The Library
It is true that illumination of itself exalts character and ennobles feeling, purifies thought and spiritualizes action. But if there has been insufficient effort along these lines, then the illumination will only be temporary.
14.22.8.5Listen Too soon he will find that the rebirth was not a durable spiritual event but a temporary one. It offered a picture of something for which, from then on, he must start working in earnest. It was a glimpse only but it provided testimony, evidence, confirmation.
14.22.8.6Listen These flashes of light, peace, bliss, and understanding are brief but they have the intended effect. They encourage the aspirant to continue his quest and they implant in him a deep yearning to gain entry into the world to which they belong. They will be brief because the ordinary condition of thought and feeling is still far below the exalted condition revealed during these flashes. In other words, he has still to toil away at self-improvement so as to deserve the treasures which have been momentarily shown him.
14.22.8.13Listen Between the seeker and the Overself, between his mind and Truth, there is a thick layer of desires, egoisms, passions, opinions, and imaginings. Until he cuts through it—which means until he denies and resists himself in these matters—he may not expect more than Glimpses which fade away.
14.22.8.14Listen The belief that he can do nothing to hold this glimpse or keep this mood settles on him through repeated experience. But it is not quite correct. Philosophy points out that he can thin down or remove altogether the causes of such evanescence.
14.22.8.15Listen If it is to be a continuous light that stays with him and not a fitful flash, he will need first, to cast all negative tendencies, thoughts, and feelings entirely out of his character; second, to make good the insufficiencies in his development; third, to achieve a state of balance between his faculties.
14.22.8.16Listen If he cannot keep this higher consciousness, it is because his lower and earthly nature is strong enough to rise again and block the way. When the purificatory lessons are learned it will then be possible for him, by self-effort and self-development, to regain this experience--at first temporarily and occasionally, but if he works correctly and Grace sanctions, permanently.
14.22.8.19Listen In each of these glimpses, his quest attains a minor climax, for each is a step towards full illumination.
14.22.8.20Listen It is a kind of pre-vision in which he sees, as Moses saw the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land toward which he journeys.
14.22.8.21Listen It must be remembered that the glimpse is not the goal of life. It is a happening, something which begins and ends, but something which is of immense value in contributing to the philosophic life, its day-to-day consciousness, its ordinary stabilized nature. Philosophic life is established continuously and permanently in the divine presence; the glimpse comes and goes within that presence …
14.22.8.23,Listen It would be unreasonable to expect anyone to give up his worldly attachments until he sees something more worthwhile. Consequently his soul gives him a foretaste, as it were, through these ecstatic moments and brief enlightenments, of its own higher values.
14.22.8.25Listen That glimpse is his initiation into the spiritual life and therefore into the sacrificial life. It is but the first step in a long process wherein he will have to part with his lower tendencies, give up his ignoble passions, surrender his baser inclinations, and renounce egoistic views.
14.22.8.26Listen … According to Islamic mystics, called Sufis, there are three main stations along the path—The first is annihilation of the ego; the second is rebirth in the Overself; and the third is fully grown union with the Overself. The Sufis assert that this final state can never be reached without the Grace of the Higher Power and that it is complete, lasting, and unchangeable.
14.22.8.28,Listen If illumination does not become permanent, if it does not stay with its host, that is because it does not find a proper place within him for such abiding stay. His heart is still too impure, his character still too imperfect for the consciousness of the Overself to associate constantly with him.
14.22.8.29Listen He must finish what he has started. He must go on until the peace, the understanding, the strength, and the benevolence of these rare uplifted moods have become a continuous presence within him.
14.22.8.30Listen We cannot see the Truth and still be what we were before we saw it. That is why Truth comes in glimpses, for we cannot sustain staying away from ourselves too long, that is to say, from our egos.
14.22.8.31Listen When he is willing to let go of the self-centered ego and the grace can manifest, there may be this union with his higher nature, with the Overself. It is usually not a permanent experience but the possibility of its becoming one is always there. Then the new outlook seems perfectly natural.
14.22.8.33A continuous insight, present all the time, is the goal, not a passing glimpse.
14.22.8.35The glimpse is a precious thing but it is not enough. The man who has had it has also a new problem: how to find it again and how to turn it into an all-time state of mind, continuing through all kinds of circumstances and experiences. And how can he bring his everyday life into harmony with it?
14.22.8.41Listen No glimpse is ever full and complete. If it were, the person experiencing it would be unable to fall into spiritual ignorance again. From this we may understand that however wonderful a glimpse of the Overself may be, it is still only a cloudy reflection of the real thing.
14.22.8.48Listen These glimpses may be looked upon as brief, minor illuminations leading to the final major illumination that will quash the ego's rule forever.
14.22.8.53Listen In spite of itself the ego is drawn more and more to the spiritual grandeur revealed by these glimpses. Its ties to selfishness, animality, and materiality are loosened. Finally it comes to see that it is standing in its own way and light and then lets itself be effaced.
14.22.8.55Listen An intermittent enlightenment which comes like this in moments is only a step on the way. He should not be satisfied with it. Nothing short of total enlightenment which is permanent, constant, and ever-present ought to be his goal.
14.22.8.58Listen In these glimpses he only looks at the Infinite Beauty, but in the final realization he becomes unified with it.
14.22.8.62Listen Once he has experienced the glimpse he will understand why his next goal is to experience it again, and why his final goal is to attain it in permanence.
14.22.8.63Listen Since there are no negative emotions in the Overself, how can it stay in the same breast as an ego filled with them? This is why the glimpse can be only a brief one, and why it can be stretched into permanency only by first cleansing the nature of all negatives.
14.22.8.67Listen … If his own work is fully and faithfully done, the time comes when the power to prolong a glimpse is at the disciple's command…
14.22.8.72,Listen The higher awareness falls like pollen for a few short hours, perhaps, only to be blown away for long years. Yet this intervening period need not be wasted. It should be used to cut down the obstructions in his character and to fill up the deficiencies in his equipment. This done, he will grow more and more into his spiritual selfhood with every return to temporary awareness of it.
14.22.8.73Listen The glimpse will be lengthened when he himself develops: it will then no longer be abnormal, or supernormal, but a constant experience.
14.22.8.78Listen The more he gives himself up to the Overself as a consequence of these glimpses of what it requires of him, the sooner will their transience be transformed into permanence.
14.22.8.83Listen ... The philosophical seeker incessantly returns to the remembrance of the glimpse, uses it to work continuously at the transformation of his self and never lets go of the vision.
14.22.8.88,Listen It is possible to be open to one's best inner self, aware of its presence, its beauty and peace. And this possibility can be not only realized but also naturalized. It can become one's normal condition.
14.22.8.90Listen … More and more its light will enter his mind …
14.22.8.91,Listen Since it is a glimpse only, and not a completed experience, he ought not to expect his own person and personal life to be completely transformed.
14.22.8.94,Listen This is his further task, to infuse the beauty and tranquillity, the unworldliness and immaterialism of the glimpse into his ordinary everyday life.
14.22.8.95Listen He who experiences it only intermittently may guess from this how wonderful his existence would be if he were able to experience it constantly.
14.22.8.98Listen These glimpses come quite fitfully. Rare is the person to whom the Light comes and stays, day after day, year after year. Most have to work on, with, and by themselves to convert this momentary experience into the ever-present feeling of living in the Overself.
14.22.8.100Listen It is man's highest happiness to stay in this heaven of Consciousness all the time, not merely catch a glimpse of it, wonderful though that be.
14.22.8.101Listen The joyous awareness evoked for a short period is a foretaste of what will one day be manifested continuously.
14.22.8.103Listen He can then say truthfully, knowing whereof he speaks: “A divine element lives in me!” Far though this has taken him from the ordinary good man or ordinary pious man, it is not enough. He needs to go further so that he can attain the place where, obedient, purified, conscious of the World-Idea, he can add: “This element now works in me.” With that the ego’s tyranny falls away.
14.22.8.104Listen ... The momentary glimpse of the true self is not the ultimate experience. There is another yet more wonderful lying ahead. In this he will be bound by invisible hoops of wide selfless compassion to all living creatures…
14.22.8.107,Listen … New life has come to birth within himself but it is still in the embryonic stage. These glimpses make him aware of the existence of his spiritual self but do not make him united with that self. They fulfil their chief purpose if they awaken him from sleep in the senses or deceit by the intellect…
14.22.8.107,Listen … The idea that he has a higher self, the conviction that he has a soul, breaks in upon his little existence with great revelatory force, and he feels he is emerging into glorious light after a dreary journey through a long dark tunnel…
14.22.8.107,Listen … The felicitous experience of the Overself may come briefly during meditation. It comes abruptly. At one moment the student is his ordinary egoistic self, struggling with his restless thoughts and turbulent feelings; at the next the ego suddenly subsides, and every faculty becomes quiescent. All the disciple has to do is to be nonresistant to the divinity which is taking possession of him, to receive lovingly and not strive laboriously…
14.22.8.107,Listen … Nobody is likely to be content permanently with but a mere glimpse of reality; he wants also to live it. He is not likely, and he should not be satisfied with these transient inspirations. Constant spiritual awareness should be his distant yet attainable goal…
14.22.8.107,Listen … To that diviner self thus glimpsed, he must henceforth address all his prayers; through its remembrance he must seek succour; in its reliance he must perform all his endeavors; by its light he must plead for grace…
14.22.8.107,Listen … The glimpse is a fleeting one because he is still too unprepared to remain abidingly in such a lofty order of being… But he who has once seen the goal, felt its sublimity, discerned its reality, enjoyed its beauty, and known its security, should draw from the experience the strength needed for the hard upward climb.
14.22.8.107,Listen … The higher self will not yield to him completely before he has entirely detached himself from his lower nature…
14.22.8.107,Listen … The purpose of this brief glimpse is to call him to more serious, more frequent, and sterner efforts, and to arouse in him increased ardours of moral self-improvement. It has shown him his finest potentialities of virtue; now he has to realize them…
14.22.8.107,Listen … the bodily position in which the flash catches him should not be changed in any way. All kinds of excuses for such a change will be suggested by the ever restless lower mentality, but they should be resisted and refused. Even the pretext that it would be better to go to his usual place of meditation should be unacceptable. The contemplation should start and continue to its close in the very spot where the light first flashed …
14.22.8.107,Listen … A deep serenity unknown before takes possession of him, and an exquisite calm settles over him. In these moments of joyous beauty, the bitterest past is blotted out…
14.22.8.107,Listen … For the Overself to give itself wholly and perpetually to a man is a rare and wonderful event. Most often it gives itself only for a short time. This serves to intensify and enlarge his love and attraction for it, and to provide him with beautiful memories to support and sustain him in faithfulness to the quest in the fatiguing long-drawn years of struggle and darkness …
14.22.8.107,Listen … In his enthusiasm and ecstasy, the student may believe he has been granted the ineffable cosmic consciousness and will enjoy it for the rest of his lifetime. But such an event is an exceedingly rare one. He will find instead he has been granted only a brief foretaste of its memorable sweetness, a momentary touch of its awakening hand …
14.22.8.107,Listen When the state of egolessness is first reached, it will be in deep meditation. The second stage of its development will be when it is temporarily reached in active life, the third and last when it is established there.
14.22.8.111Listen When the Grace has led him sufficiently far, he will be distinctly aware of an inner presence. It will think for him, feel for him, and even act for him. This is the beginning of, and what it means to have, an egoless life.
14.22.8.112
2 Aug 2023
27 Sep 2011
5 Mar 2020
12 Oct 2022
10 May 2024
12 Mar 2020
22 Feb 2017
25 Jan 2013
19 Oct 2024
24 Oct 2022
21 Jul 2019
8 Jun 2019
20 Jun 2022
17 Jul 2015
10 Jan 2016
16 Nov 2016
26 Apr 2011
17 Apr 2011
16 Jul 2014
26 Jun 2011
2 Aug 2016
16 Aug 2019
27 Jul 2011
8 Oct 2018
14 Jul 2011
12 Apr 2020
29 May 2018
26 Nov 2014
6 Sep 2024
30 Jan 2014
28 Nov 2013
10 Apr 2020
31 May 2021
28 Jul 2019
30 Sep 2022
6 Sep 2021
15 Mar 2019
11 Jan 2021
31 Aug 2022
13 Jan 2024
2 Jul 2012
4 May 2017
5 Jul 2017
10 Aug 2017
10 May 2018
30 Nov 2018
4 Sep 2019
27 Sep 2019
10 Jun 2020
2 Mar 2021
21 May 2022
28 Jan 2024
3 Feb 2024
30 Jun 2017
5 Apr 2011
The notebooks are copyright © 1984-1989 The Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation
This site is run by Paul Brunton-stiftelsen · info@paulbruntondailynote.se