thing and that its experience in a world totally outside it is another. Both are mental.

#34912

BN – ZZ – K1

Our idea of the external world is caused partly by the energies of our own mind and partly by the energies of the World-Mind. It is not caused by a separate material thing acting on our sense organs.

#34913

BN – ZZ – K1

It is one and the same Reality which 'appears' in different ways to beings on different planes of perception. If it is true that they are dealing only with Appearance because they are perceiving only its forms, it is equally true that, as soon as they discover what it is that projects these forms, they will discover that life is a harmonious whole and that there is no fundamental conflict between the so-called worldly life and the so-called spiritual life.

#34914

B_08 – ZZZ – K1

The Overself is utterly above all personality yet is not bereft of a kind of individuality.

#34915 – 1.22.0.13

BN – Z – DM1

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

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

#34916D – 14.22.3.410

BN – X – DK1

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

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

#34917D – 14.22.5.13

BN – ZZ – DK1

He should remember that there are two approaches to the Quest and both have to be used. There is the Long Path of self-improvement, self-purification, and self-effort; and there is the Short Path of forgetting the self entirely and directing his mind towards the Goal, towards the One Real Life, by constant remembrance of it and by practising self-identification with it. If he uses the first approach, he can progress to a certain point. But by bringing in the second approach, the Higher Power is brought in too and comes to his help with Grace.

#34918 – 1.23.0.1

BN – Z – DK1

On the Long Path he trains himself to detect and reject the lower impulses, egoisms, and desires. On the Short Path he trains himself to be open to the higher impulses or intuitions and to absorb them.

#34919

BN – Z – K1

Those who take to the Short Path have to encounter the risk of self-deception, of falling victims to the belief in their own imaginary spiritual attainments.

#34920

BN – Z – K1

Wherever one is, whatever the place, or whoever the persons, one should think oneself to be in the divine presence.

#34921 – 1.23.0.24

BA12 – ZZZ – DK1

We keep nearly all our attention all the day on ourselves and only a slight part of it on the Overself. It is needful to change this situation if we want a higher state of consciousness. This is why the exercises in remembrance are much more valuable than their simplicity suggests.

#34922 – 1.23.0.30

BN – X – DM1

Do not carry your own troubles or your temptations or other people's troubles and situations straight into your meditation. There is a proper time and place for their consideration under a mystical light or for their presentation to a mystical power. But that time and place is not at the beginning of the meditation period. It is rather towards the end. All meditations conducted on the philosophic ideal should end with the thoughts of others, with remembrance of their spiritual need, and with a sending-out of the light and grace received to bless individuals who need such help. At the beginning your aim should be to forget your lower self, to rise above it. Only after you have felt the divine visitation, only towards the end of your practice period should your aim be to bring the higher self to the help of the lower one, or your help and blessing to other embodied selves. If, however, you attempt this prematurely, if you are not willing to relinquish the personal life even for a few minutes, then you will get nothing but your own thought back for your pains.

Advanced Contemplation > Advanced Meditation > Intercessory meditation

#34923D – 15.23.6.58

BN – ZZ – DEK1

If we did not know that behind it there was Nirvana, we might regard the slight pleasant smile of Gautama as ambiguous. But we know that not only was he happy to have escaped from the trap of ephemeral human affairs; he was happy because he had entered an entirely new depth and dimension of consciousness.

#34924

BN – Z – K1

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

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

#34925D – 15.24.4.123

BN – ZZ – DK1

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

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

#34926D – 15.24.1.16

BN – ZZ – K1

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

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

#34927D – 15.24.2.25

BN – Z – K1

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

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

#34928D – 15.24.4.26

BN – Z – K1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#34929D – 15.24.3.262

BN – ZZ – K1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Solving difficulties

#34930D – 15.24.3.106

BN – ZZ – DK1

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > In daily life

#34931D – 15.24.2.52

BA12 – ZZ – DK1

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

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

#34932D – 15.24.2.24

BN – Z – K1

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#34933D – 15.24.2.192

BN – Z – K1

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#34934D – 15.24.2.158

BN – ZZ – DM1

After he has learnt to practise inner stillness during the set daily period, he must learn how to carry it into his ordinary activities.

#34935

BN – Z – K1

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

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

#34936D – 15.24.2.142

B_17 – ZZ – K1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#34937D – 15.24.3.33

BN – ZZ – K1

Being detached from the world, which philosophy practises, is not the same as being indifferent to the world, which mysticism preaches.

#34938

BN – ZZ – K1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#34939D – 15.24.3.297

B_11 – ZZZ – K1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#34940D – 15.24.3.319

UR_3.2 – Z – K1

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

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

#34941D – 15.24.2.144

BN – ZZ – K1

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

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

#34942D – 15.24.1.26

BN – Z – K1

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Be Calm

#34943D – 15.24.2.1

BN – Z – K1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#34944D – 15.24.3.206

BN – ZZ – DM1

Try to do your new duties with inner calmness and outer efficiency. But whatever you are doing, try to keep ever in the background of consciousness the remembrance of the Overself; it will be both a form of yoga and a protective influence.

#34945 – 1.24.0.21

BN – ZZ – DK1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#34946D – 15.24.3.263

BN – ZZ – DK1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#34947D – 15.24.3.298

BN – ZZ – K1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#34948D – 15.24.3.32

BN – ZZ – K1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#34949D – 15.24.3.53

BN – ZZ – DK1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#34950D – 15.24.3.261

BN – ZZ – DEM1

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

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

#34951D – 15.24.1.91

BN – X – DK1

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

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

#34952D – 15.24.1.104

BN – ZZ – K1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#34953D – 15.24.3.34

BN – ZZZ – K1

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

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

#34954D – 15.24.3.150

B_08 – ZZZ – DMK1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#34955D – 15.24.3.165

B_05 – ZZZ – DK1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#34956D – 15.24.3.164

BN – Z – DK1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#34957D – 15.24.3.189

BN – Z – DK1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#34958D – 15.24.3.299

BN – ZZ – K1

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

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

#34960D – 15.24.1.17

BN – ZZ – K1

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

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

#34961D – 15.24.1.37

BN – Z – K1