Day by day
In a world where no great event happens by chance, where even the tiniest seed sprouts under an all-governing law, the destruction of a whole continent such as Atlantis is full of significance for humanity. It means that Nature, which is but another name for God, could not proceed farther with its evolutionary purpose for the inhabitants of that continent without a fresh start, without a clean break from old ways which had exhausted themselves.
9.13.4.127Listen 1 Jan 2026I shall have to lay down my pen one day, but the intuitions and experiences which flow through its ink shall find other hands and continue to publish themselves to the world.
8.12.4.21Listen 2 Jan 2026The 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 …
4.4.1.220, ExcerptListen 3 Jan 2026It 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.
4.4.1.224Listen 4 Jan 2026To those who wish to escape from the pressures and tyrannies of contemporary materialism, philosophical mysticism offers the most effective way and the safest road. It seeks to understand the true relationship between the divine and the human. It will enable them to realize their spiritual potentialities. For materialism is and can be only a temporary phase of man's endeavour to comprehend the facts of life.
2.1.2.189Listen 5 Jan 2026Wherever he goes he brings this ego with him, looks at the world with the same eyes, the same desires and limitations.
6.8.4.85Listen 6 Jan 2026To sit, completely immobile, for a half or three-quarters of an hour while attention and aspiration are concentrated and merged, is an exercise needing much practice if success is to come.
3.2.4.121Listen 7 Jan 2026That which really is, as opposed to that which appears to be, behind all the countless objects of this varied universe, is one alone, beginningless, endless, the source of all, the parent of the “I”-consciousness. This truth provides the final hope for man. Somewhere along his way he will discover it, act upon it, and be redeemed …
2.1.1.97, ExcerptListen 8 Jan 2026Humanity will not be saved in groups or by organizations. It will be saved individual by individual.
2.1.3.7Listen 9 Jan 2026Once he has started on this quest in earnest, he will never be able to leave it again. He may try to do so for a time and to escape its claims but in the end he will fail. For some power which he cannot control will eventually and often abruptly emerge in the midst of his mental or emotional life and control him.
2.1.2.509Listen 10 Jan 2026A self-conscious creature is one that not only knows its own individual feelings and thoughts, its own mind, but can also reflect upon them. The animal has not reached this stage but the human has.
16.26.4.32Listen 11 Jan 2026All people are trying to find their Overself, to feel its love and sense its peace. Those who are in flight from worldly things do so consciously; those who are in pursuit of them do so unconsciously.
2.1.2.458Listen 12 Jan 2026When we enlarge our love of the Divine by making it a matter of the will as well as feeling, we ennoble it.
5.6.1.428Listen 13 Jan 2026If he attains and maintains a harmony with the Overself (for which he must pay the price of submission to it) then the Overself will help him for it is being allowed to do so.
12.18.4.160Listen 14 Jan 2026The whole psyche of man must get into this task of self-spiritualization. Feeling alone cannot do it, will alone cannot do it, thinking alone cannot do it, and intuiting alone cannot do it. Every element must contribute to it and be shaped by it.
2.1.5.341Listen 15 Jan 2026It is a teaching in both India and China that by concentrating his thoughts during his dying moments on the name of his spiritual leader with full faith, undivided ardour, and sincere deep attention, a man saves himself some or all of the post-mortem purificatory torments that he would otherwise have to undergo. It is also written that if he prefers to concentrate on the kind of environment in which his next birth is to appear, he contributes toward its possible realization.
6.9.1.91Listen 16 Jan 2026When men mistake their own desires or their own surmises for the will of God, the ego has simply transferred the sphere of its activity from the animal to the pseudo-spiritual.
6.8.4.327Listen 17 Jan 2026Every man has within him this divine possibility. But if he refuses to believe it, or puts his faith in a hard materialism, or fails to seek for it, it will remain only latent.
2.1.2.467Listen 18 Jan 2026Let us not ascribe to the ordinary self of man what belongs to the Overself. The mystical phenomena, the “inner” experiences engendered by an adept, are done through him, not by him.
16.25.4.240Listen 19 Jan 2026… Mind in its active dynamic state, that is, the World-Mind, and rather its ray in us called the Overself, is within range of human perception, communion, and even union. It is this that the mystic really finds when be believes that he has found God.
16.25.1.71, ExcerptListen 20 Jan 2026Whether or not it is possible to attain a perfection of calmness that is secure against all assaults, it is surely possible to attain sufficient calmness to keep off many or most of the emotional disturbances and mental turmoils which derive from the petty incidents of everyday life.
5.6.3.45Listen 21 Jan 2026Deep hurts and bitter experiences from a former unknown incarnation throw their shadows on the present one.
7.10.3.11Listen 22 Jan 2026If it comes without preliminary meditation, then it will probably come unexpectedly and suddenly. Therefore a certain amount of either knowledge or experience is required to recognize the authentic signs of its onset and to detect the precious opportunity which offers itself.
14.22.5.136Listen 23 Jan 2026In 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.
4.4.7.6Listen 24 Jan 2026The difficulty which you mention about finding a teacher need not be overrated. You have within yourself a ray of God, which is your own soul. If you pray to and beseech it constantly for guidance, it will surely lead you to all that you really need to know.
2.1.6.173Listen 25 Jan 2026He is also too much aware of his own precarious mortality to permit useless involvements and irrelevant commitments to waste his life.
3.2.8.19Listen 26 Jan 2026… the philosophic attitude seeks a balanced wisdom, a removal of negative, ignoble, sensualist, narrow-minded, unpractical, and fanatical traits from character and action. Beyond that it welcomes the fine flowering of human culture, the refinement of human living, and the enchantment of human quality.
13.20.1.6, ExcerptListen 27 Jan 2026He will expand the meaning of his own habitual life-experience as he expands the awareness of the divine in himself.
2.1.5.410Listen 28 Jan 2026He will feel all personal pride and claims ebb out of his being as the higher self takes possession of him. An utter humility will be the result. But this is not the same as a sense of inferiority; it will be too serene, too noble, and too satisfying for that.
12.18.4.158Listen 29 Jan 2026What is the worth of the philosophic attainment? Perhaps one of the best answers would be: suppose all men and women possessed it, what would civilized society be like then? It would certainly be freer of its present defects and fuller of realized virtues. War would be unknown, destitution would vanish; peace, knowledge, beauty, joy, and goodness would flourish.
13.20.1.181Listen 30 Jan 2026No man can escape responsibility for the way he uses his day. He can either carefully organize it to serve his highest purposes or he can carelessly fritter it away in trivial activity or idle sloth.
3.2.8.16Listen 31 Jan 2026
The notebooks are copyright © 1984-1989 The Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation
This site is run by Paul Brunton-stiftelsen · info@paulbruntondailynote.se