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The spiritual self, the Overself, has never been lost. What has happened is that its being has not been recognized, covered over as it is with a multitude of thoughts, desires, and egocentricities.
14.22.3.1The day will inexorably come when this pen shall move no more and I wish therefore to leave on record, for the benefit of those who shall come after, a sacred and solemn testimony that I know - as surely as I know that I am not this pen which scribes these lines - that a being, benign, wise, protective, and divine, whom men call the Soul, whom I call the Overself, truly exists in the hearts of all; therefore all may discover it... For the presence of man«s own innermost divinity is the guarantee that he must inescapably seek and find it.
14.22.3.2,... A day will break surely when every man will have to bend the knee to that unknown self and abandon every cell of his brain, every flowing molecule of his heart, his blood, into its waiting hands. Though he will fear to do so, though he will fear to give up those ancient idols who had held him in bond so long and have given him so little in return, though he will tremble to loose his moorings and let his soul drift slowly from them with sails set for that mysterious region whose longitude few men know and whose shores most men shun, yet he will do so all the same...
14.22.3.2,... That which he has been seeking so ardently has been within himself all the time. For there at the core of his being, hidden away underneath all the weakness, passion, pettiness, fear, and ignorance, dwells light, love, peace, and truth. The windows of his heart open on eternity, only he has kept them closed! He is as near the sacred spirit of God as he ever shall be, but he must open his eyes to see it. Man's divine estate is there deep within himself. But he must claim it.
14.22.3.3,...The Overself is always here as man's innermost truest self. It is beginningless and endless in time. Its consciousness does not have to be developed as something new. But the person«s awareness of it begins in time and has to be developed as a new attainment. The ever-presence of Overself means that anyone may attain it here and now. There is no inner necessity to travel anywhere or to anyone in space or to wait years in time for this to happen. Anyone, for instance, who attends carefully and earnestly to the present exposition may perhaps suddenly and easily get the first stage of insight, the lightning-flash which affords a glimpse of reality, at any moment. By that glimpse he will have been uplifted to a new dimension of being. The difficulty will consist in retaining the new perception. For ancient habits of erroneous thinking will quickly reassert themselves and overwhelm him enough to push it into the background. This is why repeated introspection, reflective study, and mystical meditation are needed to weaken those habits and generate the inner strength which can firmly hold the higher outlook against these aggressive intruders from his own past.
14.22.3.4,... By the glimpse he will have been uplifted to a new dimension of being. The difficulty will consist in retaining the new perception. For ancient habits of erroneous thinking will quickly reassert themselves and overwhelm him enough to push it into the background. This is why repeated introspection, reflective study, and mystical meditation are needed to weaken those habits and generate the inner strength which can firmly hold the higher outlook against these aggressive intruders from his own past.
14.22.3.4,Although It is at the very heart of human beings, the Overself is very far from their present level of consciousness. Nothing could be closer, yet this is the supreme paradox of our existence and the strangest enigma confronting our thought.
14.22.3.6The Overself is not a goal to be attained but a realization of what already is. It is the inalienable possession of all conscious beings and not of a mere few. No effort is needed to get hold of the Overself, but every effort is needed to get rid of the many impediments to its recognition. We cannot take hold of it; it takes hold of us. Therefore the last stage of this quest is an effortless one. We are led, as children by the hand, into the resplendent presence. Our weary strivings come to an abrupt end. Our lips are made shut and wordless.
14.22.3.9... Beneath this conscious desire for fresh experiences there is the unconscious longing for That which is the permanent core of selfhood. The stilled, one-pointed, and reverent mind may know it, the self may dissolve in it.
14.22.3.10,We carry the divine presence with us everywhere we travel. We do not directly profit by it simply because we are not directly conscious of it. The effort to arouse such awareness is a worthwhile one, bringing rich reward in its train.
14.22.3.11The soul is always with us but our sense of its presence is not.
14.22.3.12There is a spiritual element in every man. It is his essence.
14.22.3.13Although we are divided in awareness from the higher power, we are not divided in fact from it. The divine being is immanent in each one of us. This is why there is always some good in the worst of us.
14.22.3.14Goethe: ”You give me space to belong to myself yet without separating me from your own life.”
14.22.3.15The Overself is always present but man's attention seldom is.
14.22.3.16Because the soul is present deep down in each human heart, none is so depraved that he will not one day find the inward experience of it.
14.22.3.17It is always possible for a man to gain enlightenment anytime anywhere even though it may not be probable, for he has within himself the Light itself as an ever-present Reality. What does happen and what is probable is that some moment during the course of a lifetime a glimpse may happen, and the glimpse itself is nothing less than a testimony to that ever-presence, a witness telling him that it is true and real.
14.22.3.19Just then, as thoughts themselves stop coming into his mind, he stops living in time and begins living in the eternal. He knows and feels his timelessness. And since all his sufferings belong to the world of passing time, of personal ego, he leaves them far behind as though they had never been. He finds himself in the heaven of a serene, infinite bliss. He learns that he could always have entered it; only his insistence on holding to the little egoistic values, his lack of thought-control, and his disobedience to the age-old advice of the Great Teachers prevented him from doing so.
14.22.3.20These rare moments of spontaneous spiritual exaltation, which cast all other moments in the shade and which are remembered ever after, could not have been born if that divine element into which they exalted us did not already exist within us. Its very presence in our hearts makes always possible and sometimes actual the precious feeling of a non-material sublimely happy order of being.
14.22.3.21It is not really a goal to be reached, nor a state to be attained, nor something new to be added to what he now has or is...
14.22.3.22,Is this benign state a past from which we have lapsed or a future to which we are coming? The true answer is that it is neither. This state has always been existent within us, is so now, and always will be. It is forever with us simply because it is what we really are.
14.22.3.23If the real Self must have been present and been witness to our peaceful enjoyment of deep slumber--otherwise we would not have known that we had had such enjoyment--so must it likewise have been present and been witness to our rambling imaginations in dream-filled sleep and to our physical activities in waking. This leads to a tremendous but inescapable conclusion. We are as near to, or as much in, the real Self, the Overself, at every moment of every day as we ever shall be. All we need is awareness of it.
14.22.3.25A man's refusal to allow spiritually intuitive feelings to awaken in him cannot obliterate the presence of the source of those feelings. He bears that presence ever within him and one day must reconcile himself willingly, knowingly, even yearningly, with it.
14.22.3.26The Overself is always within call, for its hiding place is no farther than a man's heart. But if the call does not go forth, or goes forth without faith, or is not sustained with patience, the response will not come.
14.22.3.27God is ever present with us but we are ever turning away from him …
14.22.3.28,By his ignoring of the Overself’s presence, man commits his greatest sin and shows his worst stupidity.
14.22.3.30If God did not exist then we humans would not exist. A divine ray, atom, soul, call it what you wish, is present in each of us. Some are aware of this, others must one day come to this knowledge.
14.22.3.31The Overself is always present in man's heart. If he does not receive awareness of this fact in his mind, that is because he makes no proper and sustained effort to do so.
14.22.3.32You may be an insignificant creature in the vastness of the cosmos, but the divine life is in you, too. Have enough faith in your divine heritage, take it into your common everyday life and thought, and in some way, to some people, you will become very significant and important.
14.22.3.33We live all the time in unfailing, if unconscious, union with the Overself.
14.22.3.34Perhaps the most wonderful thing which the illuminate discovers is that his independence from the infinite life power never really existed and was only illusory, that his separation from the Overself was only an idea of the imagination and not a fact of being…
14.22.3.35,I began to enter consciously into the real ”I” and to comprehend by realization that it was always there, that nothing new had been found, and that this was eternal life.
14.22.3.36The truth is this second self - or rather the feeling of its presence - has been shut up so long, that we have come to look upon it as non-existent and to regard the rumours of its actual experience as hallucinations. This is why religion, mysticism, and philosophy have so hard a battle to fight in these times, a battle against man«s inevitable incredulity.
14.22.3.37For centuries theologians have argued about the meaning of Jesus' declaration that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Most of them have given it a historical interpretation. Only those who could approach the mind of Jesus have given it a mystical interpretation. For only they can see that he meant that the kingdom of the Overself is really as close to us as is our own hand…
14.22.3.38,Everywhere we see people in bondage to their egos. Everywhere, too, the sage sees the Overself waiting, always present, for them to turn from themselves to It.
14.22.3.39The overlooked part is his consciousness; the forgotten self is his knowing power. These exist uninterruptedly, even in apparently subconscious forms like deep sleep and swoon. Yet he denies this share of his in the Real Being, identifies with the body instead of making it merely an object of awareness.
14.22.3.40The Overself is in the heart of every man but few care to seek it out until pressure of its grace from within, or fatigue with the world-life without, drives them to do so.
14.22.3.41When the divinity in his own self is found at last, he will afterwards find its light reflected upon every other man and woman he encounters.
14.22.3.43Every man is sacred did he but know it.
14.22.3.44The godlike abides in each of us but only the master knows and feels its glory.
14.22.3.46The mind keeps on moving about until sleep overcomes it . . . and because it never stopped to collect itself, it still does not know the higher and better part of itself—the Overself.
14.22.3.47The soul is present and active in every man. This is why it is quite possible for every man to have a direct glimpse of the truth about his own inward non-materiality.
14.22.3.49Nothing can ever exist outside God. Therefore, no man is bereft of the divine presence within himself. All men have the possibility of discovering this fact. And with it they will discover their real selfhood, their true individuality.
14.22.3.50This is the truth that must be proclaimed to our generation, that the Soul is with us here and now--not in some remote world or distant time, not when the body expires--and that it is our joy and strength to find it.
14.22.3.51Not even a solitary Crusoe passes through life alone. Everyone passes through it in fellowship with his higher self. That such fellowship is, in most cases, an unconscious one, is not enough to nullify it. That men may deny in faith or conduct even the very existence of their soul is likewise not enough to nullify it.
14.22.3.53So long as the Overself is sought elsewhere than where It is, as apart from the seeker himself, so long will the quest for it end in failure.
14.22.3.55The divine being is present in all people, from the crudest to the most cultured.
14.22.3.56The absence of the ego is the presence of the Overself. But this is only a surface impression in the person's thought, for the Overself is always present.
14.22.3.58We may have the intuitive assurance that this higher power does exist even when we have no personal experience of it and no direct knowledge of its nature.
14.22.3.59Amid all the perplexities and oscillations of life, the witnessing and understanding Overself waits with infinite patience. No one is ever left out. This is the only God we can hope to know, the true Teacher for all. Those who yearn to unite with it should plead persistently for its Grace.
14.22.3.60The Overself's power to alter circumstances, create opportunities, and uphold persons is available to anyone who fulfils the requisite conditions. These include some amount of mental preparation and moral purification, some clear perception of the fact that the Overself is present here and now, an instant and constant remembrance of this fact, and finally a willingness to trust completely to its providential help, supply, and support no matter how undesirable or intolerable a situation seems to be.
14.22.3.61There are resources within man's grasp that could redeem his character and transform his life, yet they lie untouched and undeveloped.
14.22.3.63The silent secret part of the self is forever there, forever asking a little surrender of attention. But few give it.
14.22.3.64All the time it is silently asking: “Will you not turn toward Me, accept Me, for I am your other self?”
14.22.3.65In one sense, we have never left the divine Source, never lost our divine identity.
14.22.3.66The Presence is inseparable from human existence, even though so many human beings may find the statement incredible, imaginative, or merely tied to a religious faith. If it would only announce itself more loudly! But mankind has to accept its ways on its own terms. Those who wish may learn what they are.
14.22.3.67There is something godlike in every person. By finding it in ourselves, we rise above the common human life as that in turn rises above the animal.
14.22.3.68And you will perceive that the Overself is always there, albeit you will have repeatedly to raise your eyes from earth and your mind from ego to come into realization of this truth.
14.22.3.69Because we draw our very life from the spiritual principle within us, we can only ignore the truth that this principle exists but can never lose its reality.
14.22.3.70God is both outside and inside us, is everywhere around and deep within. It is there but waits to be recovered by the individual consciousness.
14.22.3.72Where can he find this peace or practise this presence except in himself? This done, he can go about his daily business anywhere and everywhere.
14.22.3.73Jesus spoke in simple crisp sentences about this great fact that heaven--the state of real happiness--is within man even here and now.
14.22.3.74Deep within man there is Something which waits for his discovery, something which reveals itself when he has penetrated far enough or when grace grants it or karma favours it.
14.22.3.75This divine soul never withdraws from man’s life, is never absent from man’s fate. For the very purpose of these last two is to draw him to seek and find the soul.
14.22.3.76The truth is that never for a moment are we really separate from our inner self.
14.22.3.77The same Overself is behind us all, contains us all.
14.22.3.81This is the divine element whose continuing presence in man confers a guarantee of eventual salvation.
14.22.3.82In all of us there is this resplendent being dwelling in the deepest concealment, linking us with the Supreme Being.
14.22.3.83In its own perfect silence and with its own perfect patience, the Overself awaits us.
14.22.3.84The Overself can become very real to him when feeling its ever-presence in all his experience, when awake to its now-ness.
14.22.3.87The revelation of truth may come directly from within himself because of the presence of the divine spark within himself.
14.22.3.88It is a presence which can be felt directly in daily active life, although not so vividly as when removed from the world and concentrated upon in solitary meditation.
14.22.3.92The Overself is neither a cold metaphysical concept nor a passing wave of emotion. It is a Presence--sublime, sacred, and beneficent--which grips your heart, thought, and body by its own mysterious power, making you regard life from a nobler standpoint.
14.22.3.95Once you are clearly aware of the presence of the Overself, you will find that it will spontaneously provide you with a rule of conduct and a standard of ethics at all times and under all circumstances. Consequently you will never be at a loss to know what to do in difficult moral situations, nor how to behave in challenging ones. And with this knowledge will also come the power to implement it.
14.22.3.97When this contact with the Overself is established, its power will work for you: you will no longer go through the struggles of life alone.
14.22.3.98From this seeming nothingness deep within he draws a peace of mind, an emotional freedom, a sense of God’s living presence that the world's harshness cannot dislodge.
14.22.3.100The appearance of the sacred presence automatically extinguishes the lower desires. The holding on to that presence wherever he goes and whatever he does as if it were his real identity, will help to establish that release as a lasting fact.
14.22.3.101As he becomes more sensitive to the Overself's presence, he knows that he has only to turn to it to receive divine strength and nourishment.
14.22.3.102When all other sources of help have been tried, there is no other source left to man than the divine Overself, by whatever name he calls it or under whatever symbol he pictures it.
14.22.3.103Once the Overself is felt in the heart as a living presence, it raises the consciousness out of the grip of the egoistic-desire parts of our being, frees it from the ups and downs of mood and emotion which they involve. It provides a sense of inner satisfaction that is complete in itself and irrespective of outside circumstances.
14.22.3.104The extraordinary thing is not that he will feel the divine self is with him but that it has always been with him.
14.22.3.105“How quiet it is!” exclaimed Lao Tzu, in describing the Overself. “Yet it can transform all things.”
14.22.3.106The stillness has magical powers. It soothes, restores, heals, instructs, guides, and replaces chaos and tumult by orderliness and harmony.
14.22.3.107... The aspirant is not asked to abandon all thought of his particular self (as if he could) or to lose consciousness of it, but that he is asked to perceive its imperfection, its unsatisfactoriness, its faultiness, its baseness and its sinfulness and, in consequence of this perception, to give it up in favour of his higher self, with its perfection, blessedness, goodness, nobility, and wisdom. For in the lower ego he will never know peace whereas in the diviner one he will always know it.
14.22.3.108,There is much confusion of understanding about what happens to the ego when it attains the ultimate goal… The true unity is with one's own higher indestructible self…
14.22.3.108,Through his higher self, a man can attain the highest good.
14.22.3.110The concept of the Overself is foundational. It provides meaning for life.
14.22.3.111That man is verily ignorant who does not know that what the Overself can give him is immeasurably greater than what he can gain from any other source. For on the one side there is infinite power, on the other only limited capacity.
14.22.3.112In that benign atmosphere, negative thoughts cannot exist.
14.22.3.114He who has discovered how to live with his higher self has discovered a serenity which defies circumstance and environment, a goodness which is too deep for the world's understanding, a wisdom which transcends thought.
14.22.3.115Even in the midst of worldly distresses, he will feel the Overself's support to such an extent and in such a way that they will seem to be someone else's, with himself as a merely continuous spectator of them.
14.22.3.116To find the Overself is to eliminate fear, establish harmony, and inspire living.
14.22.3.118It is quite possible to open doors of inner being without the aid of a teacher. One´s own higher self will give him all the guidance he needs, provided he has sufficient faith in its existence and its assistance.
14.22.3.120Alone and depending on his little, personal ego, a man can do the merest fraction of what he can do when he becomes an instrument of the Infinite Power.
14.22.3.121When the star of a man's Overself rises into ascendancy, he will no more feel lonely even if he be often alone. A sense of the universe's friendliness will surround him, enfold him.
14.22.3.122He always turns for his first defense against the perils and troubles of this world to brief meditation upon the all-wise, all-powerful Overself, and only after that for his secondary defenses to the ego's human resources.
14.22.3.123From the outside, by means of events, persons, or books; from the inside, by means of intuitions, thoughts, feelings, and urges--this is how the way is shown him by the Overself.
14.22.3.124Out of this deep mysterious centre within himself, he will draw the strength to endure distresses with fortitude, the wisdom to manage situations without after-regrets, the insight to keep the great and little values of everyday living in proper perspective.
14.22.3.125If the consciousness of God in him makes him very strong, the consciousness of his dependence on it keeps him very humble.
14.22.3.127Because he has access to this inward source, he may live the loneliest of lives but it will not be loveless. The joy and warmth of its ever-presence will abide with him.
14.22.3.129In very truth the Overself becomes his beloved companion, bringing an intense satisfaction and profound love which no external friendship could ever bring.
14.22.3.130... When the outside world does him injustice or slanders him or hurts him or defrauds him, he turns inward, deeper and deeper inward, until he stands in the presence of the Overself. Then he finds absolute serenity, absolute love...
14.22.3.131We do not live self-sufficient and self-sustained lives but depend wholly on the Overself in every way and at every moment.
14.22.3.132Under great strain and amid grave dangers, the aspirant will find courage and endurance in the talismanic power of remembering the Higher Self. It is always there.
14.22.3.133It is from this source that he will draw both strength to rise above his own temptations and love to rise above other men’s hatred.
14.22.3.134It is the presence of the Overself in us that creates the germ of our aspirations for a higher life. It is the warm sunshine and cold rain of experience that nurtures the germ. It is the influence of spiritual individuals that brings the growth through its varying stages.
14.22.3.136All nerve tensions are lost in this holy quietude. An exquisite mood of well-being takes their place.
14.22.3.137He who perpetually feels the presence of the divine soul within himself, thereby obtains an effortless control of himself.
14.22.3.138Jallaluddin Rumi gave a beautiful and fitting name to the Higher Self in many of his poems. He called it “the Friend.”
14.22.3.140There is a sense of perfect safety, a sense which particularly and strongly reveals itself at times of danger, crisis, or distress.
14.22.3.141It is a fact more real than we usually grant that the continuous presence of the Overself makes men's satisfaction with wholly material living both impermanent and impossible.
14.22.3.142The extent of the peace and strength, the confidence and beneficence which lie stretched out beneath the little ego's troubled life is like unto the oceans: no other simile will suit.
14.22.3.143All his finest emotions, his deepest wisdom, his creative faculties, his truth-discriminating intuitions come into being because of the Overself’s central if hidden presence.
14.22.3.147Many will dispute this possibility, but it is certainly possible for your higher self to guide and instruct you directly—through and within yourself. It is not an existence far apart from yourself.
14.22.3.148The joy that emanates from the Overself has a healing quality. It dissipates anxieties and eradicates neuroses.
14.22.3.152Do not think so much of looking for outside help. Your Higher Self is with you. If you could have enough faith in its presence, you could look inwards. With persistence and patience, it would guide you.
14.22.3.154Where the ego fails or falters, the Overself proves equal to every occasion.
14.22.3.157Enfolded by that inner strength, one ceases to fear, to be anxious, or to dread the future.
14.22.3.158It is always there, always present in him although not always easily reachable. It is the secret centre of his being. This conscious contact with it gives a feeling of marvellous security, of mountain-like strength.
14.22.3.160The Overself is there and in its presence he becomes indifferent to the praise of friends or the venom of enemies.
14.22.3.165He will gain with time the sense of a Presence which walks with him and dwells in him. It is a guide with practical value, too, for it warns him what not to do if he would live ethically and avoid additional suffering. Even if he does not advance so far as perfect realization, he will advance.
14.22.3.167In this healing presence the past is washed away and old sins with it.
14.22.3.169Quite a number get a mysterious support and consolation from simply knowing at second hand that the Overself is there, even though they themselves cannot make any contact with it.
14.22.3.171There is some life-power from which we derive our capacities and our intelligence. It is hidden and intangible. No one has seen it but everyone who thinks deeply enough can sense that it is there, always present and always supporting us. It is the Overself.
14.22.3.175It is this grandeur of self that is the magnetic pole drawing us to the Good, the Beautiful, the Just, the True, and the Noble. Yet itself is above all these attributes for it is the Attributeless, the Ineffable, and Infinite that human thought cannot grasp.
14.22.3.178Both the inward and outward lives of every man are controlled by a concealed entity--the Overself. Could he but see aright, he would see that everything witnesses to its presence and activity.
14.22.3.179He will feel that this nobler self actually overshadows him at times. This is literally true. Hence we have named it the Overself.
14.22.3.180When man shall discover the hidden power within himself which enables him to be conscious and to think, he will discover the holy spirit, the ray of Infinite Mind lighting his little finite mind.
14.22.3.181This is the abiding essence of a man, his true self as against his ephemeral person. Whoever enters into its consciousness enters into timelessness, a wonderful experience where the flux of pleasures and pains comes to an end in utter serenity, where regrets for the past, impatience at the present, and fears of the future are unknown.
14.22.3.183Nothing could be nearer to a man than the Overself for it is the source of his life, mind, and feeling. Nothing could be farther from him, nevertheless, for it eludes all his familiar instruments of experience and awareness.
14.22.3.184Without the Overself no human creature could be what it is--conscious, living, and intelligent.
14.22.3.185Although awareness is the first way in which we can regard the soul or Overself, the latter is also that which makes awareness possible…
14.22.3.186,The Overself is certainly the Way (within man), the Truth (knowing the Real Being), and the Life (applying this knowledge and practising this way in the midst of ordinary everyday activity).
14.22.3.187We cannot accurately and strictly define the Overself. It is really indescribable, but its effects are not. The feeling of the Overself's presence and the way to awaken it may both be described for the benefit of those who have neither experienced the one nor learned the other.
14.22.3.188We can know the Overself only by being it, not by thinking it. It is beyond thoughts for it is Thought, Pure Mind, itself.
14.22.3.190Everything else can be known, as things and ideas are known, as something apart or possessed, but the Overself cannot be truly known in this way. Only by identifying oneself with It can this happen.
14.22.3.191That out of which we draw our life and intelligence is unique and indestructible, beginningless and infinite.
14.22.3.193It is not only the hidden and mysterious source of their own little self but also the unrecognized source of the only moments of real happiness that they ever have.
14.22.3.195What does the coming of Overself consciousness mean to man? It means, first of all, an undivided mind.
14.22.3.198Listen to the Roman Stoics' definition of the Overself: ”the divinity which is planted in his breast” of Marcus Aurelius; ”your guardian spirit” of Epictetus.
14.22.3.199At the centre of every man's being there is his imperishable soul, his guardian angel.
14.22.3.201The Overself is not merely a mental concept for all men but also a driving force for some men, not merely a pious pleasant feeling for those who believe in it but also a continuing vital experience for those who have lifted the ego's heavy door-bar.
14.22.3.202No one can explain what the Overself is, for it is the origin, the mysterious source, of the explaining mind, and beyond all its capacities. But what can be explained are the effects of standing consciously in its presence, the conditions under which it manifests, the ways in which it appears in human life and experience, the paths which lead to its realization.
14.22.3.203Let no one imagine that contact with the Overself is a kind of dreamy reverie or pleasant, fanciful state. It is a vital relationship with a current of peace, power, and goodwill flowing endlessly from the invisible centre to the visible self.
14.22.3.206Although it is true that the Overself is the real guardian angel of every human being, we should not be so foolish as to suppose its immediate intervention in every trivial affair. On the contrary, its care is general rather than particular, in the determination of long-term phases rather than day-by-day events. Its intervention, if that does occur, will be occasioned by or will precipitate a crisis.
14.22.3.207Knowledge of law, language, or history can be collected and becomes a possession but knowledge of the Overself is not at all the same. It is something one must be: it owns us, we do not have it.
14.22.3.212Stillness is both a sign that sense and thought, body and intellect, have been transcended and a symbol of the consciousness of the presence of the Overself.
14.22.3.213Just as the eye cannot see itself as a second thing apart, so the Overself (which you are) cannot objectify itself…
14.22.3.216,This is its mystery, that seeing all, it is itself seen by none.
14.22.3.218All that he knows and experiences are things in this world of the five senses. The Overself is not within their sphere of operation and therefore not to be known and experienced in the same way…
14.22.3.221,There is a sense of the total absence of time, a feeling of the unending character of one's inner being.
14.22.3.223The being which he finds at the end of this inner search is an anonymous one. He may ask for a name but he will not get one. He must be satisfied with the obscure response: I Am That I Am!”
14.22.3.224The Overself is there, but it is hidden within our conscious being. Only there, in this deep atmosphere, do we come upon the mirage-free Truth, the illusion-free Reality.
14.22.3.225There are deep places in men's hearts and minds into which they rarely venture. And yet treasures are hidden there—flashes of intuition, important revelations, extra strengths, and above all a peace out of this world.
14.22.3.226Yes, your guardian angel is always present and always the secret witness and recorder of your thoughts and deeds. Whether you go down into the black depths of hell or ascend to the radiant heights of heaven, you do not walk alone.
14.22.3.229Wherever they happen to be, in wide-scattered countries, widely different climates, and far-apart centuries, men have experienced this divine presence. What does this show? That it is not dependent on place and hour, not subject to the laws of space-time.
14.22.3.230Deep down in the mind and feeling of man is the mysterious godlike Essence seemingly too deep—alas!—for the ordinary man, who therefore lets himself be content with hearing from others about it and thus only at second hand.
14.22.3.231If we believe in or know of the reality of the Overself, we must also believe or know that our everyday, transient life is actively rooted in its timeless being.
14.22.3.232There is a godlike thing within us which theology calls the spirit and which, because it is also a portion of the higher power within the universe, I call the Overself. He is wise indeed who takes it as his truest guide and makes it his protective guardian.
14.22.3.235In the end, after many a life on earth, he will find that much of what he looks for in others will have to be found in himself. But it will not be found in the surface self. It lies deeply submerged, in a region where the purest forms exist.
14.22.3.236The Overself is not only the best part of himself but also the unalterable part.
14.22.3.239Although the Overself does not think, its presence makes thinking possible, and although it does not register on our five senses, it makes all sense-impressions possible.
14.22.3.241We cannot see, hear, or touch without the mind. But the mind, in its turn, cannot function or even exist without the Overself.
14.22.3.242It is from the Overself that every true prophet receives his power. ”I of myself am nothing,” confessed Jesus.
14.22.3.243The Overself does not evolve and does not progress. These are activities which belong to time and space. It is nowhere in time and nowhere in space. It is Here, in this deep beautiful and all-pervading calm, that a man finds his real identity.
14.22.3.245Everything that exists in time must also exist in change. The Overself does not exist in time and is not subject to change.
14.22.3.246Do not insult the Higher Power by calling it unconscious; it is not only fully conscious but also fully intelligent. Your real Self, which is this power, needs neither commands nor instructions from the physical brain.
14.22.3.247The Overself is not anyone’s private property.
14.22.3.248There is no way of showing the Overself for anyone’s examination. Since the ego comes out of the Overself, the only way it can see it again is to go back into it.
14.22.3.251Miguel de Molinos: ”The Soul is a pure Spirit and does not feel herself. Its acts are not perceptible.”
14.22.3.252Somewhere at the hidden core of man's being there is light, goodness, power, and tranquillity.
14.22.3.257The infinite divine life dwells within all embodied creatures, therefore in all mankind. It is the final source of his feelings and his consciousness, however limited they are here in the body itself.
14.22.3.258There is nothing else like it; nothing with which the Overself could be compared.
14.22.3.259The Overself has no form to be pictured and weighed, measured and numbered; it makes no movement to be timed and no sound to be registered on the ear drum.
14.22.3.260There is more within him of the good than a man suspects, even though experience may make him believe otherwise. But it lies in a deeper layer, hence it needs a longer time to bring it up.
14.22.3.268The Christ-self who was in Jesus is in us too.
14.22.3.275That which is within us as the Overself, being godlike, is out of time and eternal.
14.22.3.283There is something within him which is without personal existence, without a name, and without scrutable face. It is the Overself.
14.22.3.284It is ”the sacred spirit dwelling within us, observer and guardian of all our evil and our good” of Seneca.
14.22.3.287It is inaccessible to the intellect, unknowable by ordinary egoistic man. Yet there are some into whose consciousness It has entered.
14.22.3.291It is the presence of the Overself within us which makes more consciousness possible, whether it be the consciousness of the dream or the consciousness of waking.
14.22.3.295There are two biblical quotations, one from the Song of Solomon and one from Saint Paul, that accurately refer to the Overself. This indeed is the real soul of man, whose finding here and now, during our life on earth, is the task silently set us by life itself.
14.22.3.296The Overself is truly our guardian angel, ever with us and never deserting us. It is our invisible saviour. But we must realize that it seeks primarily to save us not from suffering but from the ignorance which is the cause of our suffering.
14.22.3.301This particular function of the Overself was known also to the more percipient among men of the Middle Ages and of antiquity. Thus Epictetus: “Zeus hath placed by the side of each, a man’s own Guardian Spirit, who is charged to watch over him.”
14.22.3.302We found it necessary, in the interests of greater precision and better exposition, to restrict the term "Overself" to represent the ultimate reality of man, and to introduce the term "World-Mind" to represent the ultimate reality of the universe.
14.22.3.304The Overself is the representative of God in man.
14.22.3.305The Overself is a part of World-Mind. Whereas World-Mind is beyond human capacity to know, the Overself is within that capacity.
14.22.3.306That point in man where the two worlds of being--infinite and finite--can be said to touch, is Overself.
14.22.3.307The Overself is so close to God, so akin to the World-Mind, that no man need look farther, or aspire higher.
14.22.3.309The Overself is the highest point in the human being; it is there where he can find himself made in the image of God.
14.22.3.310There is some point in each individual being where the human and the divine must join, where man's little consciousness bends low before, or blends subtly with, the Universal Mind which is his ultimate source. It is impossible to describe that intersection in any terms which shall adequately fit it, but it can be named. In philosophy it is the Overself.
14.22.3.314The essence of man is his Overself, which is an emanation from Mind.
14.22.3.315Here is the focal point of all spiritual searching, here man meets God.
14.22.3.316The Overself is the point where the One Mind is received into consciousness. It is the “I” freed from narrowness, thoughts, flesh, passion, and emotion--that is, from the personal ego.
14.22.3.317That point where man meets the Infinite is the Overself, where he, the finite, responds to what is absolute, ineffable and inexhaustible Being, where he reacts to That which transcends his own existence—this is the Personal God he experiences and comes into relation with. In this sense his belief in such a God is justifiable.
14.22.3.318Overself is the inner or true self of man, reflecting the divine being and attributes. The Overself is an emanation from the ultimate reality but is neither a division nor a detached fragment of it. It is a ray shining forth but not the sun itself.
14.22.3.319It is true that the nature of God is inscrutable and that the laws of God are inexorable. But it is also true that the God-linked soul of man is accessible and its intuitions available.
14.22.3.320This divine self is the unkillable and unlosable soul, forever testifying to the source, whence it came.
14.22.3.321That point of contact in consciousness where man first feels God and later vanishes into God, is the Overself.
14.22.3.323The Overself is a part of the One Infinite Life-Power as the dewdrop is a part of the ocean.
14.22.3.324… It was a simple shepherd on Mount Horeb who, during a glimpse, asked “Who art Thou?” Came the answer: “I am He Who IS!”
14.22.3.325,The World-Mind’s reflection in us is the Overself.
14.22.3.328The thoughts and feelings which flow like a river through our consciousness make up the surface self. But underneath them there is a deeper self which, being an emanation from divine reality, constitutes our true self.
14.22.3.329That which I call the Overself is intermediate between the ordinary human and the World-Mind. It includes man's higher nature but stretches into what is above him, the divine.
14.22.3.330That which connects the individual man to the Universal Spirit, I call the Overself. This connection can never be broken. Its existence is the chief guarantee that there is hope of salvation for all, not merely for those who think their group alone will be granted it.
14.22.3.331It is his own greater self, his Overself, that he thus experiences, although he may be so overwhelmed by its mysterious Power, so awed by its ethereality, that he usually believes--and names--it God. And in one mode of meaning, his belief is not without justification. For at the core of the experience, he, the atom within the World-Mind, receives the revelation that it is ever there and, more, ever supporting him.
14.22.3.332It is this, the deepest part of his being, his final essential self, which is a man's Overself, and which links him with the World-Mind. It is this Presence within which evokes all his spiritual quality.
14.22.3.333Epictetus helps us to understand, and our intellect to define, the Overself. ”Do you not know,” he says, ”that you carry a god within you? . . . You are a distinct portion of the essence of God and contain a part of Him within yourself.”
14.22.3.335... The Overself is conscious of our joys and sorrows without itself sharing them. It is aware of our sense-experience without itself being physically sentient. Those who wonder how this is possible should reflect that a man awakened from a nightmare is aware once again in the form of a revived memory of what he suffered and what he sensed but yet does not share again either the suffering or the sensations.
14.22.3.337,... The Overself is present in each individual self as the witness and as the unchanging consciousness which gives consciousness to the individual.
14.22.3.338,The “I” is immeasurably greater than the ego which it projects or than the intellect, which the ego uses.
14.22.3.339The normal man thinks he is body plus mind, with emphasis on the body. But self-questioning and analysis show that, although he certainly has these two things and is certainly associated with them, the “I” is in fact neither of them. It is, by contrast, not changing and quite elusive. It is not in space, as the body is, nor in time, as the mind is. It is, in fact, a mystery…
14.22.3.340,All that anyone basically possesses unlost through all his life is his “I.” All that he really is, is this same “I.” The physical body, although seemingly inseparable from it, is something lived in and used, as a house is lived in and a tool is used.
14.22.3.341To look at a man and at his life from the outside is only to see half the man. To look at them from the inside is to see the other half. Put these two fragments together and there is the whole man. Or so it would seem. But what if behind his thoughts and feelings there were still another self of an utterly different kind and quality? And this exactly is his situation. He does not know all of himself, and he understands it even less. Those who have been privileged to look behind the veil can only urge him to recognize this incompleteness and teach him what steps to take to overcome it.
14.22.3.342The divine soul in us is utterly above and unaffected by the sense impressions. If we become conscious of it, we also become conscious of a supersensual order of existence.
14.22.3.343When we come to see that it is the body alone that expresses the coming into life and the going into death, that in the true self there is neither a beginning nor an ending but rather LIFE itself, we shall see aright.
14.22.3.345No men are without their sense of the Overself, but they miscomprehend and therefore misapply it. The result is that ego, the little part, is conceived to be the whole, the All.
14.22.3.346Here in the ego we may perceive a reproduction of the sacred Overself under the limitations of time and space. Whoever grasps this great truth knows henceforth that this Overself is no more distant from him than his own heart and that what he calls ”I” is inseparably united with what men call God.
14.22.3.349His higher self is not polluted by his own pollutions any more than sunlight is affected by the foul places in which it often shines.
14.22.3.351The higher self affects the ego but is not affected by it. Its existence goes on quite independently of the serialized earth appearances of the ego, and persists when the other ceases …
14.22.3.352,Just as space is unaffected equally by the evil deeds or virtuous actions of men, so the Overself is unaffected by the character or conduct of the ego. It is neither made worse by the ego's wrong-doing nor better by its righteousness.
14.22.3.353”I am the way, the Truth,” announced Jesus. Who is this I? In the narrow and shallower sense it is the master. In the broader and deeper sense, it is the Christ-self within, the spiritual consciousness.
14.22.3.354Why did Jesus say, ”I and my Father are one,” but yet a little later add, ”The Father is greater than I”? The answer is that Jesus the man had attained complete harmony with his higher Self and felt himself one with it, but the universal Christ-principle will always be greater than the man himself; the Overself will always transcend the person.
14.22.3.355It is an entity greater, nobler, wiser, and stronger than himself yet mysteriously and inseparably linked to himself; it is indeed his super-self.
14.22.3.357Our bodies are born at some point of time and somewhere in space but their essence, the Overself, is birthless, timeless, and placeless.
14.22.3.358The personal pronoun “I” really represents the Overself, the divine part of man. What people usually refer to as “I”—the body or the intellect or the emotions—is not the basic “I” at all.
14.22.3.362Just as there is a sun hidden behind the sun, the divinity which animates it, so in the human being there is a Mind within the mind—and that is his Overself.
14.22.3.364The personality is always limited and chained, the higher individuality always infinite and free.
14.22.3.365Each man is the expression of this infinite life-power.
14.22.3.366There is a deeper level of every man's mind which is not subject to his passions, not moved by his desires, not affected by his senses.
14.22.3.369The Overself is the Higher mind in man, his divine soul as distinguished from his human-animal nature. It is the same as Plato's ”nous.”
14.22.3.372The true unchanging self is apart from any historical era and is not dependent on outer changes of custom and form.
14.22.3.373The aim of the mystic is to know what he is, apart from his physical body, his lower emotion, his personal ego; it is to know his inner-most self. When this aim is successfully realized, he knows then with perfect certitude that he is a ray of the divine sun.
14.22.3.374How shall he know and understand that this very awareness, of which so small is the fragment that he experiences, is a limited and conditioned part of the Great Awareness itself, of God?
14.22.3.375There, within and yet behind his personal consciousness, is this other sphere of his own being into which he must one day be re-born …
14.22.3.377,There is only one Overself for the whole race, but the point of contact with it is special and unique, and constitutes man's higher individuality.
14.22.3.381Whereas every human personality is different in its characteristics from every other one, no human Overself is different in its characteristics from any other one. The seekers of all times and all places have always found one and the same divine being when they found the Overself.
14.22.3.382This Overself is everywhere one and the same for all men. The experience of rising into awareness of it does not differ in actuality from one man to another, but the purity with which he absorbs it, interprets it, understands it, does …
14.22.3.383,This is the paradox, that the Overself is at once universal and individual. It is the first because it overshadows all men as a single power. It is the second because it is found by each man within himself. It is both space and the point in space. It is infinite Spirit and yet it is also the holy presence in everyone's heart.
14.22.3.384The mysterious character of the Overself inevitably puzzles the intellect. We may appreciate it better if we accept the paradoxical fact that it unites a duality and that therefore there are two ways of thinking of it, both correct. There is the divine being which is entirely above all temporal concerns, absolute and universal, and there is also the demi-divine being which is in historical relation with the human ego.
14.22.3.386At the end of all its adventures, the lower self may indeed have to go, but the indestructible higher self will not go. In this sense there is no utter annihilation of the individual, no complete mergence of it into an all-swallowing ocean of cosmic consciousness…
14.22.3.389,... Human beings are rooted in the ultimate mind through the Overself, which therefore partakes on the one hand of a relationship with a vibratory world and on the other of an existence which is above all relations...
14.22.3.390,If we are to think correctly, we cannot stop with thinking of the Overself as being only within us. After this idea has become firmly established for its metaphysical and devotional value, we must complete the concept by thinking of the Overself as being also without us. If in the first concept it occupies a point in space, in the second one it is beyond all considerations of place.
14.22.3.391We may take comfort in the fact that the Overself never at any moment abandons or obliterates the human personality, however debased it becomes. Nor could it do so, whatever foolish cults say to the contrary, for through this medium it finds an expression in time-space.
14.22.3.392... The mysterious relationship between the ego and the Overself has been expressed by Jesus in the following words: ”The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father.”
14.22.3.393,The dictionary defines individuality as separate and distinct existence. Both the ego and the Overself have such an existence. But whereas the ego has this and nothing more, the Overself has this consciousness within the universal existence. That is why we have called it the higher individuality.
14.22.3.394The fact that after awaking the mind picks up the thoughts of the day before, that the individuality connects with the old individuality of pre-sleep, proves the continuity of existence of a part of Self both during sleep as during waking.
14.22.3.395Every situation in human life can be approached from two possible points of view. The first is the limited one and is that of the personal self. The second is the larger one and is that of Universal Self. The larger and longer view always justifies itself in the end.
14.22.3.396We must not imagine that the subordination of this sense of personal identity leads to any loss of consciousness—rather the reverse. Man becomes more, not less, for he emerges into the fullness and freedom of one universal life. He thinks of himself as: ”I, A.B., am a point within the Overself,” whereas before he only thought: ”I am A.B.”
14.22.3.398As a wave sinks back into the sea, so the consciousness which passes out of the personal self sinks back into its higher individuality.
14.22.3.402There is no other way to settle doubts concerning the soul with incontestable certainty than the way of getting personal knowledge of it by a mystical glimpse.
14.22.3.404Even when a man denies the Overself and thinks it out of his view of life, he is denying and thinking by means of the Overself's own power--attenuated and reflected though it be. He is able to reject the divine presence with his mind only because it is already in his mind.
14.22.3.405There is a long line of testimony, to which I must add my own, that the Overself is no metaphysical abstraction or mystical hallucination but a living and inspiring, if uncommon, part of human experience. To know it is to know one's best self.
14.22.3.407The Overself is not something imagined or supposed. Its presence is definitely felt.
14.22.3.408When we realize that the intellect can put forth as many arguments against this theme as for it, we realize that there is in the end only one perfect proof of the Overself's existence. The Overself must prove itself. This can come about faintly through the intuition or fully through the mystical experience.
14.22.3.410Testimony to the existence and reality of the glimpse will be found in the literatures of all peoples through all times. It is not a newly manufactured idea, nor a newly manufactured fancy. A man who denies it is foolish so to limit his own possibilities, but he may learn better with time.
14.22.3.413… These glimpses are personal experiences which help to confirm the truth of the impersonal bases underneath them and which encourage us to continue on the same path.
14.22.3.414,The Overself is a living reality. Nobody would waste his years, his endeavours, and his energies in its quest if it were merely an intellectual concept or an emotional fancy.
14.22.3.415The Overself is not only a necessary conception of logical thought. It is also a beautiful fact of personal experience.
14.22.3.416There are three signs, among others, of the Soul's presence in a Soul-denying generation. They are: moral conscience, artistic imagination, and metaphysical speculation.
14.22.3.417That the Overself is not the product of an inflated imagination but has a real existence, is a truth which any man who has the required patience and submits to the indispensable training may verify himself.
14.22.3.420To the man of insight there is something strange, ironic, and yet pathetic in the spectacle of those who turn the consciousness and the understanding derived from Overself against the acknowledgment of Its existence.
14.22.3.422Because he regards the theory and practice of his subject from the inside, the mystic can discuss it with a correctness and authority which most critics do not possess because they are outside it ...
14.22.3.423,Deep within his own heart, hidden within his own consciousness, every person carries all the evidence for the truth of these teachings that he or she is ever likely to need.
14.22.3.429Do these moods of utter tranquillity have to repeat themselves again and again to convince doubting man that there is indeed a state of consciousness beyond the everyday so-called normal one?
14.22.3.429,At such times, unexpected and unsought though the glimpses are, he feels the nearness of God, the love of God, the reality of God. Whoever ventures to call them delusions is himself deluded.
14.22.3.431Not only philosophy, but the teaching of all seers like Krishna and Jesus, would have to be pronounced fraudulent if the Overself were not a fact.
14.22.3.433Men who pronounce judgements or write opinions upon mysticism without actual and personal experience of its mental states and phenomena, who interpret it only from the outside and only as observers, cannot be reliable authorities on the subject.
14.22.3.435There is only one way to settle his question of whether the Overself exists ... Each must gain for himself the authentic mystical experience ...
14.22.3.437,Those who have had this overwhelming experience require no arguments to make them believe in the soul. They know that they are the soul.
14.22.3.438An experience which is so convincing, so real, that no intellectual argument to the contrary can stand against it, is final. Let others say what they will, he remains unswayed.
14.22.3.439
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14 10 2010
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1 8 2012
18 8 2016
14 6 2024
27 8 2011
17 3 2022
7 2 2012
16 1 2018
20 9 2013
21 2 2011
9 11 2014
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12 10 2010
1 1 2011
24 3 2019
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27 1 2011
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24 11 2010
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1 4 2016
28 9 2013
13 1 2025
7 5 2019
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7 5 2011
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9 5 2023
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28 11 2016
9 11 2018
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28 11 2021
1 2 2012
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11 10 2010
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23 2 2014
3 2 2025
3 11 2014
4 3 2014
10 6 2011
1 12 2021
29 1 2011
11 4 2014
12 9 2019
1 7 2019
21 11 2014
14 10 2011
6 5 2013
19 10 2023
29 8 2011
26 6 2017
8 3 2015
11 10 2011
28 12 2017
10 1 2018
14 8 2018
15 3 2014
9 3 2021
20 3 2014
10 8 2015
19 2 2025
4 9 2012
1 3 2013
19 2 2021
19 1 2018
26 2 2024
10 11 2013
28 1 2018
9 11 2010
14 4 2011
29 5 2019
26 2 2025
23 10 2023
17 3 2019
22 7 2011
28 10 2018
10 6 2017
2 6 2017
6 2 2014
2 12 2010
23 8 2014
20 11 2016
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6 4 2022
26 5 2022
4 6 2019
27 11 2010
21 8 2021
1 11 2010
2 11 2017
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4 3 2019
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28 8 2011
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23 10 2010
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23 1 2014
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23 10 2011
23 4 2017
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4 6 2024
11 3 2012
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27 10 2020
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3 7 2023
24 2 2019
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6 11 2010
21 10 2021
8 6 2022
23 4 2021
16 8 2023
20 2 2020
17 3 2013
8 7 2020
13 9 2014
24 2 2014
16 12 2021
15 9 2014
9 11 2012
19 9 2022
11 11 2010
29 6 2014
19 9 2014
22 5 2014
26 1 2016
20 6 2019
19 9 2012
22 4 2023
9 2 2014
15 4 2024
7 4 2021
31 8 2024
14 11 2010
18 12 2015
2 2 2020
1 2 2020
20 1 2012
26 7 2015
29 2 2024
20 5 2011
22 7 2024
28 4 2017
7 12 2011
24 1 2012
5 2 2020
28 5 2017
3 2 2020
16 6 2016
7 10 2022
4 2 2020
6 2 2020
17 6 2017
5 2 2018
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