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

It is true that the Occidental peoples have had in the past little aptitude for exercises in contemplation. But that is no reason why they should not make a start at what will inescapably have to be started if they are to put an end to their aimlessness and restlessness.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4945 – 4.4.1.54

BN – ZZ – DK

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

"Westward Ho!" was the cry in the old days when a ship left England for America. "Inward Ho!" can be the cry when a Quester starts on his spiritual voyage.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The importance of meditation

#4987 – 4.4.1.96

B_05 – ZZZ – K

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 – Z – DK

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

"The kingdom of heaven is within you", the sublime Jesus told his hearers. And several others, less known and less influential, have turned men's minds in the same direction. But even this inner work on meditation is not enough unless it leads to a deepening that plumbs the living silence.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > The true way of meditation

#5078E – 4.4.1.187

B_11 – Z – K

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

#5096D – 4.4.1.205

B_09 – ZZ – 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 – ZZ – DMK

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

From these practices he receives a feeling of courage which in turn enables him to confront the hard situations of life without flinching.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5275 – 4.4.1.384

BN – Z – DK

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

The very sounds of the music which brings him to this exalted state will fall away and paradoxically get lost as he passes into a sound-free state, rapt in mental stillness and inward silence.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5294 – 4.4.1.403

B_09 – Z – K

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

It is not necessary that every seeker of the Spiritual Truth should pass through the trance state. A few do, most others do not, on their way to the goal yet both groups arrive at the same goal. It is indeed not advisable for the average wisdom-seeker deliberately to try to get into trance when his environment is not specially suitable for it, and doing so may even be dangerous.

Elementary Meditation > Preparatory > Fruits, effects of meditation

#5340 – 4.4.1.449

B_05 – Z – K

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

By beginning each day with meditation on the Divine, a man begins well. This act helps to give a spiritual background to the work, duties, and meetings of the day. It comes every twenty-four hours as a reminder that his life has a higher purpose to which his worldly purpose must be subordinate. It refreshes his dedication and renews his self-discipline. Above all, it attracts grace, and this may give him moral restraint or support or even a feeling of inner peace at relaxed moments later in the day.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Times for meditation

#5426 – 4.4.2.4

B_08 – ZZ – K

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

If he is responsive to music, he may employ its help to stir spiritual feelings as a preparation for the actual period of meditation.

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5710 – 4.4.2.288

B_09 – Z – K

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

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

Elementary Meditation > Place and Condition > Proper mental attitude

#5742M – 4.4.2.320

BA12 – ZZ – K

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

The aim is to achieve a concentration as firm and as steady as the Mongolian horseman’s when he gallops without spilling a drop of water from a completely filled glass held in his hand.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#5917 – 4.4.3.76

BN – Z – DK

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

This work of pushing attention inwards, back to its very source, and the sense of "I-ness" back with it, is to be accompanied by thinking only until the latter can be stopped or itself stops. This work is then continued by a stilled and steady search. When the need of search comes to an end, the searcher vanishes, the "I" becomes pure "Being," has found its source. In these daily or nightly sessions, it is his work to turn away from the diffused attention which is his normal condition to the concentrated attention which is indispensable for progress, and to sustain it.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#5943 – 4.4.3.102

BN – X – K1

The state of concentration acquired during a worldly pursuit differs from that acquired during mystical meditation in that the first is usually directed toward outward things and the experience of sense-pleasures, whereas the second is directed toward inward being and rejects sense-pleasures. Thus the two states are at opposite poles—one belonging to the ego-seeking man, and the other to the Overself-seeking man.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#5959 – 4.4.3.118

BN – X – K1

The spiritual life of man at this juncture is a battle against the outward-running tendency of the mind. To perceive this in oneself is to perceive how weak one really is, how feeble a victim of worldly activities, how lacking in the ability to concentrate perfectly even for five minutes, and how unable to hold the attention for the same length of time in the impersonal embrace of a philosophic theme.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#5965 – 4.4.3.124

B_08 – ZZ – K

This power to sustain concentrated attention upon a single line or objective for a long time—a power so greatly admired by Napoleon—comes in the end to those who persevere in these practices.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#5967 – 4.4.3.126

BN – X – D

How can a man unify his consciousness with the Overself without first putting his mind under some sort of a training to strengthen it, so that he will not let go but will be able to hold on when a Glimpse comes?

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#5989 – 4.4.3.148

BN – X – D

The secret of concentration is … practise concentration! Only by arduous effort and persistent, diligent endeavours to master his attention will he finally succeed in doing so. No effort in this direction is wasted and it may be done at any time of the day.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#6001 – 4.4.3.160

BN – X – D

The aim is to sit there totally absorbed in his thought or, at a more advanced level, rigidly concentrated in his lack of it.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#6009 – 4.4.3.168

BN – X – D

Attention must not waver, thought must not wander. This is the Ideal, of course, and is not approached, let alone reached, until after long practice.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#6019 – 4.4.3.178

UR_2.4 – ZZ – K

To achieve this kind of concentration where attention is withdrawn from the outer world and held tightly in itself, a determined attitude is needed of not stopping until this sharply pointed state is reached. All other thoughts are rejected in the very moment that they arise. If at the start there is aspiration and devotion toward the Overself, and in the course of the effort too, then eventually the stress falls away and the Stillness replaces it.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#6029 – 4.4.3.188

BN – X – D

When concentration attains its effective state, the ever-tossing mental waves subside and the emotional perturbations become still. This is the psychological moment when the mystic naturally feels exaltation, peace, and super-earthliness. But it is also the psychological moment when, if he is wise, he should turn away from revelling in personal satisfaction at this achievement and, penetrating yet deeper, strive to understand the inner character of the source whence these feelings arise, strive to understand pure Mind.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#6032 – 4.4.3.191

BN – X – K1

It would be a serious error to believe that he is to continue with any particular exercise or chosen theme, with any special declaration or analysis or question, no matter what happens in the course of a session. On the contrary; if at any moment he feels the onset of deeper feelings, or stronger aspirations, or notable peace, he ought to stop the exercise or abandon the method and give himself up entirely to the interior visitant. He ought to have no hesitation and no fear in considering himself free to do so.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#6036 – 4.4.3.195

BN – X – K1

The more he internalizes his attention, and the less he responds to the sense-impressions, the nearer he draws to the spiritual presence in his heart.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Practise concentrated attention

#6048 – 4.4.3.207

BN – X – D

None of the elementary methods of yoga such as breath control and mantram lead to a permanent control of the mind, but they prepare the way and make it easier to take up those practices which do lead to such a result.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Varieties of practice

#6062 – 4.4.3.221

BN – X – DK1

A continuous ringing of large heavy old church bells, if intently concentrated upon, may produce in a person appreciative of the music in them, a suitable starting point for introverting attention.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Varieties of practice

#6076 – 4.4.3.235

B_09 – ZZ – K

The creator of the Order of Whirling Dervishes used the gyratory movements and dance concentrations, with reed-pipe musical accompaniments, to bring them into the mystical experience. This is possible because body and mind react upon each other. To a lesser extent but in a different way, the same principle is used in hatha yoga. Both methods are intended to reach and awaken people who would find the solely mental, physically immobile meditation too difficult.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Varieties of practice

#6085 – 4.4.3.244

B_09 – Z – K

The different yogas are transitory phases which the seeker must develop and then outgrow.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Varieties of practice

#6087 – 4.4.3.246

B_05 – Z – K

Voodoo musicians and African witchdoctors use the rhythmic beating of drums to induce either the trance state or emotional crescendos.

Elementary Meditation > Fundamentals > Varieties of practice

#6099 – 4.4.3.258

B_09 – Z – K

It is not merely an intellectual exercise. All the piety and reverence and worship gained from religion are needed here too. We must pray constantly to the Soul to reveal itself.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6106 – 4.4.4.5

BN – X – D

When thinking has done its best work, reached its loftiest point, it should relax and cease its activity. If all else has prepared the way, the mind will be ready to enter the silence, to accept a take-over by the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6107 – 4.4.4.6

BN – X – DK

This habit of persistent daily reflection on the great verities, of thinking about the nature or attributes of the Overself, is a very rewarding one. From being mere intellectual ideas, they begin to take on warmth, life, and power.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6118 – 4.4.4.17

BN – X – DK1

The Overself takes his thoughts about it, limited and remote though they are, and guides them closer and closer to its own high level. Such illumined thinking is not the same as ordinary thinking. Its qualitative height and mystical depth are immensely superior. But when his thoughts can go no farther, the Overself's Grace touches and silences them. In that moment he knows.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6119 – 4.4.4.18

BN – X – DK1

The books which live are those written out of this deep union with the true self by men who had overcome the false self. One such book is worth a thousand written out of the intellect alone or the false ego alone. It will do more good to more people for more years. The student may use such a work, therefore, as a basis for a meditation exercise. Its statements, its ideas, should be taken one by one, put into focus for his mind to work on.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6120 – 4.4.4.19

BN – Z – D

The thought of the Overself may easily open the gate which enters into its awareness.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6129 – 4.4.4.28

BN – X – D

Thoughts may be a hindrance to meditation merely by their presence or, if of the proper kind, a help to it. And the only proper kind is that which leads them to look toward the consciousness which transcends them.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6132 – 4.4.4.31

BN – X – D

You will begin by asking yourself "Who am I?" and, when you comprehend that the lower nature cannot be the real you, go on to asking the further question: "What am I?" By such frequent self-studies and self-discriminations, you will come closer and closer to the truth.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6137E – 4.4.4.36

BA12 – ZZ – DEK

In one sense all attempts to meditate on spiritual themes are attempts to awaken intuition. For they achieve success only when the activity of the thinking intellect is stilled and the consciousness enters into that deep silence wherefrom the voice of intuition itself issues forth.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6139 – 4.4.4.38

BN – X – D

Every time a thought rears its head, evaluate it for what it is and then push it aside. Every time an emotion rushes up, recognize it, too, for what it is and detach yourself from it. This is the path of Self-Enquiry, for as you do these things hold the will directed towards finding the centre of your being. Do them with dogged persistence. Do them in your consciousness and in your feeling.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6151 – 4.4.4.50

BN – ZZ – DEK

Some imaginative minds can make profitable use of the vastness of the ocean or the immensity of space as topics on which to meditate in the advanced stages.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6152 – 4.4.4.51

BN – X – D

The kind of meditation in which the meditator ponders persistently what his source is, what the I really is, has the eventual effect of de-hypnotizing him from these false and limiting identifications with the body, the desires, and the intellect.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6157 – 4.4.4.56

BN – X – D

The more he practises at such times a thinking that is sense-free and beyond the physical — that is, metaphysical in the truest sense — the better will he be prepared to receive the intuitive influx from the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6159 – 4.4.4.58

BN – X – D

Concentration keeps the mind implanted on a particular thought, or line of thought, by keeping off the other ones. Meditation removes the single thought and keeps the mind quiet. This is an excellent state, but not enough for those who seek the Real. It must be complemented by knowledge of what is and is not the Real.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6162 – 4.4.4.61

BA12 – ZZ – K

Concentration keeps the mind implanted on a particular thought, or line of thought, by keeping off the other ones. Meditation removes the single thought and keeps the mind quiet. This is an excellent state, but not enough for those who seek the Real. It must be complemented by knowledge of what is and is not the Real.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6163 – 4.4.4.62

BN – X – D

After he has entered on the Short Path, fit themes for his meditation will be those which turn him away from the personal ego. He can meditate on the glorious attributes of God, or on the essential perfection of the cosmos, or on the utter serenity of his Overself, for instance.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6166 – 4.4.4.65

BN – X – D

The more we use our thoughts to get the deep understanding of ourselves, of God, and the world, and the more we still the thoughts to get them out of the way when the divine is ready to speak to us, the more successful will our search become, and the more will we awaken from the dream of an unreal materiality.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6168 – 4.4.4.67

BN – X – D

The names of God traditionally used in the Orient, such as the Compassionate, the Guide, the Answerer of Prayer, the Pardoner, the Patient, are helpful as objects of prayer or subjects of meditation.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6171 – 4.4.4.70

BSG_4 – X – DK

Another excellent and always useful theme for meditation is to read a few sentences from an inspired book and then let your thought dwell upon what you have read.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6178 – 4.4.4.77

BN – ZZZ – DK

When he is so sunk in abstraction that he does not notice even the presence of another person, his meditation has gone as deep as it ought to.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6186 – 4.4.4.85

BN – X – D

We need to meditate more often on these reminding statements of the sages, to become more concerned with our higher interests.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6200 – 4.4.4.99

BN – ZZZ – D

Meditation is not achieved if the concentrated mind is directed toward a subject of personal and worldly nature. Reflecting on the subject will give a deeper knowledge of it and a fuller perception of its meaning, but it will not give anything more. However concentrated the mind may become, it will not escape from the ego, nor does it seek to do so. Meditation is achieved if the concentrated mind is used to reflect on the Overself or the way to it.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > The path of inspired intellect

#6203 – 4.4.4.102

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

Meditation must be accompanied by constant effort in the direction of honest self-examination. All thoughts and feelings which act as a barrier between the individual and his Ultimate Goal must be overcome. This requires acute self-observation and inner purification. Hate, jealousy, anger, greed, spite, and so on, form many an inner Mount Everest which each seeker must scale and conquer for himself before he can hope to see What Is Beyond.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6205 – 4.4.4.104

B_05 – Z – K

He should from time to time pass in analytic review the important events, the experiences, and the attitudes of his past. It is not the good but the evil emotions and deeds, their origins and consequences, that he should particularly attend to, mentally picture, and examine from the perspective of his higher self. But unless this is done with perfect honesty in an impersonal unconcerned detached and self-critical spirit, unless it is approached with a self-imposed austerity of emotion, it will not yield the desired results. It is not enough to mourn over his errors. He should carefully learn whatever lessons they teach.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6210 – 4.4.4.109

BN – X – D

His past is a matter for analytic consideration, not for melancholy brooding. He must gather its fruit in the lessons it yields, convert its sufferings into virtue and wisdom.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6217 – 4.4.4.116

B_17 – ZZ – K

In looking back over the past, he humbly perceives his mistakes and sadly apportions the blame for his failure to himself. He no longer wastes his time in hunting alibis or in criticizing other people for his troubles. Nor does he complain of fate. He now sees that in aspiring for spiritual growth and praying for spiritual help, those very experiences which exposed his weaknesses and brought out his faults were the answers to his prayer, the grace shed upon his aspirations.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6220 – 4.4.4.119

B_13 – ZZZ – K

He should develop the sense of self-criticism to a high and even painful degree. He cannot any longer afford to protect his ego, as he did in the past, or to seek excuses for its sorry frailties and foolishnesses.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6222 – 4.4.4.121

BA12 – ZZZ – DK

He will need to develop the ability to stand back periodically from the personal self and survey its life, fortunes, character, and doings quite impartially. During this exercise, he should adopt the attitude of a disinterested spectator seeking to know the truth about it. Hence, he should study it calmly and not take sides with it emotionally.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6224 – 4.4.4.123

UR_2.5 – ZZ – DK

It may be easy to get the worldly, the practical message of particular experiences, but it is not so easy to get the higher, the spiritual message they contain. This is because we habitually look at them from the ego's standpoint, especially when personal feelings are strongly involved. Truth calls for a transfer of the inner centre of gravity.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6232 – 4.4.4.131

B_08 – ZZZ – DEMK1

For some it is a useful practice to write out a self-arraignment, listing the most glaring faults first and the most hidden ones later. This helps them to keep constantly aware of what they have to avoid. It calls to them quietly but insistently.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6235 – 4.4.4.134

BN – Z – DK

To observe himself correctly, a man must do so impartially, coolly, dispassionately, and not leniently, conceitedly, excitedly. He must also do it justly, with the whole of his being and not psychopathically, with only a single part of it.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6236 – 4.4.4.135

BN – X – DEK

He must constantly examine his actions and observe his feelings. But he is to do so impartially, critically, and by the standards of the ideal for which he is striving.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6241 – 4.4.4.140

BN – Z – D

To unwrap his inner self of thoughts, emotions, desires, motives, and passions; to decide what is worth keeping and what needs cutting out in it, this is his first task.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6243 – 4.4.4.142

BN – X – D

He should keep on probing into his weaknesses and thinking about them constructively, their causes and consequences. The improvement of character and the elevation of moral condition are the foundation of all spiritual work.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6244 – 4.4.4.143

BN – Z – DEK

He notes his characteristics as if they were outside him, belonging to another man and not inside him. He studies his weaknesses to understand them thoroughly. They do not dismay him for he also recognizes his strengths.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6247 – 4.4.4.146

BN – X – D

The hour for retirement at night should also be the hour for recalling the day's happenings, deeds, and talks in memory, at the same time making an appraisal of their character from the higher point of view. But when the exercise has come to an end, the aspirant should deliberately turn his mind utterly away from all worldly experience, all personal matters, and let the hushed silence of pure devotional worship fall upon him.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6251 – 4.4.4.150

BN – X – D

He should try to put himself into the future and look back on this present period.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6259 – 4.4.4.158

BN – X – D

In order to unmask his sensitivities and recognize them for the hidden motives that they usually are, the seeker must deliberately subject himself to the most intensive and gruelling self-analysis. Every disguise must be stripped bare. Every stumbling block must be penetrated. Every form of self-deception must be uprooted. His highest aspirations must undergo the same examination and treatment as his lower characteristics. The results—if he perseveres and is strictly honest—are more than likely to shock him, or, at least, to lead to some startling discoveries. Such self-analysis will naturally lead to the seeking of a humbler, more selfless, and more worthwhile way of life.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6261 – 4.4.4.160

B_05 – ZZ – K

He must search himself for the real motives behind his conduct, which are not always the same as those he announces to other persons or even to himself.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6267 – 4.4.4.166

BA12 – ZZ – DK

A true appraisal should list both the good and bad qualities of a seeker. It should invent nothing, hide nothing.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6270 – 4.4.4.169

B_05 – ZZ – K

Philosophy does not encourage a morbid dwelling over past sins, lost opportunities, or errors committed. That merely wastes time and saps power. The analysis finished, the lesson learned, the amendment made, what is left over must be left behind. Why burden memory and darken conscience with the irreparable if no good can be done by it?

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6277 – 4.4.4.176

BN – X – D

He has to stand aside from himself and observe the chief events of his life with philosophic detachment. Some of them may fill him with emotions of regret or shame, others with pride and satisfaction, but all should be considered with the least possible egoism and the greatest possible impartiality. In this way experience is converted into wisdom and faults are extracted from character.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Self-examination exercises

#6290 – 4.4.4.189

BN – X – D

The labour on himself does not mean a moral labour only: although that will be included, it is only preparatory. It means also, and much more, giving attention to his attention, noting where his thoughts are going, training them to come back into himself and thus, at the end, to come to rest at their source—undisturbed Consciousness.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Moral self-betterment exercises

#6307 – 4.4.4.206

BN – X – D

He who develops along these lines through the creative power of meditation, will eventually find that his instinct will spontaneously reject the promptings of his lower self and immediately accept the intuitions of his higher self.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Moral self-betterment exercises

#6311 – 4.4.4.210

BN – X – D

Meditation should be begun with a short, silent prayer to the Overself, humbly beseeching guidance and Grace. This may be done either by kneeling in the Western fashion or by sitting in the Oriental fashion. After offering his prayer, the aspirant should sit down in the position he customarily uses in meditation, close his eyes, and try to forget everything else. He may then form a mental picture of his own face and shoulders, as though he were looking at himself from an impersonal point of view. He should think of the person in the picture as a stranger. Let him first consider the other's faults and weaknesses, but, later, as a changed person, endowed with ideal qualities, such as calmness, aspiration, self-mastery, spirituality, and wisdom. In this way, he will open a door for the Higher Self to make its messages known to him in the form of intuitions. He should be prepared to devote years to intense efforts in self-examination and self-improvement. This is the foundation for the later work. Once the character has been ennobled, the way to receiving guidance and Grace will be unobstructed.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Moral self-betterment exercises

#6320 – 4.4.4.219

BN – X – DEK

Creative Meditation Exercise: He may think of probable meetings during the next day, if he is practising at night, or of the coming day if at morn, of events that are likely to happen then, and of places where he may have to go. Alongside of that he may imagine how he ought to conduct himself, how to think and talk under those circumstances. And always, if the exercise is to prove its worth, he should take the standpoint of his better, nobler, wiser self, of the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Moral self-betterment exercises

#6330 – 4.4.4.229

BN – X – D

Right reflection about past experiences, together with determination to take himself in hand, will lead the student to a more worthwhile future and smooth the path ahead.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Moral self-betterment exercises

#6341 – 4.4.4.240

BA12 – ZZ – K

Right reflection about past experiences, together with determination to take himself in hand, will lead the student to a more worthwhile future and smooth the path ahead.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Moral self-betterment exercises

#6342 – 4.4.4.241

BN – X – D

The value of taking this kind of a backward look at the day just finished is far more than it seems. For everything in him will benefit—his character, his destiny, and even his after-death experience.

Elementary Meditation > Meditative Thinking > Moral self-betterment exercises

#6344 – 4.4.4.243

BN – X – D

As a support for the beginning period of practice itself, as a means to fix attention, a particular physical object or sound may be chosen. He may gaze at a chink of light shining in a dark room or listen to the pendulum-swing of a metronome. Whatever is thus isolated from the outer world for concentration, is used merely as a jumping off platform from which to enter the inner world.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Visualizations

#6353 – 4.4.5.6

BN – X – DK*

Imagine and believe that the Master is here in your room, sitting in his accustomed chair or position. Then behave and meditate as you would do if in his presence.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Visualizations

#6364 – 4.4.5.17

BN – X – D

Imagine a brilliant white light shining forth in the heart and spreading into the entire body.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Visualizations

#6366 – 4.4.5.19

BN – X – D

Exercises: Visualize a lovely quiet landscape scene, either from memory or pictures, and think of yourself being there. Feel its peacefulness. Visualize the face of some inspiring person; feel you're in his presence.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Visualizations

#6370 – 4.4.5.23

BN – X – D

When the mental form on which he is meditating vanishes of its own accord and the mind suddenly becomes completely still, vacant, and perfectly poised, the soul is about to reveal itself. For the psychological conditions requisite to such a revelation have then been provided.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Visualizations

#6372 – 4.4.5.25

BN – X – D

It is easier for almost all people to think pictorially rather than abstractly, to form mental images rather than mental conceptions. Although the more difficult feat is also the superior one, this fact can be utilized to promote meditational progress. The mental picture of a dead saint whom the aspirant feels particularly drawn to or of a living guide whom he particularly reveres, makes an excellent object upon which to focus his concentration.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Visualizations

#6373 – 4.4.5.26

BN – X – D

Withdraw attention from everything outside and imagine a radiant, shining Presence within the heart. Visualize it as a pure golden sunny light. Think of it as being pure Spirit.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Visualizations

#6376 – 4.4.5.29

BN – X – D

The Spiritual Symbols are given to pupils who are highly intellectual, professional, or active-minded as a means of (1) allaying mental restlessness; and (2) constructively working on the inner bodies, since these forms are in correspondence with the actual construction of (a) an atom, and (b) the universe.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Symbols

#6397 – 4.4.5.50

BN – X – K1

The spiritual emblem combining a circle and some other form stands for reconciliation of the Overself and the ego, for integration of man’s higher and lower nature.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Symbols

#6403 – 4.4.5.56

BN – X – D

The Rising Sun was originally a symbol of the Overself in relation to man's conscious development.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Symbols

#6416 – 4.4.5.69

BN – X – DK

The thought-form whose reverence helps him to keep concentrated, the mental image whose worship holds his attention quite absorbed, justifies a place for itself in the meditator's method. Only at an advanced hour may he rightly put them aside. But when that hour arrives, he should not hesitate to do so. The devotional type of meditation, if unaccompanied by higher metaphysical reflection, will not yield results of a lasting character although it will yield emotional gratification of an intense character. Overself is only an object of meditation so long as he knows it only as something apart from himself. That is good but not good enough. For he is worshipping a graven image, not the sublime reality. He has to rise still higher and reach it, not as a separate "other," but as his very self.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Symbols

#6420 – 4.4.5.73

BN – Z – DEK

The portrayal of Gautama as a seated meditating figure symbolizes his basic message. This was really, and quite simply, “Be still—empty yourself—let out the thoughts, the desires, and the ego which prevent this inner stillness.”

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Symbols

#6424 – 4.4.5.77

BN – X – D

The yoga of self-identification with an adept is the most effective method and brings the quickest results because it quickly elicits his grace. After all, it is the result that counts. The fact is that inspiration does come with the mere thought of him. This yoga-path involves two techniques; first, formal meditation at fixed periods, focused on the master's mental picture and presence and, second, informal remembrance of the master as frequently as possible at any and all times of the day. In both techniques, you are to offer your body to him just as a spiritist medium offers his own to a disincarnate spirit. You are to invite and let him take possession of your mind and body. First, you feel his presence. Then you feel that he takes possession of your body and mind. Next, you feel that you are he (no duality). Finally, he vanishes from consciousness and another being announces itself as your divine soul. This is the goal. You have found your higher self.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Guru Yoga

#6459 – 4.4.5.112

BN – X – DEM

The personal attraction to, and affection for, the man Jesus can be usefully made into a focus for meditation. To meditate on the character, example, and teaching of one's spiritual Guide has long been a standard path in mysticism. It culminates in a joyous spiritual union, at which time the student becomes aware that the living presence of his chosen Guide is no longer separate from himself—his Real Self. This is what Jesus meant when he said, "I and My Father are One". It is, indeed, one of the shortest paths to the Goal.

Elementary Meditation > Visualizations, Symbols > Guru Yoga

#6470 – 4.4.5.123

B_11 – Z – K

The practice of mantram yoga is well known throughout India as a method of suppressing the wandering tendencies of the mind. A mantram, usually given by a guru or adapted by oneself from a book, is a word or a phrase or even a whole sentence which the practitioner chants to himself or whispers or even mentally utters again and again. Some Sanskrit mantrams are quite meaningless sounds, whereas others are full of metaphysical or religious meaning. Which one is used does not matter from the point of view of acquiring concentration, but it does matter from the point of view of developing any particular quality of character or devotional homage which the mantram symbolizes. This mental or vocal repetition is to be done periodically and faithfully.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6472 – 4.4.6.1

BN – X – DEK1

Practising mantram consists of repeating a selected word over and over, soaking oneself in it. There are three stages: (a) chanting the word out loud; (b) whispering it; (c) repeating it mentally. Then, when repetition ceases, all thoughts cease. Through this constant concentration, the mantram becomes a backdrop to one's daily life. Just as one can hum a tune while attending to other affairs, so the mantram becomes an ever present accompaniment. When one turns full attention onto it and concentrates fully upon it and then stops—all thoughts stop. This is the purpose of the mantram. This result may take weeks or months.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6476 – 4.4.6.5

BN – X – DM1

The repeated invocation of a sacred name, with trust in its saving power, eventually keeps away all other thoughts and thus focuses the mind in a kind of constant meditation. In the earlier stages it is the man himself who labours at this repetition, but in the advanced stages it is the Overself's grace which actuates it—his own part being quite passive and mechanical.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6480 – 4.4.6.9

BN – X – D

A further value of mantram yoga is that it keeps the practiser from thinking about himself. The two things—a specific mantram and a personal matter—cannot coexist in his consciousness.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6488 – 4.4.6.17

BN – X – D

The first revelation of the divine world is sound. Before beholding it, one hears it with an inner ear. The name of God has not only the power of easily washing away all sin, but can even untie the knot of the heart and waken love of God. To be severed from God is the only real sin.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6492 – 4.4.6.21

BN – X – DEK1

A mantram becomes most worthwhile when it is heard deep deep down in the practiser's being. It will then produce the effect of profound inner absorption.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6493 – 4.4.6.22

BN – X – K1

OM means "I am part of (or one with) the World-Soul".

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6495 – 4.4.6.24

BA11 – Z – DK

The continual practice of the mantram leads in time to the awakening of his spiritual forces. They rise up spontaneously from their deeply hidden source within him and begin to saturate his mind and overwhelm his ego.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6504 – 4.4.6.33

BN – X – D

When the incantatory words of a mantra by constant practice become fully activated, the mantra becomes fully automatic and circles round and round inside the head or the heart just like a revolving wheel. At this deep stage, he is not concerned with its translated or verbal meaning but only with the kind of consciousness it produces. For now it is not a matter of what he is doing but of what is being done to him. The mantra has brought him into a region of released forces which are very active in him.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6514 – 4.4.6.43

BN – X – D

The Arabic word for God—Allah—or the Aramaic (Jesus' spoken language) word—Alaha—form excellent mantric material.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6530 – 4.4.6.59

BN – X – D

A time comes when there is no need to try to practise the exercise, for the mantram wells up of its own accord. It then repeats itself automatically and silently in his mind alone. Over and over again, like the chorus of a song, it comes to the front or remains at the back of attention.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6535 – 4.4.6.64

BN – X – DEK

It is useful to follow out the mantram system of meditation when the ordinary systems, involving set exercises and formal periods, have been tried and found profitless.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Mantrams

#6557 – 4.4.6.86

BN – X – D

These divide themselves naturally into two main groups: those belonging to the Long Path and those to the Short Path. Of the first kind, there is Cove's famous suggestion: "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better." Of the second kind there is Jesus' figurative statement: "I and my Father are one."

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#6572 – 4.4.6.101

BSG_4 – P – D

There is one human activity which is continuous, rhythmic, natural, easy, and pleasant. It is breathing. We may take advantage of its existence by combining it with a simple exercise to bring about a kind of meditation which will possess all these four mentioned attributes. The exercise is merely to repeat one word silently on the inhalation and another word on the exhalation. The two words must be such that they join together to make a suitable spiritual phrase or name. Here is one useful example: “God Is.”

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#6576 – 4.4.6.105

BN – X – D

The Buddha taught his monks to enter daily into the following meditation: “As a mother even at the risk of her own life protects her only son, so let a man cultivate goodwill without measure among all beings. Let him suffuse the whole world with thoughts of love, unmixed with any sense of difference or opposed interests.”

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#6578 – 4.4.6.107

BN – X – D

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

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#6582D – 4.4.6.111

BN – X – K

What is newer than a new dawning day? What a chance it offers for the renewing of life too! And how better to do this than to take a positive affirmative Declaration like, I Am Infinite Peace! as the first morning thought, and to hold it, and hold on to it, for those first few minutes which set the day's keynote? Then, whatever matters there will be to attend, or pressing weighty duties to be fulfilled, we shall carry our peace into the midst of them.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#6584 – 4.4.6.113

BA12 – ZZZ – DK1

The use of short statements, often strangely worded, made by a master to a disciple as a means of getting the flash of enlightenment flourished in China during the Tang dynasty. It was taken up later by the Japanese, among whom the method's original name "kong-an" changed slightly to "ko-an." Despite extravagant claims made for it, the successful practiser got a glimpse only, not a permanent and full result. It is not the same as, and not to be confused with, the method of meditating upon affirmations, pithy condensed truth-statements (called Mahavakyas in India) since these openly possess a meaning whereas koans are often illogical and always puzzling.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#6586 – 4.4.6.115

BN – ZZZ – K1

He is to remind himself constantly of the greater truths, whether he is at home in his room or abroad in the public places. Be still and know that I am infinite power is one such truth. Be still and know that I am infinite joy is another.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#6621 – 4.4.6.150

BN – X – D

"I will try to show forth in my personal life, thought, and feeling the perfect harmony which already belongs to the impersonal Overself within me."

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#6625 – 4.4.6.154

UR_3.2 – ZZ – K

To the degree that a man practises constructive thinking and harmonious feeling, to that degree will he help to draw progressive events and helpful chances to himself.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#6646 – 4.4.6.175

BN – X – D

What he meets with outwardly as well as inwardly on this quest should be tested against these affirmations and scrutinized in the light of these truths.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#6698 – 4.4.6.227

B_03 – ZZ – K

When his last thought at night and first thought in the morning refers to the Overself, he may appraise his progress as excellent.

Elementary Meditation > Mantrams, Affirmations > Affirmations

#6702 – 4.4.6.231

BN – ZZ – DK1

Keep on remembering to observe yourself, to watch yourself, to become aware of what you are thinking, feeling, saying, or doing. This is one of the most valuable exercises of the Quest.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6704 – 4.4.7.2

BN – X – DK*

In the end, he will make no separation between everyday ordinary routine and the period of meditation—for the whole of his life will become one continuous meditation. His actions will then take place within its atmosphere. But in the beginning he must make this separation.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6708 – 4.4.7.6

BN – ZZZ – DK

As you go about your daily work in your ordinary life and in relations with other people, in hours of toil or pleasure, or indeed at any period of your life, remember the Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6709 – 4.4.7.7

BN – X – D

He can use books as a preliminary guide to working on himself. The study and observation of his conduct, the analysis of his past and present experiences in the light of his highest aspirations, the attempt to be impartially aware of himself in various situations, will open the way to more direct guidance through intuitions from his higher self.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6717 – 4.4.7.15

BN – Z – D

Even while he is acting in a situation, he trains himself to observe it.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6719 – 4.4.7.17

BN – Z – DK

The intenser the longing for enlightenment, the easier it is to practise recollection.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6722 – 4.4.7.20

BN – X – D

The higher purpose of meditation is missed if it does not end in the peace, the stillness, that emanates from the real self. However slightly it may be felt, this is the essential work which meditation must do for us.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6724 – 4.4.7.22

BN – X – D

The cultivation of a tranquil temperament promotes the practice of mental quiet. The cultivation of mental quiet promotes the attainment of the Overself’s peace.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6725 – 4.4.7.23

BN – X – D

It is partly because the Overself waits for us in silence that we have to approach it in silence too.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6728 – 4.4.7.26

BN – X – D

God will not enter into your heart until it is empty and still.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6738 – 4.4.7.36

BN – X – D

It is not easy for a man to believe that a greater wisdom may be received by his mind if he keeps it still than if he stirs it into activity.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6740 – 4.4.7.38

BA11 – ZZ – DK

When the brain is too active, its energies obstruct the gentle influx of intuitive feeling. When they are extroverted, they obstruct that listening attitude which is needed to hear the Overself's gentle voice speak to the inner silence. Mental quiet must be the goal. We must develop a new kind of hearing.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6742 – 4.4.7.40

BN – X – D

Meditation may begin as a dialogue between the meditator and his imagined higher self; it may pass beyond that into a real dialogue with his Overself. But if he is to go farther all dialogue must cease, all attempt to communicate must end in the Stillness.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6745 – 4.4.7.43

BN – X – D

Because thinking is an activity within time, it cannot lead to the Timeless. For this attainment, mental quiet is necessary.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6754 – 4.4.7.52

BN – X – D

As the mind's movement ebbs away and its turnings slow down, the ego's desires for, and attempt to hold on to, its world drop away. What ensues is a real mental quiet. The man discovers himself, his Overself.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6760 – 4.4.7.58

BN – X – D

A mind filled with thoughts about things, persons, and events, with desires, passions, and moods, with worries, fears, and disturbances, is in no fit condition to make contact with that which transcends them all. It must first be quietened and emptied.

Elementary Meditation > Mindfulness, Mental Quiet > Mindfulness

#6766 – 4.4.7.64

BN – X – D

In the human body there is at one and the same time a projection of the Overself and a channel for it. The wisdom and intelligence which have gone into and are hidden behind the whole universe have gone into the human body too. To ignore it, as some mystics try to do—and vainly—or to deny its existence, as others even more foolishly do, is to ignore God and deny the soul. The student of philosophy cannot do that. His outlook must be an integral one, must take in what is the very basis of his earthly existence, must be a balanced one.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6772 – 4.5.0.1

BN – Z – DEK

On this plane, the body is indeed the only medium of our existence and is not to be disconnected from our higher aspirations. A complete and competent spiritual instruction ought not to be so foolish as to neglect or overlook the physical frame of the disciple being instructed but should see it with its several organs and higher senses as it truly is; that is, as an expression of Infinite Intelligence through which one can gather the experience needed to become fully aware of his relation to that Intelligence. There is another and usually much less considered point of view to this matter: the body contains countless little lives which look to us as their protector and leader and guide, which need and should get from us kindly attention.

The Body > Prefatory > Prefatory

#6773E – 4.5.1.1

ME_01 – P – DE

This cleansing of the body, the emotions, and the mind is an indispensable preparatory stage of the Quest. For the advanced techniques, it is a necessary means of clearing the way for the influx of spiritual forces during meditation. Meditation which is not accompanied by purification leads easily to pseudo-intuitions. The aspirant may follow at one and the same time the paths of purification and meditation, or he may place them in their logical order and attend to them consecutively. There is much to be said for both choices, although tradition has usually said that purification should precede meditation.

The Body > Prefatory > Prefatory

#6773E – 4.5.1.1

ME_01 – P – DE

A course of spiritual development which corrects the bad habits of the mind and purifies the feelings of the heart but shows no interest in the habits and conditions of the physical body is based on a one-sided concept of humanity. It is unbalanced. How can it yield any other than an unbalanced and incomplete result? Whether the body is ignored or considered, life must still be lived in its entirety by all human beings. This includes spiritually seeking human beings, and their bodies are still with them whatever they do or fail to do.

The Body > Prefatory > Prefatory

#6773E – 4.5.1.1

ME_01 – P – DE

The physical body is neither an enemy to be harshly treated nor an encumbrance to be sadly denounced. When through the Quest's disciplines man establishes proper control of it, he will no longer regard it as an enemy of his spiritual aspirations, the paralysing weight on his spiritual being.

The Body > Prefatory > Prefatory

#6773E – 4.5.1.1

B_08 – Z – DEK3

On this plane, the body is indeed the only medium of our existence and is not to be disconnected from our higher aspirations. A complete and competent spiritual instruction ought not to be so foolish as to neglect or overlook the physical frame of the disciple being instructed but should see it with its several organs and higher senses as it truly is; that is, as an expression of Infinite Intelligence through which one can gather the experience needed to become fully aware of his relation to that Intelligence.

The Body > Prefatory > Prefatory

#6773E – 4.5.1.1

B_08 – Z – DEK3

Jesus's statement, "I and My Father are one", meaning that there is only One Infinite and Eternal Reality, Life, Power, and Mind, that This alone is all there really is, and that there are not even two Powers—Reality and illusion—for Reality exists alone as unsullied, undivided, and unpersonalized Consciousness. From that exalted height, all these physical regimes and purificatory austerities assume an insignificant importance and the intuitive feeling and rational understanding of Consciousness, Reality, and Self an immense one.

The Body > Prefatory > Prefatory

#6773E – 4.5.1.1

B_11 – ZZ – DEK3

It is a curious paradox which few of his commentators seem to have noted that although Jesus declared his Kingdom was not of this world he put so much time and effort into healing sickness and disease which are very much of this world. It is difficult to resolve this contradiction. If Jesus despised the body as he is often supposed to have done, why then did he trouble to heal it?

The Body > Prefatory > Prefatory

#6773E – 4.5.1.1

B_12 – ZZ – DEK3

At the present stage of human existence, there is no other way to durable spiritual development than through physical embodiments. The total sum of its varied experiences offer us the chance at first to learn and thus to progress, and later to overcome ourselves and thus to attain spiritual awareness.

The Body > Prefatory > Prefatory

#6773E – 4.5.1.1

UR_5 – ZZZ – DEK

At the present stage of human existence, there is no other way to durable spiritual development than through physical embodiments. The total sum of its varied experiences offer us the chance at first to learn and thus to progress, and later to overcome ourselves and thus to attain spiritual awareness.

The Body > Prefatory > Prefatory

#6773E – 4.5.1.1

B_01 – ZZZ – DEK3

The body is not to be despised with the ascetic nor neglected with the mystic. It is to be understood and rightly used. It is to be cared for as one of the instruments whose total contribution will enable us to fulfil the spiritual purpose of life on earth.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6775 – 4.5.2.2

BA11 – ZZ – DK

We need the body—all of us, not materialists nor ordinary persons only—therefore we must respect it. It is with the ears that we listen to Beethoven: that is, with the body. It is with the eyes that we read beautiful poetry: again with the body. Let us not decry the body.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6780 – 4.5.2.7

BSG_4 – P – D

If enlightenment is to be full, and completely balanced, it must not only occur in the thinking intellect and emotional feeling; it must also occur in the acting physical body.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6781 – 4.5.2.8

BN – X – D

Most students know that the preparatory work includes purifying the heart of base feelings and clearing the mind of negative thoughts—arduous but necessary work. Few students know that it also includes cleansing the body of toxic matter.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6792 – 4.5.2.19

BN – X – D

This thing, this fleshly body, which ascetics have hated and saints have despised, is a holy temple. The divine Life-force is always latently present in it and, aroused, can sweep through every cell making it sacred.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6801 – 4.5.2.28

BN – X – D

The mystic who recognizes the never-ceasing wonder and divine worth of his body, who accepts it as the stage on and through which he has to fulfill himself and realize his ideal, is not degrading that ideal or falling back into bondage but is actually carrying out the high purpose which is held before man in the cosmic scheme.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6804 – 4.5.2.31

ME_01 – P – K

Philosophic asceticism practices disciplines because it properly values the body, not because it hates the body. Incarnation is an opportunity for salvation. The body is a holy temple. The flesh is a revelation of the World-Mind’s working.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6807 – 4.5.2.34

ME_01 – P – K

The body is our physical home. Through its five senses we may suffer pain and misery or enjoy satisfaction and pleasure. Therefore it should be well treated and well cared for, kept healthy as far as we can. This is not only a personal need but also a spiritual duty for its condition may obstruct or assist the inner work.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6812 – 4.5.2.39

BA11 – Z – DK

The earth is the scene where man is placed to achieve his spiritual development. The body is the only direct contact he has with it: How foolish is it to mistreat the body through ignorance, abuse it through carelessness, or neglect it through laziness?

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6813 – 4.5.2.40

BA11 – ZZ – DK

The body (like the soul) gives messages of counsel, warning, or approval to him but too often he does not listen to them, does not understand them, or does not want his complacency (formed by tendencies, habits, and surroundings) disturbed.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6818 – 4.5.2.45

ME_01 – P – K

The kind of asceticism which considers the body as an enemy to the spirit, is a kind of sickness. The two dwell together, belong to one another, and in a proper life co-operate together. To consider them otherwise, to torment the body in order to gain the spirit's favour, is to twist the very meaning of its existence.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6853 – 4.5.2.80

B_01 – ZZ – K

Chemical changes in every cell of his body are the outer physical result of this inner second birth.

The Body > The Body > The Body

#6872 – 4.5.2.99

BN – X – D

The greatest of all diet reforms is the change from meat-eating to a meatless diet. This is also the first step on the spiritual path, the first gesture that rightness, justice, compassion, purity are being set up as necessary to human and humane living, in contrast to animal living.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6886 – 4.5.3.5

BSG_5 – Z – DEK

If there is any single cause for which I would go up and down the land on a twentieth-century crusade, it is that of the meatless diet. It may be a forlorn crusade, but all the same, it would be a heart-warming one.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6887 – 4.5.3.6

ME_01 – P – K

A meatless diet has practical advantages to offer nearly everyone. But to idealists who are concerned with higher purposes it has even more to offer. On the moral issue alone it tends to lessen callousness to the sufferings of others, men or animals, and to increase what Schweitzer called “reverence for life.”

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6889 – 4.5.3.8

BSG_5 – Z – DK

A meatless diet is advisable for aspirants, where circumstances permit, as the brain fed on it is less resistant to meditation.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6890 – 4.5.3.9

BN – X – D

The delusion that flesh food is essential to maintain strength dies hard. I do not know a stronger animal than an elephant. I have seen it in the East doing all the work that a powerful steam-crane will do in the West. Yet the elephant is a vegetarian. Moreover it outlives most other animals.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6891 – 4.5.3.10

BN – X – D

Why should we abstain from meat-eating? (a) Cultivated land if planted with vegetables, fruits, and nuts will yield much more food for an overpopulated world than it could yield if left under pasture for cattle and sheep. (b) The ghastly work of slaughtering these harmless innocent creatures can be done only by hardened men, whose qualities of compassion and sympathy must inevitably get feebler and and feebler. How many housewives could do their own butchering? (c) In terms of equal food value, the meatless diet costs less. (d) Animals which suffer from contagious diseases pass on the germs of these diseases to those who eat their flesh or parasites. (e) Meat contains excretory substances, purins, which may cause other, non-communicable diseases.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6892 – 4.5.3.11

ME_01 – P – K

Those who would like to be vegetarians for compassionate reasons but feel the need of meat for maintaining strength can find proper substitutes in milk and cheese. These dairy products contain the same animal proteins as meat, and will serve as well to sustain vitality, while being free from the stain of slaughter.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6893 – 4.5.3.12

BN – X – D

We are called to give others–animals as well as humans–the same treatment that we call on God to give us.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6899 – 4.5.3.18

BN – X – D

The psychic effects of meat-eating are undesirable. If those who believe that they cannot sustain life without it could see these effects, and if they had to be their own butchers, how many would continue this habit?

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6913 – 4.5.3.32

BN – X – DK

If he cares enough for the Quest and understands enough about the relation between it and diet, he will come sooner or later to choose his food with more resistance to habit.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6916 – 4.5.3.35

BN – X – D

Pythagoras pointed out that the way a nation treated its animals, so far as they are at its mercy, is an indirect judgement of its character.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6921 – 4.5.3.40

BN – X – D

The intolerance of some aggressive and fanatical opponents of meat-eating, smoking, and alcohol-drinking is itself a vicious attitude which harms them in a different way as much as those bad habits harm their addicts.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6924 – 4.5.3.43

BN – X – K1

It is not only the unnecessary killing of tamed animals for food that shows man's thoughtless lack of mercy, but also the unnecessary hunting and killing of wild animals. They are entitled to their mountain or forest home.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6932 – 4.5.3.51

BN – X – D

Only good positive thoughts were allowed to enter his head and good meatless food his stomach.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6943 – 4.5.3.62

BN – Z – DK

It is necessary to eat living things as food in order to keep living ourselves. That is not a matter of our choosing but a necessity forced upon us by Nature or God. We have no freedom in the choice. But we are free to reduce the area of our destructiveness and to lessen the amount of pain we inflict. It is less destructive to uproot a vegetable or pluck a fruit than to slay an animal—and there is less suffering too. This is the answer to the argument that we still destroy life when we become vegetarians.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6945 – 4.5.3.64

BSG_5 – Z – DEK

If we could examine the prehistoric period of man, and not merely his latest century, we would find that the duration of his life has since been shortened, while the condition of his body has deteriorated through new diseases. The cause in both cases lies in his changed feeding habits to some extent, and in his unrestricted sexual habits to a much larger extent.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6946 – 4.5.3.65

BN – X – D

Our definition of sin needs widening. It is also sinful to break the laws of hygiene, to indulge in habits that are either poisonous or devitalizing, to eat foods obtained by slaughter.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6951 – 4.5.3.70

BN – X – D

Wherever and whenever meatless diet becomes the rule, and not the rarity that it is today, we may expect violence and crime to abate markedly.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6953 – 4.5.3.72

BN – X – D

The changeover from a meat diet to a vegetarian one creates in some cases a feeling of bodily weakness. This will be limited to the transition period only, which may be a matter of days or months, depending on the individual. Such persons should make the changeover gradually. Many others have made the change quite abruptly without any fatigue or any harm.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6954 – 4.5.3.73

BN – X – D

The person who is afraid to alter his living habits, and especially his eating and drinking habits, because he is afraid that other persons may regard him as queer, eccentric, or fanatic forgets that the ownership of his body, the responsibility for its well-being, belongs to him, not them.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6955 – 4.5.3.74

BN – X – D

Nobility of character will not save a man who eats meat from the dark karma which he thereby makes, although it may modify it. This bad habit puts his good health into peril.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6959 – 4.5.3.78

BN – X – D

The follower of a fleshless diet who throws his principles to the four winds in a trying situation lest he be thought peculiar, eccentric, different is more eager to please other men than the Overself, more interested in what their opinion is of him than in the success of his quest. How easy it is to make concessions, to give in to the herd expectations! How hard to go all the way with one's convictions, to keep one's link with integrity unbroken. Yet faithfulness is the only attitude for the man who has felt this practical pity for dumb animals.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6964 – 4.5.3.83

BN – X – DEK

If he really believes in this teaching, he will seek to bring it into every area of his life. There is no area from which it can rightly be left out, not even from that of the kind of food he eats.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6965 – 4.5.3.84

ME_01 – P – DK

It is proper to defend one’s life when it is menaced by aggressive men or by wild beasts, but it is against philosophic ethics to take life without a just cause, as when one kills animals for food—still more when one kills them wantonly for sport. Every higher instinct urges us to substitute compassion for cruelty in our dealings with the lower kingdom.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6971 – 4.5.3.90

BN – X – DK*

The aspirant who fails to practice non-injury sets up an evil relationship which will have to be worked out later, a relationship which will block his entry into the state of lasting enlightenment until it is so worked out. The unnecessary taking of animal life for his food is one form, although a common one, of violation of this ethic.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6972 – 4.5.3.91

ME_01 – P – DK

The beautiful coloured fruits which the trees and bushes offer him have been saturated with beneficent solar rays, not with innocent blood.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6977 – 4.5.3.96

BN – X – D

Food does not directly supply energy but its presence in the body during the process of metabolism acts as a channel for energy to be set free in the body. This is why those who fully undergo the purificatory processes of the Quest and thus regenerate their body, not only need less food than others do, but subsist on finer forms of food.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6985 – 4.5.3.104

ME_01 – P – K

He alone is entitled to ask for help or mercy—which is a form of help—who himself shows pity, spares life, eschews cruelty, and grants mercy to the helpless and oppressed, who does not, in Plutarch’s phrase, “allow his lips to touch the flesh of a murdered being.”

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6987 – 4.5.3.106

ME_01 – P – K

He does not eat meat, not so much because he thinks it poisons the body, but more because he feels pity for slaughtered animals. He does not drink alcohol because he believes it would interfere with the efficiency of his work, and much more because of his spiritual effort at self-conquest. He does not smoke, first because he regards smoking as physically unhealthy, and second because his body becomes so refined as to feel a physiological reaction of strong nausea to it. Thus, these three renunciations are both preoccupations with bodily welfare and with ethical ideals; indeed, they are actually tokens of his balanced ideals.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#6995 – 4.5.3.114

BN – X – DEK

Saint Paul on vegetarianism: ”I will eat no flesh for evermore, that I make not my brother to stumble.” (1 Cor. 8:13)

The Body > Diet > Diet

#7004 – 4.5.3.123

BN – X – D

They will one day feel mercy for the animals and desist from the custom of slaughtering, cooking, and eating them. Of course, the slaughter is done indirectly, by others acting on their behalf. But some of the guilt remains.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#7009 – 4.5.3.128

BN – X – D

The vegetarian who refuses to turn his body into a graveyard for slaughtered animals is obeying not only a moral law but also a hygienic and an aesthetic one.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#7011 – 4.5.3.130

BSG_5 – Z – DK

As his mind becomes purer and his emotions come under control, his thoughts become clearer and his instincts truer. As he learns to live more and more in harmony with his higher Self, his body's natural intuition becomes active of itself. The result is that false desires and unnatural instincts which have been imposed upon it by others or by himself will become weaker and weaker and fall away entirely in time. This may happen without any attempt to undergo an elaborate system of self-discipline on his part: yet it will affect his way of living, his diet, his habits. False cravings like the craving for smoking tobacco will vanish of their own accord; false appetites like the appetite for alcoholic liquor or flesh food will likewise vanish; but the more deep-seated the desire, the longer it will take to uproot it—except in the case of some who will hear and answer a heroic call for an abrupt change.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#7024 – 4.5.3.143

BN – X – DEK

How can the human race avoid the fate of being slaughtered in war when it itself slaughters so many innocent creatures in peace?

The Body > Diet > Diet

#7038 – 4.5.3.157

BN – X – D

Those animals which have lived in the society of man can sense his intent enough to fear death when he takes them to the slaughterhouse.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#7040 – 4.5.3.159

BN – X – D

It would be desirable, although admittedly difficult, gradually to adopt a meatless diet as a help to secure both the individual's development and the world's peace.

The Body > Diet > Diet

#7041E – 4.5.3.160

BSG_5 – P – DE

I have no desire to intrude my writing upon so specialized a field as the cure of disease and healing of sickness. But it is worth incidental noting that there have been many cases where, after undergoing the purificatory regime solely for spiritual reasons, people have been pleasantly surprised to find that it also freed them from bodily ailments.

The Body > Fasting > Fasting

#7076 – 4.5.4.12

BN – ZZ – DEK

It is inadvisable to fast in winter as the cold weather is easily felt. The best times are spring, summer, and early autumn. Especially suitable times are: (a) at the two equinoxes, March 21 when the sun crosses the equator on its northward journey and thus inaugurates the spring season, and about September 23 when it again crosses the equator on its southward journey and inaugurates the autumn season and (b) at the summer solstice, when the sun changes its course and reverses its direction. This happens about June 21. At these three dates, Nature is preparing her great cyclic changes throughout the world and in Man. It is then that the cleansing of man’s body prepares him for these changes.

The Body > Fasting > Fasting

#7127 – 4.5.4.63

BN – X – D

There is no better way to bring the body under control than the way used to bring the mind under control—to put it under a daily routine of exercises and to have a fixed time for their repeated practice.

The Body > Exercise > Exercise

#7131 – 4.5.5.4

BN – X – D

Care of the physical organism will require attention to physical exercise as well as physical relaxation and to deep and abdominal breathing.

The Body > Exercise > Exercise

#7139 – 4.5.5.12

BN – X – D

It is not necessary to practise vigorous exercises that quickly tire one, nor to put forth strenuous exertions that make one perspire. There are mild, simple, and slow movements which can bring about the desired results without them.

The Body > Exercise > Exercise

#7142 – 4.5.5.15

BN – X – D

Even his bodily movements must be brought into conformity with his mental attitude. His very gait in walking must be brought frequently to conscious attention and harmonized with the deliberations, the patience, the equilibrium, and the uprightness which, ideally, exist there.

The Body > Exercise > Exercise

#7182 – 4.5.5.55

ME_01 – P – K

All physical techniques have an indirect helpfulness but their value should not be overrated, as the advocates and teachers of these techniques almost always do. They misplace their emphasis on the body and on the tricks it is able to perform. Only one detail of the human organism deserves their greater emphasis and that is intuition.

The Body > Exercise > Exercise

#7188 – 4.5.5.61

BA11 – ZZ – DK

It is as necessary to make a daily ritual of these cleansing habits and physical exercises as it is of religious or mystical ones. They should be combined, the physical being practised before the spiritual ritual as a preparation for it and for the day’s activity.

The Body > Exercise > Exercise

#7192 – 4.5.5.65

ME_01 – P – K

Body purification and strengthening are prerequisites and preparations for spiritual awakening and development. They allow the passage of kundalini and also awaken it. Hence, hatha yoga is prescribed to start with.

The Body > Exercise > Exercise

#7201 – 4.5.5.74

BN – X – DEK

The artist, the thinker, or the mystic must not neglect the muscular vigour and health of body that can be obtained through physical yoga. This would include deep breathing, stretching exercises, and a diet of light and easily digested foods which will not dull inspiration.

The Body > Exercise > Exercise

#7206 – 4.5.5.79

BN – X – D

Eugene Sandow, once the strongest man in Europe, confirms the point. He said, “It is a matter of the mind. If you concentrate your mind upon a set of muscles for three minutes a day, and say ‘Do thus and so,’ they respond.”

The Body > Exercise > Exercise

#7244 – 4.5.5.117

BN – X – D

He may practise meditation until Doomsday, mutter the hundred and eight different mystic spells, sit in all the sixty-four postures of the yoga of body control, hold his breath for a whole hour or vary its rhythms in every conceivable manner, but the Overself will remain stubbornly remote unless he frankly faces and successfully fights out his struggle against his own ego in his own heart. No physical contortion, exercise, or manipulation can ever take its place. Such yoga exercises can discipline his body, give him control over it, but they cannot provide a passport into the higher region. This and this alone is the only yoga that really counts in the end on this strange quest, because demanding all it gives all.

The Body > Exercise > Exercise

#7265 – 4.5.5.138

BN – ZZ – K

All these yoga exercises and physical practices are praiseworthy. They are recommended to aspirants—but only as accessories. They are not, and never can be, substitutes for that moment-to-moment struggle with the ego in daily living which is fundamental and inescapable…

The Body > Exercise > Exercise

#7275E – 4.5.5.148

BA11 – ZZ – DEK

It will help to empty the mind of its tumult and the nerves of their agitation if he will breathe out as fully as possible, inhaling only when the first feeling of discomfort starts. He should then rest and breathe normally for several seconds. Next, he should breathe in as deeply as possible. The air is to be kept in the lungs until it is uncomfortable to do so. This alternation completes one cycle of breathing. It may be repeated a number of times, if necessary, but never for a longer period than ten minutes.

The Body > Breathing Exercises > Breathing Exercises

#7278 – 4.5.6.3

BN – X – K1

The other breathing exercise which is dangerous—not physically so much as mentally—is that which prescribes breathing through alternate nostrils so that one nostril is closed by a finger and only the other used until the changeover is made to the other nostril. This exercise is the one that threatens sanity. I would enforce as a rule that everyone who sets up to teach hatha yoga to others should be compelled to go through a course of at least one year in the anatomy of the body and then in the physiology of the body. The work must have a scientific basis because it encroaches on the medical domain.

The Body > Breathing Exercises > Breathing Exercises

#7279 – 4.5.6.4

BN – X – K1

Revitalizing Breath Exercise: (1)  Stand at an open window, spine erect, body straight, hands tightly holding hips. (2)  Expel all stale air through the mouth. (3)  Take three short, sharp sniffs of air and expel the total quantity in one long-drawn exhalation. Pause and breathe normally. Repeat three times. (4)  Breathe in deeply through the nose, starting as low in the abdomen as possible, rising upward in the lungs until the upper part is filled. (5)  The mind should concentrate on the solar plexus behind the navel. Imagine a stream of golden-white energy being drawn from there and radiated throughout the body. (6)  Pucker up the lips and let all the air out as vigorously as possible. Tighten the diaphragm muscle while doing so, and move it upwards. Pause and breathe normally. Repeat three times.

The Body > Breathing Exercises > Breathing Exercises

#7280 – 4.5.6.5

ME_01 – X – K1

Breathing Exercise: A useful exercise which I have mentioned in one of the earlier books is to breathe out slowly and then let the inbreath come of itself, naturally. While breathing out, hold the thought of throwing out all negative thoughts and undesirable emotions. I ought to add now to the description of that exercise that this exhalation should last as long as possible without undue discomfort and that it should be originated in the region of the diaphragm—the abdomen or behind the navel. Keep the spine upright, with the head and neck in line with it. This enables you to better receive cosmic currents of life-force. It also strengthens the power of self-control, of disciplining the body.

The Body > Breathing Exercises > Breathing Exercises

#7281 – 4.5.6.6

ME_01 – P – K

The importance of diaphragmatic breathing is not only a physical one, because full breathing enables us to get the full manifestation of the life-force in the body, but also because it allows for a fuller and freer manifestation of the mind.

The Body > Breathing Exercises > Breathing Exercises

#7292 – 4.5.6.17

ME_01 – P – K

By watching the incoming and outgoing breath, its rhythm naturally slows down, thus calming the violent action of heart, lungs, and diaphragm. The heart pumps about seventeen tons of blood a day, and gets no rest at night, hence is the most overworked organ in the body. The ancients knew this method of resting the heart, thus increasing the span of life and also liberating a tremendous amount of life power, which revitalizes the cells of the body.

The Body > Breathing Exercises > Breathing Exercises

#7303 – 4.5.6.28

ME_01 – P – K

When the breath is deliberately inhaled or exhaled gently and evenly as an initial period of the meditation practice, the mind is slowly forced into a calm and concentrated mood.

The Body > Breathing Exercises > Breathing Exercises

#7316 – 4.5.6.41

BN – X – D

Breathing exercises should never be pushed to excess, for then they may become very dangerous. It is safer to underpractise them than to overdo them.

The Body > Breathing Exercises > Breathing Exercises

#7322 – 4.5.6.47

BN – X – D

These animal desires belong to the body. What are we? Are we that or a mind using a body? Or Mind using a mind and a body? This last is indeed the truth. When we find it out for ourselves, and hold to it through the years, how long can these desires keep their strength? We may be assured that they dwindle and go.

The Body > Sex > Sex

#7344 – 4.5.7.4

BN – X – D

At the time when a child is conceived, two factors contribute powerfully towards its physical nature and physical history. They are the state of the father's thinking and the mother's breathing.

The Body > Sex > Sex

#7349 – 4.5.7.9

BN – X – K1

When this process of balancing the two forces comes to an end, the male-female consciousness of the real human being will be established at last.

The Body > Sex > Sex

#7402 – 4.5.7.62

BN – X – DK

There is a hidden teaching on sex in the Orient. This is known as tantrik yoga. The full teaching has usually been unavailable to the general public because of the dangers of misunderstanding and misuse should it fall into the hands of the unready or unworthy. The other systems of yoga generally favour an ascetic and stoical attitude toward sex whereas the tantrik system does not. In this modern age when so much of the hidden teaching has been revealed so widely, there is no reason why the tantrik teaching should remain completely hidden. If properly placed in the setting of a system of self-discipline and self-development, and if properly expounded with reasons, causes, and effects made quite clear, if kept free from all the entangling symbolism which has grown around the teaching during the centuries, it may have something useful to contribute to modern knowledge and modern living.

The Body > Sex > Sex

#7403 – 4.5.7.63

BN – X – K

The force which men spend in ungoverned sexual desire keeps them imprisoned in their lower nature. This same force can be sublimated by will, imagination, aspiration, prayer, and meditation. When this is done, the Overself can then instruct them for they will be able to hear its voice.

The Body > Sex > Sex

#7429 – 4.5.7.89

BN – X – D

In that moment of supreme sexual ecstasy, the most spiritually impoverished man gets a faded and fleeting glimpse of the love which inheres in the very nature of his higher Self. But whereas this glimpse merely torments him by its brevity and tantalizes him by its limited, faulty character, that higher impersonal love is eternal, unlimited, and supremely satisfying: it is indeed perfect love.

The Body > Sex > Sex

#7449 – 4.5.7.109

BN – Z – DK

He who conserves his creative energy for the purpose of realizing his higher identity, will not at any time feel that he is suffering loss, privation, or torment. On the contrary, he will feel the gain of freedom, strength, and mastery.

The Body > Sex > Sex

#7468 – 4.5.7.128

BSG_5 – P – D

He need not make the reform in his habits of living until he is not only intellectually convinced of its need but also inwardly feels that the right time, the psychological moment, for it has arrived. In that way it will be unforced and natural, while its course and results will be lasting.

The Body > Sex > Sex

#7477 – 4.5.7.137

BA12 – ZZ – DK

All the forces of a man have to be mobilized in the search for higher consciousness. He cannot leave sex-force out, for example.

The Body > Sex > Sex

#7493 – 4.5.7.153

BN – X – D

At opposing ends of the spine, the human and the animal oppose each other.

The Body > Kundalini > Kundalini

#7525 – 4.5.8.1

BN – X – K1

The Creative Energy is one and the same no matter how high or how low may be the level upon which it manifests and how refined or how gross the form through which it expresses itself.

The Body > Kundalini > Kundalini

#7568 – 4.5.8.44

BA11 – ZZ – K

If we will bring more sincerity and more integrity into our lives, more truth and more wisdom into our minds, more goodwill and more self-discipline into our hearts, not only will we be more blessed but also all others with whom we are in touch.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7574 – 5.6.1.1

BN – X – D

The moral precepts which it offers for use in living and for guidance in wise action are not offered to all alike, but only to those engaged on the quest. They are not likely to appeal to anyone who is virtuous merely because he fears the punishment of sin rather than because he loves virtue itself. Nor are they likely to appeal to anyone who does not know where his true self-interest lies. There would be nothing wrong in being utterly selfish if only we fully understood the self whose interest we desire to preserve or promote. For then we would not mistake pleasure for happiness nor confuse evil with good. Then we would see that earthly self-restraint in some directions is in reality holy self-affirmation in others, and that the hidden part of self is the best part.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7577 – 5.6.1.4

BN – X – K1

This grand section of the quest deals with the right conduct of life. It seeks both the moral re-education of the individual's character for his own benefit and the altruistic transformation of it for society's benefit.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7579 – 5.6.1.6

BN – X – DM1

We begin and end the study of philosophy by a consideration of the subject of ethics. Without a certain ethical discipline to start with, the mind will distort truth to suit its own fancies. Without a mastery of the whole course of philosophy to its very end, the problem of the significance of good and evil cannot be solved.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7581 – 5.6.1.8

BN – ZZ – K1

The aspirant must remember always that his immediate duty lies in self-preparation, self-discipline, and self-improvement. The building of fine character on the Quest is quite as important as the efforts of aspiration and meditation, even more so, for the former will lead to the dissolving of egoism, and without this the latter are of little avail.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7584 – 5.6.1.11

BSG_4 – P – D

The reformation and even transformation of character is as much a sector of philosophy as the practice of concentration and the study of mind. The virtue which develops from disciplining thoughts and controlling self removes obstacles and gives power to truth’s pursuit.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7588 – 5.6.1.15

BN – X – D

To the extent that he purifies and ennobles himself, he qualifies himself for the reception of superior insight.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7593 – 5.6.1.20

BN – X – D

His spiritual progress will be measured not so much by his meditational progress as by his moral awakening.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7601 – 5.6.1.28

BN – X – D

He must look within himself for the impurities and falsities, the malice and envy, the prejudice and bitterness which belong to his lower nature. And he must work with all his willpower and thinking power to cast them out.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7603 – 5.6.1.30

BN – X – D

It is when men come face-to-face with a real crisis, a real temptation, or a real hardship that they show their real character, not only their self-imagined or publicly reputed one.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7605 – 5.6.1.32

BN – ZZ – DEK

It must be remembered always that mere intellectual study is not so essential as the building of worthwhile character, which is far more important in preparing for the great battle with the ego.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7606 – 5.6.1.33

BN – X – D

We will have to grow into this higher consciousness. No other way exists for us.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7615 – 5.6.1.42

B_01 – ZZZ – DK

Character can be changed. He who habitually contemplates such exalted themes finds in time that his whole outlook is altered and expanded, as if by magic. The new outlook will gradually strongly establish itself within him. Says the Christian Bible: “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he,” which may be matched with what was written in Sanskrit long before this was uttered: “As is one’s thought, so one becomes; this is the eternal secret.”—Maitri Upanishad.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7621 – 5.6.1.48

BN – X – D

The key to right conduct is to refuse to identify himself with the lower nature. The hypnotic illusion that it is really himself must be broken: the way to break it is to deny every suggestion that comes from it, to use the will in resisting it, to use the imagination in projecting it as something alien and outside, to use the feelings in aspiration towards the true self, and the mind in learning to understand what it is.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7623 – 5.6.1.50

BN – X – DK1

The disciple who wishes to make real progress must attack, weaken, and ultimately destroy certain bad traits of character. Among them is the trait of jealousy of his fellow disciples. It is not only an unpleasant thought but may also end in disastrous consequences. It often leads to wrathful moods and raging spells. It not only harms the other disciple but always does harm to the sinner himself. It is caused by an unreasonable sense of possessiveness directed towards the teacher which does not understand that love should give freedom to him, not deny it to him.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7624 – 5.6.1.51

BN – X – K1

The pursuit of moral excellence is immeasurably better than the pursuit of mystical sensations. Its gains are more durable, more indispensable, and more valuable.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7625 – 5.6.1.52

BN – X – DK1

There are five ways in which the human being progressively views his own self and consequently five graduated ethical stages on his quest. First, as an ignorant materialist he lives entirely within his personality and hence for personal benefit regardless of much hurt caused to others in order to secure this benefit. Second, as an enlightened materialist he is wrapped in his own fortunes but does not seek them at the expense of others. Third, as a religionist he perceives the impermanence of the ego and, with a sense of sacrifice, he denies his self-will. Fourth, as a mystic he acknowledges the existence of a higher power, God, but finds it only within himself. Fifth, as a philosopher he recognizes the universality and the oneness of being in others and practises altruism with joy.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7626 – 5.6.1.53

BN – Z – K1

But, after all, these qualities are only the negative prerequisites of spiritual realization. They are not realization itself. Their attainment is to free oneself from defects that hinder the attainment of higher consciousness, not to possess oneself of true consciousness.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7627 – 5.6.1.54

BN – X – K1

The act must illustrate the man, the deed must picture the attitude. It is thus only that thought becomes alive.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7628 – 5.6.1.55

BN – X – K1

The more I travel and observe the more I come to believe that the only men who will make something worthwhile of philosophy are the men who have already made something worthwhile of their personal lives. The dreamers and cranks will only fool themselves, the failures and alibi-chasers will only become confirmed in their fantasies.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7629 – 5.6.1.56

BN – ZZ – K1

Many people talk mysticism or play with psychism so long as either promises them wonderful powers which most other people haven't got or wonderful experiences which most other people do not have. But when they come to philosophy and find that it demands from them a renovation of their entire character, they are seized with fear and retreat. Philosophy is not for such people, for it does not conform to their wishes. It tells them what they do not like to hear. It disturbs their egoistic vanity and troubles their superficial serenity when it throws a glaring spotlight on their lower nature, their baser motives, and their ugly weaknesses.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7630 – 5.6.1.57

BA11 – ZZ – K1

While the aspirant fails to take an inventory of his weaknesses and consequently fails to build into his character the attributes needed, much of his meditation will be either fruitless or a failure or even harmful.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7631 – 5.6.1.58

BN – X – K1

That it is not enough for men to think truth, that they must also feel it, is a statement with which most scientists, being intellect-bound, would disagree. But artists, mystics, true philosophers, and religious devotees would accept it.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7632 – 5.6.1.59

BN – Z – K1

If each attack of adverse force, each temptation that tries a weakness, is instantly met with the Short Path attitude, he will have an infinitely better chance of overcoming it. The secret is to remember the Overself, to turn the battle over to IT. Then, what he is unable to conquer by himself, will be easily conquered for him by the higher power.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7641 – 5.6.1.68

BN – X – D

He should begin with the belief that his own character can be markedly improved and with the attitude that his own efforts can lessen the distance between its present condition and the ideal before him.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7647 – 5.6.1.74

BN – X – D

The more the character is purified, the easier it is to practise meditation. The more the lower nature holds a man, the shorter will be the period of time in which he will be able to hold attention on the Overself.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7661 – 5.6.1.88

BN – X – D

Freedom is a tremendous word whose meaning goes much beyond the average human being's idea of it. He is not free who is in bondage to narrow prejudice, strong attachment, unruled desire, and spiritual ignorance.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7667 – 5.6.1.94

BSG_5 – P – D

Where the Overself lives fully in a man, he will not need to consider whether an act is righteous or not. Righteous acts will flow spontaneously from him and no other kind will be possible.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7681E – 5.6.1.108

BA11 – ZZZ – DEMK

Only as men become convinced that their further fortune and happiness or distress and trouble are closely connected with their obedience to these higher laws—and particularly the law of karma—will they discover that not only is virtue its own reward but also adds to peace of mind.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7706 – 5.6.1.133

BN – ZZ – K

Temperament and circumstance, happening and karma will combine to decide whether he lets go the bad tendency or habit suddenly or whether he will need a period to adjust and settle down anew.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7709 – 5.6.1.136

BN – Z – K

We must put out of our minds every weakening impulse by instant reference to the strength of the Overself, every evil thought by a call to the infinite good of the Overself. In this way character is uplifted and made noble.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7719 – 5.6.1.146

BN – X – D

There is a perfect relation between the impression we make upon others and the mastery we have achieved over ourselves. The strength of the impression depends on the degree of the mastery. Furthermore, our power over the world outside us will be proportionate to our power over the nature within us.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7721 – 5.6.1.148

BN – X – D

There are three activities which he needs to keep under frequent examination and constant discipline—his thoughts, his speech, and his actions.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7744 – 5.6.1.171

BN – X – D

He who puts his lower nature under control puts himself in possession of forces, gifts, possibilities, and satisfactions that most other men lack.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7759 – 5.6.1.186

BN – X – D

When all malice and all envy are resolutely cast out of his nature, not only will he be the gainer by it in improved character and pleasanter karma, but also those others who would have suffered as victims of his barbed words or ugly thoughts.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7791 – 5.6.1.218

BN – Z – K

An experience which is a blow to his ego ought to be received with humility and analysed with impartiality. But too often the man receives it with resentment and analyses it with distortion. In the result he is doubly harmed: there is the suffering itself and there is the deterioration of character.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7811 – 5.6.1.238

BA12 – ZZ – K

All that is best in the Christian virtues, the Buddhist virtues, the Stoic virtues, among several others, you will find in the philosophic ones.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7819 – 5.6.1.246

BN – X – K

The habit of always remembering that he is committed to the Quest and to the alteration of character which this involves, should help him to refuse assent in temptation and reject despondency in tribulation.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Uplift Character

#7851 – 5.6.1.278

BA12 – ZZ – DMK

Each person who enters our life for a time, or becomes involved with it at some point, is an unwitting channel bringing good or evil, wisdom or foolishness, fortune or calamity to us. This happens because it was preordained to happen—under the law of recompense. But the extent to which he affects our outer affairs is partly determined by the extent to which we let him do so, by the acceptance or rejection of suggestions made by his conduct, speech, or presence. It is we who are finally responsible.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Environmental influence

#7863 – 5.6.1.290

BA11 – ZZZ – DK1

It is quite true that moral codes have historically been merely relative to time, place, and so on. But if we try to make such relativity a basis of non-moral action, if we act on the principle that wrong is not worse than right and evil not different from good, then social life would soon show a disastrous deterioration, the ethics of the jungle would become its governing law, and catastrophe would overtake it in the end.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Moral relativity

#7876 – 5.6.1.303

BN – X – K1

Because there are levels of moral growth, character, and self-control, it became necessary to lay down laws, codes, and rules for mankind in the mass. These may be of sacred origin, as with a Moses, or of secular authority, as with a ruler. Where the name of God is invoked to give them weight, this is usually a human device. But the come-back of karma is very real, and not a fancy.

Emotions and Ethics > Uplift Character > Moral relativity

#7883 – 5.6.1.310

BN – Z – K