The holy trinity is truth, goodness, and beauty. For they are leading attributes of the divine soul in man.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Levels, phases, functions of Mind

#34169 – 16.28.1.56

BN – X – D

We are constantly faced by the hoariest of all problems which is "Why did the Universe arise out of the depth and darkness of the Absolute Spirit?" The Seer can offer us a picture of the way in which this Spirit has involved itself into matter and is evolving itself back to self-knowledge. That is only the How and not the Why of the world. The truth is not only that nobody has ever known, that nobody knows, and that nobody will ever know the final and fundamental purpose of creation, but that God himself does not even know—for God too has arisen out of the Absolute no less than the universe, has found himself emanated from the primeval darkness and utter silence. Even God must be content to watch the flow and not wonder why, for both God and man must merge and be absorbed when they face the Absolute for the last time. (In the symbolic language of the Bible, "For man cannot meet God face to face and live.")

The Alone > Absolute Mind > On knowing Why

#34173 – 16.28.1.60

BN – X – K1

As Mind the Real is static, as World-Mind it is dynamic. As Godhead It alone is in the stillness of being; but as God it is the source, substance, and power of the universe. As Mind there is no second thing, no second intelligence to ask the question why it stirred and breathed forth World-Mind, hence why the whole world-process exists. Only man asks this question and it returns unanswered.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > On knowing Why

#34175 – 16.28.1.62

BN – Z – K1

Mind, which forever is, can undergo no change in itself and no multiplication of itself. If it could, it would not be what it is—the Ultimate, the Absolute, the Unconditioned, and the Unique. Nor, being perfect, complete, could it have desire, purpose, aim, or motive for itself. Therefore it could not have projected the universe on account of any benefit sought or gain needed. There is no answer to the question why the universe was sent forth.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > On knowing Why

#34178 – 16.28.1.65

BA11 – ZZ – DK*

The Infinite Power can never become exhausted. It is self-sustaining.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as self-existent, transcendent, unique

#34195 – 16.28.1.82

BN – Z – K1

"Before Abraham was I am!" These words are an expression of the higher mentalism. Note carefully that Jesus did not say "I was". This means that he as the non-personal unindividuated Mind existed before the birth of Abraham. "I am" points to the eternal One where no individual entity ever was, is, or shall be.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as self-existent, transcendent, unique

#34200 – 16.28.1.87

B_12 – P – D

It is the unique not only because of what IT is but also because two statements concerning IT can be quite contradictory, yet each can still be correct!

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as self-existent, transcendent, unique

#34205 – 16.28.1.92

BN – X – K1

That which both Greek Plato and Indian Vedantin called "the One" did not refer to the beginning figure of a series, but to "One-without-a-Second."

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as self-existent, transcendent, unique

#34208 – 16.28.1.95

BN – Z – K1

The Absolute is both everywhere and nowhere. It cannot be considered in spatial terms. Even the word 'infinite' is really such a term. If it is used here because no other is available, let it be clearly understood, then, that it is used merely as a suggestive metaphor.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as unchangeable

#34214E – 16.28.1.101

UR_3.2 – ZZ – K

That which always remains the same, never changes, that is reality.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as unchangeable

#34216 – 16.28.1.103

BA11 – P – D

We must never forget that the entire dynamic movement occurs inseparably within a static blessed repose. Becoming is not apart from Being. Its kinetic movement takes place in the eternal stillness. World-Mind is forever working in the universe whereas Mind is forever at rest and its still motionlessness paradoxically makes all activity and motion possible. The infinite unconditioned Essence could never become confined within or subject to the finite limited world-form. The one dwells in a transcendental timelessness whereas the other exists in a continuous time. There cannot be two eternal principles, two ultimate realities, for each will limit the other's existence and thus deprive it of its absolute character. There is only the One, which is beyond all phenomena and yet includes them.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as unchangeable

#34221E – 16.28.1.108

UR_2.2 – ZEL1/2 – DEK1

The manifestation of the cosmic order, filled with countless objects and entities though it be, does not in any way or to any extent alter the character of the absolute Reality in which it appears. That character is unvarying—is never reduced to a lower form, never confined in a limited one, never modified by conditions, never deprived of a single iota of its being, substance, amplitude, or quality. It always is what it was. It is the ultimate origin of everything and everyone in this universe, yet it remains as unchanged by their death as by their birth, by their absence as by their presence. Everything in the universe is liable to changes, because it was born and must die. We venerate God because He is not liable to change, being ever-existent and self-subsisting, birthless and deathless.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as unchangeable

#34221E – 16.28.1.108

UR_2.2 – ZEL2/2 – DEK1

If Mind is to be regarded aright, we must put out of our thought even the notion of the cosmic Ever-Becoming. But to do this is to enter a virtual Void? Precisely. When we take away all the forms of external physical existence and all the differences of internal mental existence, what we get is an utter emptiness of being which can hardly be differentiated after we have taken away its features and individualities, its finite times and finite distances. There is then nothing but a great void. What is the nature of this void? It is pure Thought. It is out of this empty Thought that the fullness of the universe has paradoxically evolved. Hence it is said that the world's reality is secondary whereas Mind's reality is primary. In the Void the hidden oneness of things is disengaged from the things themselves. Silence therefore is not merely the negation of sound but rather the element in which, as Carlyle said, great things fashion themselves. It is the supreme storehouse of power.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as Void

#34227 – 16.28.1.114

BN – Z – K1

It would be completely false to regard the Void as being a nothing and containing nothing. It is Being itself and contains reality behind all things. Nor is it a kind of inertia, of paralysis. All action springs out of it, all the world-forces derive from it.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as Void

#34231 – 16.28.1.118

BSG_5 – ZZ – DK1

IT is the Principle behind both consciousness and unconsciousness, making the first possible and the second significant. Yet neither consciousness nor unconsciousness, as we humans know them, resemble it.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as Consciousness

#34237 – 16.28.1.124

BN – X – K1

There is a single Consciousness without beginning or end, ever the same in itself, beyond and behind which there is nothing else.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as Consciousness

#34238 – 16.28.1.125

BSG_4 – P – D

Ultimate reality does not lie in this world, nor in that which perceives it, but in that which perceives the perceiver.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as Consciousness

#34242 – 16.28.1.129

UR_2.1 – Z – K

Consciousness can exist apart from the world, from the things and creatures in it, and even from the ego, but the world exists only as a projection of consciousness. In this sense the world has no lasting reality but, by contrast, the consciousness has.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as Consciousness

#34243 – 16.28.1.130

BN – X – D

Beyond all forms which consciousness can take is its very essence, consciousness in itself, alone and unique. It can never be transformed or changed and it can never disintegrate.

The Alone > Absolute Mind > Real as Consciousness

#34246 – 16.28.1.133

BN – X – D

What the Godhead is we do not know. The nature and the structure of the Grand Mystery are beyond all human investigation. We cannot describe it correctly or name it accurately. We can only observe some of its workings and effects in our individual selves and in the universe.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Inadequacy of human symbolization

#34258 – 16.28.2.6

BN – X – D

The Infinite Reality cannot be reasoned with, but only reasoned about. It cannot even be adequately symbolized, for regarding it as a mental image, a pictured thought is only a more refined form of idol-worship. It can only be designated. The true Godhead is unconditioned, formless, not picturable. No individual worship can reach what is utterly beyond all individual existence. No name can be given that will properly stand for what is without attributes and without limitations. In the ultimate reality there are and can be no distinctions and no differences, no grades and no change.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Inadequacy of human symbolization

#34259 – 16.28.2.7

UR_2.1 – ZZ – K

If, remembering the infinitude of the Ultimate Reality, we refuse to personify it and refuse to worship such a personification, we lift ourselves from the exclusively religious to the integrally religio-mystical-philosophic standpoint.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Inadequacy of human symbolization

#34262 – 16.28.2.10

UR_2.1 – Z – K

In ancient Mexico, the Highest Godhead was “the Idea that could not be reproduced” and no personification or representation of it of any kind was allowed. But this was doctrine only for the upper classes and the intellectually cultivated. The masses were given a God who was visible and comprehensible.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Inadequacy of human symbolization

#34263 – 16.28.2.11

BN – X – D

The ultimate reality cannot be represented with any fidelity nor can the ultimate truth be communicated with any accuracy.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Inadequacy of human symbolization

#34264 – 16.28.2.12

UR_2.1 – ZZ – K

The great mysterious emptiness—that is all man can know of God.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Inadequacy of human symbolization

#34283 – 16.28.2.31

BN – X – DK

In the end he will have to confess, as the English hermit Richard Rolle confessed six hundred years ago, despite his deep mystical experiences, that it is not possible to know what God is but only 'that' he is.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Inadequacy of human symbolization

#34292 – 16.28.2.40

BN – X – D

Because there is nothing quite like it in human experience and because there is no opposite in the entire cosmos from which it can be differentiated, the Absolute Being remains utterly incomprehensible to the human intellect.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Inadequacy of human symbolization

#34294 – 16.28.2.42

BN – X – D

The absoluteness of the Godhead is complete and basic. It is not categorically identical with man any more than the ray is with the sun; they are different although not more fundamentally different than the ray from the sun. Hence there can be no direct communication and no positive relationship between them. A profound impenetrability, an existence beyond comprehension, is the first characteristic of the Godhead, when gazed at by human sight.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Inadequacy of human symbolization

#34300 – 16.28.2.48

BN – X – K1

It is the topic most worth writing about yet least understood. Whoever has entered into a partial understanding—it would be too much to demand more—of it, bears some responsibility. He must communicate with his fellows.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Reporting, nonetheless, has value

#34312 – 16.28.2.60

BN – ZZ – DK

There was one question which Jesus left unanswered. It was Pontius Pilate's "What is Truth?" There was one question which Buddha heard several times but always refused to answer. It was "What is Reality?" Since Truth is the knowledge of Reality, both amount to the same.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Reporting, nonetheless, has value

#34313 – 16.28.2.61

UR_2.4 – ZZ – DMK

When we seek comprehension of that aspect of the Overself where there is no universe at all, no activity, no ideation, we seem to enter a great void, an utter no-thingness. The "I" cannot breathe in this rarefied atmosphere. And yet it would be the supreme illusion in a world of illusions to regard this void as the abode of unreality. > >No object in the universe corresponds to the Overself; therefore we are forced to term it "The Void," but the existence of all objects is only explained by its own. > >We may fittingly compare the Overself with any catalytic agent of chemistry which, unaltered itself, activates other substances by its presence. We may carry the comparison further and point out that just as the catalyst is ultimately a product of the same primal stuff as these substances, however different they appear to be, so the thoughts and things whose play constitutes the universe are ultimately of the same primal essence as the Overself.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Reality reveals itself through Overself

#34333 – 16.28.2.81

BN – X – DEK

To say that the ultimate Reality is utterly unknowable is quite correct from the standpoint of the actual human situation involving ordinary and familiar instruments of knowledge, namely, the body's senses and the mind's reasonings. But it is not quite correct from the standpoint of possible human attainment. What neither sense nor intellect can find, a third and higher faculty, now latent, may find. This is the faculty of insight.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Reality reveals itself through Overself

#34337 – 16.28.2.85

UR_2.1 – ZZ – K

The inability of little man to enter into the knowledge of transcendent God does not doom him to perpetual ignorance. For God, being present in all things, is present in him too. The flame is still in the spark. Here is his hope and chance. Just as he knows his own personal identity, so God knows God in him as the Overself. This divine knowing is continually going on, whether he is awake or asleep, whether he is an atheist or a saint. He can share in it too, but only by consenting to submit his intellect to his intuition. This is not an arbitrary condition imposed by theocratic whim but one which inheres in the very nature of the knowing processes. By accepting it, he may put the whole matter to the test and learn for himself, in due time, his other nonpersonal identity.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Reality reveals itself through Overself

#34341 – 16.28.2.89

BN – Z – DEM1

The divine essence is Unknowable to the finite intellect, but knowable, in a certain sense, by the deepest intuition. And this sense can arise to the man previously prepared by instruction and purification, or by studied knowledge and purification, if he puts away thoughts, even those about the essence, or lets them lapse of their own accord, and awaits its self-disclosure patiently, reverently, lovingly—three conditions of high importance.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Reality reveals itself through Overself

#34342 – 16.28.2.90

BN – X – DK1

When we, human beings, through our most enlightened representatives, look for the highest principle of being, life, existence, consciousness—the Supreme Power, the Origin of all Substance, the ultimate Deity, in fact—we find It is one and the same thing looked at from different human standpoints. It is nameless but we may call it, Mind. There is no point where we can come into contact with It for It transcends everything, every human capacity. When we look for It in relation to the universe which includes us, we may call It World-Mind, or in religious terminology, God. Here there is real possibility of a contact, for in our innermost self the connection is already there.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Reality reveals itself through Overself

#34346 – 16.28.2.94

UR_2.1 – ZZZ – K

Let us not deceive ourselves and dishonour the Supreme Being by thinking that we know anything at all about IT. We know nothing. The intellect may formulate conceptions, the intuition may give glimpses, but these are our human reactions to IT. Even the sage, who has attained a harmony with his Overself, has found only the godlike within himself. Yes, it is certainly the Light, but it is so for him, for the human being. He still stands as much outside the divine Mystery as everyone else. The difference is that whereas they stand in darkness he stands in this Light.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Reality reveals itself through Overself

#34347 – 16.28.2.95

BN – ZZ – K1

Philosophic meditation will show him that his own existence is rooted in that of a higher power, while philosophic study will explain some of the laws governing his experiences from birth to death. But at the bottom of existence and experience is ineffable incomprehensible Mystery.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Reality reveals itself through Overself

#34348 – 16.28.2.96

BN – X – D

Neither the senses nor the intellect can tell us anything about the intrinsic nature of this Infinite Mind. Nevertheless we are not left in total ignorance about it. From its manifestation, the cosmos, we may catch a hint of its Intelligence. From its emanation, the soul, we may catch more than a hint of its Beneficence. More than, I say, because the emanation may be felt within us as our very being whereas the manifestation is outside us and is apart.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Reality reveals itself through Overself

#34349D – 16.28.2.97

BN – Z – DK

After the last sermon has been preached, the last book written, Mind remains the Mystery behind all mysteries. Thought cannot conceive It, imagination cannot picture It, nor language express It. The greatest mystic's experience is only his own personal reaction to Its atmosphere, as from a distance. Even this blows him to pieces like a bomb, but the fact that he can collect them together again afterwards shows that it must have been present in some inexplicable supernormal way and was not lost, both to continue existence and to remember the event.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Reality reveals itself through Overself

#34350 – 16.28.2.98

BN – X – K1

This is the Principle which forever remains what it was and will be. It is in the universe and yet the universe is in it too. It never evolves, for it is outside time. It has no shape, for it is outside space. It is beyond man’s consciousness, for it is beyond both his thoughts and sense-experience, yet all consciousness springs mysteriously out of it…

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34352E – 16.28.2.100

BA11 – P – DEK

To keep this origin always at the back of one's mind because it is also the end of all things, is a necessary practice. But this can only be done if one cultivates reactionlessness to the happenings of every day. This does not mean showing no outward reaction, but it does mean that deep down indifference has been achieved—not an empty indifference, but one based on seeing the Divine essence in all things, all creatures, and a Divine meaning in all happenings.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34353 – 16.28.2.101

BN – ZZZ – K1

There is only this one Mind. All else is a seeming show on its surface. To forget the ego and think of this infinite and unending reality is the highest kind of meditation.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34354 – 16.28.2.102

BA11 – ZZ – DK

First, remember that It is appearing as ego; then remember to think that you are It; finally cease to think of It so you may be free of thoughts to be It!

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34355 – 16.28.2.103

BN – X – DK1

To attach oneself to a guru, an avatar, one religion, one creed, is to see the stars only. To put one's faith in the Infinite Being and in its presence within the heart, is to see the vast empty sky itself. The stars will come and go, will disintegrate and vanish, but the sky remains.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34356 – 16.28.2.104

BN – ZZ – K1

In a world of constantly changing scenes, fortunes, health, and relationships, a precious possession is the knowledge that there is the unseen Unchanging Real. Still more precious is awareness within oneself of ITS ever-presence.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34357 – 16.28.2.105

BN – X – D

In the moment that there dawns on his understanding the fact of Mind’s beginninglessness and deathlessness, he gains the second illumination, the first being that of the ego’s illusoriness and transiency.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34358 – 16.28.2.106

BSG_4 – ZZ – DM1

He will have gone far intellectually when he can understand the statement that mind is the seeker but Mind is the sought.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34360 – 16.28.2.108

B_05 – X – DM1

He who puts his mind on the Unlimited instead of on the little parts, who does not deal with fractions but with the all-absorbing Whole, gains some of Its power.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34361 – 16.28.2.109

BN – X – D

What we need to grasp is that although our apprehension of the Real is gradual, the Real is nonetheless with us at every moment in all its radiant totality. Modern science has filled our heads with the false notion that reality is in a state of evolution, whereas it is only our mental concept of reality which is in a state of evolution.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34362 – 16.28.2.110

BA11 – ZZ – DK1

Thinking can, ordinarily, only produce more thoughts. Even thinking about truth, about reality, however correct it be, shares this limitation. But if properly instructed it will know its place and understand the situation, with the consequence that at the proper moment it will make no further effort, and will seek to merge into meditation. When the merger is successfully completed, a holy silence will pervade the consciousness which remains. Truth will then be revealed of its own accord.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34363 – 16.28.2.111

BN – ZZ – DM1*

The "Void" means void of all mental activity and productivity. It means that the notions and images of the mind have been emptied out, that all perceptions of the body and conceptions of the brain have gone.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34367 – 16.28.2.115

BSG_5 – Z – DK1

Master Huang Po: “This Mind is here, now. But as soon as any thought arises you miss it. It is like space . . . unthinkable.”

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34368 – 16.28.2.116

BN – X – D

Mentalism is the study of Mind and its product, thoughts. To separate the two, to disentangle them, is to become aware of Awareness itself. This achievement comes not by any process of intellectual activity but by the very opposite—suspending such activity. And it comes not as another idea but as extremely vivid, powerfully compelling insight.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34371 – 16.28.2.119

BA11 – Z – DM1

Mind in its most unlimited sense is reality. A man can know it only by the intuitive process of being it, in the same manner in which he knows his name, which is not an intellectual process but an immediate one.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34373 – 16.28.2.121

BN – X – D

Those who look to God as a healer, or as a mother, or as a father, or as a teacher are still looking for God within the ego. They are thinking of God only in relation to themselves because their first [egoistic] interest is in themselves. But those who look to God in the Void, and not in any relationship or under any image or idea, really find God. Therefore, they really find "the peace which passeth understanding."

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34377 – 16.28.2.125

BSG_5 – P – D

(a) Awareness alone is whatever it turns its attention to, seems to exist at the time: only that. If to Void then there is nothing else. If to world, then world assumes reality. (b) What is it that is aware? The thought of a point of awareness creates, gives reality at the lowest level to ego, and at the highest to Higher Self but when the thought itself is dropped there is only the One Existence, Being, in the divine Emptiness. It is therefore the Source of all life, intelligence, form. (c) The idea held becomes direct experience for the personality, the awareness becomes direct perception.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34381 – 16.28.2.129

BN – X – K1

Awareness is the very nature of one’s being: it ‘is’ the Self.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34382 – 16.28.2.130

BN – Z – DK1

Every man credits himself with having consciousness during the wakeful state. He never questions or disputes the fact. He does not need anyone else to tell it to him, nor does he tell it to himself. It is the surest part of his knowledge. Yet this is not a knowing which he brings into the field of awareness. It is known differently from the way other facts are known by him. This difference is that the ego is absent from the knowledge—the fact is not actually perceived.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34383 – 16.28.2.131

BN – X – K1

Reason tells us that pure Thought cannot know itself because that would set up a duality which would be false if pure thought is the only real existence. But this is only reason's inability to measure what transcends itself. Although all ordinary experience confirms it, extraordinary experience refutes it.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34384 – 16.28.2.132

BN – X – K1

Consciousness is the best witness to its own existence.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > Meditations on Mind

#34385 – 16.28.2.133

BN – X – D

Mind has no second thing to know and experience, no world. Nor can anyone know and experience Mind and yet remain an individual, a person.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > The ultimate "experience''

#34388 – 16.28.2.136

BN – X – K1

When thought of the little self vanishes, even gloating thought of its spiritual rapture, and That which is behind or beyond it in utter stillness is alone felt and known, then he is said to experience "the touch of the Untouchable," as ancient sages called it.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > The ultimate "experience''

#34389 – 16.28.2.137

BN – Z – DEK

If you believe that you have had the ultimate experience, it is more likely that you had an emotional, or mental, or mystic one. The authentic thing does not enter consciousness. You do not know that it has transpired. You discover it is already here only by looking back at what you were and contrasting it with what you now are; or when others recognize it in you and draw attention to it; or when a situation arises which throws up your real status. It is a permanent fact, not a brief mystic ”glimpse.”

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > The ultimate "experience''

#34391 – 16.28.2.139

BN – Z – DK1

The true union, completely authentic and completely beatific, where mind melts into Mind without the admixture of personal wish or traditional suggestion, cannot be properly described in words. For he who experiences it may know its onset or its end because of the enormous contrast with his ordinary self, but he will not know its full height simply because he will not even know that he is experiencing it. For to do so would be to re-introduce the ego again and thus fall away from the purity of the union. There would then be admixture—which is the fate of most unions.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > The ultimate "experience''

#34392 – 16.28.2.140

BN – X – K1

The actual experience alone can settle this argument. This is what I found: The ego vanished; the everyday "I" which the world knew and which knew the world, was no longer there. But a new and diviner individuality appeared in its place, a consciousness which could say "I AM" and which I recognized to have been my real self all along. It was not lost, merged, or dissolved: it was fully and vividly conscious that it was a point in universal Mind and so not apart from that Mind itself. Only the lower self, the false self, was gone but that was a loss for which to be immeasurably grateful.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > The ultimate "experience''

#34394 – 16.28.2.142

BN – ZZ – DEM1

When you speak of ”an experience” you imply that first, there is an experiencer and second, there is an object of which he has an experience. That is, you refer to the realm of duality. It may be lofty, inspiring, unusual, but it is an event with a beginning and an ending; it is inside time, however variously the sense of time changes. It is not to be identified with the Real.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > The ultimate "experience''

#34395 – 16.28.2.143

BN – X – D

The final grade of inner experience, the deepest phase of contemplation, is one where the experiencer himself disappears, the meditator vanishes, the knower no longer has an object—not even the Overself—to know for duality collapses. Because this grade is beyond the supreme "Light" experience where the Overself reveals its presence visually as a dazzling mass, shaft, ball or ray of unearthly radiance which is seen whether the bodily eyes are open or closed, it has been called the divine darkness.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > The ultimate "experience''

#34399 – 16.28.2.147

BA11 – Z – DK1

He can find the nothingness within himself only after he has evaluated the nothingness of himself. The mystery of the Great Void does not disclose itself to the smugly satisfied or the arrogantly proud or the intellectually conceited.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > The ultimate "experience''

#34400 – 16.28.2.148

BN – ZZ – K1

In this astonishing revelation, he discovers that he himself is the seeker, the teacher, and the sought-for goal.

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > The ultimate "experience''

#34405 – 16.28.2.153

BN – X – D

Only after he has worked his way through different degrees of comprehension of the world whose passing his own development requires and even after he has penetrated the mystery beyond it, does he come to the unexpected insight and attitude which frees him from both. In other words he is neither in the Void, the One, or the Many yet nor is he not in them. Truth thus becomes a triple paradox!

The Alone > Our Relation To the Absolute > The ultimate "experience''

#34407 – 16.28.2.155

BN – X – K1

The Quest of the Overself is none other than the final stage of mankind's long pursuit of happiness.

#34409 – 1.1.0.1

B_04 – Z – DK1

When a man feels imperatively the need of respecting himself, he has heard a faint whisper from his Overself. Henceforth he begins to seek out ways and means for earning that respect. This begins his Quest.

#34410

BN – Z – K1

The central point of this Quest is the inner opening of the ego's heart to the Overself.

#34411 – 1.1.0.3

B_04 – Z – DK1

It is not for those who feel the want of a social meeting every Sunday morning, where they can display their good clothes and listen to good words. It is for those who feel the want of something great in life to which they can give themselves, who cannot rest satisfied with the business of earning their bread and butter alone or spending their time in pleasures. What cause, what mission can be greater than fulfilling the higher purpose of life on earth?

#34412

BN – ZZ – K1

We are here on earth in pursuit of a sacred mission. We have to find what theologians call the soul, what philosophers call the Overself. It is something which is at one and the same time both near at hand and yet far off. For it is the secret source of our life-current, our selfhood, and our consciousness. But because our life-energy is continuously streaming outwards through the senses, because our selfhood is continuously identified with the body, and because our consciousness never contemplates itself, the Overself necessarily eludes us utterly.

#34413 – 1.1.0.5

BN – ZZ – DEK1

There are four goals which philosophy sets before the mind of man: (1) to know itself; (2) to know its Overself; (3) to know the Universe; (4) to know its relation to the universe. The search for these goals constitutes the quest.

#34414

BN – Z – K1

It is this Ideal that gives a secret importance to every phase of our life-experience. It is this goal that invests unknown and unnoticed men and women with Olympic grandeur. It is this Thought that redeems, exalts, and glorifies human existence.

#34415

BN – Z – K1

A humble life dedicated to a great purpose, becomes great.

#34416

BN – Z – K1

This is not merely a matter for a small elite interested in spiritual self-help. It is a serious truth important to every man everywhere.

#34417

BN – Z – K1

There is a great tendency on the part of students of mysticism, practitioners of Yoga, and seekers after spiritual truth to regard their Quest as something quite apart from life itself, just as the stamp collector and the amateur gardener regard their special hobby as something which can be added to their routine of living. This is a fundamental error. The Quest is neither a serious hobby nor a pleasant diversion from the dullness of prosaic everyday living. It is actually living itself. Those who do not understand this fall as a result into eccentricities, self centerednesses, superiority complexes, sectarianism, futile proselytizing of the unready or antagonistic, and attempting to impose upon others what is not suited to them.

#34418E

BN – ZEL1/2 – K1

Those who separate the Quest from their day-to-day existence shut out the most important field of their further growth. They tend to become dreamers and lose their grip on practicalities. Yet, when any of these faults is mentioned to a seeker, he rarely realizes that it applies to him personally but usually believes that it applies only to other seekers. This is because he regards himself as being more advanced than he really is.

#34418E

BN – ZEL2/2 – K1

The work starts with you—with some impulse arising in you, or with some feeling, thought, idea, or some object seen, or with a person, teacher, or with a book or with a lecture or with Nature or with an artistic creation. But whether it be outside or inside you it has to be accepted by you. But if you ask why it happens just then, the answer can only be the Source of all things willed it.

#34419

BN – ZZ – K1

The intuition which brought you to the gates of this quest is, like all authentic intuitions, a spark which you may contract by doubt, hesitation, and accepting negative suggestion from outside sources or which you may expand by faith, obedience, and accepting positive suggestion from those who have already followed and finished this quest.

#34420

BN – X – K1

His journey starts from the place in consciousness where he finds himself. He may repeat the history of some other travellers who seek here and there in this cult and that one for the food that will allay their inner hunger. Years may be spent in such search but whether it ends inside one of these cults or outside all of them, one day something happens to him. His mind is suddenly lit up with understanding and his heart filled with peace. The experience soon passes but the memory of it lasts long. It made him so happy that he yearns to repeat it. But alas! This is one thing that he seems unable to do at will. If it happens again, he will take up the Quest where it really belongs—inside himself. He will cease looking here and there and set to work in real earnestness on himself. He will have to purify his character, practise meditation regularly, and study inspired works.

#34421

BN – X – K1

When this vague yearning for something that worldly life cannot satisfy becomes unendurable, it may be a sign that they are ready for this Quest.

#34422 – 1.1.0.14

B_04 – P – DK1

We may first take to this quest to find a way of escape from our sufferings, whether mental or physical; but gradually we become aware that this negative attitude is not enough, that we must also realize positively the mysterious purpose of human existence.

#34423

BN – Z – K1

Man's main business is to become aware of his true purpose in life; all other business is secondary to this primary concern.

#34424 – 1.1.0.17

BT1008 – ZZZ – DK1

Man’s main business is to become aware of his true purpose in life; all other business is secondary to this concern. It is Man's true business in this world to discover his real self and to ascertain his relationship to the surrounding world…

#34424EM – 1.1.0.17

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

Is the inner life irreconcilable with the world's life? Religio-mystical disciplines and practices are usually based on such a fundamental irreconcilability. Traditional teaching usually asserts it too. Yet if that be true, "Then," as Ramana Maharshi once sceptically said to me, "there is no hope for humanity."

Overview of the Quest > What the Quest Is > General description

#34425D – 2.1.1.63

BN – X – K1

Anyone who is willing to make an earnest endeavour may arrive by his own intelligence, helped if he wishes by the writings of those who have more leisure and more capacity for it, at a worthwhile understanding of these abstract subjects. The intermittent study of these writings, the regular reading of these books will help him to keep his thinking close to true principles. He will get inspiration from their pages, comfort from their phrases, and peace from their ideas. These statements spark the kinetic mental energy of a responsive few and inspire them to make something worthwhile of their lives. What it writes in their minds is eventually written into their activities.

#34426

UR_6 – ZZZ – K1

The highly strung nervous, mental, and artistic temperaments that largely throng these spiritual paths are of all others predisposed to go astray. They become fascinated by the wondrous worlds of study and experiment which open out for them. They are apt to ignore the vital potency of living out these teachings, as opposed to talking about them. For the opposition of having to work in heavy matter brings out the real power of the soul. Its resistance makes accomplishment more difficult but more enduring.

#34427

BN – X – K1

Procrastination may be perilous. Later may be too late. Beware of being drawn into that vast cemetery wherein men bury their half-born aspirations and paralysed hopes.

Overview of the Quest > Its Choice > Postponing the choice

#34428D – 2.1.2.425

BN – Z – DEK1

The quest is not an enterprise of fits and starts, not something to be started today and left off tomorrow, but is the most durable undertaking in a man's life. This is to be his most sacred life-purpose, the most honoured ground of his very existence, and everything else is to be made to subserve it.

#34429

B_04 – ZZ – K1

In that sacred silence he will dedicate his life to the Quest. And although no one except himself will hear or know that dedication, it will be as binding and obligatory as any solemn pledge made in full assembled lodge.

#34430

BN – X – K1

Its chief enemy is indecision. The world is packed with people who suffer from this fault. So our greatest dramatist took this as his theme for his wonderful play, Hamlet. A little more decision on the part of the Prince of Denmark, and the series of tragedies which close the play would have been averted. But in that case the play would not have carried the lesson Shakespeare wanted it to give—how Hamlet was tortured by his own indecisiveness. Wise Faith wins. The fool of today is the wise man of tomorrow—if he lets his mistakes teach him. Not what he can do, but what he 'does' do, matters. The bird of victory finally perches on the shoulders of the man who dares.

#34431 – 1.1.0.26

BN – Z – DEK1

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

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > Attainments

#34432D – 2.1.5.416

BN – ZZZ – DEK1

Those who decline to search for ultimate truth because they believe it to be unattainable, because they despair of ever finding it, betray it.

#34433

UR_2.1 – ZZ – K1

The higher truth can properly be given only to those who are eligible for it, whose minds are ripe enough to receive it without bewilderment, and whose judgement is developed enough to see its worth.

#34434

BN – ZZZ – K1

There must be a certain ethical maturity before a man will even be willing to listen to such a teaching, and there must be a certain intellectual maturity before he will be able to learn it. There must be the will to analyse, the capacity to take an impartial attitude, the strength to renounce the vulgar view of things, and the desire to travel the road of truth inexorably to its last and logical conclusion. The fount of seeking must not be consciously or unconsciously muddied by selfish motive. It is not suggested that these preliminary qualifications must be present in their perfection and fullness—such will be the final result and not the first attempts on the quest—but that they should be present to a sufficient degree to make a marked disciplinary contribution to one's inner life.

#34435

BN – ZZZ – K1

It is not only a path to be followed but one to be followed with good humour and graciousness.

#34436 – 1.1.0.31

BSG_2 – P – DK1

Those whose emotions are strongly held by personal psychological problems would be better prepared for the quest if they first got their lives straightened out or first underwent personal re-adjustment. Where their attitudes are neurotic, hysteric, or psychopathic, it is rash impertinence to dare to consider themselves as candidates for probing the divine mysteries.

#34437

BN – ZZZ – K1

The sacrifice demanded of the aspirant is nothing less than his very self. If he would reach the higher grades of the path, he must give up the ego's thinking and desiring, must overcome its emotional reactions to events and persons and things. Every time he stills the restless thoughts in silent meditation he is giving up the ego; every time he puts the desires aside in a crucial decision he is giving up the ego; every time he disciplines the body, the passions, the activities, he is giving up the ego. It demands the utmost from him before it will give the utmost to him; it forces him to begin by self-humbling and, what is worse, to end by self-crucifixion. Every aspirant has to pass through these ordeals—there is no escape from them. They are what Light on the Path refers to as "the feet being bathed in the blood of the heart." Thus, the Quest is not for weaklings.

#34438 – 1.1.0.33

BN – ZZZ – DEK1

There is only one Duty for men: it is to realize the divinity within. Slavish adherence to any personal, social, or racial duties, set us from outside, must bend and go whenever it comes into conflict with this higher Duty. At the call of this compelling inner voice, the Prince Gautama Buddha trampled down the gilded “duties” of his royal position and walked out into the wilderness a homeless wanderer.

#34439 – 1.1.0.34

BN – ZZZ – DM1

Entering upon this Quest is neither a pleasant nor an easy affair. The aspirant has to begin with the belief that he is a very imperfect person, that before he can penetrate into the spiritual realms he must first prepare himself for such an entrance by working hard to separate himself from these imperfections. Before he entered on the Quest, he liked himself most—now he discovers that he hates himself most. Before he entered on the Quest, he had different enemies here and there—now he has only one enemy, and that is himself. Hitherto he supported the ego by identifying himself with it—henceforth he must deny the ego, and try to affirm the higher self.

#34440

BN – ZZ – K1

He will not be the first aspirant, nor the last, who continues to worship the ego under the delusion that he has begun to worship the Overself.

#34441

BN – X – K1

This wrong self-identification is not only a metaphysical error but also a mental habit. We may correct the error intellectually but we shall still have to deal with the habit. So deeply ingrained is it that only a total effort can successfully alter it. That effort is called the Quest.

#34442 – 1.1.0.37

BN – X – DK1

You may be familiar with the contents of a hundred books on mysticism and yet not be familiar with mysticism itself. For it concerns the intuition, not the intellect.

#34443

BN – X – K1

That the soul exists, that it is something other than his ordinary self, and that it abides within himself, are affirmations which remain basic and common to authentic mystical experience of every school and religion.

#34444

BN – Z – K1

It must be clearly understood that it is only the philosophical quest, the path of the Bodhisattva, which we advocate here, which is threefold. The mystical quest is not. It is simpler. It requires only a single qualification—meditation practice. But it gives only a single fruit—inner peace—whereas the threefold quest yields a threefold fruit: (1) peace, (2) the intellectual ability to instruct others, (3) service. If therefore philosophy calls for a greater effort than mysticism, it compensates by its greater result. And whereas the mystical result is primarily an individual benefit, the philosophical result is both an individual and social one.

#34445

BN – Z – K1

If this benevolent ideal has been set up from the start, then he will not swerve from it at the end. He will draw back from the very verge of the eternal Silence and resume his human garb, that he may compassionately guide those who still seek, grope, blunder, and fall.

#34446

BN – ZZ – K1

Be not afraid! > This very hour begin. > To do the Work thy spirit glories in; > A thousand unseen forces wait to aid,> Be not afraid, > Begin! Begin!

#34447

BN – Z – K1

Philosophy tries to bring a man to realize his own divinity for himself. Hence it tries to bring him to independent thinking, personal effort, and intuitive development. This is not the popular way nor the easy one; it offers no gregarious comfort or herd support. But it is the only way for the seeker after absolute truth. Though the solitary student may suffer from certain disadvantages, he also enjoys certain definite advantages.

#34448E

B_02 – Z – K1

Some have the illusion that the Path is heavily trodden. It is not. ""Many are called but few are chosen."" The traveller must learn to walk resignedly in partial loneliness. The struggle for certain truth and the quest of the divine soul are carried on by every man and must be carried on in an austere isolation when he reaches the philosophic level. No crowd progress and no mass salvation are possible here.

#34448E

B_05 – ZEL1/3 – K1

There is and could be no such thing as a sect in philosophy. Each of its disciples has to learn that there is only one unique path for him, dependent on his past history and present characteristics which constitute his own individuality. To attempt to forego that unique individuality, to impose the spiritual duty of other persons upon himself is, as the Gita points out, a dangerous error. Philosophy tries to bring a man to realize his own divinity for himself. Hence it tries to bring him to independent thinking, personal effort, and intuitive development. This is not the popular way nor the easy one; it offers no gregarious comfort or herd support. But it is the only way for the seeker after absolute truth. Though the solitary student may suffer from certain disadvantages, he also enjoys certain definite advantages.

#34448E

B_05 – ZEL2/3 – K1

In any case, man never really escapes from his essential loneliness. He may push his social efforts at avoidance to extremes and indulge his personal ones to the point of creating illusions, but life comes down on him in some way or other and one day forces him back on himself. Even where he fancies himself to have achieved happiness with or through others, even in the regions of love and friendship, some physical disharmony, some mental change, some emotional vacillation may eventually arise and break the spell, driving him back into isolation once more.

#34448E

B_05 – ZEL3/3 – K1

Does this mean that the aspirant should seek no guide, should take no friendly hand in his own at all? No! It simply means that if he realizes that his choice of a teacher might well change his whole life for better or for worse, and if he seeks well-qualified guidance, he must be discriminating, which means that he must not rush into acceptance of the first guide he meets. He should take his time over the matter and give it the fullest thought. It is quite proper and sound practice for him to be prudent before signing away his life to a teacher or his mind to a creed. It is not the first teacher he meets or the first doctrine he hears that he should accept. Rather should he follow Confucius' practical advice to shoppers: "Before you buy, try three places." Nay, he might have to try thirty places before he finds a really competent teacher or a completely true doctrine. Such a search calls for patience and self-restraint, but the longer it continues the likelier will its goal be reached.

#34449

BN – X – K1

It is true that the higher self can guide and even teach the aspirant from within and that in the end it is the only real guide and teacher. But it is also true that a premature assumption of self-sufficiency may lead him dangerously astray. Indeed, the higher self will direct him to some other human agent for help when he is sufficiently ready. Self-reliance and independence are valuable qualities but they may be pushed too far and thus turned into failings. The student who remains self-guided and self-inspired without making missteps or wasting years, is fortunate.

#34450

BN – ZZ – K1

There is no contradiction between advising aspirants at one time to seek a master and follow the path of discipleship, and advising them to seek within and follow the path of self-reliance at another time. The two counsels can be easily reconciled. For if the aspirant accepts the first one, the master will gradually lead him to become increasingly self-reliant. If he accepts the second one, his higher self will lead him to a master.

#34451

BN – ZZ – K1

That there are perils on this path of self-guidance, is obvious. It is easy to fall into conceit, to breed arrogance, even to imagine an inner voice. Here the saving virtue of balance must be ardently sought, and the protective quality of humbleness must be gently fostered.

#34452

BN – Z – K1

The truth is that nearly all aspirants need the help of expert human guides and printed books when they are actively seeking the Spirit, and of printed books at least when they are merely beginning to seek.

#34453

BN – X – K1

Is it really necessary to travel to some holy land, some sacred place, some distant guru? The true answer is that none of these things is necessary. What you seek is precisely where you now are. Holiness and teaching can meet you there. Is it too hard for you to believe this?

#34454

BN – Z – K1

But one can only have the right to exercise such self-reliance if one pays for it in the coin of self-discipline.

#34455

BN – X – K1

No seeker should be so foolish as to reject the proffered hand of a worthy master. Indeed, such is his weakness and ignorance that he needs all the help he can get from all the strong and wise men of his own times and, through their writings, of past times. But the basis of his relation to such a master should not therefore be one of complete servitude and intellectual paralysis, nor one of totalitarian prohibition from studying with other masters or in other schools. He should keep his freedom to grow and his independence to choose if he is to keep his self-respect.

#34456

B_07 – ZZZ – K1

This injunction to be oneself is to be followed discriminatingly, not blindly. Why should I not follow the procession of another man's thoughts if they be good and true and beautiful?

#34457

BN – Z – K1

A small group of sincere students meeting together may be of great help to each participant provided there is a basic spiritual affinity among them. If this is lacking even in one of the group, such a meeting may well lead to more confusion than enlightenment or may cause some or all to forget that on the quest each walks alone.

#34458

BN – ZZ – K1

A school should exist not only to teach but also to investigate, not to formulate prematurely a finalized system but to remain creative, to go on testing theories by applying them and validating ideas by experience.

Overview of the Quest > Organized Groups > Relation to founder

#34459D – 2.1.4.111

BN – X – K1

True spirituality means applying the knowledge got from learning and heeding the laws of the inner life in the differing degree that each individually can do so. It does not mean joining a group or a society and chattering fruitlessly about it or gossiping inquisitively about spiritual leaders.

#34460

B_01 – ZZ – K1

The moral re-education required by philosophy is not a mere Sunday-school pious hope. It is a practical necessity because of the psychological changes and nervous sensitivity developed by the meditation practices. Without it these exercises may prove dangerous to mind, character, and health. The virtues especially required are: harmlessness in feeling and deed, truthfulness in thought and word, honesty with oneself and with others, sexual restraint, humility.

#34461

BN – X – K1

No amount of travel will arrive at truth, or bring one into contact with an Adept, if the other conditions are lacking.

#34462

BN – X – K1

It is a grave misconception to regard the mystical progress as passing mostly through ecstasies and raptures. On the contrary, it passes just as much through broken hearts and bruised emotions, through painful sacrifices and melancholy renunciations.

#34463

BN – X – K1

That same light which reveals his spiritual importance reveals also his personal insignificance.

#34464

BN – X – K1

When the sublime light of the Ideal shines down upon him and he has the courage to look at his own image by it, he will doubtless make some humiliating discoveries about himself. He will find that he is worse than he believed and not so wise as he thought himself to be. But such discoveries are all to the good. For only then can he know what he is called upon to do and set to work following their pointers in self-improvement.

#34465

BN – Z – K1

You will not be able to understand the world better than you understand yourself. The lamp which can illumine the world for you must be lighted within yourself.

#34466

BN – ZZZ – K1

He begins by an unthinking and immature religious attitude, proceeds to the meditational experiments and personal experience of mysticism or the rational abstractions of metaphysics, and ends in the integral all-embracing all-transcending life of philosophy.

#34467

BN – X – K1

He must purify his heart of egoism, his bodily instincts of animalism, and then a favourable atmosphere will be available for the truth to make itself known to him. This statement presupposes that it is already present and only waiting to reveal itself. Such is philosophy's contention, and such is the philosopher's own experience. It first comes to him as "The Interior Word," the Logos within, and later as "the second birth."

#34469

BN – Z – K1

There are two paths laid out for the attainment, according to the teaching of Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. The first path is union with the Higher Self—not, as some believe, with the Logos. But because the Higher Self is a ray from the Logos, it is as near as a human being can get to it anyway. The second path has its ultimate goal in the Absolute, or as I have named it in my last book, the Great Void. But neither path contradicts the other, for the way to the second path lies through the first one. Therefore, there is no cleavage in the practices. Both goals are equally desirable because both bring man into touch with Reality. It would be quite proper for anyone to stop with the first one if he wishes; but for those who appreciate the philosophic point of view, the second goal, because it includes the first, is more desirable.

Overview of the Quest > Self-Development > What exactly is the goal?

#34470D – 2.1.5.115

BN – X – K1

The stages of the quest are fairly well defined. First — the aspiration toward spiritual growth manifests itself in a man's heart. Second — the feeling of repentance for past error and sin saddens it. Third — the submission to an ascetic or self-denying discipline follows as a reaction. Fourth — the practice of regular exercises in meditation is carried on.

#34471 – 1.1.0.67

BN – X – DM1

He will know what both the fullness and the fulfilment of life mean only when the consciousness that the Spirit is his own very self comes to life within him.

#34472 – 1.1.0.69

UR_5 – ZZZ – DK1

The path requires an all-round effort. It calls for the discipline of emotions as well as the purification of character from egoism, the practice of the art of meditation as well as religious devotion and prayer, constant reflection about the experiences of life to learn the lessons behind them, and constant discrimination between the values of earthly and spiritual things. This self-development crowned by altruistic activity will in time call forth the grace of the Overself and will bring blissful glimpses occasionally to encourage his endeavours. As pointed out in my 'Wisdom of the Overself', not only one but all the functions of one's being must unite in the effort to reach the spiritual goal. 

#34473 – 1.1.0.70

BN – Z – DEK1

If the quest is to be an integral one, as it must be to be a true one, it should continue through all four spheres of a man's being: the emotional, the intellectual, the volitional, and the intuitional. Such a fourfold character makes it a more complicated affair than many mystics believe it to be.

#34474

BN – X – K1

Anyone who can find a direct teacher in the Overself needs no other. But because the ego easily inserts itself even into his spiritual explorations and its influence into his spiritual revelations, he may still need an outer teacher to warn him against these pitfalls in his way.

#34475 – 1.1.0.72

B_07 – Z – DK1

The need of a spiritual guide is nearly as great as ever today and remains but little changed, but the character of the relation between the disciple and the guide has to change. The old following in blind faith must give place to a new following in intelligent faith.

#34476

BN – Z – K1

Few aspirants are sufficiently developed to justify receiving the personal attention and tuition of a master. All aspirants may, however, seek for his blessing. He will not withhold it. But such is its potency that it may at times work out in a way contrary to their desire. It may bring the ego suffering in the removal of inner weakness as a prelude to bringing it inner light. They should therefore pause and consider before they ask for his blessing. Only a deep earnestness about the quest should motivate such an approach.

#34477

BN – ZZ – K1

It is next to impossible to ascertain the Truth without the guidance of a Teacher. This is the ancient tradition of the East and it will have to become the modern tradition of the West. There is no escape. The explanation of this statement lies in the subtle nature of the Truth. Thus, in the West, men of such acute intelligence and such high character as Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Thoreau came close to the verge of Truth. They could not fully enter because they lacked a Guide. Even in India, the greatest mind that land of Thinkers ever produced, the illustrious Shankara, publicly acknowledged the debt he owed to his own Teacher, Govindapada.

#34478

BN – Z – K1

If an opportunity seems to occur to become the disciple of a master, be sure first to test whether he is fit to hold such a position. Do not test his supposed possession of occult powers or healing gifts; check rather whether he is master over himself before he plays the role over the lives of others. Is he free from the lust of sex, the greed of money, the itch for fame, the passion of wrath, and the desire for power? If not, he may be remarkable, unusual, clever, fluent, psychic, friendly, or anything else, but be sure that he is not competent to guide disciples to the kingdom of heaven.

#34479

BN – Z – K1

Six are the duties of such a teacher: (1) to instruct the student in new knowledge, (2) to correct the errors of his existing knowledge, (3) to develop his mentality in a balanced way, (4) to restrain him from committing evil, (5) to encourage him compassionately, and (6) to open the mystical path to him by active help in meditation.

#34480

BN – X – K1

Three qualifications at least are required in a spiritual teacher: thorough competence, moral purity, and compassionate altruism. Only he who has triumphed over the evil in himself can help others do the same for themselves. Only he who has discovered the divine spirit in himself can guide others to make their own discovery of it. Teaching that does not stem forth from personal experience can never have the effectiveness of teaching that does.

#34481

BN – ZZ – K1

It is essential that a spiritual preceptor live up to the lofty precepts he hands out; if he is unable to do this, he ought to come down from his high seat and take his place among the pupils—preferably in the back row. The Western student of divine mysteries is very eager and very apt to rush out and attempt to teach his fellows before he has completed his course of studies, and before he has quite realized their truth by experience. The obvious reasons are many: a love of the limelight and a sense of superiority are but two of them. How different, this, from that lowly humility of Lao Tzu, whose followers increased from a single person in his lifetime to many millions after his death. "The Sage wears a coarse garment, but carries a jewel in his bosom" is his beautiful announcement. "To know, but to be as though not knowing, is the height of wisdom" is another of his spirit-realized utterances.

#34482

BN – ZZ – K1

Truth cannot be got without a master. That the Buddha did get it without such help does not disprove the truth of this principle. For the arisal of a Buddha is a rare phenomenon on this earth. Mortals who are struggling in mental darkness compose the mass of mankind, not Buddhas sent to enlighten them and therefore destined to be self-enlightened.

#34483

BN – ZZ – K1

That man is most likely to become and is best fitted to become your teacher to whom you are drawn not so much by his experience and wisdom, his goodness and power, as by some intuitional attraction. For this is a sign of an earlier relationship in other lives on earth. The personal trust and intellectual dependence which it generates are themselves signs that you have been teacher and disciple in former reincarnations. It is best to accept the leading of this attraction, for the man under whom you have continuously worked before is the man whom destiny will allot you to pick up the same work again. You may postpone the opening up of such a relationship again but in the end you cannot avoid it. Destiny will have the last word in such a matter.

#34484

BN – ZZ – K1

If he is not too proud to begin at the point where he finds himself rather than at some point where he once was or would now like to be, if he is willing to advance one step at a time, he may realize his goal far more quickly than the less humble and more pretentious man is likely to realize it.

#34485

BN – ZZZ – K1

The Long Path represents the earlier stages through which all seekers after the higher wisdom will have to pass; they cannot leap up to the top. Therefore those stages will always remain valuable.

#34486

BN – Z – K1

The aspirant for illumination must first lift himself out of the quagmire of desire, passion, selfishness, and materialism in which he is sunk. To achieve this purpose, he must undergo a purificatory discipline. It is true that some individuals blessed by grace or karma spontaneously receive illumination without having to undergo such a discipline. But these individuals are few. Most of us have to toil hard to extricate ourselves from the depths of the lower nature before we can see the sky shining overhead.

#34487 – 1.2.0.3

BN – X – DK1

An intellectual understanding is not enough. These ideas can be turned into truths only by a thorough self-discipline leading to liberation from passions, governance of emotions, transformation of morals, and concentration of thoughts.

#34488

BN – Z – K1

He has to develop religious veneration, mystical intuition, moral worth, rational intelligence, and active usefulness in order to evolve a fuller personality. Thus he becomes a fit instrument for the descent of the Overself into the waking consciousness.

#34489 – 1.2.0.5

BN – X – DK1

Many a yogi will criticize this threefold path to realization. He will say meditation alone will be enough. He will deprecate the necessity of knowing metaphysics and ridicule the call to inspired action. But to show that I am introducing no new-fangled notion of my own here, it may be pointed out that in Buddhism there is a recognized triple discipline of attainment, consisting of (1) 'dyhana' (meditation practice), (2) 'prajna' (higher understanding), (3) 'sila' (self-denying conduct).

Overview of Practices Involved > Balance the Psyche > Cultivate balance

#3348D – 3.2.5.196

BN – X – K

It is a fault in most of my writings that I did not mention at all, or mentioned too briefly and lightly, certain aspects of the quest so that wrong ideas about my views on these matters now prevail. I did not touch on these aspects or did not touch on them sufficiently, partly because I thought my task was to deal as a specialist primarily with meditation alone, and partly because so many other workers had dealt with them so often. It is now needful to change the emphasis over to these neglected hints. They include moral re-education; character building; prayer, communion, and worship in their most inward, least outward, and quite undenominational religious sense; mortification of flesh and feeling as a temporary but indispensable discipline; and the use of creative imagination in contemplative exercises as a help to spiritual achievement.

#34491

BN – X – K1

There is a point of view which rejects the attitude that destitution and dire poverty are the only paths to spirituality and replaces it by the attitude that a simple life and a small number of possessions are better. The poverty-stricken life is usually inadequate and unaesthetic. We need a sufficiency of possessions in order to obtain efficiency of living, and an aesthetic home in order to live the beautiful life. How much more conducive to success in meditation, for instance, is a well-ordered home, a refined elegant environment, a noiseless and undisturbed room or outdoor spot! But these things cost money. However much the seeker may saturate himself in youthful years with idealistic contempt for the world's values, he will find in time that even the things important to his inner spiritual life can usually be had only if he has enough money to buy them. Privacy, solitude, silence, and leisure for study and meditation are not free, and their price comes high.

#34492

BN – Z – K1

To live a simpler life is not the same as to live an impoverished life. Our wants are without end and it is economy of spiritual energy to reduce them at certain points. But this is not to say that all beautiful things are to be thrown out of the window merely because they are not functional or indispensable.

#34493

BN – Z – K1

What earlier scholars translated as "nonacceptance of gifts" in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, Mahadevan has translated as "non-possession." The difference in meaning is important. The idea clearly is to avoid burdens which keep attention busy with their care.

#34494

BN – Z – K1

What is really meant by renunciation of the world? I will tell you. It is what a man comes down to when confronted by certain death, when he knows that within an hour or two he will be gone from the living world—when he dictates his last will and testament disposing of all his earthly possessions.

#34495

BN – Z – K1

It is not the world that stands in our way and must be renounced but our mental and emotional relationship with the world; and this needs only to be corrected. We may remain just where we are without flight to ashram or convent, provided we make an inner shift.

#34496 – 1.2.0.12

BN – Z – K1

There is something crazy in this idea that we were put into the world to separate ourselves from it!

#34497

BN – X – K1

The inability to believe in or detect the presence of a divine power in the universe is to be overcome by a threefold process. The first part some people overcome by "hearing" the truth directly uttered by an illumined person or by other people by reading their inspired writings. The second part is to reflect constantly upon the Great Truths. The third part is to introvert the mind in contemplation.

#34498

BN – X – K1

He must be observant, must understand the heights and depths of human nature, human motives, and human egoism. He should do this because it will help him to know both others and himself, to serve them better and to protect his quest.

#34499

BN – Z – K1

He who enters upon this quest will have plenty to do, for he will have to work on the weaknesses in his character, to think impartially, to meditate regularly, and to aspire constantly. Above all, he will have to train himself in the discipline of surrendering the ego.

#34500 – 1.2.0.16

BN – Z – K1

Show me a man who is regular and persistent in his practice of daily study, reflection, and meditation, and you will show me a man determined to break the bonds of flesh and destined to walk into the sphere of the spirit, though years may elapse and lives may pass before he succeeds. He has learned to ask, to seek, and to find.

#34501

BN – Z – K1

As a preface to this reflective reading, he should put his heart in an attitude of humility and prayerfulness. He needs the one because it is the divine grace which will make his own efforts bear fruit in the end. He needs the other because he must ask for this grace. And however obscurely he may glimpse the book's meaning at times, his own reflective faith in the truth set down in its pages and in the inner leading of his higher self, will assist him to progress farther. Such a sublime stick-to-it-iveness brings the Overself's grace in illuminated understanding.

#34502

BN – X – K1

From the first moment that he sets foot on this inner path until the last one when he has finished it, he will at intervals be assailed by tests which will try the stuff he is made of. Such trials are sent to the student to examine his mettle, to show how much he is really worth, and to reveal the strength and weakness that are really his, not what he believes are his. The hardships he encounters try the quality of his attainment and demonstrate whether his inner strength can survive them or will break down; the sufferings he experiences may engrave lessons on his heart, and the ordeals he undergoes may purify it. Life is the teacher as well as the judge.

#34503

B_15 – ZZZ – K1

Every act is to be brought into the field of awareness and done deliberately.

#34504

BN – Z – K1

The discipline of the self, the following of ethical conduct, the practice of mystical meditation—all these are needed if the higher experience resulting in insight is being sought.

#34505 – 1.2.0.21

BN – Z – DM1

Aspiration alone is not enough. It must be backed by discipline, training, and endeavour.

#34506

BN – Z – K1

He who wishes to triumph must learn to endure. No one can go beyond the first stage without forcing himself to endure irksomeness, to hold on, to wait patiently, determinedly, and to hope cheerfully for eventual success.

#34507M

BA12 – ZZ

He who wishes to triumph must learn to endure.

#34507

BN – ZZZ – K1

From the intuitions that are the earliest guides of the seeking mind to the ecstatic self-absorptions that are the latest experiences of the illumined mystic, there are certain obstructions which have to be progressively removed if these manifestations are to appear. They can be classified into three groups: those that belong to the unchecked passions of man, those that belong to his self-centered emotions, and those that belong to his prejudiced thinking. By a critical self-analysis, by a purificatory self-denial, and by an ascetic self-training, the philosophic discipline generates a deep moral and intellectual earnestness which wears down these obstructions and prepares the seeker for real advance.

#34508

BN – Z – K1

The Quest is not to be followed by studying metaphysically alone or by sitting meditatively alone. Both are needful yet still not enough. Experience must be reflectively observed, and intuition must be carefully looked for. Above all, the aspirant must be determined to strive faithfully for the ethical ideals of philosophy and to practise sincerely its moral teachings.

#34510 – 1.2.0.26

BSG_4 – ZZ – DK1

Even though he learns all these truths, he has only learnt them intellectually. They must be applied in the environment, they must be deeply felt in the heart, and, finally, they must be established as the Consciousness whence they are derived.

#34511

BN – Z – K1

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

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

#34512D – 3.2.5.12

BN – X – DK1

It is not merely undesirable for others' sake for a man to engage in spiritual service prematurely and unpurified, but positively dangerous to his own welfare.

#34513

BN – X – K1

The only authentic mandate for spiritual service must come, if it does not come from a master, from within one's Higher Self. If it comes from the ego, it is then an unnecessary intrusion into other people's lives which can do little good, however excellent the intention.

#34514

BN – ZZZ – K1

When he came down into reincarnation, he came with the responsibility for his own life, not for other people's. They were, and ever afterwards remained, responsible for their own lives. The burden was never at any time shifted by God onto his shoulders.

#34515

BN – ZZ – K1

He must examine himself to find out how far hidden self-seeking enters into his altruistic activity.

#34516 – 1.2.0.33

BN – ZZ – DK1

It is futile for anyone who has muddled his own life to set out to straighten the lives of others. It is arrogant and impertinent for anyone to start out improving humanity whilst he himself lamentably needs improvement. The time and strength that he proposes to give in such service will be better used in his own. To meddle with the natural course of other men's lives under such conditions is to fish in troubled waters and make a fool of himself. Only when he has himself well in hand is there even a chance of rendering real service. A man whose own interior and exterior life is full of failure should not mock the teaching by prattling constantly about his wish to serve humanity. Such service must first begin at the point nearest to him, that is, his own self.

#34517

BN – Z – K1

If he can keep his motives really pure and his ego from getting involved, he may find the way to render service. But few men can do it.

#34518

BN – ZZ – K1

It is not that he is not to care about other people or try to help them, but that he is to remember that there is so little he can do for them while he is so little himself.

#34519

BN – X – K1

Help given, or alms bestowed, out of the giver's feeling of oneness with the sufferer, is twice given: once as the physical benefit and once as the spiritual blessing along with it.

#34520

BN – X – K1

Philosophic service is distinguished by practical competence and personal unselfishness.

#34521

BN – ZZZ – K1

I must cut a clear line of difference between helping people and pleasing them. Many write and say my books have helped them when they really mean that my books have pleased their emotions. We help only when we lift a man's mind to the next higher step, not when we confirm his present position by "pleasing" him. To help is to assist a man's progress; to please is to let his bonds enslave him.

#34522

BN – ZZ – K1

The seeker must live primarily for his own development, secondarily for society's. Only when he has attained the consummation of that development may he reverse the roles. If, in his early enthusiasm, he becomes a reformer or a missionary much more than a seeker, he will stub his toes.

#34523

BN – Z – K1

If he begins to think of himself as the doer of this service, the helper of these people, he begins to set up the ego again. It will act as a barricade between him and the higher impersonal power. The spiritual effectiveness of his activity will begin to dwindle.

#34524 – 1.2.0.41

BN – ZZZ – DK1

Because the ultimate issue lies with the grace of the Overself, the aspirant is not to prejudge the results of his Quest. He is to let them take care of themselves. This has one benefit, that it saves him from falling into the extremes of undue discouragement on the one hand and undue elation on the other. It tells him that even though he may not be able, in this incarnation, to attain the goal of union with the Overself by destroying the ego, he can certainly make some progress towards his goal by weakening the ego. Such a weakening does not depend upon grace; it is perfectly within the bounds of his own competence, his own capacity.

#34525 – 1.2.0.42

BN – ZZ – DEK1

Such inward invulnerability seems too far away to be practicable. But the chief value of seeking it lies in the direction which it gives to thought, feeling, and will. Even if it unlikely that the aspirant will achieve such a high standard in this present incarnation, it is likely that he will be able to take two or three steps nearer its achievement.

#34526

BN – X – K1

Let us accept the invitation, ever-open, from the Stillness, taste its exquisite sweetness, and heed its silent instruction.

#34527

BN – Z – K1

Let him withdraw once a day at least, not only from the world's outer activities but also from his own inner conflicts.

#34528

BN – ZZ – K1

In these periods of retreat we are to live with Principles, to get our minds cleansed and hearts pure, to straighten the crooked thoughts and to be where hurry and pressure are not.

#34529

BN – Z – K1

Such a retreat is not to be regarded as a holiday, although it accidentally serves that purpose too, but as a way of life. It is not just a means of filling idle time or of inertly resting in an interval between activities, but is a creative endeavour to transmute oneself and one's values.

#34530

BN – X – K1

To practise retreat in the philosophical manner is very different from the escapist manner. In the first case, the man is striving to gain greater mastery over self and life. In the second case, he is becoming an inert slacker, losing his grip on life.

#34531

BN – X – K1

What philosophy prescribes is neither a life solely given up to monastic retreat nor a life entirely spent in active affairs, but rather a sensible and proportioned combination of the two, a mixture in which the first ingredient necessarily amounts to less than the second.

#34532

BN – Z – K1

Wisdom demands balance. Yet the modern man leads an unbalanced life. He is engaged in ceaseless activity, whether of work or pleasure, without the counterbalance of quiet repose and inner withdrawal. His activity is alright in its place, but it should be kept there, and should not overrun these precious moments when he ought to take counsel of his higher being. Hence the periodic practice of mental quiet is a necessity, not a luxury or hobby. It is called by the Chinese esoteric school "cleansing the mind."

#34533

BN – Z – K1

If these occasional retirements from the world benefit him, if he comes out of them with a stronger will and a clearer mind and a calmer heart, if they enable him to collect his thoughts about deeper matters and to gather his forces for the higher life, then it would be foolish to dub this as escapism.

#34534

BN – ZZ – K1

If he is to find the highest in himself, a man can best begin this search by retiring to the country and by working at some occupation where he does not have to fight selfishly and compete fiercely with others. By thus working less ambitiously and living more plainly, he will have a better chance to cultivate the tender plant of aspiration. By thus separating himself from the agitated atmosphere of cities, what he loses in outer fortune he will gain in inner fortune. Yet, if he faithfully follows his ideals, he will find that the same inner voice which prompted him to dwell apart will at times urge him to return for a while also and learn the missing part of his lesson. Most of the needful lessons of life can be learnt in obscure retreat, in small rural communities, but not all. The others are to be gained only in the large bustling cities and societies of men.

#34535

BN – ZZ – K1

Because most of us have to pass our lives on this earth and in human society, we cannot travel the fugitive way. We cannot enter monasteries or sit in ashrams. And because some of us prefer philosophy to escapism we do not want to do so. For we believe that the real thing ascetics seek escape from is not the world, not society, but themselves; that our chief work in life is to remake ourselves. When we go into occasional and limited retreat we do so to quieten the mind, to detach the heart, to extend our perspectives, and to reflect upon life—not to run from it and squat the years idly away.

#34536

BN – Z – K1

He who lives a noble life in the midst of the world's business is superior to him who lives a noble life in the midst of a monastery.

#34537

BN – ZZ – K1

We need to take these occasional retreats to cleanse ourselves inwardly, to find fresh strength and gather new inspiration, to study ourselves, meditate, and understand truth.

#34538 – 1.3.0.12

BN – ZZ – DK1

There is a real need to balance our extreme tendency to activism with something of quietism, to offset our excessive doing with deeper being.

#34539 – 1.3.0.13

BN – Z – DK1

The fast pace of modern living and the busy clamour of modern cities prevent us from meeting ourselves. We have to sit down as if we were in the desert all alone surrounded by silence and slow the pace of thoughts until in the gaps between them we begin to see who the thinker is. But we must give it time, we must be patient. It is not out there right in front, but hidden deep inside. Inside there is a light at the end of the dark tunnel.

#34540

BN – Z – K1

The benefits of meditation apply both to mundane life and to spiritual seeking.

#34541E – 1.3.0.15

BSG_4 – P – DE

The benefits of meditation apply both to mundane life and to spiritual seeking. Think what it means to be able to give our mental apparatus a complete rest, to be able to stop all thoughts at will, and to experience the profound relief of relaxing the entire being—body, nerves, breath, emotions, and thoughts…

#34541E – 1.3.0.15

BA11 – P – DE

Think what it means to be able to give our mental apparatus a complete rest, to be able to stop all thoughts at will, and to experience the profound relief of relaxing the entire being―body, nerves, breath, emotions, and thoughts…

#34541E – 1.3.0.15

BSG_4 – P – DE

We must strike a healthy balance between work and retirement, activity and contemplation, pleasure and reflection, and not remain victims of prevailing conventions. A few minutes invested every day in meditation practice will more than pay for themselves. We must not only introduce it as a regular feature of the human day but also as an important one.

#34541E – 1.3.0.15

BN – X – DE

We must reorganize our daily lives so that time can be found for the leisurely cultivation of the soul through study, reflection, and meditation. Such periodical intervals of withdrawnness from the endless preoccupation with external affairs are a spiritual necessity.

#34541E – 1.3.0.15

BN – X – DE

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

#34542

BN – Z – K1

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

#34543 – 1.3.0.17

BN – ZZ – DM1

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

#34544 – 1.3.0.18

BN – X – DK1

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

#34545

BN – Z – K1

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

#34546

BN – Z – K1

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

#34547

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34548

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34549

BN – Z – K1

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

#34550

BN – Z – K1

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

#34551

BN – Z – K1

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

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

#34552D – 3.3.2.136

BN – Z – K1

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

#34553

BN – X – K1

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

#34554

BN – X – K1

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

#34555

BN – X – K1

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

#34556

BN – X – K1

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

#34557

BN – X – K1

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

#34558

BN – X – K1

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

#34559

BN – X – K1

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

#34560

BN – Z – K1

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

#34561

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34562

BN – Z – K1

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

#34563

BN – Z – K1

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

#34564

BN – Z – K1

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

#34565 – 1.3.0.39

BN – X – DK1

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

#34566

BN – Z – K1

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

#34567

BN – Z – K1

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

#34568

BN – Z – K1

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

#34569 – 1.3.0.43

BN – X – DK1

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

#34570

BN – X – K1

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

#34571

BN – Z – K1

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

#34572

BN – X – K1

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

#34573 – 1.3.0.47

BN – X – DK1

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

#34574 – 1.0.4.2

BN – X – DK1

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

#34575

BN – X – K1

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

#34576 – 1.4.0.5

BN – X – DEK1

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

#34577

BN – X – K1

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

#34578 – 1.4.0.9

BN – X – DK1

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

#34579

BN – Z – K1

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

#34581

BN – X – K1

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

#34582

BN – Z – K1

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

#34583

BN – X – K1

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

#34584

BN – X – K1

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

#34585

BN – X – K1

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

#34586

BN – X – K1

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

#34587

BN – Z – K1

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

#34588 – 1.4.0.28

BN – X – DM1

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

#34589

BN – X – K1

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

#34590

BN – X – K1

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

#34591 – 1.4.0.34

BN – X – DK1

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

#34592 – 1.4.0.35

BN – ZZ – DEK1

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

#34593

BN – X – K1

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

#34594

BN – X – K1

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

#34595

BN – X – K1

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

#34596

BN – X – K1

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

#34597

BN – X – K1

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

#34598

BN – X – K1

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

#34599

BN – X – K1

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

#34600

BN – X – K1

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

#34601 – 1.4.0.48

B_01 – Z – DK1

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

#34602

BN – X – K1

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

#34603

BN – X – K1

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

#34604

BN – X – K1

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

#34605

BN – Z – K1

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

#34606 – 1.4.0.58

BN – Z – DK1

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

#34608

BN – Z – K1

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

#34609

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34610

BN – X – K1

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

#34611

BN – X – K1

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

#34612

BN – X – K1

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

#34613 – 1.4.0.75

BN – X – DK1

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

#34614 – 1.4.0.77

BN – X – DK1

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

#34615

BN – X – K1

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

#34616

BN – X – K1

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

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#34617D – 4.4.6.111

BN – X – K1

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

#34619

BN – X – K1

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

#34620

BN – X – K1

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

#34621

BN – X – K1

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

#34622

BN – X – K1

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

#34623

BN – X – K1

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

#34624

BN – X – K1

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

#34625

BN – X – K1

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

#34626

BN – X – K1

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

#34627

BN – X – K1

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

#34628

BN – X – K1

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

#34629

BN – X – K1

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

#34631 – 1.5.0.12

BN – X – DK1

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

#34632

BN – X – K1

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

#34633 – 1.5.0.15

BN – X – DK1

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

#34634

BN – X – K1

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

#34635

BN – X – K1

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

#34636 – 1.5.0.18

BN – X – DM1

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

#34637 – 1.5.0.19

BN – X – DEK1

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

#34638

BN – X – K1

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

#34639 – 1.5.0.21

BN – X – DK1

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

#34640 – 1.5.0.22

BN – X – DEK1

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

#34642

BN – X – K1

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

#34643

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34644

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34645

BN – X – K1

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

#34647

BN – X – K1

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

#34648

BN – X – K1

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

#34649

BN – X – K1

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

#34650

BN – X – K1

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

#34651

BN – X – K1

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

#34652

BN – X – K1

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

#34653

BN – X – K1

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

#34654 – 1.5.0.45

BN – X – DK1

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

#34655

BN – X – K1

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

#34656

BN – Z – K1

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

#34657

BN – X – K1

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

#34658

BN – Z – K1

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

Emotions and Ethics > Re-Educate Feelings > Detachment

#34659D – 5.6.2.151

BN – ZZZ – DEK1

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

#34660 – 1.6.0.11

BN – X – DK1

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

#34661

BN – X – K1

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

#34662

BN – Z – K1

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

#34663

BN – X – K1

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

#34664 – 1.6.0.25

BN – ZZ – DEK1

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

#34665

BN – X – K1

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

#34666 – 1.6.0.29

BN – X – DM1

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

#34667 – 1.6.0.31

BN – Z – DK1

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

#34668

BN – Z – K1

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

#34669 – 1.6.0.36

BN – X – DK1

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

#34670

BN – Z – K1

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

#34673

BN – X – K1

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

#34674 – 1.6.0.42

BN – X – DK1

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

#34675

BN – X – K1

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

#34676

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34677 – 1.6.0.45

BA11 – ZZ – DEK

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

#34678

BN – X – K1

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

#34679

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34680

BN – Z – K1

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

#34681

BN – Z – K1

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

#34682 – 1.6.0.53

BN – Z – DEK1

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

#34683 – 1.6.0.54

BN – Z – DEK1

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

#34684 – 1.6.0.55

BN – Z – DK1

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

#34685

BN – ZZZ – K1

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

#34686

B_13 – ZZZ – K1

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

#34687

BN – ZZZ – K1

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

#34688

BN – ZZZ – K1

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

#34690

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34691

BN – X – K1

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

#34692

BN – Z – K1

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

#34693

BN – Z – K1

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

#34694

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34695

BN – Z – K1

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

#34696

BN – X – K1

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

#34697

BN – X – K1

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

#34698

BN – X – K1

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

#34699

A241129 – Z – K1

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

#34700 – 1.7.0.24

BN – Z – DK1

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

#34701

BN – Z – K1

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

#34704

BN – Z – K1

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

#34705

BN – Z – K1

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

#34706

BN – X – K1

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

#34707

BN – X – K1

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

#34708

BN – Z – K1

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

#34709 – 1.8.0.20

BN – Z – DM1

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

#34710 – 1.8.0.30

BN – ZZ – DEK1

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

#34711

BN – X – K1

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

#34712

BN – X – K1

The ego turns ceaselessly around itself.

#34713

BN – X – K1

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

#34714

BN – Z – K1

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

#34715

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34716 – 1.8.0.60

BN – Z – DK1

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

#34717 – 1.8.0.61

BN – Z – DK1

The ego worships no other God than itself.

#34718 – 1.8.0.64

BN – Z – DK1

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

#34719

BN – Z – K1

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

#34720 – 1.9.0.5

B_01 – ZZZ – DK1

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

#34721

BN – Z – K1

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

#34722 – 1.9.0.10

BN – X – DK1

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

#34723 – 1.9.0.11

BSG_4 – ZZ – DK1

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

#34724 – 1.9.0.12

BN – ZZZ – K1

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

#34725

BN – Z – K1

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

#34726

BN – Z – K1

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

#34727 – 1.9.0.15

BA11 – ZZZ – DK1

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

#34728

BN – X – K1

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

#34729

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34730 – 1.9.0.19

BA11 – Z – DK1

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

#34731

BN – Z – K1

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

#34733 – 1.9.0.22

UR_5 – ZZZ – DK1

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

#34734 – 1.9.0.23

BN – ZZZ – DK1

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

#34735E – 1.9.0.26

BSG_4 – P – DEK

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

#34735 – 1.9.0.26

BA11 – ZZZ – DEK1

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

#34736

BN – ZZZ – K1

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

#34737

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34738

BN – ZZ – K1

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

#34740 – 1.9.0.32

BN – ZZ – DK1

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

#34741 – 1.9.0.35

BN – ZZZ – K1

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

#34742

BN – ZZZ – K1