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We complain that there is no response to our prayer for uplift or light. But that is because there is no propriety in our approach. The intellectually gifted comes with his arrogance and the artistically gifted with his vanity, while each man comes with his pride. The correct approach was described by Jesus: Become as a little child; for then we become humble, feel dependent, and begin to lay the ego aside. With that the door to the Overself opens and its grace begins to shine through.
12.18.3.1Listen The need of self-humbling before the Overself (which is not the same as self-humbling before other men) is greatest of all with the aspirant of an intellectual type …
12.18.3.2,Listen We must be humble enough to recognize how imperfect we are, but instructed enough to recognize that the ego-covered part of us is shiningly divine…
12.18.3.4,Listen Rare is the person who can witness his ego crushed to the ground and yet never forget his divine parentage, so that his mental equilibrium is not broken--who can be lifted up to the glorious heights of the Overself and yet remain humbly human.
12.18.3.7Listen If the need to communicate either in prayer or in meditation with that higher power is not felt by a man, his intellect may be too powerful or his pride too strong.
12.18.3.10Listen The proud heart of man must be humbled before the Overself will reveal itself to him.
12.18.3.14Listen When we come to know more fully and more really what we are, we have to bow, humbled, in heartfelt adoration of the Mind of the World.
12.18.3.18Listen … He must begin with the axiom that the ego is ceaselessly deceiving him, misleading him, ruling him…
12.18.3.20,Listen Spiritual pride has rightly been listed by the Christian saints as a source of deception, and as the last of the traps into which the would-be saint can fall. A man may be quite holy and well self-controlled, but if he notices these two attainments with self-complacency, or rather self-congratulation, he at once strengthens the ego--although he transfers his excellence from worldly to spiritual matters.
12.18.3.39Listen ... Do not praise the ego for having found God. It was Grace which brought about the discovery. It was not the ego. It is true that the beginner needs humility but it is even more true that the advanced man needs even more humility.
12.18.3.42,Listen Humility, sensitivity, and emotional refinement are essential qualities which must be developed. Even more necessary is the daily practice of humble worship, devotion, and prayer.
12.18.3.43Listen The cultivation of reverential, prayerful, humble worship is needed to attract Grace. The putting aside of pride, self-conceit, and complacency is indispensable in order to assume the correct attitude during such worship. At such a time the saying of Jesus ”Except ye be as a little child . . .” is directly applicable…
12.18.3.44,Listen … Humility is the first step on this path. We should realize how little we really know when confronted by the great mysteries of life…
12.18.3.46,Listen To be humble is to be willing to admit the galling fact that one's own shortcomings of character or intelligence (and not other people's) were mostly responsible for most of one's troubles.
12.18.3.48Listen The higher he climbs, the humbler he becomes. Only he will not make an exhibition of his humility to the world, for it is not needed there and might even harm him and others. He will be humble deep down in his heart where it is needed, in that sacred place where he faces the Overself.
12.18.3.49Listen These great truths require great humility in a man to receive them. The bigoted and the prejudiced lack it.
12.18.3.52Listen Humility: See all men and women according to the Holy Ghost that is within them; always remember that the outer picture is still being worked on.
12.18.3.60Listen By maintaining the humility of the learner and the questing spirit of a seeker, he improves his own usefulness as a channel to help other people.
12.18.3.61Listen The nearer his understanding comes to this higher Self, the humbler he becomes and the less likely is he to boast about this uncommon condition.
12.18.3.66Listen For the man who has a strong ego, the religious approach with its cultivation of humility, its confession of sinfulness, and its redirection of emotion away from personality is the best to be recommended, if accompanied by some of the Philosophical Discipline's restrictions of the ego. However, such a person usually refuses to drink the medicines he most needs and therefore continues to remain involved in troubles of his own creation.
12.18.3.69Listen The ego must acknowledge its own transiency, confess its own instability, and thus become truly humble.
12.18.3.74Listen Too often man has to have his ego crushed, has to be pushed into sorrow and even despair, before he is willing to turn his head upward or to bend his knees in prayer to the unseen power.
12.18.3.88Listen … he will begin to rely less on his own ego, which is his real enemy and hindrance to his true welfare.
12.18.3.90,Listen When life seems to lose its meaning, when action seems in vain and ambition futile, when depression besets one like a dark cloud, the ego begins to feel its helplessness, its dependence on forces outside itself.
12.18.3.91Listen
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