The Library
When the goddess Athena, in Greek mythology, says that ”some things you will think of for yourself, and others a god will put into your heart,” this is her way of describing what we, more simply, would call inspiration.
14.22.2.2Listen There is a hidden light within man himself. Sometimes its glow appears in his most beautiful art productions, his loftiest religious revelations, his most irreproachable moral decisions.
14.22.2.9Listen … we shall discover—if we are both patient enough and yet persistent enough—that there is a Source within us which promises astonishing possibilities to the human race. That Source is loosely called the soul.
14.22.2.11,Listen It happens on a plane above men’s heads; most of them don’t know of it explicitly at the moment. Yet they are truly rendering service through being used as channels.
14.22.2.14Listen To the extent that we can keep and hold our awareness of this divine consciousness, we can also express something of its knowledge and power.
14.22.2.19Listen Once ”tuned in,” the longer you can stay with the Overself, the greater the depth penetrated; and this in turn means the more general benefit will be gained, the more creativity will be possible in ideas, in arts, and in intuitions.
14.22.2.20Listen To the extent that a man is conscious of the presence of the Overself, he becomes inspired. To the extent that he is also talented in any of the arts, his work also becomes inspired.
14.22.2.25Listen If his inspiration is of the highest kind, it will be a fruitful one. It will manifest in external achievement by the personal ego and in altruistic service, enlightenment, and uplift of the world community in which he lives.
14.22.2.31Listen He finds within himself not merely a passive repose but also a veritable fountain of wisdom and strength, inspiration and bliss.
14.22.2.34Listen When spirituality shines through a man, it makes him great, even though he be bereft of talent in any other direction.
14.22.2.35Listen The priest and the guru, the artist and the writer have to carry a small flock or a million minds with them by means of their work. The talent if they possess it is theirs, but the inspiration comes from a higher level.
14.22.2.39Listen A good deal of achievement goes on in the silent solitude of our own hearts, unnoticed and unknown to other men; one day it blossoms into irresistible action, and then the world wonders why.
14.22.2.43Listen We fulfil life when we find ourselves in the divine presence unendingly, aware of it and expressing it.
14.22.2.45Listen It is one secret of the inspired individual that he lets himself be led: he does not try to do with his ego what can be better done for him by the intuition. But this will be possible only if he pauses and waits for the inner leading to come to him.
14.22.2.48Listen Give the ego back to the Overself and then the Overself will use it as it should be used--in harmony with the cosmic laws of being. This means that the welfare of all others in contact with the ego will be considered as well as the ego's own.
14.22.2.49Listen His behaviour is spontaneous, but not through mere impulse nor through unused intellect. It is the spontaneity, the forthrightness of an inspired man who knows where he is going and what he is doing, who is directly guided in his relations with other men by a higher will than his own ego's.
14.22.2.51Listen When the ego is displaced and the Overself is using him, there will be no need and no freedom to choose between two alternatives in regard to actions. Only a single course will present itself, directly and unwaveringly, as the right one.
14.22.2.53Listen Inspired action becomes possible when, to speak in spatial metaphors, every deed receives its necessary and temporary attention within the foreground of the mind whilst the Overself holds the permanent attention of the man within the background of his mind.
14.22.2.57Listen As the consciousness of the Overself seeps into him, the power of the Overself expresses through him.
14.22.2.58Listen He has access to infinite wisdom and infinite support in every situation and under every given circumstance. But he has it only so far as he submits the ego to the higher self.
14.22.2.60Listen The wise man lets the Overself's presence flow through his life, never blocks it by his ego nor turns it aside by his passions.
14.22.2.63Listen The ego can no longer foresee what will happen to the outer course of its personal life when the Overself takes the lead, nor can it dictate what that course should be.
14.22.2.64Listen With all his humility before the Overself, he will bear himself among his fellow human beings with serene self-assurance and speak with firm conviction of that which he knows.
14.22.2.65Listen What the ego thinks and feels and does is to reflect the Overself's dominion. The ego itself is now to be subsidiary. Every thought or feeling or act is to be a dedicated one, every place where it finds itself a consecrated one.
14.22.2.68Listen The Overself is not merely a transient intellectual abstraction but rather an eternal presence. For those who have awakened to the consciousness of this presence, there is always available its mysterious power and sublime inspiration.
14.22.2.69Listen The unfoldment of intuitive action, intuitive thinking, and intuitive feeling means that the Overself and the personality are then in accord and working together…
14.22.2.72,Listen He must look forward hopefully to the day when he can actually feel the higher self present within all his activity. It will reign in his inner world and thus be the real doer of his actions, not the ego in the outer world.
14.22.2.73Listen There are times when the Overself accepts no resistance, when it acts with such compelling force that the man is unable to disobey. But such happenings are special ones.
14.22.2.75Listen Some self other than his familiar one will rise up within him, some force — ennobling, masterful, and divine — will control him.
14.22.2.76Listen When a man's consciousness, outlook, and character are so exalted as this is, altruistic duty becomes not a burden to be carried irksomely but a part of his path of self-fulfilment from which he would not wish to be spared.
14.22.2.77Listen There is a strange feeling that not he but somebody else is living and talking in the same body. It is somebody nobler and wiser than his own ego.
14.22.2.78Listen Whoever finds his Overself and draws from it the will and desire to serve others, will radiate joy, confidence, and peace to them.
14.22.2.83Listen From that high source of inspiration may come great actions, immense inner strength, superb artistic creativity, and a beautiful, delicate inner equilibrium.
14.22.2.84Listen ... He will now feel at least the same satisfaction in yielding to the higher self's bidding that he formerly felt in yielding to the lower one's desires. And with the bidding will come the needed strength, courage, and wisdom to obey it. The world's opposition and danger may be recognized but will not deter him. It is not by his own will that he engages himself in such work, but by a will that supports and guides him better than ever he could support or guide himself. This he clearly comprehends and gladly accepts.
14.22.2.89,Listen It is a mistake to believe that to find the Overself is to find eternal monotony and boredom. On the contrary, it holds out the promise of life more abundant - of joy, happiness, and satisfaction physically as well as spiritually.
14.22.2.90Listen He will be an inspired man in his labours of spiritual service or artistic expression. He will be aware that a power greater than his own is working through him and affecting others. And he will know that this power comes from the secret God within himself.
14.22.2.92So immense is the security which the Overself enfolds him with that he will not hesitate to take chances which prudence, caution, discretion, or fear would never take. But he will do so only if the Overself guides him to.
14.22.2.93Listen The wonder and joy of finding himself to be a channel of blessing, teaching, healing peace, and uplift to others will increase as the results themselves increase.
14.22.2.95Listen The forces of heredity and the dominion of environment would appear to be the overwhelming impulsions of a man's actions. But let the Soul arise in its masterful urgency, and they vanish!
14.22.2.99Listen The truth is that the source of man’s inspiration is always there, but his awareness of it is intermittent.
14.22.2.103Listen Work done under the Overself's inspiration can never be tedious but will always be satisfying.
14.22.2.108Listen To do something really worthwhile, to become creative and constructive in an inspired way, aware of the Overself, is to become godlike. We then fulfil the purpose of human existence on earth.
14.22.2.109Listen Whoever keeps this divine flame burning brightly within his heart, radiates the spirit of his purpose to all whom he contacts.
14.22.2.110Listen The Overself is not merely a pleasant feeling--although it arouses such a feeling--but a veritable force. When it possesses a man, he is literally and actually gripped by a dynamic energy. A creative power henceforth pervades his atmosphere, enters his deeds, permeates his mind and charges his words, and runs through his history.
14.22.2.113Listen Brahms explained his method of finding inspiration as beginning with a pondering on lofty universal spiritual truths which led him into a deeper dreamlike semi-trance condition. After this prelude he felt inspired with the ideas for his work.
14.22.2.115Listen The feeling of some presence inside his heart will become so powerful at intervals, so real and so intense, that he will quite naturally enter into conversation with it. He will implore it, pray to it, express love for it, and worship it. And he will find that it will answer him in words, the sentences forming themselves spontaneously within his mind as speech without sound. It will give him pertinent didactic instruction - often at unexpected moments - and formulate higher points of view.
14.22.2.122Interior Word. When he succeeds in penetrating the still depths of his being, another mind will appear to superimpose itself on his own, directing, teaching, and inspiring him. It will speak to him out of the silence within himself yet it will not be his own voice. Its tone will be friendly, and when he becomes familiar with it he will know it to be none other than the voice of the Holy Spirit, the word of the Higher Self.
14.22.2.123Listen As the interior word delivers its message to him day by day, as he advances in understanding through receiving it and in character by obeying it, he will have the best evidence that this quest which he first tried as an experiment is becoming a priceless experience.
14.22.2.124Listen It is the soul speaking truth to the intellect out of its larger range of life. Its voice is best and easiest heard when the consciousness is turned inward away from the sense-existence and brought as near to stillness as we can make it.
14.22.2.125Listen A voice comes to his hearing but not with the ordinary kind of audibility. It is within him for it is only a mental voice yet it speaks with a strange authority. It says to him, ”I am the Way, the Truth, the Life.”
14.22.2.127Listen The Overself issues its commands and exacts its demands in the utter silence and privacy of a man's heart. Yet they are more powerful and more imperious in the end than any which issue from the noisy bustling world.
14.22.2.129Listen If the Interior Word bids him move in any direction which seems encompassed by difficulties or blocked by obstacles so that he can see no way before him, let him not doubt or fear. A way will be made by the power of the Overself. He need only obey, relax, and trust the guidance.
14.22.2.139Listen The Interior Word is not heard with the reasoning mind, even though its statements may be very reasonable. It is not connected with the intellect at all, as are all our ordinary words. It is received in the heart, felt intensively and deeply.
14.22.2.142Listen Saint Teresa defined the Interior Word thus: “The words were clearly formed and not to be mistaken though not heard by the body’s ear.”
14.22.2.151Listen The words spoken by this unseen but much-felt presence are not heard by the physical ears yet they are strongly impressed upon the mind. They do not come from the spirits of deceased persons but from the holy spirit of one's own diviner self, from a deep mystical source, not a shallow astral one.
14.22.2.154Listen What it amounts to is that the Interior Word becomes in effect the Inner Teacher and meditation itself the gateway to an inner school where instruction is regularly obtained.
14.22.2.157Listen When he has travelled to this stage of his journey; when he can close the door of his chamber, lie down, and listen to the Interior Voice; when the silence within becomes audible with clearly formulated instructions, then only is he ready to speak to others or write for others, and teach them. Until then he is a deaf mute, unable to hear and untrained to speak the sacred language. Now the Pentecostal power has descended on him and he is able not only to see the truth through the surrounding darkness but also to give it to those among his people who can take it.
14.22.2.169Listen
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