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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30950 – 15.24.2.162

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30952 – 15.24.2.164

BN – Z – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30955 – 15.24.2.167

BA11 – P – D

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30956 – 15.24.2.168

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30969 – 15.24.2.181

BN – Z – D

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30976 – 15.24.2.188

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30980D – 15.24.2.192

BN – Z – K

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30981 – 15.24.2.193

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30984 – 15.24.2.196

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30985 – 15.24.2.197

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Be Calm > Staying calm

#30986 – 15.24.2.198

BN – Z – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30990E – 15.24.3.1

BSG_4 – P – DE

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30992 – 15.24.3.3

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30994 – 15.24.3.5

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30994EM – 15.24.3.5

A250930 – ZZZ – DXK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30995D – 15.24.3.6

BN – Z – DK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#30999 – 15.24.3.10

UR_3.2 – Z – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31003 – 15.24.3.14

BN – ZZ – DEK

As for the detached man, happenings pass him by. He knows them for what they are: transitory, coming and going, ever moving. And to what are they moving? They are moving until they are finally gone into death.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31007 – 15.24.3.18

BN – Z

He is well aware of their characteristics; but however undesirable, faulty, or evil they may be, he makes no attempt to judge them. Indeed, he accepts them just as they are. This is inevitable since, being aware of his and their common origin in God, he practises goodwill towards everyone unremittingly.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31011E – 15.24.3.22

BA11 – P – DE

Some part of the philosopher remains an untouched, independent, and impartial observer. It notes the nature of things but does not allow itself to be swept away by the repulsiveness of unpleasant things or lost in the attractiveness of pleasant ones. It is the same with his experience of persons. He is well aware of their characteristics; but however undesirable, faulty, or evil they may be, he makes no attempt to judge them. Indeed, he accepts them just as they are. This is inevitable since, being aware of his and their common origin in God, he practises goodwill towards everyone unremittingly.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31011E – 15.24.3.22

B_13 – ZZ – DEMK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31011 – 15.24.3.22

BN – ZZ – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31015 – 15.24.3.26

BN – ZZZ – DM

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31018 – 15.24.3.29

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31019 – 15.24.3.30

BN – ZZ – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31021D – 15.24.3.32

BN – ZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31022D – 15.24.3.33

BN – ZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31023D – 15.24.3.34

BN – ZZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31030 – 15.24.3.41

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Practise Detachment

#31037 – 15.24.3.48

B_17 – ZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31042D – 15.24.3.53

BN – ZZ – DK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31044 – 15.24.3.55

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31045 – 15.24.3.56

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31054 – 15.24.3.65

BA12 – ZZ – DK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31060 – 15.24.3.71

BN – ZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31062 – 15.24.3.73

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31068 – 15.24.3.79

B_12 – ZZZ – D

It is part of the price that may have to be given by the aspirant to separate himself from friends who are constantly critical of his quest, social groups that are time-wasting hindrances to it, or relatives who are virulently antagonistic to it. This is not to say that he must always do so, for each case is individual and needs to be carefully judged. Sometimes he will be better advised to bear sneers in patience and bear mockery of clacking tongues in resignation.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31069 – 15.24.3.80

BN – Z

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31072 – 15.24.3.83

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31074 – 15.24.3.85

BN – X – DK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31075 – 15.24.3.86

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31076 – 15.24.3.87

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31078 – 15.24.3.89

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31079 – 15.24.3.90

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31081 – 15.24.3.92

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31085 – 15.24.3.96

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31092 – 15.24.3.103

BA11 – P – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Turn inward

#31093 – 15.24.3.104

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Solving difficulties

#31095D – 15.24.3.106

BN – ZZ – DK

His unruffled calmness and dispassionate outlook will show itself not only in the day-by-day events of ordinary life but also when tested in the rigorous crises of fate. He will be as detached towards them as if they had happened a half-century before and he was viewing them from afar.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Solving difficulties

#31101 – 15.24.3.112

BN – Z

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Solving difficulties

#31102 – 15.24.3.113

BN – X – D

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

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

#31117 – 15.24.3.128

BN – ZZ – D

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

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

#31124 – 15.24.3.135

BN – X – D

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

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

#31127 – 15.24.3.138

BN – X – D

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

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

#31131E – 15.24.3.142

BSG_4 – ZZ – K

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

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

#31135 – 15.24.3.146

BN – X – D

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

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

#31137 – 15.24.3.148

B_08 – ZZZ – DK

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

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

#31138 – 15.24.3.149

BN – Z – DK

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

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

#31139D – 15.24.3.150

B_08 – ZZZ – DMK1

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

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

#31140 – 15.24.3.151

BSG_4 – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31148 – 15.24.3.159

B_08 – ZZ – DEK

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

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

#31152 – 15.24.3.163

B_08 – ZZZ – DMK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31153D – 15.24.3.164

BN – Z – DK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31154D – 15.24.3.165

B_05 – ZZ – DK1

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31163 – 15.24.3.174

B_11 – ZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31172 – 15.24.3.183

B_11 – P – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31174 – 15.24.3.185

B_11 – P – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31176D – 15.24.3.187

BN – Z – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31178D – 15.24.3.189

BN – Z – DK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31186 – 15.24.3.197

BN – ZZ – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31188 – 15.24.3.199

B_11 – P – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > True asceticism

#31193 – 15.24.3.204

ME_01 – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31194 – 15.24.3.205

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31195D – 15.24.3.206

BN – ZZ – DM

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31196 – 15.24.3.207

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31201 – 15.24.3.212

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31202 – 15.24.3.213

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31204 – 15.24.3.215

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31205 – 15.24.3.216

BN – ZZ – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31206 – 15.24.3.217

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31207 – 15.24.3.218

B_13 – P – DK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Becoming the Witness

#31211 – 15.24.3.222

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31215 – 15.24.3.226

ME_01 – P – DK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31216 – 15.24.3.227

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31217 – 15.24.3.228

B_17 – P – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31218 – 15.24.3.229

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31221 – 15.24.3.232

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31222 – 15.24.3.233

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31224 – 15.24.3.235

ME_01 – ZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31229 – 15.24.3.240

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31237 – 15.24.3.248

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31241 – 15.24.3.252

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31244 – 15.24.3.255

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31245 – 15.24.3.256

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31246 – 15.24.3.257

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31250D – 15.24.3.261

BN – ZZ – DEM

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31251D – 15.24.3.262

BN – ZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31252D – 15.24.3.263

BN – ZZ – DK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31253ED – 15.24.3.264

B_05 – ZEL1/4 – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31253ED – 15.24.3.264

B_05 – ZEL2/4 – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31253ED – 15.24.3.264

B_05 – ZEL3/4 – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31253ED – 15.24.3.264

B_05 – ZEL4/4 – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31259 – 15.24.3.270

BA11 – P – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31260 – 15.24.3.271

BN – ZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31262 – 15.24.3.273

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31263 – 15.24.3.274

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31265 – 15.24.3.276

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31267D – 15.24.3.278

ME_01 – Z – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31268ED – 15.24.3.279

ME_01 – ZEL1/2 – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Timelessness

#31268ED – 15.24.3.279

ME_01 – ZEL2/2 – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31269 – 15.24.3.280

BN – ZZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31270 – 15.24.3.281

BN – ZZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31274 – 15.24.3.285

BN – ZZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31277 – 15.24.3.288

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31278E – 15.24.3.289

BA12 – P – DE

When all action comes to an end, when the body is immobile and the consciousness stilled, there is achieved what the Chinese have called Wu-Wei, meaning non-doing. This brings a wonderful peace, for tied up with it is non-desiring and non-aspiring. The quester has then come close to the end, but until this peace is thoroughly and permanently established in him, the quest must go on.

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31278 – 15.24.3.289

BN – X – DEK

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

Emotions and Ethics > Spiritual Refinement > Refraining from criticism

#31278E – 15.24.3.289

B_01 – ZZZ – DXK3

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31279 – 15.24.3.290

BN – ZZZ – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31286D – 15.24.3.297

B_11 – ZZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31287D – 15.24.3.298

BN – ZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31288D – 15.24.3.299

BN – ZZ – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31298 – 15.24.3.309

BN – ZZ – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31302 – 15.24.3.313

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31303 – 15.24.3.314

BN – ZZ – DEK

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31308D – 15.24.3.319

UR_3.2 – Z – K

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31309 – 15.24.3.320

BN – X – D

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

The Peace within You > Practise Detachment > Free activity

#31311 – 15.24.3.322

BN – X – D

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

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

#31317D – 15.24.4.1

BN – Z – DK

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

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

#31320D – 15.24.4.4

BN – Z – DK

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

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

#31321D – 15.24.4.5

BN – X – K

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

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

#31322D – 15.24.4.6

BN – X – DK

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

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

#31328 – 15.24.4.12

BN – X – D

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

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

#31333 – 15.24.4.17

UR_5 – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31336D – 15.24.4.20

BN – ZZ – K

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

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

#31342D – 15.24.4.26

BN – Z – K

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

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

#31349 – 15.24.4.33

BN – X – D

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

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

#31355D – 15.24.4.39

B_11 – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31357 – 15.24.4.41

UR_3.2 – Z – DK

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

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

#31367 – 15.24.4.51

BN – X – D

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

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

#31368 – 15.24.4.52

BN – X – D

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

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

#31369 – 15.24.4.53

BN – X – D

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

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

#31370 – 15.24.4.54

BN – X – D

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

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

#31385 – 15.24.4.69

BA11 – P – D

Let the personal will relax in this gentle peace.

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

#31389 – 15.24.4.73

BN – X – D

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

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

#31390 – 15.24.4.74

BN – ZZ – DEK

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

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

#31391 – 15.24.4.75

BN – X – D

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

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

#31393 – 15.24.4.77

BN – X – D

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

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

#31395 – 15.24.4.79

BN – X – D

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

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

#31402 – 15.24.4.86

BN – X – D

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

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

#31403 – 15.24.4.87

BN – X – D

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

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

#31405 – 15.24.4.89

BN – X – D

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

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

#31406 – 15.24.4.90

BN – X – D

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

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

#31409 – 15.24.4.93

BN – X – D

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

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

#31416 – 15.24.4.100

BN – X – D

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

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

#31418D – 15.24.4.102

BN – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31421 – 15.24.4.105

BN – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31425 – 15.24.4.109

BN – X – D

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

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

#31428 – 15.24.4.112

BN – X – D

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

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

#31429 – 15.24.4.113

BA11 – P – D

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

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

#31430 – 15.24.4.114

BN – X – D

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

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

#31432 – 15.24.4.116

BN – X – D

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

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

#31433 – 15.24.4.117

BN – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31439D – 15.24.4.123

BN – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31440D – 15.24.4.124

BN – Z – DK

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

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

#31446 – 15.24.4.130

B_01 – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31453 – 15.24.4.137

BN – X – D

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

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

#31454 – 15.24.4.138

BN – ZZZ – DEK

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

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

#31455 – 15.24.4.139

BN – X – D

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

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

#31458 – 15.24.4.142

BN – X – D

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

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

#31462 – 15.24.4.146

BN – ZZZ – DEK

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

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

#31464 – 15.24.4.148

BN – X – D

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

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

#31466 – 15.24.4.150

BN – X – D

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

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

#31475 – 15.24.4.159

BN – X – D

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

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

#31482 – 15.24.4.166

UR_3.2 – Z – DK

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

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

#31488D – 15.24.4.172

BN – Z – K

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

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

#31489D – 15.24.4.173

BN – X – K

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

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

#31490D – 15.24.4.174

BN – ZZ – DEK

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

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

#31493 – 15.24.4.177

BN – Z – K

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

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

#31498 – 15.24.4.182

BN – X – D

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

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

#31511D – 15.24.4.195

BA13 – ZZZ – K

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

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

#31512D – 15.24.4.196

BN – ZZZ – K

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

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

#31515 – 15.24.4.199

BN – X – D

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

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

#31521D – 15.24.4.205

BN – X – K

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

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

#31524 – 15.24.4.208

BN – Z – DK

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

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

#31526 – 15.24.4.210

BN – Z – K

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

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

#31529 – 15.24.4.213

BN – X – D

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

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

#31530E – 15.24.4.214

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DE

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

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

#31530 – 15.24.4.214

UR_1 – ZZZ – DMK

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

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

#31533 – 15.24.4.217

BN – X – D

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

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

#31535D – 15.24.4.219

BN – Z – K

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

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

#31536D – 15.24.4.220

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DK

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

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

#31537 – 16.25.0.1

B_02 – Z – DK

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

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

#31538 – 16.25.0.2

BN – ZZZ – DK

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

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

#31541 – 16.25.1.3

BN – ZZ – DEK

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

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

#31543 – 16.25.1.5

B_11 – P – D

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

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

#31545 – 16.25.1.7

BN – X – D

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

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

#31546 – 16.25.1.8

BN – X – D

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

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

#31547 – 16.25.1.9

BSG_4 – P – DE

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

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

#31548 – 16.25.1.10

BSG_4 – P – D

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

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

#31548M – 16.25.1.10

BA11 – P – DX

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

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

#31549M – 16.25.1.11

BA11 – P – DX

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

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

#31549 – 16.25.1.11

BN – Z – DK1

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

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

#31550 – 16.25.1.12

BN – X – D

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

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

#31552 – 16.25.1.14

BN – X – D

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

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

#31553 – 16.25.1.15

BN – X – D

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

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

#31554 – 16.25.1.16

BN – Z – DM*

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

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

#31555 – 16.25.1.17

BN – X – D

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

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

#31561 – 16.25.1.23

BN – X – D

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

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

#31562 – 16.25.1.24

BN – Z – DK

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

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

#31563 – 16.25.1.25

BN – X – D

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

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

#31565 – 16.25.1.27

BN – Z – DM*

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

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

#31566 – 16.25.1.28

BN – Z – DK

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

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

#31567 – 16.25.1.29

BN – Z – DK

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

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

#31568 – 16.25.1.30

BN – X – D

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

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

#31569 – 16.25.1.31

BN – Z – DEK

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

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

#31570 – 16.25.1.32

BN – X – D

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

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

#31571 – 16.25.1.33

BN – Z – D

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

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

#31572 – 16.25.1.34

BN – X – D

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

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

#31574 – 16.25.1.36

BN – X – D

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

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

#31575 – 16.25.1.37

BA11 – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31576 – 16.25.1.38

BN – Z – DK

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

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

#31577 – 16.25.1.39

BN – X – D

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

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

#31578 – 16.25.1.40

BN – X – D

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

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

#31579 – 16.25.1.41

BN – X – D

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

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

#31580 – 16.25.1.42

BN – Z – DK

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

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

#31583 – 16.25.1.45

BA11 – P – D

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

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

#31585 – 16.25.1.47

BN – X – DEK

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

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

#31588 – 16.25.1.50

B_11 – P – D

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

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

#31589 – 16.25.1.51

B_11 – P – D

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

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

#31590 – 16.25.1.52

BN – X – D

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

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

#31591 – 16.25.1.53

BN – X – D

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

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

#31593 – 16.25.1.55

BN – X – DEK

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

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

#31596 – 16.25.1.58

BN – Z – DEK

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

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

#31597 – 16.25.1.59

BN – X – DEK

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

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

#31598 – 16.25.1.60

BN – X – K1

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

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

#31609 – 16.25.1.71

BN – X – DEK1

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

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

#31610 – 16.25.1.72

BN – Z – DEK1*

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

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

#31611 – 16.25.1.73

BN – Z – K1

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

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

#31612 – 16.25.1.74

BN – Z – DEK1

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

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

#31617 – 16.25.1.79

BN – X – D

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

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

#31626 – 16.25.1.88

UR_3.2 – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31631 – 16.25.1.93

BN – X – K1

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

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

#31635 – 16.25.1.97

BN – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31636 – 16.25.1.98

BN – X – D

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

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

#31637 – 16.25.1.99

BN – X – D

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

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

#31638 – 16.25.1.100

UR_2.1 – Z – DMK

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

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

#31639 – 16.25.1.101

UR_3.2 – ZZ – DK

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

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

#31640 – 16.25.1.102

BN – X – D

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

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

#31642 – 16.25.1.104

BN – X – D

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

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

#31643 – 16.25.1.105

BSG_4 – P – D

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

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

#31643M – 16.25.1.105

BA11 – P – DX

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

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

#31644 – 16.25.1.106

BN – Z – DEK

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

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

#31646 – 16.25.1.108

BN – X – DK

Human beings can only hope to realize the Overself which is a ray or intermediary, but not the World-Mind itself. For the latter is too vast and infinite and remote. Hence when mystics talk of knowing God or feeling God, this is only partly true for they can never know or feel God in his fullness.

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

#31648 – 16.25.1.110

BN – Z – DEK

But although the Absolute in its passive state is unknowable, the Overself as representative of its active aspect, of the World-Mind, is knowable.

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

#31653 – 16.25.1.115

BN – X – D

The Infinite Mind is beyond human perception but its presence and operation are not. The point in human consciousness where these become known is the Overself.

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

#31655 – 16.25.1.117

BN – Z – DK

This higher self is what the successful mystics of all religions have really achieved union with, despite the widely different names from "God" downwards, which they have given it.

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

#31657 – 16.25.1.119

BA11 – P – D

We cannot ever know the Divine which is Transcendent but we can acknowledge that it IS. We may however know the Divine which is Immanent, recognize, perceive, and feel its presence.

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

#31658 – 16.25.1.120

BN – X – D

An important warning is needed here. Wherever the idea of agnostic mysticism has been supported, the idea that there is no possibility of knowing the Absolute and so no communication of such knowledge, the reference is to ordinary human intellect. No positive result can come of its investigation into that which transcends it. But what intellect unaided cannot know, intuition—a higher faculty—can. It can discover its point of contact with the Absolute—its higher individuality, the Overself, even though it can go no farther and penetrate the Absolute. When intuition becomes active in this matter, it may or may not take the shape of a mystical experience. When it is developed by philosophic training, it expands into insight.

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

#31661 – 16.25.1.123

BN – Z – DK

That which he finds deep within himself is, he understands intuitively, a reflected ray from that which exists behind the whole universe but it is still only a ray.

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

#31667 – 16.25.1.129

BN – X – D

The Overself is so close to God, so akin to the World-Mind, that no man need look farther, or aspire higher.

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

#31671 – 16.25.1.133

BN – X – D

In time his relation to the higher self becomes more intimate than any earthly friendship, closer than any human union could ever be. Yet it always remains a relation, never becomes an absorption; always a nearness, never a merger.

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

#31681 – 16.25.1.143

BN – Z – K1

Philosophy rejects decisively all those Vedantic pantheistic notions and Western mystical na\i\rveties which would deify man and identify him with God. It asserts that the phrases in which these beliefs are embodied, such as the Indian "That thou art," the Persian "I am God," and the medieval European "union with God," are exaggerations of the truth, which is that God is immanent in us, that through realization of our higher self we become more like God, but that God never ceases to be the Unattainable, the Incomprehensible.

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

#31688 – 16.25.1.150

BN – X – K1

The mystic's endeavour to unite with God—much more his claim to achieve it—is without meaning if God is the Ultimate and the Unique. No finite limited human intelligence could ever directly communicate with the infinite and illimitable Mystery or give and receive love from it. All this has meaning only when the concept of the Overself is introduced.

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

#31692 – 16.25.1.154

UR_3.2 – Z – K

The teaching of a higher individuality needs to be correctly understood. It is not that a separate one exists for each physical body. The consciousness which normally identifies itself with the body—that is, the ego—when looking upward in highest devotion or inward in deepest meditation, comes to the point of contact with universal being, World-Mind. This point is its own higher self, the divine deputy within its own being. But if devotion or meditation are carried still further, to the very utmost possible stretch of consciousness, the point itself merges into its source. At this moment the man is his source. But—"Man shall not see My face and live!" He returns eventually to earth-consciousness, where he must follow out its requirements. Yet the knowledge of what he is in essence remains. The presence of the deputy is always there meanwhile, always felt. It may fittingly be called his higher individuality.

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

#31693 – 16.25.1.155

BN – ZZ – K1

Union with the Overself is not the ultimate end but a penultimate one. What we look up to as the Overself looks up in its own turn to another and higher entity.

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

#31698 – 16.25.1.160

BN – Z – K1

Agnostic Mysticism: Let us not match our petty and limited minds against the infinite and incomprehensible World-Mind, and let us not say with some foolish mystic that we are God. Let us say rather what we can truly say, which is that there is something of God in us.

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

#31700 – 16.25.1.162

BN – Z – DEK

The belief among Christians and Hindus that God incarnates in human form through Christ or Krishna is not held by Muhammedans or Buddhists. That God may use a human channel at times is more rational. But this God is World-Mind, not the Unapproachable.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Fallacy of "Divine Incarnation''

#31710 – 16.25.1.172

BN – X – D

There is metaphysically no such thing as a human appearance of God, as the Infinite Mind brought down into finite flesh. This error is taught as a sacred truth by the Bahais in their Manifestation doctrine, by the Christians in the Incarnation doctrine, and by the Hindus in their Avatar doctrine. God cannot be born in the flesh, cannot take a human incarnation. If He could so confine Himself, He would cease to be God. For how could the Perfect, the Incomprehensible, and the Inconceivable become the imperfect, the comprehensible, and the conceivable? > >Yet there is some fire behind this smoke. From time to time, someone is born predestined to give a spiritual impulse to a particular people, area, or age. He is charged with a special mission of teaching and redemption and is imbued with special power from the universal intelligence to enable him to carry it out. He must plant seeds which grow slowly into trees to carry fruit that will feed millions of unborn people.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Fallacy of "Divine Incarnation''

#31722 – 16.25.1.184

BN – ZEL1/2 – DEK1

From time to time, someone is born predestined to give a spiritual impulse to a particular people, area, or age. He is charged with a special mission of teaching and redemption and is imbued with special power from the universal intelligence to enable him to carry it out. He must plant seeds which grow slowly into trees to carry fruit that will feed millions of unborn people. In this sense he is different from and, if you like, superior to anyone else who is also inspired by the Overself. But this difference or superiority does not alter his human status, does not make him more than a man still, however divinely used and power-charged he may be. Such a man will claim no essential superiority over other men; on the contrary, he will plainly admit that they, too, may attain the same state of inspiration which he possesses.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Their Meeting and Interchange > Fallacy of "Divine Incarnation''

#31722 – 16.25.1.184

BN – ZEL2/2 – DEK1

Hitherto we have been considering the state of the man who is seeking enlightenment. But what is the state of the man who has attained it? This is also worthwhile for our closest study. For after all, he is the type we are one day destined to become, the type we are being shaped into by life itself.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Enlightenment Which Stays

#31725 – 16.25.2.1

BN – X – D

'Awareness' is not enough to describe full enlightenment. 'Knowingness' includes it but goes farther and is hence a better term.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Enlightenment Which Stays

#31734 – 16.25.2.10

UR_3.2 – Z – K

All problems vanish from his mind as though they had never been. He is under no necessity to concern himself about anything or anyone. "God’s in his heaven and all’s well with the world." There is no tormenting situation to be cleared up, no difficult decision to be made, no quest to be followed through drawn-out struggles and personal self-disciplines, and inevitable disappointments. He now has the secret of it all, the blissful state of Enlightenment.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Enlightenment Which Stays

#31737 – 16.25.2.13

BSG_4 – P – D

Hitherto he has been only partially himself. Now, with this radiant entry into the eternal, he is completely himself. Now, he can speak to others, move in the world, and work out relationships, solely from his center, straight from his core: no distortions, no hypocrisies, no insincerities.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Enlightenment Which Stays

#31738 – 16.25.2.14

BN – X – D

When the knowledge of the soul is not merely intellectual, however convincing, not only a matter of belief, however firm, but an unchangeable awareness of its ever-present existence, it is true knowledge, authentic revelation, and blissful salvation.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Enlightenment Which Stays

#31741 – 16.25.2.17

BA11 – P – D

Glimpses have been had more often than most people believe but enlightenment that is continuous and always present is rare.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Glimpses and permanent realization

#31744 – 16.25.2.20

BN – X – D

As the human mind develops, it forms higher and higher conceptions of the deity until, finally, it is lifted above itself into a tremendous experience. It loses itself in the deity itself, and when it returns to normal living, it does not need to seek further. I do not refer here to the experience which several mystics have had called “the glimpse,” but something which is of a once-and-for-all nature and which does not, in its essence, ever leave him.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Glimpses and permanent realization

#31750 – 16.25.2.26

BN – X – D

It is true that our sins and faults are automatically dispersed by the inrush of Enlightenment, but it is equally true that they will return if we have not prepared ourselves to be able to stay in the Light.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Glimpses and permanent realization

#31761 – 16.25.2.37

BN – X – D

The difference between the intermediate and the final state is the difference between feeling the Overself to be a distinct and separate entity and feeling it to be the very essence of oneself, between temporary experience of it and enduring union with it.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Glimpses and permanent realization

#31766 – 16.25.2.42

BN – ZZZ – DK1

We must learn to differentiate between the partial attainment of the mystic who stops short at passive enjoyment of ecstatic states and the perfect attainment of the sage who does not depend on any particular states but dwells in the unbroken calm of the unconditioned Overself. From his high point of view all such states are necessarily illusory, however personally satisfying at the time, inasmuch as they are transient conditions and do not pertain to the final result.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Glimpses and permanent realization

#31768 – 16.25.2.44

BN – Z – K1

We must carefully qualify by such words as "intermittent," "partial," and "temporary," the attainments to which exercises lead. This is because the full and permanent attainment cannot emerge out of meditation alone. It is a fruit of the threefold planting of meditation and reflection and action combined. Hence although the foregoing exercises will bring the student considerably nearer it, it must not be thought that any mystical exercise of itself can confer ultimate enlightenment. The path to this exalted result must traverse all three fields of yoga, metaphysics, and self-abnegating activity.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Glimpses and permanent realization

#31773 – 16.25.2.49

BN – Z – DEK

We need to know the truth, the wisdom-knowledge, but it is not enough. We need to have the living mystic experience, the vital feeling of what I am, but it is not enough. For we need to synthesize the two in a full actual intuitive realization, conferred by the Overself. This is Grace. This is to emerge finally—born again!

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Glimpses and permanent realization

#31775 – 16.25.2.51

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

It is the making the man ready, the preparation of his mind and heart which take so much time, so many years even in many cases; but the enlightenment itself is a single short happening: the effect remains permanently.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Sudden or gradual?

#31780 – 16.25.2.56

BN – X – D

Enlightenment seldom comes all at once. But in the case of rare geniuses or of those with rare good karma, the possibility is certainly there.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Sudden or gradual?

#31785 – 16.25.2.61

BN – Z – DK

When enlightenment comes through philosophic preparation for it, the experience is sudden, direct, unexpected, and spontaneous.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Sudden or gradual?

#31788 – 16.25.2.64

BN – X – D

Enlightenment may come slowly or suddenly but in the second case it has the effect of sunlight bursting through the sky.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Sudden or gradual?

#31790 – 16.25.2.66

BN – X – D

The calmness which he carries inside himself, and which is apparent in all his bearing, has not arisen out of nothing. It has come to him out of long struggle and after varied suffering.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Sudden or gradual?

#31793 – 16.25.2.69

BN – Z – D

Not all persons come into this desirable state through formal methods of meditation and regular practice of them. Some attain it through adopting a higher attitude to the happenings, situations, impressions, and emotions which each day’s course presents to them.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Sudden or gradual?

#31794 – 16.25.2.70

BN – X – D

Lao Tzu was a librarian by profession, Janaka a king, and Brother Lawrence a kitchen menial. Yet all had this same wonderful experience of peaceful communion with Overself, proving that one's antecedents, or work, or position are neither helps nor handicaps.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Sudden or gradual?

#31795 – 16.25.2.71

BN – X – D

The holy joy may visit you but cannot stay in you if both the animal and the ego are staying in you. Purify yourself of the one and empty yourself of the other, if you would convert a passing glimpse into the permanent union.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Sudden or gradual?

#31799 – 16.25.2.75

BN – X – D

When you awaken to truth as it really is, you will have no occult vision, you will have no ”astral” experience, no ravishing ecstasy. You will awaken to it in a state of utter stillness, and you will realize that truth was always there within you and that reality was always there around you. Truth is not something which has grown and developed through your efforts. It is not something which has been achieved or attained by laboriously adding up those efforts. It is not something which has to be made more and more perfect each year. And once your mental eyes are opened to truth they can never be closed again.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Enlightenment comes quietly

#31801 – 16.25.2.77

BN – ZZ – DK1

The discovery of his true being is not outwardly dramatic, and for a long time no one may know of it, except himself. The world may not honour him for it: he may die as obscure as he lived. But the purpose of his life has been fulfilled; and God's will has been done.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Enlightenment comes quietly

#31802 – 16.25.2.78

BN – X – D

No one really knows how this enlightenment first dawns on him. One moment it was not there, the next moment he was somehow in it.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Enlightenment comes quietly

#31806 – 16.25.2.82

BN – X – D

No announcements tell the world that he has come into enlightenment. No heralds blow the trumpets proclaiming man's greatest victory—over himself. This is in fact the quietest moment of his whole life.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Enlightenment comes quietly

#31807 – 16.25.2.83

BN – Z – DK1

At this stage there is no struggle for further growth; it comes as softly and as naturally as a flower's. There is no sacrifice of things the ego desires or clutches to itself, for there is such insight as to their worth or worthlessness that they stay or fall away of themselves.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Naturalness of the attainment

#31810 – 16.25.2.86

BN – Z – D

It is better to attain such high status without knowing it. For this absence of pride and presence of humility keeps the ego from threatening it.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Naturalness of the attainment

#31811 – 16.25.2.87

BN – X – DK

The actions of a man who has attained this degree are inspired directly by his Overself, and consequently are not dictated by personal wishes, purposes, passions, or desires. They are not initiated by his ego's will but by a will higher than his own…

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Naturalness of the attainment

#31812E – 16.25.2.88

BA11 – Z – DE

Plotinus even made the point that it is better for a man not to be aware that he is acting virtuously, courageously, wisely, or practising contemplation beautifully, free from interfering mental images or thoughts. For then, if he does not know that he—the person—is doing so, no egoism will taint his consciousness. It will be pure being. He will do whatever has to be done by him as a human creature—whether it be a physical act or a mental one, he will respond to all situations that call for a human response, but neither the act nor the response will be accompanied by the personal ego. This does not mean that his worldly life or he himself will suffer loss of identity—only that he will be isolated from the worldly self-centered thought, desire, and motive which prompts the existence of the mass of people.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Naturalness of the attainment

#31813 – 16.25.2.89

BN – ZZ – DEK

It is not only true that there is variety in the types of illumination but also true that there is a scale of degrees in the illumination itself.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Degrees of enlightenment

#31819 – 16.25.2.95

BN – X – D

To be the witness is the first stage; to be Witness of the witness is the next; but to BE is the final one. For consciousness lets go of the witness in the end. Consciousness alone is itself the real experience.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Degrees of enlightenment

#31824 – 16.25.2.100

BN – X – DEK1

A rare but complete illumination must not only pass from the first to the final degree of intensity, but must also contain a picture of the cosmic order. That is to say, it must be a revelation. It must explain the profounder nature of the universe, the inner meaning of individual existence, and the hidden relationship between the two.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Degrees of enlightenment

#31829 – 16.25.2.105

BN – Z – K1

There is some confusion on this point in the minds of many students. On attaining enlightenment a man does not attain omniscience. At most, he may receive a revelation of the inner operations of life and Nature, of the higher laws governing life and man. That is, he may also become a seer and find a cosmogony presented to his gaze. But the actuality in a majority of cases is that he attains enlightenment only, not cosmogonical seership.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Degrees of enlightenment

#31832 – 16.25.2.108

BN – X – K1

The deeper one penetrates into the Void the more he is purified of the illusions of personality, time, matter, space, and causality. Between the second and third stages of insight's unfoldment there are really two further subsidiary stages which are wrapped in the greatest mystery and are rarely touched by the average mystic or yogi. For both of them are stages which lead further downwards into the Void. The yogi touches the edge of the Void, as it were, but not its centre. These two stages are purificatory ones and utterly annihilate the last illusions and the last egoisms of the seeker. They are dissolved forever and cannot revive again. Nothing more useful can and may be said about it here. For this is the innermost holy of holies, the most sacred sanctuary accessible to man. He who touches this grade touches what may not be spoken aloud for sneering ears, nor written down for sneering eyes. Consequently none has ever ventured to explain publicly what must not be so explained.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Degrees of enlightenment

#31833 – 16.25.2.109

BN – ZZ – K1

All human beings on this planet are imperfect. Perfection is not fully attainable here. But when a man has striven for it and advanced near to it, he will attain it automatically as soon as he is freed from the body.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Degrees of enlightenment

#31834 – 16.25.2.110

BN – X – D

The liberation from further reincarnations can be attained while still here in the flesh, but the full completion of its consequent inner peace can come only after final exit from the body.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Degrees of enlightenment

#31836 – 16.25.2.112

BN – X – D

The illuminate is conscious of both the ultimate unity and immediate multiplicity of the world. This is a paradox. But his permanent resting place while he is dealing with others is at the junction-point of duality and unity so that he is ready at any moment to absorb his attention in either phase.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31839 – 16.25.2.115

BA11 – Z – D

In this high state his own mind is consciously connected with the divine Mind. The result can scarcely be understood by the uninitiated.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31843 – 16.25.2.119

BN – Z – DEK

When the masculine and feminine temperaments within us are united, completed, and balanced, when masculine power and feminine passivity are brought together inside the person and knowledge and reverence encircle them both, then wisdom begins to dawn in the soul. The ineffable reality and the mentalist universe are then understood to be non-different from one another.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31844 – 16.25.2.120

BN – X – DEK

When his mind moves entirely and wholly into the One Infinite Presence, and when it settles permanently there, the divided existence of glimpse and darkness, of Spirit and matter, of Overself and ego, of heaven and earth, will vanish. The crossing over to a unified existence will happen.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31846 – 16.25.2.122

BN – X – D

When duality is blended with, and within, unity it is the true jivanmukta realization. The One is then experienced as the Two but known to be really the One.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31847 – 16.25.2.123

BN – Z – K1

The constant application of meditation to the activity of knowledge, to behaviour, thought, and feeling, eventually brings about a continuous awareness. This is called ‘Sahaja’.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31861 – 16.25.2.137

UR_3.2 – Z – K

What is the difference between the state of deepest contemplation, which the Hindus call nirvikalpa samadhi, and that which they call sahaja samadhi? The first is only a temporary experience, that is it begins and ends but the man actually experiences an uplift of consciousness, he gains a new and higher outlook. But sahaja is continuous unbroken realization that as Overself he always was, is, and shall be. It is not a feeling that something new and higher has been gained. What is the absolute test which distinguishes one condition from the other, since both are awareness of the Overself? In nirvikalpa the ego vanishes but reappears when the ordinary state is resumed: hence it has only been lulled, even though it has been slightly weakened by the process. In sahaja the ego is rooted out once and for all! It not only vanishes, but it cannot reappear.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31863 – 16.25.2.139

UR_3.2 – Z – K

I am an Advaitin on the fundamental point of nonduality of the Real, but I am unable to limit myself to most Advaitin's practical view of samadhi and sahaja. Here I stand with Chinese Zen (Ch'an), especially as I was taught and as explained by the Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng. He warns against turning meditation into a narcotic, resulting in a pleasant passivity. He went so far as to declare: 'It is quite unnecessary to stay in monasteries. Only let your mind . . . function in freedom . . . let it abide nowhere. And in this connection he later explains: 'To be free from attachment to all outer objects is true meditation. To meditate means to realize thus tranquillity of Essence of Mind'.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31865E – 16.25.2.141

BSG_4 – P – DE

I do not claim that 'sahaja' yields ultimate reality: I only claim that it yields the ultimate so far 'known to man'.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31867 – 16.25.2.143

BN – ZZ – K1

The general idea in the popular and religious circles of India is that the highest state of illumination is attained during a trance condition (samadhi). This is not the teaching in the highest philosophic circles of India. There is another condition, "sahaja samadhi," which is described in a few little-known texts and which is regarded as superior. It is esteemed because no trance is necessary and because it is a continuous state. The inferior state is one which is intermittently entered and left: it cannot be retained without returning to trance. The philosophic "fourth state," by contrast, remains unbroken even when active and awake in the busy world.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31871 – 16.25.2.147

BN – ZZ – K1

When the sense of this presence is a continuous one, when the knowledge of the mentalness of this world-experience is an abiding one, and when the calm which comes as a result is an unshakeable one, it may be said that he is established in the Truth and in the Real.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31873 – 16.25.2.149

BN – X – D

He does not have to enter into formal meditation to find his soul. It is an ever-present reality for him, not merely an intellectual conception or emotional belief.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31874 – 16.25.2.150

BA11 – Z – D

In the world you will find only two kinds of people—the unconscious and the conscious. The first kind know only their own little egos and their own large desires. The second kind know continually that they are in the presence of the Overself, and enjoy its great peace.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31876 – 16.25.2.152

BN – X – D

He who has reached this degree will be always poised in the Overself, always aware of his identity with its inimitable nature yet also conscious of his limitations as an ego. This may seem queer and contradictory yet the man will never feel himself pulled in different directions but, on the contrary, will feel a perfect harmony between the human and the divine.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31880 – 16.25.2.156

BN – Z – DK

The Buddhists call lasting enlightenment by the name of Nirvana.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31886 – 16.25.2.162

BA11 – X – DK*

To attain this advanced stage is to attain the capacity to enter directly and immediately into meditation, not merely at a special time or in a particular place, but always and everywhere.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31888 – 16.25.2.164

BN – X – D

Once this stage is attained, neither the knowledge of reality nor the feeling of serenity will ever leave him again. He has found them not for a few hours but forever.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31889 – 16.25.2.165

BN – X – D

There is but ONE Reality and various forms under which it appears. Therefore the man who perceives this naturally, perceives the ultimate reality everywhere. He does not need to meditate or to go into a trance to find it.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31890EM – 16.25.2.166

UR_1 – ZZZ – K

The 'disciple' is aware of the Overself at some times but not at other times. The 'adept', however, always has this awareness in an unbroken flow.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31892 – 16.25.2.168

BN – ZZZ – DEK

Inner strength, divine joy, deep understanding, and unspeakable tranquillity will pervade him always and not be limited to the hours of solitary meditation. This is so because the Overself whence these things come is always with all men. Only, they know it not, whereas he has awakened to its abiding presence.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Nonduality, sahaja, insight

#31893 – 16.25.2.169

BN – X – D

When this awareness is so stabilized that it maintains itself at all times awake or asleep, he is at the end of the quest.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Conscious transcendental sleep

#31898 – 16.25.2.174

BN – X – D

The divine presence does not leave the enlightened man when he goes to sleep and return to him when he awakes, nor does it leave him when he enters the state of dream and return to him when he leaves it; it is in truth something which is ever present. If he enters the sleeping state, he enters it while in the light of knowledge, and the same applies if he enters the dream state.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Conscious transcendental sleep

#31899 – 16.25.2.175

BN – X – DEK

That alone is the final attainment which can remain with him through all the three states—waking, dream and deep sleep—and through all the day’s activities.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Conscious transcendental sleep

#31903 – 16.25.2.179

BN – X – D

What is known during deep sleep is the veil of ignorance which covers the Real. That is, the knowing faculty, the awareness, is still present, but caught in the ignorance, the veiling, and knowing nothing else. The sage, however, carries into sleep the awareness he had in wakefulness. He may let it dim down to a glimmer, but it is always there.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Conscious transcendental sleep

#31904 – 16.25.2.180

BN – X – DEK

Although the sage withdraws with the onset of sleep from wakeful awareness, he does not withdraw from all awareness. A pleasurable and peaceful sense of impersonal being is left over. In this he rests throughout the night.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Conscious transcendental sleep

#31908D – 16.25.2.184

BN – X – D

After this passing-over into the Overself’s rule, does he carry a loss of identity? Is he no more aware that he is the named person of the past? Were this so he could not exist in human society or attend to his duties. No!—outwardly he is more or less the same, although his pattern of behaviour betrays recognizable signs of superiority over the past man which he was. Inwardly, there is total revolution.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Conscious transcendental sleep

#31910 – 16.25.2.186

BN – X – D

The differences between human beings still remain after illumination. The variations which make each one a unique specimen and the individual that he is, still continue to exist. But the Oneness behind human beings powerfully counterbalances.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Conscious transcendental sleep

#31913 – 16.25.2.189

BN – X – D

When it is said that we lose our individuality on entering Nirvana, words are being used loosely and faultily. So long as a man, whether he be Buddha or Hitler, has to walk, eat, and work, he must use his individuality. What is lost by the sage is his attachment to individuality with its desires, hates, angers, and passions.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Conscious transcendental sleep

#31914 – 16.25.2.190

BN – X – D

Freed at last from this ever-whirling wheel of birth and death to which he was tied by his own desire-nature, what happens to him can only be an opening up to a new better and indescribable state, and it is so. He, as he was, vanishes, not into complete annihilation and certainly not into the heaven of a perpetuated ego, but into a higher kind of life shrouded in mystery.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Conscious transcendental sleep

#31918 – 16.25.2.194

BN – X – D

The gap between the finite human mind and the infinite World-Mind is absolute. A union between them is not possible unless the first merges and disappears into the second.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31920 – 16.25.2.196

BN – X – K1

It is a fallacy to think that this displacement of the lower self brings about its complete substitution by the infinite and absolute Deity. This fallacy is an ancient and common one in mystical circles and leads to fantastic declarations of self-deification. If the lower self is displaced, it is not destroyed. It lives on but in strict subordination to the higher one, the Overself, the divine soul of man; and it is this latter, not the divine world-principle, which is the true displacing element.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31922 – 16.25.2.198

BN – X – DEK1

There is some kind of a distinction between his higher individuality and the Universal Infinite out of which it is rayed, whatever the Vedantins may say. And this distinction remains in his highest mystical state, which is not one of total absorption and utter destruction of this individuality but the mergence of its own will in the universal will, the closest intimacy of its own being with the universal being.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31924 – 16.25.2.200

BN – ZZZ – K1

There is no final absorption; the individual continues to exist somehow in the Supreme. The fact that he can pass away into it at will and yet return again, proves this.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31926 – 16.25.2.202

BN – X – D

The unit of mind is differentiated out and undergoes its long evolution through numerous changes of state, not to merge so utterly in its source again as to be virtually annihilated, but to be consciously harmonized with that source whilst yet retaining its individuality.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31928 – 16.25.2.204

BN – X – DK1

The philosopher cannot set the spirit apart from the body, nor the spiritual life from the worldly life—for him, they penetrate one another. He lives every moment in the awareness of his Higher Self. Yet this does not oppose nor interfere with, the awareness of his lower one.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31932 – 16.25.2.208

B_08 – P – DX

If the claim of complete merger is valid, if the individual self really disappears in the attainment of Divine Consciousness, of whom then was this same self aware in the experience of attainment? No—it is only the lower personal self that is transcended; the higher spiritual individuality is not.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31934 – 16.25.2.210

BN – X – K1

The higher individuality is preserved, but the lower personality, with its miserable limitations, is not.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31936 – 16.25.2.212

BN – X – D

There is no reason why he should not preserve his individuality even if he should surrender it to God.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31941 – 16.25.2.217

BN – X – D

The goal is achieved when the Higher Self encloses and absorbs the ego.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31942 – 16.25.2.218

BSG_4 – P – D

Though he has been caught up into something immensely greater than himself, he still remains an individual—albeit a loosely held one.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31943 – 16.25.2.219

BN – X – DEK

The enlightened man has the same kind of body and the same five senses as unenlightened men have. His experience of the world must be the same, too. But — and this is a vast difference — he experiences it along with the Overself.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > Individuality remains

#31958 – 16.25.2.234

BN – X – D

How does the illuminate react to his own karma? "Even after knowledge of the self has been awakened, 'Prarabdha' (the portion of past karma now being enjoyed) does not leave him but he does not feel 'Prarabdha' after the dawning of the knowledge of the truth because the body and other things are unreal like the things seen in a dream to one on awakening from it," replies 'Nadabindu Upanishad'. That is, he treats his karmic suffering as being but ideas.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > World continues

#31964 – 16.25.2.240

BN – X – K

The man who has this higher consciousness permanently will see and experience the outer world like other men, but he will understand the relation between what he sees and the Real world which is behind it. In the same way, anyone can understand the relation between his body and its shadows; but whereas unenlightened men see the shadow alone, the enlightened one sees both.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > World continues

#31966 – 16.25.2.242

BN – ZZ – DEK

Of little use are explanations which befog truth and bewilder understanding. To inform a Western reader that an enlightened man sees only "Brahman" is to imply that he does not see forms, that is, the world. But the fact is that he does see what unenlightened men see—the physical objects and creatures around him—or he could not attend to the simplest little necessity or duty of which all humans have to take care. But he sees things without being limited to their physical appearance—he knows their inner reality too.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > World continues

#31967 – 16.25.2.243

BN – ZZZ – K1

This is the spiritual climax of one's life, this dramatic moment when consciousness comes to recognize and understand itself.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#31971 – 16.25.2.247

BN – X – DM

If he has become enlightened, a discerning eye may note the fact by his body and his actions, by his silences and his utterances. But an ignorant eye may note nothing at all.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#31978 – 16.25.2.254

BN – X – D

The effects of enlightenment include: an imperturbable detachment from outer possessions, rank, honours, and persons; an overwhelming certainty about truth; a carefree, heavenly peace above all disturbances and vicissitudes; an acceptance of the general rightness of the universal situation, with each entity and each event playing its role; and impeccable sincerity which says what it means, means what it says.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#31979 – 16.25.2.255

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DM1

He understands then what it means to do nothing of himself, for he feels clearly that the higher power is doing through him whatever has to be done, is doing it rightly, while he himself is merely watching what is happening.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#31981 – 16.25.2.257

BN – ZZZ – D

Though overshadowed continuously by this divine being that is really his own other self, he remains nevertheless quite human. Just as the Illumined State does not prevent him from receiving physical impressions from the world around him, so it does not prevent him from receiving psychic impressions from the people around him. But he does not cling to any of these impressions, nor does he let his emotions get entwined with them.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#31984M – 16.25.2.260

BA11 – P – DX

In that universal Mind wherein he now dwells, he can find no human being to be called his enemy, no human being to be hated or despised. He is friendly to all of them, not as a deliberately cultivated attitude but as a natural compulsion he may not resist.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#31990 – 16.25.2.266

BSG_4 – P – D

He is no longer able to will for himself for the simple reason that some other entity has begun to will for him. Egoism in the human sense, sensualism in the animal sense, have both been eliminated from his heart.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#31994 – 16.25.2.270

BN – X – D

These finer qualities will no longer appear only in momentary impulses. They will possess his whole character.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32000 – 16.25.2.276

BA11 – ZZ – K

The realized man does not look back constantly for memories of the past and does not consider them worth recapitulating, for they belong to the ego … The only exception would be where he has to draw upon them to instruct others to help them profit by his experiences.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32009 – 16.25.2.285

BA11 – P – DE

What happened in all those earlier years is now veiled history to the enlightened man; what happens now, in the Eternal Now, is the important significant matter. Thus his mind is free from old burdens and errors. Yet, if needed, dead events can be resuscitated by intense concentration.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32013 – 16.25.2.289

BN – X – D

When the ego willingly retires from all its worldly concerns or intellectual preoccupations to the sanctuary of the heart to be alone with the Overself, it becomes not only wiser but more powerful. At moments when the divine influx blissfully invades a man, it will not be out of his ordinary self that he will speak or act, but out of his higher self.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32020E – 16.25.2.296

BSG_4 – P – DE

It is natural as well as inevitable that one who has entered into the larger life of the Overself should show forth some of its higher powers. Such an individual's thoughts are informed by a subtler force, invested with a diviner element, pointed by a sharper concentration, and sustained by a superior will than are those of the average person. They are in consequence exceedingly powerful, creative, and effective.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32020E – 16.25.2.296

BSG_4 – P – DE

What was formerly an occasional glimpse will now become a permanent sight. The intermittent intuition of a guardian presence will now become the constantly established experience of it. The divine presence has now become to you an immediate and intimate one. Its reality and vitality are no longer matters for argument or dispute but matters of settled experience.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32020E – 16.25.2.296

BSG_4 – P – DE

That which the sage bears in his heart is for all men alike. If few are willing to receive it, the fault does not lie with him. He rejects none, is prejudiced against none. It is the others who reject him, who are prejudiced against him. He neither inwardly desires nor outwardly requires any public attestation to the sincerity of his services or the integrity of his character. The quiet approval of his own conscience is enough.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32020E – 16.25.2.296

BSG_4 – P – DE

Outwardly he appears to act as intensely or as vigorously as other men. But inwardly he will really be at rest in the Overself, which will lead him like a child into performing necessary actions. His mind is still, even though his body is busy. And because of this leading, his actions will be right and even inspired ones, his personal Will, will be expressive of a higher one.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32021 – 16.25.2.297

BA11 – P – D

At long last, when the union of self with Overself is total and complete, some part of his consciousness will remain unmoving in infinity, unending in eternity. There, in that sacred glory, he will be preoccupied with his divine identity, held to it by irresistible magnetism, gladly, lovingly.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32023 – 16.25.2.299

BA11 – ZZ – DM1

The sage is a man who lives in constant truth-remembrance. He has realized the existence of the Overself, he knows that he partakes of Its life, immortal and infinite. He has made the pilgrimage to essential being and returned again to walk amongst men, to speak their language, and to bear witness, by his life amongst them, to Truth..

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32024 – 16.25.2.300

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

His relationship to the Overself is one of direct awareness of its presence—not as a separate being but as his own essence.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32025 – 16.25.2.301

BN – ZZ – DK

For the person who has come to this understanding, who continually feels that IT IS, who is ever in remembrance of It, rituals, ceremonies, mantras, and prayers are not only unnecessary but are a waste of time.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32030 – 16.25.2.306

B_01 – ZZZ – K

The owl, which sees clearly at midnight, is an old and good symbol of the sage whose mind is ever at rest in, and lighted by, the Infinite Mind.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32031 – 16.25.2.307

BN – Z – DK

At this level, he is beyond bothering to listen to the discordant sounds of competing sects and cults: he is uninterested in the claims made for different teachings. He has only one concern: direct communion with the God within him as a felt, grace-giving Presence.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32033 – 16.25.2.309

BN – ZZ – DK

The liberated person is liberated from all intellectual dogmas, perplexities, and questionings—whether they concern the present past or future, whether they relate to himself personally or to the universe abstractly. For all these can interest only a limited egoistic consciousness.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32040 – 16.25.2.316

BN – ZZ – DK

His life silently becomes a witness to the fact of the Overself's continuous presence.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > Enlightenment Which Stays > General effects of enlightenment

#32052 – 16.25.2.328

BA11 – Z – DK

Philosophy uses the attained man not as a god for grovelling worship and blind obedience, but as an ideal for effectual admiration and reverent analysis.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > The Sage Part 1

#32058 – 16.25.3.6

BN – ZZ – K1

He is an ambassador from the infinite, an envoy to all men from the higher plane of their own being.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > The Sage Part 1

#32064 – 16.25.3.12

BA11 – ZZ – DK

The illuminate is the conscious embodiment of the Overself, whereas the ordinary man is ignorant of that which his heart enshrines. Hence, the Chinese say that the illuminate is the “Complete Man.” He is the rare flower of an age.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > The Sage Part 1

#32066 – 16.25.3.14

BN – ZZ – DK

Such men and women are indeed the spiritual vanguard of the human race.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > The race of sages

#32082 – 16.25.3.30

BN – Z – DK

Such men are so few, their worth to society so great, the darkness around us gathering so thickly, that their presence among us is the greatest blessing.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > The race of sages

#32084 – 16.25.3.32

B_01 – ZZZ – K

We are told that Jesus was a man of sorrows. But was he not also a man of joys? The joy of bearing a divine message, the joy of bringing light into a darkened world, and the joy of helping men find their own soul.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Remarks on specific illuminates

#32113 – 16.25.3.61

B_11 – P – D

Ramana Maharshi had no Long Path experience at all; he practised no techniques; yet he was permanently enlightened at an early age. There are two lessons in this event. First, without either a Long or Short Path previous history a man may still find himself in the higher consciousness. This shows that Grace alone is a sufficient cause. Second, aside from the feeling of disgust with the world through failure to pass his school examinations, the only preparation which Maharshi underwent was falling involuntarily and profoundly into the trance state for three days. Here he was "pulled in" away from the senses and outer awareness by a strong force. This shows that depth of inner penetration of the mind's layers and length of period that contact is held with the Overself are the two important governors of the result attained. Go as deep as you can; stay there as long as you can; this seems to be the silent message of the Maharshi's own experience.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Remarks on specific illuminates

#32128 – 16.25.3.76

BN – Z

Jesus opened up the Mysteries to the masses of the Western continent and gave to the many what had hitherto been given only to the chosen few. Buddha did precisely the same for the masses of the Asiatic continent.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Remarks on specific illuminates

#32138 – 16.25.3.86

B_11 – P – D

It is a mistake to believe that the mystical adepts all possess the same unvarying supernormal powers. On the contrary, they manifest such power or powers as are in consonance with their previous line of development and aspiration. One who has come along an intellectual line of development, for instance, would most naturally manifest exceptional intellectual powers. The situation has been well put by Saint Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: "Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministries but the same Lord. And there are diversities of workings but the same God who worketh all in all." When the Overself activates the newly made adept's psyche, the effect shows itself in some part or faculty; in another adept it produces a different effect. Thus the source is always the same but the manifestation is different.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Differences in attainment, expression

#32146 – 16.25.3.94

BN – X – K1

Having reached this stage he is free to continue his personal life as before, to accept the load of new responsibilities on his shoulders, or to retire wholly from the world. To work for humanity in public is one thing, to work for it in secrecy is another, while to enjoy the freedom and privacy of complete retirement is a third and very different thing. Naturally and inevitably any public appearance will soon turn him into a lightning rod, attracting the aspirations and yearnings of many spiritual seekers.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Differences in attainment, expression

#32152 – 16.25.3.100

BN – Z – K

There is no obligation on a sage to sit stationary in one place or to travel, perpetually, from city to city. His inner guidance alone decides the matter, as his personal karma also makes its contribution toward that decision.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Differences in attainment, expression

#32164 – 16.25.3.112

BN – ZZ – K

Not until the light he has received becomes stabilized as a permanent thing can he be regarded as a master, and not until it is also full and complete can he be regarded as a sage.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Differences in attainment, expression

#32177 – 16.25.3.125

BN – ZZ – K1

There is no classification into matter and spirit for the Sage. There is only one life for him. If a man can find reality only in trance, if he says that the objective world is unreal, he is not a Sage, he is a Yogi.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Wisdom beyond bliss

#32182 – 16.25.3.130

BN – Z – K1

His attainments in the mental, ethical, and philosophic spheres must take concrete shape in the disinterested service of humanity, or he is no illuminate.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Wisdom beyond bliss

#32185 – 16.25.3.133

BN – X – D

Where is the man who is free of the ego? To him we must bow in deep reverence, in wondering admiration, in enforced humility. Here is one who has found his true self, his personal independence, his own being. Here at last is a free man, someone who has found his real worth in a world of false values. Here at last is a truly great man and truly sincere man.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32197 – 16.25.3.145

BN – ZZZ – K1

Whosoever enters into this realization becomes a human sun who sheds enlightenment, radiates strength, and emanates love to all beings.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32198 – 16.25.3.146

BN – X – D

It is a matter of complete assurance and scientific observation for the sage that God exists, that man has a soul, that he is here on earth to become united with this soul, and that he can attain true happiness only by following good and avoiding evil.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32207 – 16.25.3.155

BN – X – D

Such a man has no enemies, although he may have those who regard him as their enemy. For hate cannot enter his heart; goodwill towards all is its fragrant atmosphere.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32211 – 16.25.3.159

BN – X – D

The illuminated man's conduct in this world is a guided one. His senses tell him what is happening in the world about him, but his soul guides him to a proper evaluation of those sense reports. In this way he lives in the world, but is not of it. Of him alone is it true to say that his is a spiritual life.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32218 – 16.25.3.166

BN – X – D

When he has fully accomplished this passing-over, all the elements of his lower nature will then have been fully eliminated. The ego will be destroyed. Instead of being enslaved by its own senses and passions, blinded by its own thoughts and ignorance, his mind will be inspired, enlightened, and liberated by the Overself. Yet life in the human self will not be destroyed because he has entered life in the divine Overself. But neither will it continue in the old and lower way. That self will henceforth function as a perfectly obedient instrument of the soul and no longer of the animal body or intellectual nature. No evil thought and no animal passion can ever again take hold of his mind. What remains of his character is therefore the incorruptible part and the immortal part. Death may rob him of lesser things, but not of the thing which he cherishes most. Having already parted in his heart with what is perishable, he can await it without perturbation and with sublime resignation.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32220 – 16.25.3.168

BN – ZZZ – DM1

When we comprehend what it is that must go into the making of a sage, how many and how diverse the experiences through which he has passed in former incarnations, we realize that such a man's wisdom is part of his bloodstream.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32221 – 16.25.3.169

BN – ZZZ – K1

Despite all his psychical knowledge and personal attainment, the sage never loses his deep sense of the mystery which is at the heart of existence, which is God.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32223 – 16.25.3.171

BN – Z – K1

That certitude which comes to him is not merely the kind which opposes the meaning of hesitance, but also the kind which is the opposite of mere belief, which is born of complete understanding, perfect knowledge, and direct experience.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32245 – 16.25.3.193

BN – ZZZ

It is a fact that in such a man these three passions—anger, lust, and hatred—are stilled forever. There is no temptation which can now have any power over him, no fear which can overcome him, no frustration which can depress him.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32289 – 16.25.3.237

BN – X – D

He is not working for this generation, nor for this country, nor for any millennium, but for an infinite duration of time. Therefore he is, he must be, infinitely patient.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32308 – 16.25.3.256

B_01 – ZZZ – DK

He will bear witness in thought and speech to the joy of this awakened consciousness.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32321 – 16.25.3.269

BN – X – D

If a man deserts blood relations, it is only to take on spiritual ones. If he leaves his earthly house, it is only to enter the monastery, a spiritual one. If he forsakes the society of wife and children, it is only to enjoy that of teacher and students. Thus absolute escape is a mirage and cannot be found. The kind and quality of his bonds can be changed and transformed but not really severed. The only attainable freedom lies deep within. It is invisible and mental. This is what the sage enjoys. He may be weighted with business responsibilities and surrounded by a family, but in his heart nothing holds him.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32322 – 16.25.3.270

BN – ZZZ – DEK

When the hour comes to desert the body, he will be ready for the fated event, without that desperate struggle to hold on to a form which has served its purpose seen too often in the ignorant.

World-Mind in Individual Mind > The Sage Part 1 > Qualities, characteristics of the sage

#32337 – 16.25.3.285

BN – X – D