The Library
We lament the lack of time. But if we critically scrutinized our actions, and even made some kind of schedule beforehand, we would find that some activities are unnecessary and others are useless. These not only rob us of time but they deprive us of some of the energy needed for meditation, rendering it harder or even impossible.
3.2.8.1Listen Time is like a great treasury. Put nothing of value into it and you will get nothing out. Put philosophic study and self-training into it and at the very least you will draw out a measure of peace and understanding, at the most you may enter into realization of the Truth.
3.2.8.8Listen He should sometimes ask himself for how many more years may he hope to be given the chance which every lifetime gives a man to transcend himself.
3.2.8.9Listen He will be forced to admit, with sorrowful head, that he had been too busy with the trivial matters of the moment to break through the mysterious barriers that bar our human way out of the prison of time and space.
3.2.8.13Listen The Quest does not demand the renunciation of worldly business but only the renunciation of a small daily fragment of the time hitherto devoted to such business. It asks for half or three-quarters of an hour daily to be faithfully given to meditation exercises. It asserts that the fullest realization of the Overself can be attained without becoming a whole-time yogi.
3.2.8.15Listen Once he recognizes his responsibility toward the fulfilment of this higher purpose, for which the Infinite Wisdom has put him here, he will have to recognize also the obligation of devoting some time every day for study of, and meditation upon, it…
3.2.8.22,Listen To find the time required for meditation may call for a little planning of our time and a lot of revision of our values. But this in itself is a worthwhile self-discipline. For we rush hither and thither but have yet to ask ourselves where we are rushing to. What better use could we make of the treasure of leisure than soul-finding?
3.2.8.23Listen … earthly life is fleeting, transient, never permanently satisfying, and therefore only the outer face of his life; deep within must be a persistent quest of truth and reality which alone confer everlasting peace.
3.2.8.26,Listen If you think you have not the necessary time for the practice of mental quiet, then make it. Push out of the day's program the least important items so as to make room for this, the most important of all activities.
3.2.8.33Listen The real work on the Quest has to be carried out within and by the mind, not the body. The aspirant must try to live his outward life as normally as possible and avoid making a public spectacle of the fact he is following the spiritual path.
3.2.8.36Listen … the Overself does not live in public but in secret. It is totally outside the world’s activity. Therefore the closer you approach it, the more secretive you are likely to become concerning the event. And when you do succeed in finally uniting yourself with it, your lips will be completely shut—not only because of the ego’s greater humility but because the Overself desires it so.…
3.2.8.43,Listen You must remember that everyone without exception stands in life just where the evolutionary flow has brought him and that his outward life is the result of all those previous experiences in many, many incarnations…
3.2.8.48,Listen All the great prophets have made special mention of the fact that the task of spiritually enlightening others is the most important and most beneficial activity in which any man can engage…
3.2.8.64,Listen … He who wishes to stimulate others to start on the spiritual Quest, to help those who have already started to find the right direction in which to travel, and to make available to the public generally the leading truths of spiritual knowledge, feels that this is the most worthwhile activity. The effective and enduring preparation for this is first to spiritualize oneself and therefore it is up to him to carry on even more ardently with his efforts than he has done hitherto.
3.2.8.64,Listen He may seek, when better equipped to do so, to render service to many people. But until that time comes, it is better to go on working upon himself, improving his moral character, increasing his knowledge of the philosophic teachings, humbling himself in daily prayer and worship, and cultivating that thread of intuition which links him to the Soul.
3.2.8.66Listen The seeker who follows this path is and will be of some service as a channel for the inspiration and enlightenment of others less advanced than he--within, of course, his own capacity and subject to his own limitations. Because of this, he should make every effort to acquire accurate knowledge of what the Quest is, what Philosophy contributes to it, and what--in everyday language--these mean and offer to the individual's everyday life.
3.2.8.67Listen ... We did not incarnate primarily to serve each other. We incarnated to realize the Overself…
3.2.8.75,Listen The divine power to help, heal, guide, or instruct others begins to show itself when we begin to turn our face towards it humbly, prayerfully, and thus make the necessary connection through meditation and study, through altruistic action and religious veneration.
3.2.8.78Listen He who has helped himself to inner strength and knowledge, outer health and spiritual energy, becomes a positive force in the world, able to assist others instead of asking assistance from them. Self-salvation must come first.
3.2.8.95Listen What is the best charity, the truest philanthropy? It is so to enlighten a man that thereafter he will find within himself all the resources he needs to manage his life so as to bring him the greatest happiness.
3.2.8.100Listen ... We are here on earth to find the soul…
3.2.8.101,Listen The feeling of compassion and the doing of service help to cleanse the human mentality of its innate egoism and to release the human heart from its inborn selfishness. Thus they are useful to the aspirant who is treading the path of purification.
3.2.8.102Listen The only kind of service he may render is unpaid service. This condition he cheerfully accepts. For whatever he does to help others, he does out of love of the deed itself.
3.2.8.109Listen To dedicate life to spiritually uplifting and guiding others, to the extent one is capable of, is to make certain of receiving the same help from those beyond oneself.
3.2.8.119Listen The best form of social service is the one which leads others to the higher understanding of truth …
3.2.8.122,Listen Moreover, whatsoever we give or do to others is ultimately reflected back to us in some form by the power of karma, and if he frequently nurses the ideal of serving mankind he will attract to himself the spiritual help of those who themselves have this same aim.
3.2.8.123Listen Although it is true that the help we give others always returns to us in some way, somewhere, somewhen, nevertheless he is not motivated in this matter by the desire of reward or return. He will engage in the service of humanity because compassion will arise in his heart, because of the good it will do.
3.2.8.124Listen After the student has sufficiently prepared himself--that is, after he has undergone the philosophic discipline for purifying character, subjugated his lower nature, developed his intellect, and cultivated his intuition--he will then be able to use his gifts in the practice of a higher order of meditation, which will bring him the bliss of communion with the Overself. Others, who may have benefited hitherto by association with him, will find that the earlier benefits were superficial compared with those following his transformation…
3.2.8.131,Listen ... One has certainly to go through many incarnations before becoming a fit channel for the Overself. But this does not mean that he is not used by the higher power until then. The student who has not yet been purified of egoism can only be used brokenly, in patches, and at intervals, whereas one who has made and implemented the requisite inner delegation of self to Overself is used continuously.
3.2.8.134,Listen In trying to help others in these unsettled times--perhaps one's own children--one should try to think of them in their larger relation to God, rather than in their relation to familiar surroundings, filial attachments, or the unexpected, disturbing situations which have come up, over which one has limited or no control. Prayer and positive thinking will be as much of a help at these times as anything else one can say or do.
3.2.8.136Listen If he finds that the Overself is using him at any particular time as the personal instrument for its guidance, blessing, or healing, he must take care to be detached and keep ego out of the relationship.
3.2.8.141Listen Let it not be forgotten that goodwill towards mankind does not exclude goodwill towards oneself. The way of martyrdom, of dying uselessly for others, is the way of emotional mysticism. The way of service, of living usefully for others, is the way of rational philosophy.
3.2.8.149Listen Those men who have known this inner life, that other Self, and who have the talent to communicate in speech, writing, or action, have a duty laid on them to tell others of it. But if they lack this talent, they do no wrong to remain in silence about it. For, as Ramana Maharshi once said to me, ”Silence also is a form of speech.”
3.2.8.153Listen He who attains even a little power to help others cannot measure where that help will stop. If it gives a lift to one man whom he knows, that man may in his turn give a lift to another person, and so on indefinitely in ever-widening ripples.
3.2.8.154Listen Those who are searching for truth are only a small number but still they are a growing number. Each of us may repay his own obligation by saying the right word at the right time, by lending or giving the right book to the truth-hungry person.
3.2.8.157Listen There is a proper time for everything. When he has reached the age when he has to consider his own spiritual interests he should lessen his activities and save his energies for a higher service, first to himself and then to others.
3.2.8.161Listen The noble and beautiful teachings of old Greece, from the Socratic to the Stoic, harmonize perfectly with the age-old teachings of the higher philosophy. Although they taught a lofty self-reliance they did not teach a narrow self-centeredness. This is symbolized vividly in Plato's story of the cave, where the man who attained Light immediately forsook his deserved rest to descend to the help and guidance of the prisoners still living in the cave's darkness.
3.2.8.164Listen
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