This is a work which calls for the interaction of two powers—man’s will and Overself’s grace. The will’s work is to engage in some measure of self-discipline, and yet to surrender itself entirely at the proper moment.

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

#3426 – 3.2.6.62

BN – X – D

We must lay siege to our own soul. If the fort of mind is attacked with dogged determination, the victory is promised us. But the siege must be maintained until the day the gates open.

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

#3431 – 3.2.6.67

BN – X – D

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

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

#3433EM – 3.2.6.69

BA12 – P – DX

To deny himself is to refuse to accept himself as he is at present. It is to become keenly aware that he is spiritually blind, deaf, and dumb and to be intensely eager to gain sight, hearing, and speech. It is to realize that nearly all men complacently mistake this inner paralysis for active existence. It is restlessly to seek the higher state, the nobler character, a more concentrated mind: it is to be willing to withdraw from all that accumulation of memories and desires which ordinarily constitute the ego.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Renunciation

#3434 – 3.2.7.1

BN – ZZ – DEK

Disgust with life, recognition of the futility of all human exertions, is one common precondition of inwardly turning away from the world. The aspirant who feels this dies to the world and consequently to the personal self which was active in that world. After that, he is attracted only to that which is deep within him—to the utter Void of the Overself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Renunciation

#3436 – 3.2.7.3

BN – X – D

It is not always and absolutely essential to remove from one's existence any thing, person, or habit to become detached from it. What is essential is to keep it at a distance emotionally.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Renunciation

#3441 – 3.2.7.8

BN – X – D

In the elderly man, desires are gradually outlived and dropped, ambitions begin to come to a natural death. But in the philosophic man they pass through the same process through his own deliberate choice and at an earlier age.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Renunciation

#3446 – 3.2.7.13

BN – X – D

Whether we acquire or renounce possessions is not really the main point. Renunciation is a dramatic and symbolic gesture whereby a man announces his change of course. No longer satisfied with worldly life, he will seek the kingdom of heaven in his heart. The physical manifestation will depend on circumstances, situation, family, country, and outer or inner guidance.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Renunciation

#3449 – 3.2.7.16

BN – Z – DEK

It is an inner emptiness gained by casting out desires and attachments, habits and tendencies, so that the heart is wide open to receive life's greatest gift—Grace. The craving to acquire personal possessions is a hard thing to still but once done we are rewarded a hundredfold.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Renunciation

#3450 – 3.2.7.17

BN – X – D

There comes a time when he has to turn his back on the past, for the old man is becoming a stranger and a new man is coming to birth. Memories would obstruct this process.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Renunciation

#3453 – 3.2.7.20

BN – X – D

We have come into incarnation for a purpose: life is our business here, not running away from it. When certain renunciations are called for, they are part of this preparation for life, because they are needed in the fulfilment of this purpose.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Renunciation

#3457 – 3.2.7.24

BN – X – D

A double work goes on: the man slowly withdraws from the things which hold him, which make him theirs, while his higher aspirations attract the higher self to slowly take over the place in his heart which they filled.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Renunciation

#3460 – 3.2.7.27

BN – X – D

If we are called by the Quest to give up everything for a time or for all time it is only that we may receive something infinitely better in exchange. The Quest calls us to renunciation of earthly desires not to make us miserable but to make us happy.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Renunciation

#3462 – 3.2.7.29

BN – X – D

He who is owned by things and no longer owns them should turn to asceticism and practise the virtue of renunciation. But he who is so enamoured of asceticism that he shrinks from comfort and shudders at the sight of pleasure should turn away from renunciation. Balance is required.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Asceticism

#3474 – 3.2.7.41

BN – X – D

You are to hate nobody but to extend to everybody the sincere hand of goodwill, to bless all because in your own heart the conscious presence of the Overself has itself blessed you. Hence to purify your personal feelings from hate, resentment, anger, or malice, it is always needful to lift the problem of your enemy or your critic onto that plane where divine love and forgiveness can be felt and bestowed. But to discharge the social duties of the world in which we live, it is also needful to deal with him according to reason. The two attitudes are not conflicting ones. For whatever practical action you will then take will be taken calmly, nobly, and justly.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Asceticism

#3528 – 3.2.7.95

B_14 – P – DE

The body, passions, and undesirable emotions must be perseveringly disciplined. Whilst ungoverned and running wild, they constitute the lower nature that is symbolized in so many myths as a dragon, lion, or serpent which has to be slain before the guardians of the divine gate permit entrance. Such purification is a necessary preliminary to and prerequisite of the higher training, which opens the individual mind to spiritual consciousness. This does not mean that total asceticism is demanded, and, indeed, in the present era, such a demand would often be an impractical one. What is demanded is inner asceticism, that is, inner purification of thought and feeling. External measures may be adjusted later, according to the individual circumstances and personal inclinations.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Asceticism

#3539 – 3.2.7.106

BN – X – DEK

Asceticism is not identified with philosophy but only with mysticism. Nevertheless there comes a period in his life when he has to go through the battles of Hercules, fight and overcome his lower nature before he may be initiated into higher realizations. Sex must and can be conquered. Only when this is done can rapid spiritual advancement be in order.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Asceticism

#3540 – 3.2.7.107

BN – X – D

He is here to understand life; and it can be understood just as well in business as in a cave. Moreover if he stays in the world he will have a far better opportunity to serve mankind than if he runs away. The time for withdrawing from business in order to have more time for meditation and study will come when it is right later on. He will gain little by withdrawal unless he does so under the orders of a competent teacher, whereas he will be able to benefit by the invaluable lessons and practical experience that business affords him. It is not a matter of finding time, this business of self-realization, but of finding the right tuition.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Asceticism

#3542 – 3.2.7.109

BN – ZZZ – DEK

Those who wish to respond to the quest's silent invitation must begin by repentance, continue by self-discipline, and end by surrender.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Asceticism

#3556 – 3.2.7.123

BN – X – D

The same possessions which enslave one man may set another free. For where the first uses them to strengthen desires, nourish passions, increase selfishness, and exploit humanity, the second may use them to build character, improve intelligence, foster meditation, and serve humanity…

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Possessions

#3558E – 3.2.7.125

BA11 – ZZ – DE

It may be a help to some in the attainment of inner freedom if they stop using the possessive pronoun “my” in reference to anything that belongs to them except their weaknesses.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Possessions

#3565 – 3.2.7.132

BN – X – D

It is easy to fall into the error that spirituality means stagnation, that transcending the worldly life means abandoning it. This error arises because it is not clearly comprehended that the operative principle is what one does with his thoughts, not with his things. For the second activity is always a result of the first.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Possessions

#3577 – 3.2.7.144

B_01 – ZZ – DK

The more possessions the more time we have to give to them, and therefore the more energy. There is then proportionately less of both available for higher studies, meditation practice, and metaphysical reflection.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Possessions

#3596 – 3.2.7.163

BN – X – D

There is nothing wrong, but, rather, everything right in aspiring to a certain amount of success in worldly life along with one's spiritual development. But one must make sure that the worldly attainments are not gained at the expense of neglecting his inward development, and that they do not infringe upon the ethical principles which govern discipleship.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Possessions

#3607 – 3.2.7.174

B_08 – P – D

After an active, aggressive business life one does reach the time when more emphasis should be placed on inner development. Outer acquisition can become largely a distraction as that period emerges.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Possessions

#3608 – 3.2.7.175

BN – X – D

It is usually the moneyless aspirants who decry wealth and praise poverty (calling it simplicity). If money can chain a person more tightly to materialism, it can also give him the conditions whereby he can set to work freeing himself from materialism.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Possessions

#3611 – 3.2.7.178

BSG_5 – P – DE

To use possessions while being inwardly detached from them, to work as actively as if one had the ambition to succeed while all the time as indifferent toward success as toward failure—this is part of the freedom he seeks and gains.

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Possessions

#3616 – 3.2.7.183

BN – X – D

If a little extra comfort leaves one’s thoughts untroubled, one’s feelings undisturbed, why not indulge in it?

Overview of Practices Involved > Discipline Desires > Possessions

#3617 – 3.2.7.184

BN – ZZ – DK*

We lament the lack of time. But if we critically scrutinized our actions, and even made some kind of schedule beforehand, we would find that some activities are unnecessary and others are useless. These not only rob us of time but they deprive us of some of the energy needed for meditation, rendering it harder or even impossible.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3623 – 3.2.8.1

BN – X – D

He may succeed in his aim only if he succeeds in not getting entangled by irrelevant activities and intruding persons.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3629 – 3.2.8.7

BN – X – D

Time is like a great treasury. Put nothing of value into it and you will get nothing out. Put philosophic study and self-training into it and at the very least you will draw out a measure of peace and understanding, at the most you may enter into realization of the Truth.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3630 – 3.2.8.8

BN – X – D

He should sometimes ask himself for how many more years may he hope to be given the chance which every lifetime gives a man to transcend himself.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3631 – 3.2.8.9

BN – X – D

He will be forced to admit, with sorrowful head, that he had been too busy with the trivial matters of the moment to break through the mysterious barriers that bar our human way out of the prison of time and space.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3635 – 3.2.8.13

BN – X – D

The Quest does not demand the renunciation of worldly business but only the renunciation of a small daily fragment of the time hitherto devoted to such business. It asks for half or three-quarters of an hour daily to be faithfully given to meditation exercises. It asserts that the fullest realization of the Overself can be attained without becoming a whole-time yogi.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3637 – 3.2.8.15

BN – X – D

No man can escape responsibility for the way he uses his day. He can either carefully organize it to serve his highest purposes or he can carelessly fritter it away in trivial activity or idle sloth.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3638 – 3.2.8.16

BN – ZZ – DK

He is also too much aware of his own precarious mortality to permit useless involvements and irrelevant commitments to waste his life.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3641 – 3.2.8.19

BN – Z – DK

Once he recognizes his responsibility toward the fulfilment of this higher purpose, for which the Infinite Wisdom has put him here, he will have to recognize also the obligation of devoting some time every day for study of, and meditation upon, it. The philosophic standard of measurement enables him to see plainly that however fully he has fulfilled all other demands made upon him—to the point that all his time is engaged—if he has neglected this single one, he is still at fault.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3644 – 3.2.8.22

BN – ZZ – DEK

To find the time required for meditation may call for a little planning of our time and a lot of revision of our values. But this in itself is a worthwhile self-discipline. For we rush hither and thither but have yet to ask ourselves where we are rushing to. What better use could we make of the treasure of leisure than soul-finding?

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3645 – 3.2.8.23

BA11 – P – D

To find the time required for meditation may call for a little planning of our time and a lot of revision of our values. But this in itself is a worthwhile self-discipline. For we rush hither and thither but have yet to ask ourselves where we are rushing to. What better use could we make of the treasure of leisure than soul-finding?

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3645 – 3.2.8.23

BN – X – D

Earthly life is fleeting, transient, never permanently satisfying, and therefore only the outer face of his life; deep within must be a persistent quest of truth and reality which alone confer everlasting peace.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3648E – 3.2.8.26

BA11 – P – DE

If you think you have not the necessary time for the practice of mental quiet, then make it. Push out of the day's program the least important items so as to make room for this, the most important of all activities.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3655 – 3.2.8.33

BN – X – D

The little seed from which a great tree will one day grow makes no noise as it busily germinates in the dark earth. In such silence and with such reticence, the aspirant should begin his quest and wait patiently for the day when he shall receive a mandate to speak of these things. To speak prematurely is not only ineffective but likely to arouse unnecessary and avoidable opposition.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3657 – 3.2.8.35

BN – ZZ

The real work on the Quest has to be carried out within and by the mind, not the body. The aspirant must try to live his outward life as normally as possible and avoid making a public spectacle of the fact he is following the spiritual path.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3658 – 3.2.8.36

BN – X – D

It is only the novice, enthusiastic but inexperienced, who loudmouthedly tells all and sundry about each one of his surface-scratching spiritual experiences. The man who is very far advanced on the quest acquires great discretion. In fact, the more advanced he is the more secretive does he become about such matters. He will not speak a word upon them unless he is bidden by the inner Voice to do so. The Overself does not live in public but in secret. It is totally outside the world's activity. Therefore the closer you approach it, the more secretive you are likely to become concerning the event. And when you do succeed in finally uniting yourself with it, your lips will be completely shut—not only because of the ego's greater humility but because the Overself desires it so. There is a further feature of this question of secrecy which deserves comment. Those who are very far advanced tend also to withdraw increasingly from the social circles or vocational activity which formerly engaged them. They vanish into retreat and withdraw into solitude for longer and longer intervals. Unless they are charged with a public mission, the world seldom hears of them.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3665 – 3.2.8.43

BN – ZZZ – DEK

It must live quite hermetically and secretly in his own mind and feelings, not because he wants to conceal truth but because it is still a tender young plant needing shelter and protection.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3667 – 3.2.8.45

BN – ZZZ

You must remember that everyone without exception stands in life just where the evolutionary flow has brought him and that his outward life is the result of all those previous experiences in many, many incarnations.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3670E – 3.2.8.48

UR_5 – ZZZ – DEK

The seeker is warned not to talk about his inner experiences. They have to be well-guarded by silence if they are to be kept or repeated.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3672 – 3.2.8.50

BN – Z – K

Nothing ought to be overdone. The overdoing of asceticism produces cranks—unbalanced, illogical, and self-deceiving persons.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3677E – 3.2.8.55

B_01 – ZZ – K

Such secrecy as he is expected to maintain about his quest is also due to the utter seriousness with which he must take it. It is something too sacred and too intimate to be talked about or argued about.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > On time and solitude

#3679 – 3.2.8.57

BN – ZZ – K

All the great prophets have made special mention of the fact that the task of spiritually enlightening others is the most important and most beneficial activity in which any man can engage. He who wishes to stimulate others to start on the spiritual Quest, to help those who have already started to find the right direction in which to travel, and to make available to the public generally the leading truths of spiritual knowledge, feels that this is the most worthwhile activity. The effective and enduring preparation for this is first to spiritualize oneself and therefore it is up to him to carry on even more ardently with his efforts than he has done hitherto.  

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3686 – 3.2.8.64

BN – Z – DEK

He may seek, when better equipped to do so, to render service to many people. But until that time comes, it is better to go on working upon himself, improving his moral character, increasing his knowledge of the philosophic teachings, humbling himself in daily prayer and worship, and cultivating that thread of intuition which links him to the Soul.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3688 – 3.2.8.66

BN – X – D

The seeker who follows this path is and will be of some service as a channel for the inspiration and enlightenment of others less advanced than he—within, of course, his own capacity and subject to his own limitations. Because of this, he should make every effort to acquire accurate knowledge of what the Quest is, what Philosophy contributes to it, and what—in everyday language—these mean and offer to the individual's everyday life.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3689 – 3.2.8.67

B_05 – P – D

The acts of service are yours, the consequences of service are God's. Do not be anxious where anxiety is not your business.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3690 – 3.2.8.68

BN – ZZZ – K

It is an error to place too much stress on unselfish activity as an element in the aspirant's qualifications. We did not incarnate primarily to serve each other. We incarnated to realize the Overself, to change the quality of individual consciousness. Altruism is therefore always subordinate to this higher activity. The sage's compassion is not primarily for other people's troubles, although he certainly feels that too, but he knows that these will continue without end in some form or other—such being the unalterable nature of mundane existence. His compassion is for the ignorance out of which many avoidable troubles spring or which when they are unavoidable prevents people from attaining inner peace. Hence he economizes time and energy by refraining from devoting them merely and solely to humanitarian work and uses them instead for the root-work of alleviating spiritual ignorance.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3697 – 3.2.8.75

BN – Z – DEK

This does not mean that one is to renounce all ideas of rendering service. It merely means that one is to withdraw from premature acts of service, to withdraw for a time sufficient to prepare oneself to render real service, better service. One is to become possessed of patience and to wait during this period of preparation.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3700 – 3.2.8.78

BN – Z – K

They have no adequate idea of what they mean when they use this term "service." And in its absence they are liable to do as much harm as good. For they do not know in what consists the real good of other persons.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3701 – 3.2.8.79

BN – ZZ – K

The divine power to help, heal, guide, or instruct others begins to show itself when we begin to turn our face towards it humbly, prayerfully, and thus make the necessary connection through meditation and study, through altruistic action and religious veneration.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3702 – 3.2.8.80

BN – X – D

If you feel you want to spread this teaching, then do so; but do it in the right way. You don't have to organize a society or indulge in loud propaganda. Truth is not something which can be imposed on other people. They must grow through experience and reflection into the right attitude of receptivity and then they will look for whatever they need. It is only at such a critical moment that you have any right to offer what you yourself have found, just as it is only at such a moment that your offering will be successful and not a wasted one.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3706 – 3.2.8.84

BN – Z

By identifying emotionally with another's suffering, when this is based on futile, vain, or unwise demands, one does not really help him by supporting, or seeking to satisfy, those demands. One merely prolongs the fog of error around him. It is better to engage in the unpleasant duty of pointing out their unwisdom, of throwing cold water upon them. But this should be accompanied by positive suggestion, by pointing out the benefits of a self-disciplined attitude, by explaining how this is the correct way to heal the suffering emotions and bring peace to the agitated mind, because it is the harmony with the higher law.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3715 – 3.2.8.93

B_17 – ZZZ – K

He who has helped himself to inner strength and knowledge, outer health and spiritual energy, becomes a positive force in the world, able to assist others instead of asking assistance from them. Self-salvation must come first.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3717 – 3.2.8.95

BN – X – D

Because your world is contained in your consciousness, as mentalism teaches, you can best help that world by improving and correcting your consciousness. In attending to your own inner development, you are putting yourself in the most effectual position to promote the development of other persons. Philosophy is fully aware of, and concerned with, the misery and the suffering which are rampant everywhere. It does not approve of selfishness, or indifference to the welfare of others. Yet, at the same time, it does not permit itself to be swept away by blind emotionalism and unreasoned impulsiveness into doing what is least effective for humanity. It calls wisdom in to guide its desire to serve, with the result that the service it does render is the most effective possible.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3718 – 3.2.8.96

BN – Z

What is the best charity, the truest philanthropy? It is so to enlighten a man that thereafter he will find within himself all the resources he needs to manage his life so as to bring him the greatest happiness.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3722 – 3.2.8.100

BA11 – Z – D

Love is to be given as a first duty to our own higher self, and only then to other men. We are here on earth to find the soul, not to better the social relationship nor to construct utopia. These are highly desirable things, let us seek them by all means, but let us not make the mistake in thought of calling them first things. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. They ought to be, and can be, held side by side, but one as primary and the other as secondary.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3723 – 3.2.8.101

BN – ZZ – DEK

The feeling of compassion and the doing of service help to cleanse the human mentality of its innate egoism and to release the human heart from its inborn selfishness. Thus they are useful to the aspirant who is treading the path of purification.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3724 – 3.2.8.102

BN – X – D

To recognize that the conventional world is ruled by monstrous stupidity and malignity, to realize that it is useless, vain, and to no purpose to fight these powerful rulers—since failure alone can be the result—is practical wisdom. Let it be called selfishness and escapism, but to refuse the sacrifice of energy and the spending of time in so-called service of humanity is simply an acknowledgment partly that no good can come from meddling in other people's affairs that would not have come anyway, and partly that the character of humanity cannot be changed within one man's lifetime but only by the slow long processes of evolution. It is delusory to believe that anything effectual can be done to perceptibly weaken the real rulers of the world, the stupidity and malignity against which prophets have spoken and sages have warned mankind since thousands of years ago. The fruit of their denunciations hangs on history's tree before us—more stupidity and more malignity today than ever before! Time has not evolved virtue; it has only accumulated folly.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3726 – 3.2.8.104

BN – Z – K

Service must be thoroughly practical as well as conceived in a spirit of noble and generous endeavour.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3732 – 3.2.8.110

BN – Z – K

The only kind of service he may render is unpaid service. This condition he cheerfully accepts. For whatever he does to help others, he does out of love of the deed itself.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3734 – 3.2.8.112

BA11 – ZZ – DK

The attempt to improve other people's lives can easily mask a presumptuous interference with them. This is especially true when the hidden realities and long-term causes of a situation are not known, or are misread, or when the higher laws which govern mankind are ignored. In all these cases, the old evils may merely be replaced by new ones, so that the improvement is entirely fictitious. In the early Christian times, Saint Cyril saw and said what, much more than a thousand years later, Ananda Metteya the Buddhist and Ramana Maharshi the Hindu told me—that one best saves society by first saving oneself. This is why the philosopher does not try to impose on others the Idea or the Way which he has espoused. For the itch to improve them or alter them is, he now knows, a form of interference. He minds his own business. But if the higher power wants to use him to affect others, he will not resist it!

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3739 – 3.2.8.117

BN – ZZZ – K

If anyone becomes idealistic and wants to help others he is told to "start a movement" and to persuade as many people as he can to dedicate themselves to it. This is excellent advice in the world of politics, economics, social reform, and material philanthropy. It is of some use even in the world of organized religion. But it cannot be applied in the world of spiritual truth without self-deception. For there a movement must not be started by a man but only by the higher power. It will then select the man it can use, and will guide and inspire him.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3740 – 3.2.8.118

BN – Z

To dedicate life to spiritually uplifting and guiding others, to the extent one is capable of, is to make certain of receiving the same help from those beyond oneself.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3741 – 3.2.8.119

BN – X – D

Do not attempt to make people act on a level beyond their comfortable traditional one if they neither want nor understand the higher one. They will resist or resent your attempt, which necessarily must fail.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3743 – 3.2.8.121

BN – ZZ – K

The best form of social service is the one which leads others to the higher understanding of truth…

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3744E – 3.2.8.122

BA11 – Z – DE

The best form of social service is the one which leads others to the higher understanding of truth. For from that single cause will issue forth various effects in higher moral character, better human relations, and finer spiritual intuitions. Interfering with the freedom of others and meddling in their affairs, while the true laws of man's being and destiny are still hardly understood, leads always in history to unfortunate results.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3744 – 3.2.8.122

BN – ZZZ – DEK

Moreover, whatsoever we give or do to others is ultimately reflected back to us in some form by the power of karma, and if he frequently nurses the ideal of serving mankind he will attract to himself the spiritual help of those who themselves have this same aim.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3745 – 3.2.8.123

BA11 – P – D

He will engage in the service of humanity because compassion will arise in his heart, because of the good it will do.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3746E – 3.2.8.124

BA11 – ZZ – DE

Although it is true that the help we give others always returns to us in some way, somewhere, somewhen, nevertheless he is not motivated in this matter by the desire of reward or return. He will engage in the service of humanity because compassion will arise in his heart, because of the good it will do.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3746 – 3.2.8.124

BN – ZZ – D

That alone is pure authentic service which asks for no return.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3748 – 3.2.8.126

BN – Z – K

After the student has sufficiently prepared himself—that is, after he has undergone the philosophic discipline for purifying character, subjugated his lower nature, developed his intellect, and cultivated his intuition—he will then be able to use his gifts in the practice of a higher order of meditation, which will bring him the bliss of communion with the Overself. Others, who may have benefited hitherto by association with him, will find that the earlier benefits were superficial compared with those following his transformation. Thus, one's first duty is always towards oneself—although the idea of service may and should be held in the background for later use.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3753 – 3.2.8.131

BN – X – DEK

As to the time taken for attainment, one has certainly to go through many incarnations before becoming a fit channel for the Overself. But this does not mean that he is not used by the higher power until then. The student who has not yet been purified of egoism can only be used brokenly, in patches, and at intervals, whereas one who has made and implemented the requisite inner delegation of self to Overself is used continuously.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3756 – 3.2.8.134

BN – ZZZ – DEM

In trying to help others in these unsettled times—perhaps one's own children—one should try to think of them in their larger relation to God, rather than in their relation to familiar surroundings, filial attachments, or the unexpected, disturbing situations which have come up, over which one has limited or no control. Prayer and positive thinking will be as much of a help at these times as anything else one can say or do.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3758 – 3.2.8.136

BN – X – D

Whenever the aspirant volunteers spiritual help to another, or seeks it for himself, he ought not to take money in return on the one hand, nor give it in payment on the other. Such needs will be attended to by the Infinite Intelligence at the proper time.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3760 – 3.2.8.138

BN – Z – D

If he finds that the Overself is using him at any particular time as the personal instrument for its guidance, blessing, or healing, he must take care to be detached and keep ego out of the relationship.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3763 – 3.2.8.141

BN – X – D

Let it not be forgotten that goodwill towards mankind does not exclude goodwill towards oneself. The way of martyrdom, of dying uselessly for others, is the way of emotional mysticism. The way of service, of living usefully for others, is the way of rational philosophy.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3771 – 3.2.8.149

BN – X – D

Those men who have known this inner life, that other Self, and who have the talent to communicate in speech, writing, or action, have a duty laid on them to tell others of it. But if they lack this talent, they do no wrong to remain in silence about it. For, as Ramana Maharshi once said to me, "Silence also is a form of speech."

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3775 – 3.2.8.153

BN – Z – D

He who attains even a little power to help others cannot measure where that help will stop. If it gives a lift to one man whom he knows, that man may in his turn give a lift to another person, and so on indefinitely in ever-widening ripples.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3776 – 3.2.8.154

BN – X – D

Those who are searching for truth are only a small number but still they are a growing number. Each of us may repay his own obligation by saying the right word at the right time, by lending or giving the right book to the truth-hungry person.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3779 – 3.2.8.157

BN – Z – D

There is a proper time for everything. When he has reached the age when he has to consider his own spiritual interests he should lessen his activities and save his energies for a higher service, first to himself and then to others.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3783 – 3.2.8.161

BA12 – ZZ – DMK

The noble and beautiful teachings of old Greece, from the Socratic to the Stoic, harmonize perfectly with the age-old teachings of the higher philosophy. Although they taught a lofty self-reliance they did not teach a narrow self-centeredness. This is symbolized vividly in Plato's story of the cave, where the man who attained Light immediately forsook his deserved rest to descend to the help and guidance of the prisoners still living in the cave's darkness.

Overview of Practices Involved > The Quest and Social Responsibility > Spiritual service

#3786 – 3.2.8.164

BN – X – D

When his mind has habituated itself to this kind of keen, abstract thinking and in some measure has developed the capacity to rest absorbed in its own tranquil centre, when the emotions have purified themselves of personal and animal taints, he has prepared himself for the highest kind of knowledge

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3787E – 3.2.9.1

BN – X – DEK

When the changes in habit come unbidden as the natural result of a more sensitive nature, a deeper outlook, a more compassionate heart, they come rightly. There is then less strain, less likelihood of lapse than when they come artificially or prematurely or through someone else’s insistent pressure.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3788 – 3.2.9.2

BN – Z – DK

The setting of rules and the chalking out of a path are only for beginners. When a man has made sufficient advance to become aware of inner promptings from his higher self, he should allow them to become active in guiding him and should let them take him freely on his spiritual life course.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3789 – 3.2.9.3

BN – ZZZ – DEK

Only at a well-advanced stage does the disciple begin to comprehend that his true work is not to develop qualities or achieve tasks, to evolve character or attain goals but to get rid of hindrances and pull aside veils. He has to desert the false self and uncover the true self.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3792 – 3.2.9.6

BA12 – P – D

Once the transition period comes to an end, a subtle change enters into his attitude toward the old habits. They lose their tempting quality and instead begin to acquire a repelling one. This feeling will increase and become firmly established.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3795 – 3.2.9.9

BN – X – D

Shen-Hui declared, in a sermon, that Enlightenment came as suddenly as a baby's birth. But what about the nine long months of development which precedes the birth?

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3797 – 3.2.9.11

BN – X – D

The problem of philosophic attainment is one which man cannot solve by his own unaided powers. Like a tiny sailing boat which needs both oars and a sail for its propulsion, he needs both self-effort and grace for his progress. To rely on either alone is a mistake. If he cannot attain by his own strivings, neither is the Overself likely to grant its grace without them.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3804 – 3.2.9.18

BN – X – DEK

There is a proper time for all acts and attitudes. The improper time to drop mystical technique and quit meditational exercises is when you are still a novice, still aware only of thoughts and emotions on the ordinary plane. The proper time to abandon set practices is when you are a proficient, when you have become adequately aware of the divine presence. Then you need engage yourself only in a single and simple effort: to persevere in paying attention to this presence so as to sustain and stretch out the welcome intervals of its realization.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3805 – 3.2.9.19

BN – X – D

Before he reaches a certain stage, he will necessarily have to seek guidance from without, from books and teachers, because of his uncertainty, lack of confidence, and ignorance. But after he reaches it, it will be wiser and safer for him to seek guidance from within. The higher self will impart all the knowledge he needs, as and when he needs it.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3808 – 3.2.9.22

B_07 – P – D

The desire to get at the soul must become so predominant and so anxious that a continuous tension is created within him.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3810 – 3.2.9.24

BN – X – D

The experience of being gripped and physically shaken by some extraordinary power will also occur at certain intervals along this path. This is not to be feared but rather to be welcomed. It always signifies a descent of grace and is a herald of coming progress of some kind or other.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3813 – 3.2.9.27

BN – X – D

When he feels the gentle coming of the presence of the higher self, at this point he must train himself in the art of keeping completely passive. He will discover that it is endeavouring actually to ensoul him, to take possession of him as a disembodied spirit is supposed to take possession of a living medium. His task now is purely negative; it is to offer no resistance to the endeavour but to let it have the fullest possible sway over him. The preliminary phases of his progress are over. Hitherto it was mostly his own efforts upon which he had to rely. Now, however, it is the Overself which will be the active agent in his development. All that is henceforth asked of him is that he remain passive, otherwise he may disturb the holy work by the interference of his blind ignorant self-will. His advance at this point no longer depends on his own striving.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3816 – 3.2.9.30

BN – X – DEK

There is Infinite Intelligence always at work on this planet; … the real Giver of all things; … that God is the very Provider of all.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3824EM – 3.2.9.38

BSG_4 – P – DX

When a seeker has developed sufficient mystical intuition, it becomes necessary for him to balance up by cultivating intellectual understanding. In this way he will be able to deal more effectively with the problems of the present age. At first, his progress in the new direction may seem slow and disappointing; but he should be cheered to know that he is, in fact, working and co-operating with Higher Forces. There is Infinite Intelligence always at work on this planet, and the seeker's own sense of being, motivated as it is by his individual intelligence, is a microcosmic facsimile of the Great Cosmic Workings. One day he will see the whole of the picture, not just the lower part of it, and he will understand that it is his own Overself which has brought him to—and led him safely through—the disheartening experiences of his present incarnation.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3824 – 3.2.9.38

BN – X – DEK

There is Infinite Intelligence always at work on this planet… Everything around us and every event that happens to us is an expression of God's will.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3824EM – 3.2.9.38

BA11 – ZZ – DX

One day he will see the whole of the picture, not just the lower part of it, and he will understand that it is his own Overself which has brought him to—and led him safely through—the disheartening experiences of his present incarnation.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3824E – 3.2.9.38

BA11 – ZZ – DEK

The condition of spiritual dryness about which he may complain is a common phenomenon in the mystical life. It arises from various causes but he need not doubt that it will pass away.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3827 – 3.2.9.41

BN – X – D

If he once has an experience of his divine soul he should remember that this was because it is always there, always inside of him, and has never left him. Let him but stick to the Quest, and the experience will recur at the proper time.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3828 – 3.2.9.42

BN – X – D

It is through meeting and understanding the difficulties on the path, through facing and mastering them, that we grow. Each of us in this world lives in a state of continuous struggle, whatever outward appearances to the contrary may suggest. Repose is for the dead alone—and then only for a limited time. We must study the lessons behind every experience, painful or pleasant, that karma brings. We lose nothing except what is well worth losing if we frankly acknowledge past errors. Only vanity or selfishness can stand in the way of such acknowledgement. Earthly life is after all a transient means to an enduring end.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3829E – 3.2.9.43

B_05 – ZEL1/2 – DEK

The worth or worthlessness of its experiences lies not in any particular external form, but in the development of consciousness and character to which they lead. Only after time has cooled down the fires of passion and cleared the mists of self-interest are most people able to perceive that these mental developments are the essential and residual significance of their human fortunes. With the seeker after truth, the period of meditation must be devoted, at least in part, to arriving at such perceptions even in the midst of life's events.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3829E – 3.2.9.43

B_05 – ZEL2/2 – DEK

It is not possible for a student to know the changes which are going on in his subconscious mind and which will eventually break through into his consciousness at some time. If he feels he is failing in some way through his attachment to material things, the very recognition of this is itself a sign that he has half-progressed out of this condition and is not satisfied to remain inside these attachments. Of course, the struggle to free himself from them is at its worst when he does not have the feeling of the Divine Presence. But when that feeling comes the struggle itself will automatically begin to die down.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3830 – 3.2.9.44

BN – X – D

The integral ideal of our path is threefold: (a) meditation, (b) reflection, and (c) action. The passing over from one phase of development which has been over-emphasized to another which has been neglected is necessarily a period of upheaval, depression, and unsettlement. But it draws to an end. After the storm comes peace.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3832 – 3.2.9.46

BN – X – D

The blind gropings of those early days give place, after many years, to the clear-sighted steps of these later ones. The completion of his quest now becomes an impending event; the quintessence of all his experience now expresses itself in this fullness of being and knowing which is almost at hand.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3837 – 3.2.9.51

BN – X – D

Little by little, at a pace so slow that the movement is hardly noticeable, his mind will give entrance to thoughts that seem to come creeping from some source other than itself, for they are thoughts irrelevant to his reasonings and inconsistent with his convictions. They are indeed intuitions. If he submits to their leading, if he surrenders his faith to them, if he drops his blind resistances, all will be well with him. He will be guided out of darkness into light, out of materiality into spirituality, out of black despair into sublime hope.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3838 – 3.2.9.52

BN – X – D

If weeping comes, be it in sound or in silence, it will not be to express unhappiness nor to express joy. For it is very important, and on a deeper, more mysterious, level. So let it continue if it chooses.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3840 – 3.2.9.54

BN – X – D

The timetable of a seeker's advance depends on several factors, but without doubt the most important of them all is the strength of the longing within his heart for the Highest.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3844 – 3.2.9.58

B_05 – P – D

When the acceptance of these truths becomes instinctive, even if it remains inarticulate, he will begin to gather strength from them, to feel that the little structure of his life has nothing less than cosmic support beneath it.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3846 – 3.2.9.60

BN – X – D

The two most important tenets of mystical philosophy are: that we in our deepest being are an immortal soul, and that there is a path whereby all may discover it for themselves.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3847E – 3.2.9.61

BSG_4 – Z – DE

He discovers that the world of matter is ultimately space and that all material forms are merely ideas in his mind. He discovers, too, that his inmost self is one with this space, because it is formless. He perceives the unity of all life and he has found Truth, the whole Truth…

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3849ED – 3.2.9.63

BA11 – P – DE

The actual finding of Truth, which is the same as Nirvana, Self-Knowledge, Liberation, is really a work of brief duration—perhaps a matter of minutes—whereas the preparation and equipment of oneself to find it must take many incarnations…

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3849E – 3.2.9.63

BA11 – P – DE

Consciousness is the ultimate, as science is beginning vaguely to see. With a concentrated, sharpened mind he can pierce into his deepest self and then endeavour to understand it; he can also pierce into the external world of matter and understand that too. Unthwarted by the illusions of the ordinary man, who takes what his eyes see for granted, he can probe beneath appearances. And when he can at last see the Truth, his spiritual ignorance falls away of its own accord and can never come back to him again…

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The development of the work

#3849E – 3.2.9.63

BA11 – P – DE

You may believe in a religion, but it is not enough to believe in philosophy; you have also to learn it. Nor can it be learnt through the head alone, it has also to be learnt through the heart and the will. Therefore, do not expect to master it within a few years but allot your whole lifetime for this task.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3850 – 3.2.9.64

BN – X – D

Lao Tzu said, "Do nothing by self-will but rather conform to heaven's will, and everything will be done for you." The whole of the quest may be summed up as an attempt to put these wise words into practice. However, the quest is not a thing of a moment or a day; it extends through many years, nay, through a whole lifetime. Therefore, merely to learn how to "do nothing" is itself a long task, if it is to be truly done and if we are not to deceive ourselves.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3851 – 3.2.9.65

BN – ZZ – DEK

It is natural for the ego to assert itself and it will continue to do so even if he retires from the world. Only when the ego loses the power to rule the affairs of a man does the Overself step in and rule them for him, but this position is not reached merely by saying or wishing that it should be reached. It represents the culmination of a lifelong struggle.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3852E – 3.2.9.66

BA11 – P – DE

Essay: The Progressive Stages of the Quest (The Working of Grace) "On the day of life's surrender I shall die desiring Thee; I shall yield my spirit craving of Thy street the dust to be." —Humamud Din (Fourteenth-century Persian mystic). In these poetic lines is expressed the lengths to which the mystic must be willing to go to obtain Grace.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL01/40

Only if a man falls in love with his soul as deeply as he has ever done with a woman will he even stand a chance of finding it. Incessant yearning for the higher self, in a spirit of religious devotion, is one of the indispensable aspects of the fourfold integral quest. The note of yearning for this realization must sound through all his prayer and worship, concentration and meditation. Sometimes the longing for God may affect him even physically with abrupt dynamic force, shaking his whole body, and agitating his whole nervous system. A merely formal practice of meditation is quite insufficient although not quite useless. For without the yearning the advent of Grace is unlikely, and without Grace there can never be any realization of the Overself.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL02/40 – DEK

The very fact that a man has consciously begun the quest is itself a manifestation of Grace, for he has begun to seek the Overself only because the Overself's own working has begun to make it plain to him, through the sense of unbearable separation from it, that the right moment for this has arrived. The aspirant should therefore take heart and feel hope. He is not really walking alone. The very love which has awakened within him for the Overself is a reflection of the love which is being shown towards him.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL03/40 – DEK

Thus the very search upon which he has embarked, the studies he is making, and the meditations he is practising are all inspired by the Overself from the beginning and sustained by it to the end. The Overself is already at work even before he begins to seek it. Indeed he has taken to the quest in unconscious obedience to the divine prompting. And that prompting is the first movement of Grace. Even when he believes that he is doing these things for himself, it is really Grace that is opening the heart and enlightening the mind from behind the scenes.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL04/40 – DEK

Man's initiative pushes on toward the goal, whilst divine Grace draws him to it. Both forces must combine if the process is to be completed and crowned with success. Yet that which originally made the goal attractive to him and inspired him with faith in it and thus gave rise to his efforts, was itself the Grace. In this sense Paul's words, "For by Grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves," become more intelligible.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL05/40 – DEK

The Grace of God is no respecter of persons or places. It comes to the heart that desires it most whether that heart be in the body of a king or of a commoner, a man of action or a recluse. John Bunyan the poor tinker, immured in Bedford gaol, saw a Light denied to many kings and tried to write it down in his book Pilgrim's Progress. Jacob Boehme, working at his cobbler's bench in Seideburg, was thrice illumined and gleaned secrets which he claimed were unknown to the universities of his time.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL06/40 – DEK

If a man has conscientiously followed this fourfold path, if he has practised mystical meditation and metaphysical reflection, purification of character and unselfish service, and yet seems to be remote from the goal, what is he to do? He has then to follow the admonition of Jesus: "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you." He has literally to ask for Grace out of the deep anguish of his heart. We are all poor. He is indeed discerning who realizes this and becomes a beggar, imploring of God for Grace.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL07/40 – DEK

He must pray first to be liberated from the heavy thraldom of the senses, the desires, and the thoughts. He must pray next for the conscious presence of the Overself. He should pray silently and deeply in the solitude of his own heart. He should pray with concentrated emotion and tight-held mind. His yearning for such liberation and such presence must be unquestionably sincere and unquestionably strong. He should begin and close—and even fill if he wishes—his hour of meditation with such noble prayers. He must do this day after day, week after week. For the Overself is not merely a concept, but a living reality, the power behind all his other and lesser powers.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL08/40 – DEK

No aspirant who is sincere and sensitive will be left entirely without help. It may appear during temptation when the lower nature may find itself unexpectedly curbed by a powerful idea working strongly against it. He may find in a book just that for which he has been waiting and which at this particular time will definitely help him on his way. The particular help he needs at a particular stage will come naturally. It may take the form of a change in outward circumstances or a meeting with a more developed person, of a printed book or a written letter, of a sudden unexpected emotional inspiration or an illuminating intellectual intuition. Nor is it necessary to travel to the farthest point before being able to gather the fruits. Long before this, he will begin to enjoy the flavour of peace, hope, knowledge, and divine transcendence.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL09/40 – DEK

In the moment that a man willingly deserts his habitual standpoint under a trying situation and substitutes this higher one, in that moment he receives Grace. With this reception a miracle is performed and the evil of the lower standpoint is permanently expelled from his character. The situation itself both put him to the proof and gave him his chance.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL10/40 – DEK

The factuality of Grace does not cancel out the need of moral choice and personal effort. It would be a great mistake to stamp human effort as useless in the quest and to proclaim human inability to achieve its own salvation as complete. For if it is true that Divine Grace alone can bring the quest to a successful terminus, it is likewise true that human effort must precede and thus invoke the descent of Grace. What is needed to call down Grace is, first, a humility that is utter and complete, deeply earnest and absolutely sincere, secondly, an offering of self to the Overself, a dedication of earthly being to spiritual essence, and, thirdly, a daily practice of devotional exercise. The practices will eventually yield experiences, the aspirations will eventually bring assistance. The mysterious intrusion of Grace may change the course of events. It introduces new possibilities, a different current of destiny.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL11/40 – DEM*

Our need of salvation, of overcoming the inherently sinful and ignorant nature of ego, isolated from true consciousness as it is, is greater than we ever comprehend. For our life, being so largely egotistic, is ignorant and sinful—a wandering from one blunder to another, one sin to another. This salvation is by the Overself's saving power, for which we must seek its Grace, approaching it with the childlike humility of which Jesus spoke.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL12/40 – DEK

No man is so down, so sinful, so weak, or so beaten that he may not make a fresh start. Let him adopt a childlike attitude, placing himself in the hands of his higher self, imploring it for guidance and Grace. He should repeat this at least daily, and even oftener. Then let him patiently wait and carefully watch for the intuitive response during the course of the following weeks or months. He need not mind his faults. Let him offer himself, just as he is, to the God, or Soul, he seeks. It is not indifferent nor remote.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL13/40 – DEK

The forgiveness of sins is a fact. Those who deny this deny their own experience. Can they separate from the moon its light? Then how can they separate forgiveness from love? Do they not see a mother forgive her child a hundred times even though she reproves and chastises it?

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL14/40 – DEK

If the retribution of sins is a cosmic law, so also is the remission of sins. We must take the two at once, and together, if we would understand the mystery aright.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL15/40

We humans are fallible beings prone to commit errors. If we do not become penitents and break with our past, it is better that we should be left to the natural consequences of our wrong-doing than that we should be forgiven prematurely.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL16/40

The value of repentance is that it is the first step to set us free from a regrettable past; of amendment, that it is the last step to do so. There must be a contrite consciousness that to live in ego is to live in ignorance and sin. This sin is not the breaking of social conventions. There must be penitent understanding that we are born in sin because we are born in ego and hence need redemption and salvation. It is useless to seek forgiveness without first being thoroughly repentant. There must also be an opening up of the mind to the truth about one's sinfulness, besides repentance, an understanding of the lesson behind this particular experience of its result.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL17/40 – DEK

When St. Paul speaks in his Epistle to the Hebrews of the Christ who offered to bear the sins of many, he may be mystically interpreted as meaning the Christ-Self, the Overself, who offers to bear the Karma of many ego-incarnations.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL18/40

This primary attribute is extolled in the world's religio-mystical literature. "Despair not of Allah's mercy," says the Koran. "What are my sins compared with Thy mercy? They are but as a cobweb before the wind," wrote an early Russian mystic, Dmitri of Rostov. "Those who surrender to me, even be they of sinful nature, shall understand the highest path," says the Bhagavad Gita.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL19/40 – DEK*

Yes, there is forgiveness because there is God's love. Jesus was not mistaken when he preached this doctrine, but it is not a fact for all men alike. Profound penitence and sincere amendment are prerequisite conditions to calling it forth. It was one of the special tasks of Jesus to make known that compassion (or love, as the original word was translated) is a primary attribute of God and that Grace, pardon, and redemption are consequently primary features of God's active relation to man. When Jesus promised the repentant thief that he would be forgiven, Jesus was not deceiving the thief or deluding himself. He was telling the truth.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL20/40 – DEK

The Divine being what it is, how could it contradict its own nature if compassion had no place in its qualities? The connection between the benignity which every mystic feels in its presence and the compassion which Jesus ascribed to that presence, is organic and inseparable.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL21/40

The discovery that the forgiveness of sins is a sacred fact should fill us with inexpressible joy. For it is the discovery that there is compassionate love at the heart of the universe.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL22/40 – DEK

We may suppress sins by personal effort but we can eradicate and overcome them by the Overself's Grace alone. If we ask only that the external results of our sin be forgiven, be sure they won't. But if we also strive to cleanse our character from the internal evil that caused the sin, forgiveness may well be ours.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL23/40

The aspirant's best hope lies in repentance. But if he fails to recognize this, if he remains with unbowed head and unregenerate heart, the way forward will likewise remain stony and painful. The admission that he is fallible and weak will be wrung from him by the punishments of nature if he will not yield it by the perceptions of conscience. The first value of repentance is that it makes a break with an outworn past. The second value is that it opens the way to a fresh start. Past mistakes cannot be erased but future ones can be avoided.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL24/40 – DEK

The man that he was must fill him with regrets; the man that he seeks to be with hopes. He must become keenly conscious of his own sinfulness. The clumsy handiwork of his spiritual adolescence will appall him whenever he meditates upon its defects. His thought must distrust and purge itself of these faults. He will at certain periods feel impelled to reproach himself for faults shown, wrongs done, and sins committed during the past. This impulse should be obeyed. His attitude must so change that he is not merely ready but even eager to undo the wrongs that he has done and to make restitution for the harm that he has caused.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL25/40 – DEK

We do not get at the Real by our own efforts alone nor does it come to us by its own volition alone. Effort that springs from the self and Grace that springs from beyond it are two things essential to success in this quest. The first we can all provide, but the second only the Overself can provide. Man was once told by someone who knew, "The Spirit bloweth where it listeth." Thus it is neither contradictory nor antithetic to say that human effort and human dependence upon Divine Grace are both needed. For there is a kind of reciprocal action between them. This reciprocal working of Grace is a beautiful fact. The subconscious invitation from the Overself begets the conscious invocation of it as an automatic response.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL26/40 – DEK

When the ego feels attracted towards its sacred source, there is an equivalent attraction on the Overself's part towards the ego itself. Never doubt that the Divine always reciprocates this attraction to it of the human self. Neither the latter's past history nor present character can alter that blessed hope-bringing fact. Grace is the final, glorious, and authentic proof that it is not only man that is seeking God, but also God that is ever waiting for man.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL27/40 – DEK*

The Grace is a heavenly superhuman gift. Those who have never felt it and consequently rush into incautious denial of its existence are to be pitied. Those who flout the possibility and deny the need of a helping Grace can be only those who have become victims of a cast-iron intellectual system which could not consistently give a place to it.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL28/40 – DEK

It was a flaming experience of Grace which changed Saul, the bitter opponent, into Paul, the ardent apostle.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL29/40

This is the paradox, that although a man must try to conquer himself if he would attain the Overself, he cannot succeed in this undertaking except by the Overself's own power—that is, by the Grace "which burns the straw of desires" as Mahopanishad poetically puts it. It is certain that such an attainment is beyond his ordinary strength.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL30/40 – DEK

All that the ego can do is to create the necessary conditions out of which enlightenment generally arises, but it cannot create this enlightenment itself. By self-purification, by constant aspiration, by regular meditation, by profound study, and by an altruistic attitude in practical life, it does what is prerequisite. But all this is like tapping at the door of the Overself. Only the latter's Grace can open it in the end.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL31/40 – DEM*

The will has its part in this process, but it is not the only part. Sooner or later he will discover that he can go forward no farther in its sole dependence, and that he must seek help from something beyond himself. He must indeed call for Grace to act upon him. The need of obtaining help from outside his ordinary self and from beyond his ordinary resources in this tremendous struggle becomes urgent. It is indeed a need of Grace. Fortunately for him this Grace is available, although it may not be so on his own terms.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL32/40 – DEK

At a certain stage he must learn to "let go" more and allow the Overself to possess him, rather than strain to possess something which he believes to be still eluding him. Every aspirant who has passed it will remember how he leapt ahead when he made this discovery.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL33/40 – DEK

At another stage, the Overself, whose Grace was the initial impetus to all his efforts, steps forward, as it were, and begins to reveal its presence and working more openly. The aspirant becomes conscious of this with awe, reverence, and thankfulness. He must learn to attend vigilantly to these inward promptings of Divine Grace. They are like sunbeams that fructify the earth.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL34/40 – DEK

With the descent of Grace, all the anguish and ugly memories of the seeker's past and the frustrations of the present are miraculously sponged out by the Overself's unseen and healing hand. He knows that a new element has entered into his field of consciousness, and he will unmistakably feel from that moment a blessed quickening of inner life. When his own personal effort subsides, a further effort begins on his behalf by a higher power. Without any move on his own part, Grace begins to do for him what he could not do for himself, and under its beneficent operation he will find his higher will strengthening, his moral attitude improving, and his spiritual aspiration increasing.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL35/40 – DEK

The consciousness of being under the control of a higher influence will become unmistakable to him. The conviction that it is achieving moral victories for him which he could not have achieved by his ordinary self, will become implanted in him. A series of remarkable experiences will confirm the fact that some beneficent power has invaded his personality and is ennobling, elevating, inspiring, and guiding it. An exultant freedom takes possession of him. It displaces all his emotional forebodings and personal burdens.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL36/40 – DEK

Grace is received, not achieved. A man must be willing to let its influx move freely through his heart; he must not obstruct its working nor impede its ruling by any break in his own self-surrender. He can possess Grace only when he lets it possess him.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL37/40

Philosophy affirms the existence of Grace, that what the most strenuous self-activity cannot gain may be put in our hands as a divine gift.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL38/40 – DEK

As at the beginning, so at the end of this path, the unveiling of the Overself is not an act of any human will. Only the Divine Will—that is, only its own Grace—can bring about the final all-revealing act, whose sustained consciousness turns the aspirant into an adept.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL39/40 – DEK

In seeking the Overself, the earnest aspirant must seek it with heartfelt love. Indeed, his whole quest must be ardently imbued with this feeling. Can he love the Divine purely and disinterestedly for its own sake? This is the question he must ask himself. If this devotional love is to be something more than frothy feeling, it will have to affect and redeem the will. It will have to heighten the sense of, and obedience to, moral duty. Because of this devotion to something which transcends his selfish interests, he can no longer seek his selfish advantage at the expense of others. His aim will be not only to love the soul but to understand it, not only to hear its voice in meditation but to live out its promptings in action.

Overview of Practices Involved > Conclusion > The working of Grace

#3853E – 3.2.9.67

A260321 – EL40/40 – DEK

The world clamours for attention and participation. God alone is silent, undemanding, and unaggressive.

Relax and Retreat > Relax and Retreat > Relax and Retreat

#3855 – 3.3.0.1

BN – Z

It is not that the Soul cannot be found in populous cities but that it can be found more easily and more quickly in solitary retreats. Its presence comes more clearly there. But to learn how to keep it we have to return to the cities again.

Relax and Retreat > Relax and Retreat > Relax and Retreat

#3856 – 3.3.0.2

BN – Z – DK

If you begin the day with love in your heart, peace in your nerves, and truth in your mind, you not only benefit by their presence but also bring them to others—to your family or friends, and to all those whom destiny draws across your path that day.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Take Intermittent Pauses

#3860 – 3.3.1.4

BA11 – P – D

The aggressive world of our time needs to learn how to get out of time. The active world needs to learn to sit still, mentally and physically, without becoming bored.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Take Intermittent Pauses

#3864 – 3.3.1.8

BN – X – D

The earth will continue to turn on its axis, with or without him. He is not so important as he thinks.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Take Intermittent Pauses

#3869 – 3.3.1.13

BN – X – D

It is good to forget for twenty or thirty minutes each day the world and its affairs in order to remember the Overself and its serenity. This forgetfulness is exalting and uplifting in proportion to the distance it carries us from the ego.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Take Intermittent Pauses

#3880 – 3.3.1.24

BN – X – D

A day begun with mental quiet and inner receptivity is a day whose work is well begun. Every idea, decision, move, or action which flows out from it later will be wiser better and nobler than it otherwise would have been.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Take Intermittent Pauses

#3881 – 3.3.1.25

BN – X – D

Those who give too few minutes during the day to thought about, remembrance of, or meditation on the higher self cannot justly demand a spiritual return out of all proportion to what they have given.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Take Intermittent Pauses

#3910 – 3.3.1.54

BN – X – D

The difficulty of carrying on with the mystical Quest in the midst of domestic cares and the duties of a household is admittedly great. Nevertheless, karma has put us where we are in order for us to learn certain lessons. These lessons can only be learned there, amongst children, husbands and wives, and relatives. The need of solitude and of retreat to Nature is genuine, but this can be satisfied by taking occasional vacation trips.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Balance inner and outer

#3954 – 3.3.1.98

BN – Z

He moves in a different world of thought from that of the persons—and they are many—who are incapable of response to higher promptings, and he knows it. Therefore he must keep some part of his day—however small—for himself, some place where he can be by himself. Much nonsense is talked or preached in religious circles about "love," "community," and so on. It evaporates when the truth about it is sought. A man can start to give love when he has it to give, but he can give nothing when he has none of it. The ordinary man lives very much in his ego and can only give his egotism. If he seems to give love, there is an egoistic thought or motive behind it. The aspirant who immerses himself in somebody else's ego may make the latter feel happier but both are wallowing in the same element. Real service, real charity in the world are admirable things but rarely pure. The daily retreat from the world, if for higher purposes, may in the end be better for others, too.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Balance inner and outer

#3969E – 3.3.1.113

BN – ZEL1/2

A man can start to give love when he has it to give, but he can give nothing when he has none of it. The ordinary man lives very much in his ego and can only give his egotism. If he seems to give love, there is an egoistic thought or motive behind it. The aspirant who immerses himself in somebody else's ego may make the latter feel happier but both are wallowing in the same element. The daily retreat from the world, if for higher purposes, may in the end be better for others, too. If a man uses these periods to get away from all other influences and seek only the divine presence, he may in time have something of it, even if only atmosphere, to bring others. His enjoyment of that presence cannot help but put really sincere goodwill into his attitude to them. The sharing of what he feels becomes a natural activity. This is love in a deeper more enduring sense, and more productive, too.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Balance inner and outer

#3969E – 3.3.1.113

BN – ZEL2/2

The divine part of our being is always there; why then is it not available to us? We have to practise making ourselves available to It. We have to pause, listen inwardly, feel for Its blessed presence. For this purpose meditation is a valuable help, a real need.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Shorter pauses

#3980 – 3.3.1.124

BN – X – D

His earthly business will not suffer in the end but he himself will gain much profit if he detaches himself from it once or twice a day to turn his attention toward celestial business for which he was really put on earth.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Shorter pauses

#3982 – 3.3.1.126

BN – X – D

It is more than a short respite from personal troubles, more than a white magic which leads him away from a hard and crazy world: it is a return to the source of Life.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Shorter pauses

#3985 – 3.3.1.129

BN – X – D

There is so much power and light in these quiet periods that the public ignorance of meditation is more than regrettable.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Shorter pauses

#3993 – 3.3.1.137

BN – X – D

The man who cannot free himself for half an hour every day from overactivity whether in work or in entertainment is a self-made slave. To what better use could he put this small fraction of time than to withdraw for such a high purpose as seeking himself?

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Shorter pauses

#3998 – 3.3.1.142

BN – X – D

He is soon distracted by the routines, the duties, the cares, and the activities of life, however petty they are, so that the great eternal truths recede from his vision. This is why such periods of temporary withdrawal are absolutely necessary every day.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Shorter pauses

#3999 – 3.3.1.143

B_08 – P – D

Is it too much to ask a man to pause in each of his busy days long enough to cultivate the one faculty―intuition―which offers him an utterly disproportionate return for the investment of time and attention?

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Shorter pauses

#4003 – 3.3.1.147

BSG_5 – P – D

The Overself asks to be alone with him for certain periods every day. This is not too much to ask, yet it seems too much to give for most people.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Shorter pauses

#4018 – 3.3.1.162

BN – Z – D

A day may come when builders and architects will make a small room for silence and meditation a part of every structure—be it residential or business.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Shorter pauses

#4022 – 3.3.1.166

BN – X – D

A few minutes every day for relaxing the thoughts and feelings will help one to endure the harassments of time and activity. A little study now and then will reveal the Higher Purpose behind it all—and there is one!

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Shorter pauses

#4025 – 3.3.1.169

BN – X – D

Sometimes it is high wisdom to desert the world for awhile, resting in a hermitage or reposing with Nature. For a fresh point of view may be found there, what is happening within oneself may be better understood, the tired mind may gain some concentration, and the fringe of inner peace may be touched.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Longer pauses

#4028 – 3.3.1.172

BN – X – D

When we walk under the groined arches of a cathedral we do not usually feel the same emotions as when we step out of the lift into the bargain basement of a department store. This is what I mean when I say that every place has its mental atmosphere, formed from thousands of thoughts bred in it; and this is why I suggest that retreat now and then into a secluded place for spiritual self-development is something worthwhile for the aspirant who is compelled to live amid the tumults of a modern city.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Longer pauses

#4042 – 3.3.1.186

BN – Z – DEK

There are times when he must live a withdrawn life for a while if the slender young plant beginning to grow within him is to survive.

Relax and Retreat > Take Intermittent Pauses > Longer pauses

#4057 – 3.3.1.201

BN – X – D

The dominant habits, regimes, and practices of the regular routine which modern Western man follows show in themselves how far he has lost the true purposes of living, how disproportionate is the emphasis he has put on the things of this world.

Relax and Retreat > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure

#4079 – 3.3.2.15

BN – X – D

Action is right, needful, and inevitable, but if it is overdone, if we become excessive extroverts, if it drives us like a tormenting demon, then no inward peace is ever possible for us.

Relax and Retreat > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure

#4091 – 3.3.2.27

BN – X – D

When the divine is utterly forgotten in the press of daily activity, the negative, the foolish, and the self-weakening will be easily remembered.

Relax and Retreat > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure

#4119 – 3.3.2.55

BN – X – D

The extroversions of the ego block the communication of the Overself.

Relax and Retreat > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure > Price of excessive extroversion

#4177 – 3.3.2.113

BN – X – D

Too much absorption with outward things, too little with inner life, creates the unbalance we see everywhere today. The attention given by people to their outer circumstances amounts almost to obsession.

Relax and Retreat > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure > Price of excessive extroversion

#4182 – 3.3.2.118

BN – X – D

Most men are so smugly content to do their own ego’s will all the time that it never enters their minds to pause and enquire what the Overself’s will for them is.

Relax and Retreat > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure > Price of excessive extroversion

#4183 – 3.3.2.119

BN – Z – D

We listen to so many outer voices that we do not have time, or give place, to listen directly to the Inner Voice, the Overself’s.

Relax and Retreat > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure > Price of excessive extroversion

#4184 – 3.3.2.120

BN – X – D

The mass of outer activities becomes a heavy burden. Whether trivial or important, casual or essential, they keep us from looking within for the real self just as much as preoccupation with the mass of superfluous possessions.

Relax and Retreat > Withdraw from Tension and Pressure > Price of excessive extroversion

#4185 – 3.3.2.121

BN – X – D

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

#4200D – 3.3.2.136

BN – Z – K

Meditation must become a daily rite, a part of the regime which is, like lunch or dinner, not to be missed, but regarded with a sacredness the body's feeding does not have.

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

#4203 – 3.3.2.139

BN – X – D

How valuable are those few minutes deliberately removed from the daily routine for this practice of mental quiet! The world is so busy with its business that the profit to be gained from inner contact with the Source is quite unperceived, even unknown.

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

#4210 – 3.3.2.146

BN – Z – K

Tension may be eased by the simple exercise of total relaxation. At least twice a day, the student should stretch out and lie perfectly still. He must endeavour to consciously relax every part of the body. Breathing should be slowed down and kept at an even pace, the intake matching the outflow. The exercise need only take a few minutes—or until all signs of tension are gone.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4220 – 3.3.3.3

BN – X – D

If he can take a few minutes of concentrated rest at odd times, or even only one to three minutes at a time when he can get no more, he will benefit out of all proportion. The nerves will be soothed, the mind relaxed from its cares, the body-battery recharged, and the emotions calmed.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4222 – 3.3.3.5

BN – X – D

Sleep exercise: Roll your head around in a circle until the neck muscles are well relaxed and the chin easily touches the chest. Rest. Repeat the cycle of exercise and rest a number of times. Its effect is to increase the capacity to fall asleep more quickly.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4224 – 3.3.3.7

BN – X – D

Tension of some kind cannot be avoided, for all activity, physical or mental, calls it forth. It becomes harmful when it is not rightly balanced by relaxation, when it alone rules the man.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4240 – 3.3.3.23

BN – X – D

Release from tension is the beginning of release from ego. To relax body, feeling, and mind is to prepare the way for such a desirable consummation. The current propaganda and education of people in relaxation methods is to be welcomed for this reason alone, quite apart from the reasons usually given beyond which the propagandist's vision does not usually extend. But to remove tension is only a first step, not a final one.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4243 – 3.3.3.26

BN – ZZ – DEK

There is no doubt that the man who has completely mastered relaxation can let it pass into meditation more easily and quickly than the man who has not.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4244 – 3.3.3.27

BN – X – D

He refuses to be forced by his contemporaries into their feverish activity but insists on retaining the dignity of an unharried pace. The body may be fugitive but his own existence is eternal—whether viewed as emerging in other appearances on earth or as pure timeless spirit.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4250 – 3.3.3.33

BN – X – D

When the great liberation from his ego is attained, his entire physical organism will reflect the experience. All its muscular tautness will vanish; hands, shoulders, neck, facial expression, and legs will relax spontaneously of their own accord as his mind relaxes. He will be transformed.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4252 – 3.3.3.35

BN – X – D

It is needful to bring oneself to abstain from all actions for a short time daily, and to let thinking and feeling slip little by little into complete repose. As the movements of the body are suspended and the workings of the mind are reduced, the rest afforded both of them opens a way for the presence of intuition to be detected, recognized, and connected with. The ego begins to get out of the way, giving what is behind it a chance to reveal itself and be heard.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4256 – 3.3.3.39

BN – X – D

By becoming mindful of the rise and fall of breath, by transferring consciousness to the respiratory function alone, thought becomes unified, concentrated, rested in a natural easy manner.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4276 – 3.3.3.59

BN – X – D

Do not interrupt those wonderful moments, when all is still, by descending to trivial doings, or even necessary ones. Let them wait, let brain and body rest, let the world go, and give this fraction of time to the Timeless.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4280 – 3.3.3.63

BN – Z – DM

It is worthwhile giving all his attention to any feelings which he may meet unexpectedly within himself and which show an unusual relaxation, a release from tenseness, a freedom from care. They are to be caught on the wing, not allowed to escape and pass away. They are to be nurtured, cherished, and developed. They may be silent voices from the higher self drawing his attention to its own existence.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4282 – 3.3.3.65

BN – X – D

What happens during these relaxed moods? The focus of the conscious mind is withdrawn from the flesh and the vital centres, leaving the unconscious mind in sole sovereignty over them. What results from this? The destruction of the body’s tissue is repaired, the fatigue of its nervous and muscular systems is removed. The fuller the relaxation, and the soul activity within, the fuller the recuperation.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4284 – 3.3.3.67

ME_01 – P – K

To cast out tensions of body and mind and keep relaxed is to keep free and open and receptive to the higher forces—and especially to the intuitive ones.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4295 – 3.3.3.78

BN – X – D

Every symptom of distress is a message to you, uttered in the body's own language, telling of a wrong you have done or are doing. Learn to interpret this language accurately and remedy the wrong.

Relax and Retreat > Relax Body, Breath, Mind > Relax Body, Breath, Mind

#4304 – 3.3.3.87

BN – ZZ

The divine power is not less present in the home or the office than in the church or the monastery. If we do not find this so, it is because we are more ready and more willing to give attention to it in the one than in the other.

Relax and Retreat > Retreat Centres > Retreat Centres

#4313 – 3.3.4.2

BN – X – D

To renounce the world is merely to exchange one kind of residence and one form of activity for another. We live in the consciousness, experience all happenings in it, and cannot renounce it whatever form or appearance it takes. There is in fact a hierarchy of worlds to be passed through.

Relax and Retreat > Retreat Centres > Retreat Centres

#4331 – 3.3.4.20

BA11 – Z – DE

The Indian yogi can beg his food or find support from a patron but here in Euramerica begging and vagrancy are offenses against the law. The higher life in these Western civilized lands, it seems, is open only to those who have accumulated some wealth, if such a life requires withdrawal from the world without attaching oneself to a monastic institution. For money alone will give a seeker the freedom and mobility required for the inner life. This is why young men with spiritual aspirations ought to be ambitious enough to make enough of it as quickly as they can and then retire to live on their savings, devoting the rest of their life to the study and meditation needed.

Relax and Retreat > Retreat Centres > What is needed today?

#4345 – 3.3.4.34

BN – Z

Those who have been forced by circumstances, and especially by the necessity of earning a livelihood, to spend their whole life in materialistic surroundings, to fall in with the excessively extroverted attitudes of today, will naturally desire to take advantage of the first opportunity to reverse this trend and give themselves up to an interlude of solitude, meditation, study, and spiritual companionship. For such, the 'monastic' retreat has a justified existence and a definite value.

Relax and Retreat > Retreat Centres > Motives for entering

#4395 – 3.3.4.84

BN – Z

These noble feelings, these lofty thoughts, these grand intuitions are welcome testimonies of the change that is happening. But until they—and we—are brought to the test of everyday living, their correct measure and ours will not really be known.

Relax and Retreat > Retreat Centres > Problems, limitations

#4446 – 3.3.4.135

BN – ZZ – DEK

Misdirected idealism sets traps for the young, the naïve, the inexperienced, and the ill-informed in political circles as much as for the aspirants or the seekers in spiritual circles, takes pleasant sounding, attractively suggestive words like "harmony" and "unity" or phrases like the "brotherhood of man" and uses them as if they could become realities. This is just not possible in human relations, not in any full, adequate, or lasting sense. Not only so, but it has never been possible in the past—despite the myth of an imagined golden age—nor clearly is it possible in the present. Everywhere we see that even where such idealism seems to be successfully realized, it is only on the surface and vanishes as soon as we probe beneath the surface.

Relax and Retreat > Retreat Centres > Problems, limitations

#4461E – 3.3.4.150

A250426 – ZEL1/2 – DEK

We see religions, old and new, well-known and hardly known, divided into sects, groups, or factions which oppose each other. Nor are the ashrams and monasteries very much better, as they are supposed to be. In the world at large, where little wars and rebellions are being fought with savage ferocity, where political success is achieved by attacking, denigrating, or besmirching others, a semantic analysis of present conditions shows up the self-deception of the idealists and utopians. The lesson has not been learned that because egoism rules men, brotherhood is not possible, and that because no two minds are alike, unity is not possible. Harmony can be found only inside man himself, not in his relations with other men, and then only if insight is developed enough to track the ego down to its lair, expose it for what it is, and live in the peace of the Overself. But other men will continue to live in and from egoism.

Relax and Retreat > Retreat Centres > Problems, limitations

#4461E – 3.3.4.150

A250426 – ZEL2/2 – DEK

One needs a place where the only noise is that which one makes oneself. Then, the lovely stillness without helps to induce the lovely stillness within.

Relax and Retreat > Solitude > Solitude

#4514 – 3.3.5.1

BN – Z – D

When his commerce with God becomes his most important activity and remembrance of God the most habitual one, solitariness grows deeply on a man. His need for friends grows less.

Relax and Retreat > Solitude > Solitude

#4519 – 3.3.5.6

BN – X – D

When a man enters this phase, he begins to feel a great weariness with life. He loses his interest in many things which may have absorbed him before. He becomes emotionally indifferent to activities and persons formerly attractive to him. He withdraws more and more from people and society. When this fatigue with all existence descends upon him, then he will be more ready and more willing to lose the personal ego in the universal ocean of being.

Relax and Retreat > Solitude > Solitude

#4544 – 3.3.5.31

BN – Z – DEK

Privacy is a great privilege—almost, in these noisy days, a luxury. To be able to live without being interrupted by others, to be able to converge all one's thoughts, without being disturbed, upon the highest of all thoughts, the discovery of the Overself, is a satisfaction indeed!

Relax and Retreat > Solitude > Solitude

#4564 – 3.3.5.51

BN – X – D

The enforced cessation from external activity which imprisonment may bring could be a help to spiritual awakening. A few months before he died Oscar Wilde said, “I have lived all there was to live. I found the sweet bitter and the bitter sweet. I was happy in prison because there I found my soul.”

Relax and Retreat > Solitude > Solitude

#4573 – 3.3.5.60

BN – X – D

The need of withdrawing at certain times from outer contact with other human beings will be felt and if so should be obeyed. If he disregards it, he misses an opportunity to progress to a higher stage.

Relax and Retreat > Solitude > Solitude

#4602 – 3.3.5.89

BA12 – P – D

The impingement of other people's auras, if they be inferior and if he be sensitive, causes him a kind of suffering. Can he be blamed for preferring solitude to sociability?

Relax and Retreat > Solitude > Solitude

#4619 – 3.3.5.105

BN – ZZ

"I regard my last eight months in prison as the happiest period in my life. It was then that I was initiated into that new world . . . which enabled my soul . . . to establish communion with the Lord of all Being. This would never have happened if I had not had such solitude as enabled me to recognize my real self. Although I did not study mysticism, the mystics I read in prison appealed to me tremendously." —Anwar el Sadat, former president of Egypt

Relax and Retreat > Solitude > Solitude

#4631 – 3.3.5.117

BN – X – DEK

Who has full freedom and complete independence? Who is walled against the actions, the influence, the suggestions, and the presence of others? Even the recluse who withdraws from society will find it difficult to live or be alone. He prefers to be inconspicuous among others, to live quietly in society, to have a humbler rather than a grander position, and to hide himself in anonymity or obscurity. But these are his own preferences. If, however, the Higher Power wills or instructs him intuitively to come into the public eye, to be publicly active, he will reluctantly have to obey the call.

Relax and Retreat > Solitude > Solitude

#4643 – 3.3.5.129

BN – Z

The beauty we see in a single flower points to a MIND capable of thinking such beauty. In the end Nature and Art point to God.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4677 – 3.3.6.1

B_09 – P – D

Nature produces new or nobler feelings in the more sensitive wanderers into her domain. The sunset's peace, the dawn's promise of hope, and the pleasure of beauty's presence are always worthwhile and should fill us with gratitude.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4680 – 3.3.6.4

BN – Z – DEK

He will accomplish this disciplinary work best if he retires to the quietude and contemplation of Nature, to a country seclusion where he can be least distracted and most uplifted. Here is the temple where aspiration for the Higher Self can find its best outlet; here is the monastery where discipline of the lower self can be easiest undertaken.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4684 – 3.3.6.8

BN – X – D

To look steadily at Nature's own artwork for a while—be it mountain, valley, or moving waves—with growing deep feeling until the self is forgotten, is also a yoga practice.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4689 – 3.3.6.13

B_09 – P – D

In Nature’s solitary places, in its forests, mountains, and grasslands, it is easier to cultivate the philosopher’s trinity of goodness, truth, and beauty than in the crowded quarters of towns.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4696 – 3.3.6.20

BN – X – D

We need quiet places where the earth is left in its natural state and where men can seek in leisure and freedom to recover their independence of thought and to restore awareness of their inner selves—so hard to gain and so easy to lose in the modern world.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4697 – 3.3.6.21

BN – X – D

It is a soothing experience to sit in the grass high on the top of a cliff, to look out at the vast spread of sea, and then to let the mind empty itself of accumulated problems. As the minutes pass, equanimity is restored and repose laps one about.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4711 – 3.3.6.35

BN – X – D

In the beauty of a rose and the loveliness of a sunset the man of aesthetic feeling or poetic temperament may unconsciously find a reminder of the grander beauty of the Overself.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4714 – 3.3.6.38

BN – X – D

To the sensitive person, an unspoiled scenery of lakeland or woodland, sea or mountain, brings with its silent contemplation a nostalgic longing for return to his true spiritual home.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4715 – 3.3.6.39

B_09 – P – D

There is one quality which re-enters man when the spring season re-enters the yearly cycle. It is hope.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4718 – 3.3.6.42

BN – X – D

It is a common experience that in shady woodland walks there is an effluence of peace in the atmosphere. We need not wonder that in such and kindred places it is easier to find the quietness within. It is true that men have found their way to the Overself in almost every kind of environment, but there was more help and less conflict when they were alone with primeval Nature.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4720 – 3.3.6.44

BN – Z – DK*

From the hill on whose side I dwell, at the very edge of Montreux, my window looks across sloping vineyards. It has a long view. This means much when one has to live closed in a small apartment every day, every year, with fifty families in the same building. I like the freedom of solitude, the view through unobstructed space. To let the green scenery take my thoughts away into a pleasant harmony with Nature for a few minutes at least, is a daily need, not a luxury. To sit even longer and go far away in consciousness until an unworldly quiescence is reached, is my evening bread.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4727 – 3.3.6.51

BN – X – D

The gardener who waters his flowers and shrubs with loving patience receives love from them in return. It is not like the human kind, but is the exact correspondence to it on the plant level.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4730 – 3.3.6.54

BN – X – D

The flower's beauty is simply a pointer, reminding us to think, speak, and behave beautifully.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4731 – 3.3.6.55

BN – X – D

Nature, which produces such great beauty in flowers and birds, on fields and mountains, does not hesitate to destroy it, too.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4747 – 3.3.6.71

BN – Z

In looking for the beauty in Nature, a man is looking for his soul. In adoring this Beauty when he finds it, he is recognizing that he not only owns an animal body, but is himself owned by a higher Power.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4748 – 3.3.6.72

BN – Z – DK*

There are moments when a human being may sit alone with Nature, when no sound intrudes, and all is quiet, pleasant, harmonious. If you will enter into this stillness with Nature and enter it deeply enough, you will find that it is associated with what most religions call God.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4753 – 3.3.6.77

UR_4map – ZZZ – DK

When we are disgusted with the pettiness of mankind we may turn in appreciation to the grandeur of Nature.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4761 – 3.3.6.85

BN – X – D

The beautiful in Nature, the singing of birds, the coming of Spring's colours recall the beautiful moods in ourself when glimpses revealed the soul.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4775 – 3.3.6.99

BN – X – D

A sensitive person may be gently influenced by such beauty of Nature to pause and gaze, holding himself still for the while, admiring and appreciating the scene, until he is so absorbed that he is lost in it. The ego and its affairs retreat. Unwittingly he comes close to the delicious peace of the Overself.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4778 – 3.3.6.102

BN – X – D

The travelling Goethe wrote his friends in Germany about a Princess he met in Naples—she was young, gay, and superficial—who advised him to go to her large country estate in Sorrento where “the mountain air and lovely view would soon cure me of all philosophy!” Some of us, however, would only be more incited by them to philosophy.

Relax and Retreat > Nature Appreciation > Nature Appreciation

#4779 – 3.3.6.103

BN – X – DK*

The two great daily pauses in Nature offer wonderful minutes when we, her children, should pause too. Sunrise is the chance and time to prepare inwardly for activity; sunset to counterbalance it. We do not take proper advantage of the gifts of Nature but let ourselves be defeated by the conditions in which we have to live under our times and civilization.

Relax and Retreat > Sunset Contemplation > Sunset Contemplation

#4780 – 3.3.7.1

BN – X – D

In those moments of suspense when light is yielding so reluctantly to the dark, there is an opportunity to look within and come closer to the Overself.

Relax and Retreat > Sunset Contemplation > Sunset Contemplation

#4793 – 3.3.7.14

BN – X – D

To anticipate the sunset hour or await the break of dawn, with body unmoving and mind absorbed, is one timing of this exercise which allies itself with Nature's helpful rhythm.

Relax and Retreat > Sunset Contemplation > Sunset Contemplation

#4796 – 3.3.7.17

BN – X – D

Rich are those possible experiences when one sits and gazes at the western horizon before eventide, the sun going out of sight, the heart open to beauty and grace as it longs for the Overself.

Relax and Retreat > Sunset Contemplation > Sunset Contemplation

#4802 – 3.3.7.23

BN – X – D

When the coming of night brings repose to Nature and silence to the landscaped scenes, we experience a stillness outside the self comparable to the stillness which contemplation brings out inside the self.

Relax and Retreat > Sunset Contemplation > Sunset Contemplation

#4827 – 3.3.7.48

BN – X – D

The asceticism has its place, just like the Long Path, of which it is a component, but when it is stressed to an unnatural point, fanaticism is born, equilibrium is lost, and tolerance is destroyed.

Relax and Retreat > Sunset Contemplation > Sunset Contemplation

#4838 – 3.3.7.59

BN – X – D

My happiest hours come when the sun is about to bid us farewell. Those lovely minutes are touched with magic; they bring my active mind and body to a pause. They invite me to appreciate the radiant glowing colours of the sky and finally they command me to enter the deep stillness within, so that when all is dark with the coming of night all is brilliantly illuminated inside consciousness.

Relax and Retreat > Sunset Contemplation > Sunset Contemplation

#4842 – 3.3.7.63

BN – X – D

The sun is God's face in the physical world.

Relax and Retreat > Sunset Contemplation > Sunset Contemplation

#4853 – 3.3.7.74

BN – X – D

… Just as the visible sun is essential to human bodily life and existence, so the invisible sun of consciousness is essential to its mental, emotional, and spiritual life. It is our Overself and God: give it homage.

Relax and Retreat > Sunset Contemplation > Sunset Contemplation

#4857 – 3.3.7.78

BN – X – D

When the sun dips low and vanishes, when dusk begins to fall and the colours darken and merge, the mind can move with Nature into its great pause. A man whose temperament is sensitive, aesthetic, religious, psychic, or Nature-loving can profit by this passage from day to night and come closer to awareness of his soul.

Relax and Retreat > Sunset Contemplation > Sunset Contemplation

#4886 – 3.3.7.107

BN – X – D

Meditation is really the mind thinking of the Soul, just as Activity is the mind thinking of the World.

Elementary Meditation > Elementary Meditation > Elementary Meditation

#4890 – 4.4.4.1

BN – Z

It is habitual, hence called natural, for present-day humanity to go along with the mental flow to outside things. Meditation reverses this direction and tries to bring the little mind back to its origin—Mind.

Elementary Meditation > Elementary Meditation > Elementary Meditation

#4891 – 4.4.4.2

BN – Z

Of all the day's activities, this non-activity, this retreat into meditation, must become the principal one. It ought to be the centre, with all the others circling round it.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4892 – 4.4.1.1

BN – X – D

Spirituality is within. If one does not feel it, then one needs to search deeper, beneath the weaknesses, faults, passions, and desires of the ego. It is still there, but the search must be properly made. This is where help can be found, in the words of those who have already found it.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4894 – 4.4.1.3

BN – X – D

The consciousness beyond the usual everyday consciousness can be reached only after a disciplined training of the mind. This suppresses its activity in thinking and banishes its extroverted worldliness of character.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4896 – 4.4.1.5

BN – X – D

It comes to this, that what people try to find in many books is waiting for them within themselves, to be discovered by regularly practising the art of meditation.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4897 – 4.4.1.6

BN – X – D

Since the real essence of philosophy has only an inner content, which must be felt intuitively and grasped intellectually, but no outer form, it cannot become material for a cult, an organized group. It must lead each person on his/her own individual way, letting him/her grow naturally from within… This idea, or belief, that we must go somewhere, meet someone, read something, to accomplish life's best fulfilment is the first and last mistake. In the end, as in the beginning, we have nothing else to do except follow the ancient command to LOOK WITHIN.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4898EM – 4.4.1.7

BSG_1 – ZZZ – DXK

The truth needed for immediate and provisional use may be learned from books and teachers but the truth of the ultimate revelation can be learned only from and within oneself by meditation.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4905 – 4.4.1.14

BN – ZZ – K1

The purely intellectual approach to the Overself can never replace the psychological experience of it. This latter is and must be supreme.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4906 – 4.4.1.15

BN – X – D

It is a principle of philosophy that what you can know is limited by what you are. A deep man may know a deep truth but a shallow man, never. This indeed is one of its reasons for taking up the practice of meditation.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4907 – 4.4.1.16

BN – Z – DK1

If something awakens in him, a serious urge to unfold more of his spiritual nature, then the practice of meditation becomes one of the best ways to get into action.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4913 – 4.4.1.22

BN – X – D

The consequences of putting the contents of his own mind under observation, of becoming fully aware of their nature, origin, and effect, are immeasurably important.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4915 – 4.4.1.24

BN – X – D

With the sole object of calming and clearing the mind and concentrating its power, it is a good practice to sit in meditation for a while each day before beginning to study philosophy. This helps the studies.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4916 – 4.4.1.25

BN – X – D

Prayer is a help, but some method that not only goes still deeper into the human heart but helps to silence the ego is also needed. This can be found through the practice of contemplation.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4917 – 4.4.1.26

BN – Z – DK*

To the work of reshaping character and extending consciousness, the practice of meditation is indispensable.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4918 – 4.4.1.27

BN – X – D

Meditation is important in this Quest. It must be learnt. It helps to create a condition wherein the holy presence can be felt, where before there was nothing, and where the holy guidance can be given.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4923 – 4.4.1.32

BN – X – D

Withdraw into the inner Stillness: what better thing can a man do? For it will point to the goal, give direction and support to finding it.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4925 – 4.4.1.34

B_01 – ZZ – DK

In most cases, students must be reminded of the importance of practising meditation daily and not just occasionally. Lack of time or energy are no longer acceptable excuses: time can be made for other things easily enough, so let it be made for meditation, too; and laziness or inertia can be overcome by simply applying determination and a little self-discipline. The student who deliberately sticks to his task, and persists through the initial irksomeness of this practice, will find that the eventual results justify all inconveniences. Meditation is essential in order to develop sensitivity and intuition, which play important roles on this Quest.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4926 – 4.4.1.35

BN – X – DEK

Both the necessity and justification of meditation lie in this, that man is so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he is never aware of the mind out of which they arise and in which they vanish. The process of stilling these thoughts, or advanced meditation, makes this awareness possible.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4927 – 4.4.1.36

BN – X – DK

So long as thoughts remain unmastered, this present and personal experience shuts us out from reality.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4929 – 4.4.1.38

BN – X – D

In the recesses of his own being, a man can find peace, strength, wisdom—but only if he brings his thoughts into obedience.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4930 – 4.4.1.39

BN – Z – DK

Psychological methods are not less necessary than religious exercises. The thought-life of man is ordinarily a confused, a wandering, and a restless one. Meditation, practised in solitude and quietude, must be regularly inserted into it, first, to help improve its character, and second, to open a pathway towards conscious knowledge of the higher self.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4935 – 4.4.1.44

BN – X – D

We have never learnt to keep our minds still as we sometimes keep our bodies still. It is by far the harder task but also the most rewarding one. Our thoughts continually titillate them and our desires periodically agitate them. What the inner resources of mind are, and what they can offer us, consequently remain unglimpsed and unknown. They are, in their totality, the Soul, and they offer us the kingdom of heaven.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4938 – 4.4.1.47

BN – X – DEM

To pursue the realization of his dream—an abiding peace which would necessarily lead to the falling-away of haunting fears and negative emotions—he must gain control of thoughts.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4939 – 4.4.1.48

BN – X – D

The Westerner must learn to end this endless restlessness, this daily impatience to be doing something, must practise faithfully and regularly “waiting on the Lord,” or meditation. Thus he will come less and less to rely on his own little resources, more and more on the Lord’s—that is, on his Overself’s—infinite wisdom, power, and grace.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4946 – 4.4.1.55

BN – X – D

We spend so much of the day concentrating on our personal selves. Can we not spend a half hour concentrating on the higher self?

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4948 – 4.4.1.57

BN – Z – DK

Meditation is no longer limited to a few Christian monasteries and Oriental ashrams but has spread among laymen around the world.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4954 – 4.4.1.63

BN – X – D

He needs to remember the difference between a method and a goal: the one is not the same as the other. Both meditation and asceticism are trainings but they are not the final goals set up for human beings.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4967 – 4.4.1.76

BN – X – K1

In the life and work of the philosophical aspirant, meditation takes an important place. There are several different ways and traditions in such work, so that the aspirant may find what suits him. Although sometimes it is better for him to discipline himself and practise with a way to which he is not attracted—that is only sometimes. Generally, it is easier to learn the art of meditation if we take the way that appeals to us individually. Meditation is, however, and should be, only part of the program. The importance given to it can be exaggerated. The work on oneself, on one's character and tendencies, is also important. The study of the teachings is equally important. And so, out of all these approaches, there comes a ripening, a broad maturity which prepares the aspirant for recognition and full reception of the grace—should it come.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4973 – 4.4.1.82

BN – ZZ – DEK

The whole bodily and mental purificatory regime contributes both to the proper development of meditation and to the proper reception of intuitive knowledge. This is apart from and in addition to, its direct physical and personal benefits.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4978 – 4.4.1.87

BN – X – DEK

The following of these exercises is indispensable to train the mind, to create a habit which will make entry into the meditative mood as easy in the end as it is hard in the beginning.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4989 – 4.4.1.98

BN – X – D

In the earlier history of Christianity, the place given to meditation was quite important and prominent.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4990 – 4.4.1.99

BN – X – D

The practice of mental quiet was formerly confined to the monasteries and convents and kept from the knowledge of lay folk. When Miguel de Molinos tried to alter this state of affairs, he was sternly suppressed.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4993 – 4.4.1.102

BN – X – D

Meditation is not really a safe term to use nowadays. For instance for most people it means thinking about a theme, but for other groups it holds the very opposite meaning—non-thinking.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5003 – 4.4.1.112

UR_3.2 – Z – K

The term 'yoga' itself may mean almost anything in India, for it has become a generic name for a number of techniques which are not only vastly different from each other but in some cases even definitely opposed. It need not even have any reference to a non-materialistic end. It is therefore necessary to be somewhat explicit when using such an ambiguous term.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5006 – 4.4.1.115

UR_3.2 – ZZ – K

The contemporary definition of the word yoga in India is 'union with God.' To a philosopher this is an unsatisfactory one. For originally the word, when split into its syllables ya and gam, meant 'the way to go.' Later it came to mean 'the way to perfection.' But in both cases the application of this term was not limited to God as a goal, although He was a common one. For there were materialistic, mental, religious, and philosophic yogas: indeed one could be an atheist and still pursue a particular yoga. The correct interpretation of the word indicates therefore that there is a carelessness and looseness in its use, on the one hand, and a radical misunderstanding of its right meaning, on the other.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5007 – 4.4.1.116

UR_3.2 – ZZ – K

The basic principle of yoga, which is the cultivation of power to withdraw attention from the external world to the internal self, stands for all time and all peoples. I therefore believe it better to separate it from the accidents and traditions of history and geography, to free it from local accretions and universalize it. But if this is done it is perhaps wiser not to use the term 'yoga' and thus to avoid confusion.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5012E – 4.4.1.121

UR_3.2 – ZZ – K

The true state of meditation is reached when there is awareness of awareness, without the intrusion of any thoughts whatever. But this condition is not the ultimate. Beyond it lies the stage where all awareness vanishes without the total loss of consciousness that this normally brings.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5019 – 4.4.1.128

BN – X – K1

There are different kinds of meditation. The elementary is concerned with holding certain thoughts firmly in the mind. The advanced is concerned with keeping all thoughts completely out of the mind. The highest is concerned with merging the mind blissfully in the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5020 – 4.4.1.129

BN – X – D

The novice must be warned that certain ways of practising concentration, such as visualizing diagrams or repeating declarations, as well as emptying the mind to seek guidance, must not be confused with the true way of meditation. This has no other object than to surrender the ego to the Overself and uses no other method than prayerful aspiration, loving devotion, and mental quiet.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5022 – 4.4.1.131

BN – X – DM1

Real meditation is not formal but spontaneous, not set by the intellect but prompted by the heart.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5023 – 4.4.1.132

B_01 – ZZZ – K

What I call natural meditation, that which comes of itself by itself, or which comes from the admiration of nature or of music, is not less valuable than any meditation of the yogi, and perhaps it is even better since there is no artificial effort to bring it about. The human being feels his inner being gradually lapsing into this beautiful mood which seems to coalesce a feeling of hush, peace, knowledge, and benignity.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5026 – 4.4.1.135

B_01 – ZZZ – DK

This art of meditation is in the end a matter of reaching ever-greater depth within oneself, until one penetrates beneath the ego and enters pure being.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5028 – 4.4.1.137

BA11 – P – D

Meditation rises to its proper level when the meditator thinks only of the relation or the aspiration between himself and the Overself, and it rises to its supreme level when he drops even such ideas and thinks of nothing save the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5029 – 4.4.1.138

BN – X – D

Open the door and let the Light in. It is as simple—and as hard—as that.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5030 – 4.4.1.139

BN – X – D

What is so extraordinary about the practice is that whereas to meditate is correctly regarded as concentrated pondering and sustained musing—in other words, producing more associated thoughts from the first original one—it leads, at its most successful end, to losing the capacity to ponder or muse. At the point where meditation becomes contemplation, thinking paralyses itself and brings about its own temporary death!

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5031 – 4.4.1.140

BN – Z – DEK

The art of meditation is accomplished in two progressive stages: first, mental concentration; second, mental relaxation. The first is positive, the second is passive. [Therefore] meditation is not a one-sided but a two-sided affair. We begin to practise by being mentally active, but after getting well into it, we can continue only by being mentally passive.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5035M – 4.4.1.144

BSG_4 – P – DX

If meditation is to be mastered, two fundamental conditions must be remembered. The first is, ever and again bring attention back from its straying. The second is, ever probe with it deeper and deeper, until the still Void is entered. At the end let yourself become one with the Void.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5036 – 4.4.1.145

BN – X – D

First, mind is held until its continual changes are stilled; second, it is then possible to switch its identification to the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5037 – 4.4.1.146

BN – X – D

The first step is to capture thoughts and hold them by the power of will. The second step is to carry the attention inward, away from the five senses of physical experience.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5038 – 4.4.1.147

BN – X – D

The art of meditation is accomplished in two progressive stages: first, mental concentration; second, mental relaxation. The first is positive, the second is passive. [Therefore] meditation is not a one-sided but a two-sided affair. We begin to practise by being mentally active, but after getting well into it, we can continue only by being mentally passive.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5039M – 4.4.1.148

BSG_4 – P – DX

During meditation the basic aim is to free the mind from worldly concerns and personal desires, to present an empty, clean receptacle for the divine inpouring, if and when it is attracted by his preparedness for it.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5043 – 4.4.1.152

BN – X – D

All these practices are necessary only to shake off a man’s impressions and thoughts of the world, to cut off the person’s affairs, to stop the mind’s constant movement, and thus to bring him to the threshold of a deeper consciousness.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5046 – 4.4.1.155

BN – Z – D

Meditation first collects our forces in a single channel and then directs them toward the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5054 – 4.4.1.163

BSG_4 – P – D

It is a work of leading the attention more and more inward until it reaches to the plane beneath thoughts, where peaceful being alone holds and satisfies it.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5055 – 4.4.1.164

BN – X – D

Most systems of yoga are simply devices for reducing the activity of the brain and thus allowing attention to turn inwards and become aware of what is sometimes called the unconscious and sometimes the spiritual self.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5056 – 4.4.1.165

BN – Z – DK

Symeon, Byzantine mystic, theologian, and saint who flourished near Constantinople nine hundred years ago, thus explains the foundation principle of meditation: “Sitting alone, withdrawn mentally from the world around, search into your innermost heart.”

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5062 – 4.4.1.171

BN – X – D

It is a means of severing attention from its ever-changing objects, and then enabling the freed mental force to study its own source.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5063 – 4.4.1.172

BN – X – DK1

The divine essence is within us, not somewhere else. This shows us the correct direction in which to look for it. The attention, with the interest and desire which move it, must be withdrawn from outside things and beings.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5064 – 4.4.1.173

BN – X – D

Meditation is inner work to attain the soul’s presence. It is sometimes quickly resultful, but more often goes on for a long time before that attainment is realized.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5079 – 4.4.1.188

BN – X – D

Meditation is inner work to attain the soul's presence. It is sometimes quickly resultful, but more often goes on for a long time before that attainment is realized.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5082 – 4.4.1.191

UR_3.2 – Z – K

This withdrawal of attention from the immediate environment which occurs when deeply immersed in thought, looking at the distant part of a landscape, or raptly listening to inspired music, is the 'I' coming closer to its innermost nature. At the deepest level of this experience, the ego-thought vanishes and 'I-myself' becomes merged in the impersonal Consciousness.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5096 – 4.4.1.205

UR_3.2 – ZZ – K

Facility comes with time, provided all other conditions and requirements are fulfilled. Attention passes through two progressive stages. The first holds it intently on an image, an idea, or an object. The second keeps these out and holds it in a sublime empty stillness.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5100 – 4.4.1.209

BN – X – D

The first phase is to learn how to collect his forces together and pin them down to a particular theme, thought, or thing. It is essentially an exercise in attention and concentration. This is attempted daily. To succeed in it he must exert his power of will, must adopt a determined posture, or the mind will wander off repeatedly. With enough work on this phase he will be able to begin meditation proper, for which this was only a preparation.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5111 – 4.4.1.220

BN – X – DEK

It is unlikely that any noticeable result will come during this first phase. Here will be a test of his patience. He needs “to wait on the Lord,” in Biblical phrase.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5115 – 4.4.1.224

BN – X – DK

Only when he becomes entirely engrossed in the one idea, unconscious of any other idea, can he be said to have achieved concentration, the first stage.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5118 – 4.4.1.227

BN – X – D

The second phase will not come into being unless he ceases to try only to think about it and starts to feel for its presence, drawing the energy down to the heart from the head, and loving the presence as soon as it is felt. He will express this love by letting his face assume a happy pleasant smile.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5119 – 4.4.1.228

BN – X – D

He begins to practise real meditation only when he begins to reach the silence of feelings and thoughts inside himself. Until then he is merely maneuvering around to attain this position.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5120 – 4.4.1.229

BSG_4 – P – D

In these first two stages, the will must be used, for the attention must not only be driven along one line and kept there but must also penetrate deeper and deeper. It is only when the frontier of the third stage is reached that all this work ceases and that there is an abandonment of the use of the will, a total surrender of it, and effortless passive yielding to the Overself is alone needed.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5138 – 4.4.1.247

BN – X – D

When meditation deepens into contemplation, the man penetrates the still centre of his being and there finds the best part of himself—the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5153 – 4.4.1.262

BN – X – D

The meditation may serve a useful or helpful or constructive purpose, but it will not serve its highest purpose unless it transforms itself into contemplation—that is to say, unless it transforms itself from an effort-making activity to an effortless experience by taking him out of himself. His own will cannot do it but divine Grace can.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5155 – 4.4.1.264

BN – X – D

The concentration on that Other is to be so complete that he can echo the words of Theresa Neumann: ”I am so completely alone with the dear saviour that I could not possibly have any time to think about myself.”

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5156 – 4.4.1.265

BN – X – D

The wandering of thoughts stopped and the consciousness held steady, the next phase is to turn it—if he has not already started with that idea—towards the diviner part of himself in aspiration, in devotion, and in love. As he continues this inward focusing, the willed effort becomes easier and easier until it seems no longer needed: at this point it is replaced by something deep within coming up to the surface and taking him OVER. He should remain perfectly still, passive, embraced.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5165 – 4.4.1.274

BN – X – D

Thinking must stop, but if it stops at the level of the little ego only a psychical experience or a mediumistic possession may result. If, however, it stops at a deeper level after right preparation and sufficient purification, the mind's emptiness may be filled by a realization of identity with the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Levels of absorption

#5171 – 4.4.1.280

BN – Z – K1

If in meditation he goes down sufficiently far through the levels of consciousness, he will come to a depth where the phenomenal world disappears from consciousness, where time, thoughts, and place cease to exist, where the personal self dissolves and seems no more. If there is no disturbance caused by violent intrusion from the physical world, this phase of complete inner thought-free stillness may continue for a long period; but in the end Nature reclaims the meditator and brings him back to this world. It is only an experience, with the transiency of all experiences. But it will make its contribution to the final State, which is permanent establishment in the innermost being, whether in the depth of silent meditation or in the midst of worldly turmoil and activity.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5190 – 4.4.1.299

BN – Z – K1

Meditation, if successful, accomplishes two main purposes: it draws the mind inward, releasing it from the physical imprisonment, and it elevates the mind to a heavenly state of union with the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5203 – 4.4.1.312

BN – X – D

The practice of meditation finds its climax in an experience wherein the meditator experiences his true self and enjoys its pure love.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5206 – 4.4.1.315

BN – X – D

The first onset of this grace in meditation is felt in the same way the onset of sleep is felt; it is hardly perceptible. At one moment it is not there at all, but at the next it has begun to manifest.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5209 – 4.4.1.318

BN – X – D

He knows that it is only his own feebleness of concentration that stops him from entering his deeper self, that when he does succeed at rare moments in making the passage he enters a world of truth, reality, and selflessness. He knows that meditation, for a properly prepared mind, leads to no illusion and no sleep but to his own Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5218 – 4.4.1.327

BN – X – D

If one returns daily to the Centre of his being, keeps the access to it open by meditation, he withdraws more and more from the body's domination and the intellect's one-sidedness. That is to say, he becomes more and more himself, less and less limited by his instruments.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5219 – 4.4.1.328

BN – X – D

If he can develop the facility to sustain his meditation and keep off distracting thoughts, he can gain a cooler vision in worldly matters and a clearer one in spiritual matters.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5222 – 4.4.1.331

B_08 – P – D

Meditation proves its worth, shows its best value, and merges into contemplation, when it is deepest. For then thoughts cease to flutter, the ego is lulled, the world vanishes, and the burden of the flesh with it.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5232 – 4.4.1.341

BN – X – D

To reflect upon That which we are will one day bring It into consciousness. To contemplate It by seeking the stillness in which It abides, will one day make It a palpable presence.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5233 – 4.4.1.342

BN – X – D

The feeling of a sacred presence during meditation is important in every way. It provides a channel whereby Grace can be given, ideas communicated, and character uplifted.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5239 – 4.4.1.348

BN – X – D

A time may come when what happens to him during the meditation hour will seem more important than what happens during the entire day which follows it.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5245 – 4.4.1.354

BN – Z – DK

Just as a novel creates a diversion for the reader and changes his world for a time, so a successful period of meditation transfers consciousness to another zone.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5247 – 4.4.1.356

BN – X – D

It becomes a communion between the human and the divine in us, an adventure in seeking and finding oneness with the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5256 – 4.4.1.365

BN – X – D

One thing which he is likely to derive from the regular practice of meditation, when some proficiency is attained, is the sense of inner growth, a definite awareness that progress is being made.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5266 – 4.4.1.375

BN – X – D

The quality of a meditative session is not to be measured by its timed length but by its effective contact with Reality.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5276 – 4.4.1.385

BN – X – D

The practice was at first undertaken because of the benefit he hoped to get from it. But, with some proficiency, it is now continued also because of the pleasure it gives him.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5277 – 4.4.1.386

BN – X – D

Meditation, when successful, flings a magic spell over the man—one that is benign and blessed.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5280 – 4.4.1.389

BN – Z – K

The lack of enjoyable result following the practice does not mean that it has been in vain. The belief that he is sitting in the presence of the Overself, if clung to despite the meditation's dryness, will one day bring him a Glimpse at least. But he must come to it faithfully each day.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5282 – 4.4.1.391

BN – X – D

Once he is able to push the door open, he finds himself in a place where the light is heavenly, the peace indescribable, the feeling of divine support immeasurable.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5285 – 4.4.1.394

BN – Z – D

He need not get either perturbed or puzzled if, after a certain period of the session has elapsed and a certain depth of concentration reached, there is a momentary disappearance of consciousness. This will be a prologue to, as well as a sign of, entrance into the third state, contemplation. The immediate after-effect of the lapse is somewhat like that which follows deep dreamless sleep. There is a delicious awakening into a mind very quiet, emotions gently stilled, and nerves greatly soothed.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5302 – 4.4.1.411

BN – X – K1

If the meditative act is used aright by the intellect, will, and imagination, it can become a means to an inspiration and an ecstasy beyond itself. It can be used as a stimulus to creative achievement in any field, including the spiritual and the artistic fields. It should be practised just before beginning to work. The technique is to hold on to the inspired attitude or the joyous feeling after meditation is completed and not to let it fade away. Then approach the work to be done and carry the attitude into it. It will be done with more power, more effectiveness, and especially more creativeness. Anyone who loves his task in this deeper way does it more easily and successfully than he who does not.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5307 – 4.4.1.416

BN – X – DEK

The improvement of character is both a necessary prelude to, and essential accompaniment of, any course in these practices of meditation. Without it, self-reproach for transgressions or weaknesses will penetrate the peace of the silent hour and disturb it.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Dangers, and how to avoid them

#5379 – 4.4.1.488

BN – X – D

Where is the expert in meditational theory and practice greater than the Buddha? His recommendation for those who earnestly sought to master the act was to establish two basic conditions—solitude without and perseverance within.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Place and Condition

#5425 – 4.4.2.3

BN – X – D

The aspirant who is really determined, who wants to make rapid progress, must make use of the early hour of morning when dawn greets the earth. Such an hour is to be set aside for meditation upon the Supreme, that ultimately a spiritual dawn may throw its welcome light upon the soul. By this simple initial act, his day is smoothed before he starts. Yet of the few who seek the highest Truth, fewer still are ready to make this sacrifice of their time, or are willing to forego the comfort of bed. Most men are willing to sacrifice some hours of their sleep in order to enjoy the presence of a woman and to satisfy their passion for her; but exceedingly few men are willing to sacrifice some hours of their sleep to enjoy the presence of divinity and to satisfy their passion for God-realization.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Times for meditation

#5429 – 4.4.2.7

BN – X – K1

Since meditation forms an essential part of the Quest's practices, a part of the day must be given up to it. It need not be a large part; it can be quite a small part. The attitude with which we approach it should not be one of irksome necessity but of loving eagerness. We may have to try different periods of the day so as to find the one that will best suit us and our circumstances. This, however, is only for beginners and intermediates, for one day we shall find that any time is good enough for meditation time just as every day is Sunday to the true Christian.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Times for meditation

#5457 – 4.4.2.35

BN – X – D

For meditation or worship it is a fitting posture to face the east where the sun rises, the west where it sets or the south where it is strongest. But the north is less desirable, not only because it is sunless but because it is the direction whence come the powers active in the body during sleep.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Places for meditation

#5494 – 4.4.2.72

BN – X – K1

The mystical aspirant has always been enjoined since earliest times to seek an environment for the practice of his exercises amidst the solitudes and beauties of Nature, where nothing disturbs and everything inspires.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Places for meditation

#5503 – 4.4.2.81

BN – X – D

The idea of having a sanctuary room is an excellent one and should be helpful. There is great power in having a regular place, time, habit, and manner of approach to God. Nevertheless at times excessive strain and work may render this difficult and even impossible. He then should simply do the best he can and should not worry about the matter. He will probably find that when he can take up his meditation or study again, after a period of enforced neglect, he will be able to do so with renewed zest and with greater inspiration.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Places for meditation

#5526 – 4.4.2.104

BN – ZZ – DEK

When I enter the solitude of my room, whether it be in a resplendent city hotel or in a peasant's dirty hut, and close the door and sink into a chair or squat on the ground, letting off thoughts of the world without in order to penetrate the world within, I know that I am entering a holy state.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Places for meditation

#5531 – 4.4.2.109

BN – X – D

If he is to remember the Overself with all his undivided attention, he must forget everything and everyone else without exception.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Solitary vs. group meditation

#5555 – 4.4.2.133

BN – Z – DK

You may rightly consider that you have mastered meditation when it becomes easy and natural.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Solitary vs. group meditation

#5578 – 4.4.2.156

BN – X – D

It is not at all necessary to assume unbearable physical positions and torment oneself trying to maintain them. The less attention one need give to the presence of one’s own body the better will be the conditions for successful practice. What is really necessary is to obey one simple rule: keep the body still, refuse to move it about or to fidget any limb. This physical quiet is both the prelude to and preparation for mental quiet. Any position in which one feels able to settle down comfortably and sit immobile is a good position.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Postures for meditation

#5586 – 4.4.2.164

BN – X – D

Because of inferior auric magnetism of other persons picked up during the day, the washing of hands and feet and face is prescribed in Islamic religion before prayer and recommended in philosophic mysticism before meditation.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Other physical considerations

#5658 – 4.4.2.236

BN – X – K1

There are four chief points in the body which may be used to hold the attention of the eyes if the latter are to be kept open or partly open during meditation. They are: first, the navel; second, the tip or the end of the nose; third, the space between the eyebrows, or the root of the nose; and fourth—which is rather a Chinese exercise—on the ground a little in front of the feet, which sights the eyes somewhere between the second and third exercise.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Other physical considerations

#5660 – 4.4.2.238

BN – X – K1

The Overself is drawing him ever inward to Itself, but the ego's earthly nature is drawing him back to all those things or activities which keep him outwardly busy. On the issue of this tension depends the result of his meditation. If he can bring such devotion to the Overself that out of it he can find enough strength to put aside everything else that he may be doing or thinking and give himself up for a while to dwelling solely in it, this is the same as denying himself and his activities. Once his little self gets out of the way, success in reaching the Overself is near.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5699 – 4.4.2.277

BN – X – D

Meditation that is not accompanied by a deep and warm feeling of reverence will take much longer to reach its goal, if it reaches it at all.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5704 – 4.4.2.282

BN – X – D

It is a matter of transferring attention for this brief period from the ego and fixing it lovingly on the Overself. For while thought dwells in and on the ego alone, it is kept prisoner, held by the little self's limitations, confined in the narrow circle of personal affairs, interests, problems. The way out is this transfer of attention. But the change needs a motive power, a push. This comes from love and faith combined—love, aspiration, longing for Overself, and faith in its living ever-presence within.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5709 – 4.4.2.287

BN – X – D

It is an obstacle to success in meditation if he times himself by a watch or a clock. This will create a subconscious pressure diverting his attention intermittently towards the outer world, towards his affairs and schedules in that world, towards the passage of time—all things he had better forget if he wants to remember the Overself and reach its consciousness.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5715 – 4.4.2.293

BN – X – DK

Who could do anything but succeed if he started meditating with the attitude that no matter how long he has to wait for the feeling of contact with the Overself, he will continue to sit there?

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5731 – 4.4.2.309

BN – X – D

If he finds that the meditation period has not been fruitful, nevertheless let him be assured that it has not been wasted. The habit of sacrificing a part of every day to it has been kept. It is its own reward for such loyalty.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5739 – 4.4.2.317

BN – X – D

The higher self is there every time he sits down to meditation, but he should not let impatience pull him away from the possibility of realizing its presence. Success may need time, often plenty of time; and he must learn to wait in patience on the Lord.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5744 – 4.4.2.322

BN – X – D

When this daily withdrawal becomes a congenial part of the program involved in living, as natural and necessary, as satisfying as any other human need, meditation will be successful sooner or later.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5745 – 4.4.2.323

BN – X – D

To keep up the habit of daily meditation until we love it, is the way to success.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5746 – 4.4.2.324

BN – X – D

So much depends on to what depth within himself he is willing to go, on how far he can carry his mind's search for an awakening to a newer consciousness. It is there, it is there, though he does not see it yet. He must not let go but rather must push himself to the limit until exhausted. The promise is that it will not be in vain.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5754 – 4.4.2.332

BN – X – D

The ego is so taken up with itself that the time of meditation, which ought to be its gradual emptying-out, remains merely another field for its own activity.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5760 – 4.4.2.338

BN – X – DK1

Whether he kneels in the prayer of adoration or squats in the meditation on truth, his face is turned in the right direction—away from the little self—and this is of first importance.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5764 – 4.4.2.342

BN – X – D

Sometimes the Overself reveals itself in other ways: it may use another person, or other persons; it may appear in a sentence in a book opened at random. [Translator’s note: Or, in our 21st century, it may also appear at random through digital media]

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5769E – 4.4.2.347

B_01 – Z – K

Whoever wishes to pluck the fruits of meditation in the shortest time must practise with both perseverance and regularity. This advice sounds platitudinous, but it happens to be true within the experience of most students. Such is the law of subconscious mental unfoldment and it is by understanding and applying it that success can be attained.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Regularity of practice

#5787 – 4.4.2.365

BN – X – DEK

We must pay homage to the Overself, and pay it daily. Anything less is at our peril.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Regularity of practice

#5813 – 4.4.2.391

BN – X – DEK

Constant practice is more important for success in meditation than any other single factor.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Regularity of practice

#5826 – 4.4.2.404

BN – X – D

Never introduce any particular problem or personal matter for prayer or for consideration until after you have gained the peak of the meditation, rested there for a while, and are ready to descend into the deserted world again.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Ending the meditation

#5832 – 4.4.2.410

BN – X – K1

Always close your meditation or end your prayer with a thought for others, such as: May all beings be truly happy.”

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Ending the meditation

#5835 – 4.4.2.413

BN – X – D

The longest book on yoga can teach you nothing more about the practical aim of yoga than this: Still your thoughts.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Stop wandering thoughts

#5842 – 4.4.3.1

BSG_4 – P – D

One of the causes of the failure to get any results from meditation is that the meditator has not practised long enough. In fact, the wastage of much time in unprofitable, distracted, rambling thinking seems to be the general experience. Yet this is the prelude to the actual work of meditation in itself. It is a necessary excavation before the building can be erected. The fact is unpleasant but must be accepted. If this experience of the first period is frustrating and disappointing, the experience of the second period is happy and rewarding. He should really count the first period as a preparation, and not as a defeat. If the preliminary period is so irksome that it seems like an artificial activity, and the subsequent period of meditation itself is so pleasant and effortless that it seems like a perfectly natural one, the moral is: more perseverance and more patience.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Stop wandering thoughts

#5843 – 4.4.3.2

BN – X – DEK

If the turning wheel of thoughts can be brought to a perfect standstill without paying the penalty of sleep, the results will be that the Thinker will come to know himself instead of his thoughts.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Stop wandering thoughts

#5844 – 4.4.3.3

BN – X – D

If meditation were to stop with ruminating intently over one's own best ideas or over some inspired man's recorded ideas, the result would certainly be helpful and the time spent worthwhile. It would be helpful and constructive, but it would not be more than that. Such communion with thoughts is not the real aim of meditation. That aim is to open a door to the Overself. To achieve this, it casts out all ideas and throws away all thoughts. Where thinking still keeps us within the little ego, the deliberate silence of thinking lifts us out of the ego altogether.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Stop wandering thoughts

#5856 – 4.4.3.15

BN – X – D

If the wandering characteristic of all thoughts diverts attention and defeats the effort to meditate, try another way. Question the thoughts themselves, seek out their origin, trace them to their beginning and reduce their number more and more. Find out what particular interest or impulse emotion or desire in the ego causes them to arise and push this cause back nearer to the void. In this way, you tend to separate yourself from the thoughts themselves, refuse to identify with them, and get back nearer to your higher identity.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Stop wandering thoughts

#5861 – 4.4.3.20

BN – X – DK1

The first part of the exercise requires him to banish all thoughts, feelings, images, and energies which do not belong to the subject, prayer, ideal, or problem he chooses as a theme. Nothing else may be allowed to intrude into consciousness or, having intruded by the mind's old restlessness, it is to be blotted out immediately. Such expulsion is always to be accompanied by an exhaling of the breath. Each return of attention to the selected theme is to be accompanied by an inhaling of the breath.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Stop wandering thoughts

#5862 – 4.4.3.21

BN – X – DK1

When thoughts are restless and hard to control, there is always something in us which is aware of this restlessness. This knowledge belongs to the hidden "I" which stands as an unruffled witness of all our efforts. We must seek therefore to feel for and identify ourself with it. If we succeed, then the restlessness passes away of itself, and the bubbling thoughts dissolve into undifferentiated Thought.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Stop wandering thoughts

#5863 – 4.4.3.22

BN – X – DEK1

To keep up the meditation for some length of time, to force himself to sit there while all his habitual bodily and mental instincts are urging him to abandon the practice, calls for arousing of inner strength to fight off inattention or fatigue. But this very strength, once aroused, will eventually enable him to keep it up for longer and longer periods.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Stop wandering thoughts

#5870 – 4.4.3.29

BN – X – D

The aim is to work, little by little, toward slowing down the action of thinking first and stilling it altogether later.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Stop wandering thoughts

#5877 – 4.4.3.36

BN – X – D

Animals live in the herd instinct. They do not possess self-consciousness as individualized human beings possess it, nor have they the capacity of aspiring to what is above their own level. But they are subject to evolution and will ultimately arrive at our level. Kindness to those nearest the human stage promotes their evolution into its best side. Cruelty to them launches them into its worst side and punishes us with a karma of criminal primitive classes of the lowest order.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Stop wandering thoughts

#5899 – 4.4.3.58

BN – X – DEK

Philosophy does not teach people to make their minds a blank, does not say empty out all thoughts, be inert and passive. It teaches the reduction of all thinking activity to a single seed-thought, and that one is to be either interrogative like "What Am I?" or affirmative like "The godlike is with me." It is true that the opening-up of Overself-consciousness will, in the first delicate experience, mean the closing-down of the last thoughts, the uttermost stillness of mind. But that stage will pass. It will repeat itself again whenever one plunges into the deepest trance, the raptest meditative absorption. And it must then come of itself, induced by the higher self's grace, not by the lower self's force. Otherwise, mere mental blankness is a risky condition to be avoided by prudent seekers. It involves the risk of mediumship and of being possessed.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Blankness is not the goal

#5904 – 4.4.3.63

UR_3.2 – Z – K1

To seek mental blankness as a direct objective is to mistake an effect for a cause. It is true that some of the inferior yogis do so, trying by forcible means like suppression of the breath to put all thoughts out of the mind. But this is not advocated by philosophy.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Blankness is not the goal

#5908 – 4.4.3.67

UR_3.2 – Z – K

Each exercise in meditation must start with a focal point if it is to be effective. It must work upon a particular idea or theme, even though it need not end with it.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#5918 – 4.4.3.77

BN – X – D

The first thing which he has to do is to re-educate attention. It has to be turned in a new direction, directed towards a new object. It has to be brought inside himself, and brought with deep feeling and much love to the quest of the Soul that hides there.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#5924 – 4.4.3.83

BN – X – D

If any light flash or form is seen, he should instantly concentrate his whole mind upon it and sustain this concentration as long as he is able to. The active thoughts can be brought to their end by this means.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#5939 – 4.4.3.98

BN – X – D