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...In order to understand the short path, it might be helpful to compare it to the long path which consists of a series of exercises and efforts which gradually develops concentration and character and knowledge. But the long path does not lead to the goal. On the long path you often measure your own progress. It is an endless path because there will always be new circumstances which bring new temptations and trials and confront the aspirant with new challenges...
15.23.5.2,...The moment such negative ideas and feelings appear, then instead of using the long path method of concentrating on the opposite kind of thought, such as calmness instead of anger, the short path way simply drops the negative idea into the Void, the Nothingness, and forgets it. Now such a change can only be brought about by doing it quickly and firmly and turning to the Overself...
15.23.5.2,...The short path is not an exercise but an inner standpoint to invoke, a state of consciousness where one comes closer or finds peace in the Overself. There are, however, two exercises (”The remembrance exercise” and ”The as if exercise”) which can be of help to lead to the short path, but they have quite a different character than the exercises on the long path...
15.23.5.2,...The ”remembrance exercise” consists of trying to recall the glimpse of the Overself, not only during the set meditation periods but also in each moment during the whole working span of the day--in the same way as a mother who has lost her child can not let go of the thought of it no matter what she is doing outwardly, or as a lover who constantly holds the vivid image of the beloved in the back of his mind. In a similar way, you keep the memory of the Overself alive during this exercise and let it shine in the background while you go about your daily work. But the spirit of the exercise is not to be lost. It must not be mechanical and cold. The time may come later when the remembrance will cease as a consciously and deliberately willed exercise and pass by itself into a state which will be maintained without the help of the ego's will...
15.23.5.2,...The remembrance is a necessary preparation for the second exercise, in which you try to obtain an immediate identification with the Overself. Just as an actor identifies with the role he plays on the stage, you act think and live during the daily life ”as if” you were the Overself. This exercise is not merely intellectual but also includes feeling and intuitive action. It is an act of creative imagination in which by turning directly to playing the part of the Overself you make it possible for its grace to come more and more into your life.
15.23.5.2,... After some measure of this preparation the aspirants enter the short path to complete this work. This takes a comparatively much shorter time and, as it has the possibility of yielding the full self-enlightenment at any moment, it ends suddenly. What they are trying to do on the long path continues by itself once they have entered fully on the short path...
15.23.5.2,...On the long path they are concerned with the personal ego and as a result give the negative thoughts their attention. On the short path they refuse to accept these negatives and instead look to the Overself. Thus the struggles will disappear...
15.23.5.2,Most people who start the short path have usually had a glimpse of the Overself, because otherwise they find it too difficult to understand what the short path is about. The long path, through its studies and practices, is the period of preparation for the advanced quest. It is called the long path because there is much work to be done on it and much development of character and emotions to go through...
15.23.5.2,... The short path means that you begin to try to remember to live in the rarefied atmosphere of the Overself instead of worrying about the ego and measuring its spiritual development...
15.23.5.2,... On the long path you must deal with the urges of interference arising from the lower self and the negativity which enters from the surrounding environment. But the efforts on the long path will at last invoke the grace, which opens the perspective of the short path…
15.23.5.2,... Constant remembrance of the Overself has to be done all the way through the short path...
15.23.5.2,On the Long Path the man is preoccupied with techniques to be practised and disciplines to be undergone. On the Short Path he is preoccupied with the Overself, with the study of its meaning, the remembrance of its presence, and the reflection upon its nature and attributes.
15.23.5.6The essential features of the Long Path are its concern with moral effort and its emphasis on character building; its injunctions to pray and meditate; its insistence on the constant striving for self-mastery through physical, emotional, and mental disciplines. The essential feature of the Short Path is its quest of the flash of enlightenment through intuitive feeling and metaphysical thinking. Some believe, and would be satisfied with, this flash to be brief. Others hope for its permanent abidance.
15.23.5.7If the Long Path seeks salvation chiefly through the building of character and the concentration of thought, the Short Path seeks it chiefly through worshipful meditation directly on the Overself.
15.23.5.19The laborious effort and painful discipline of the Long Path bring him to a certain degree of spirituality but the easier, pleasanter, and quicker way of the Short Path brings him to a higher one.
15.23.5.25On the Short Path he becomes aware of the fact of forgiveness. He leaves out the constant self-criticism and self-belittling, the painstaking self-improvement practices, of the other Path and begins to take full note of this saving fact.
15.23.5.29If the immediate purpose of the Long Path is to train, discipline, and prepare the ego, the immediate purpose of the Short Path is to transcend it.
15.23.5.30While the Long Path man is busy worrying about the evil in himself and in the world, the Short Path man is busy smiling at the good in the Overself and in the World-Idea.
15.23.5.33Confucius’ injunction to acquire specific virtues is Long Path, whereas Lao Tzu’s counsel to let the mind become empty so that Tao may enter it is Short Path.
15.23.5.36He can identify himself with ego or with Overself.
15.23.5.37While he is on the Long Path, his efforts are given to improving the ego and purifying his nature, whereas on the Short one they are given to forgetting the ego and looking beyond his nature.
15.23.5.38The Long Path meditates on the ego, the Short Path on the Overself. This is the basic difference between them.
15.23.5.39The Long Path wants to purify and perfect the ego but the Short Path wants to find God…
15.23.5.40,The Quest contains two parts. In the first, or Long Path, the aspirant is made into a new person. In the second, or Short Path, he is made into an illumined one.
15.23.5.41The Long Path offers a negative process whose end result is to disidentify the man from his body. The Short Path offers a positive process whose result is to identify him with his Overself.
15.23.5.47The Short Path rejects duality, acknowledges only identity with Perfect Being, and tries to achieve its aim by recognizing this identity. The Long Path accepts duality and tries to achieve the same aim by mastering the ego.
15.23.5.50... The Short Path makes life considerably pleasanter because you are supposed to make a 180 degree turn, putting your past behind you, looking first on the bright side, the sunny side, of your spiritual life. Very often a glimpse is given which starts you off on the Short Path…
15.23.5.56,... The Long Path is simply what is normally associated with yoga: the exercises to practise concentration, attention, relaxation of the body and the mind, ascetic self-discipline, self-control. These are taught in most of the schools; however, there is no set of rules that is studied. Basically it involves getting your thoughts under control and controlling your body, your thoughts, feelings, and will…
15.23.5.56,… Realization cannot be achieved on the Long Path. It cannot. It is a gift, and that means grace, the Short Path. But you must work for it. There has to be the Long Path and the Short Path, but you must not make the mistake of thinking you must mechanically stick to the Long Path. You may start with both, work the two together, and it becomes a sort of balance …
15.23.5.56,The Long Path is concerned with the human struggle to approach the divine, the Short Path with intuition of the divine presence in the human.
15.23.5.58The Short Path is content with exercises done for their own sake, not for the sake of the results they bring. In this it is the opposite of the Long Path, which does them for results, and is attached to those results.
15.23.5.59The Long Path brings the self to a growing awareness of its own strength, whereas the Short Path brings it to a growing awareness of its own unreality. This higher stage leads inevitably to a turnaboutface, where the energies are directed toward identification with the One Infinite Mind. The more this is done, the more Grace flows by reaction into the Self.
15.23.5.61The Long Path devotee is concerned with learning how to concentrate his thoughts in the practice of meditation... The Short Path Devotee is not. He is concerned with direct union with the object of all these efforts, that is, with the Overself…
15.23.5.64,The Short Path offers a swifter unfoldment of the intuitional consciousness. It is not so bound to the limitation of time as the Long Path is. It seeks to identify the man now with his higher self.
15.23.5.67On the Long Path we search for truth, reality, the Overself. That is, we use the ego's forces and faculties. On the Short one we keep still and let truth, reality, the Overself's Grace search for us instead. The ego is then no longer in the picture.
15.23.5.78On the Long Path he identifies himself with the personal ego, even though it be the higher part of the ego, whereas on the Short Path he is only the observer of the ego…
15.23.5.81,Although it is quite correct to say that we grow through experience, that suffering has valuable lessons, and so on, we must also remember that these are only half-truths. The other half is that by Short Path identifications, we can so totally change our outlook that adverse experience becomes unnecessary.
15.23.5.85The Long Path calls for a continued effort of the will, the Short one for a continued loving attention.
15.23.5.88The Long Path practitioner looks upon illumination as something to be attained in the future when all requirements have been fully met, whereas the Short Path devotee looks upon it as attainable here and now.
15.23.5.90The basic idea of the Long Path votary is that the goal must be reached in stages by constant striving through many lives to purify his character and perfect his wisdom. The basic idea of the Short Path is that it can be reached suddenly by constant meditation alone.
15.23.5.94It is only on the Long Path that a man seeks so desperately for truth and insight. All that feverish ambition fades away on the Short Path, where he learns to hold himself in peace and patience.
15.23.5.96The attempt to get rid of the faults and evils in oneself by using the powers of concentration and meditation belongs to the Long Path. But it is still occupied with the ego. For those who have turned to the Short Path, the object of meditation is entirely changed. It is no longer occupied with purifying, improving, or bettering the ego--it is occupied only with the transcendent self, and the thought of the ego, the remembrance of it, is left behind altogether.
15.23.5.102... The pure philosophic meditation as ultimately sought and reached on the Short Path is to put the attention directly on the Overself and on nothing else.
15.23.5.104,The Long Path requires the aspirant to work on himself, make various reforms, practise certain exercises, and contribute his own personal efforts in various ways. But the Short Path is less concerned with what he does than with what is done to him. Why? Because it is the path of grace. He is to be passive, to receive.
15.23.5.107Whereas the Short Path is to be practised at all times and in all places, by continuous remembrance and constant self-recollectedness, the Long Path is to be practised at set times and in special places, by formal exercises.
15.23.5.109The Long Path man is aware of many or most of his weaknesses and faults, and is tormented by this knowledge. The Short Path man blissfully ignores them or, if he fails to reach this formulated goal, is sure they will fade away and dissolve under the higher self’s grace.
15.23.5.110If the Long Path creates despair about oneself, about the frustration of one's spiritual hopes, the Short Path creates joy about one's close relationship with the Overself and the feeling of its acceptance of one.
15.23.5.111It is the personal ego which operates the will and tries to bring about the result. This is quite proper and pertinent on the Long Path practice. But when attention is turned away from it to the Short Path, it is no longer the will but the higher power which should be looked to for the result.
15.23.5.113The work of the Long Path is to loathe and remove the ego's sins; that of the Short Path is to love and receive the Overself's grace.
15.23.5.114The achievement by the Long Path method is a forced one, the result of doing some exercise, working on character, following some technique. But it is all an ego-fabricated thing. The Short Path way leads to the opposite, to a new birth, a new transformed man, salvation itself. But this comes about quite naturally, without the ego’s participation, for it comes about by the Overself’s grace.
15.23.5.116Buddha found his way to Enlightenment within six years and with no guru. This is to note that the depth of concentration he used was such that he would not let go until he kept his oath and reached Nirvana. This meant not only determination but also faith that there was such a truth as Nirvana.
15.23.5.125In theological language the Long Path stands for repentance from sin, the Short Path for faith in the Overself.
15.23.5.130Jesus put more emphasis on the Short Path than on the Long one, on the kingdom of heaven within man than on the animalistic urges and earthly shortcomings that afflict him.
15.23.5.139When Jesus counselled, Cast thy burden . . . he was phrasing a perfect invitation to travel the Short Path.
15.23.5.144The Long Path expresses a partial truth. The Short Path expresses another—although higher—partial truth. Bring the two parts together and the result will be that whole truth which man must have for the adequate guidance of his life.
15.23.5.153... Act as the Long Path requires by working on and improving the self, but think as the Short Path enjoins by holding the attitude ”There is nothing to be attained. Realization is already here and now!”
15.23.5.154,When the Overself is present in a man's consciousness, It is present in all his thoughts and actions. They are then under Its rule, they proceed from It. The man does not have to seek for any particular virtues, for all can and will then come of themselves as needed…
15.23.5.155,… The fact is that the Long Path is incomplete without the Short one.
15.23.5.156,The short path-long path, once understood, becomes a key to the solution of many problems and to the answer of many questions of Questers.
15.23.5.158Those who depend solely on the Short Path without being totally ready for it take too much for granted and make too much of a demand. This is arrogance. Instead of opening the door, such an attitude can only close it tighter. Those who depend solely on the Long Path take too much on their shoulders and burden themselves with a purificatory work which not even an entire lifetime can bring to an end. This is futility. It causes them to evolve at a slower rate…
15.23.5.159,The danger in both cases is in limiting one's efforts to the single path. It may invite disaster to give up trying to improve character just because one has taken to the Short Path. Yet it may invite frustration to limit one's efforts to such improvement. The wise balance which philosophy suggests is not to stop with either the Short or the Long Path but to use both together.
15.23.5.160... The mind's dwelling on personal weaknesses and shortcomings in the ego must be compensated by its remembrance of the strength and harmony in the Overself. It is as needful for the aspirant to practise disidentifying himself from the ego as it is to practise identifying himself with the Overself.
15.23.5.161,Such a double practice of the Short and Long Paths will not only lead to a fuller and better balanced progress but also to a quicker one. For these two opposite activities will work upon him in a reciprocal way. His faults will be ground to powder between them, as if they were millstones.
15.23.5.163On the Long Path he has used various forms of practice. Now at the portals of the Short Path, he may intermittently and temporarily discard them and then just as intermittently and temporarily practise them. In this manner he can unite the two paths.
15.23.5.164The advocates of the Long Path claim that the mind must be trained and the heart must be cleansed before enlightenment is possible. The advocates of the Short Path claim that it is sufficient to deny the ego and affirm the higher self. The philosopher studies the facts revealed by observation and research and concludes that the methods of both schools must be united if enlightenment is not only to be lastingly attained but also not to fall short of its perfect state.
15.23.5.166It is true that the Long Path is only a preliminary one and that the Short Path is certainly a more advanced one. But it is also true that each is incomplete without the other. The best plan is to adopt as much of both paths as the aspirant can.
15.23.5.168The Long Path is splattered with discouragements. Only those who have sought to change themselves, to remould their characters, to deny their weaknesses, know what it is to weep in dissatisfaction over their failures. This is why the Short Path of God-remembrance is also needed. For with this second path to fulfil and complete the first one, Grace may enter into the battle at any moment and with it victory will suddenly end the struggles of many years, forgiveness will suddenly wipe out their mistakes.
15.23.5.170Without this conquest of the lower nature no enlightenment can remain either a lasting or an unmixed one. And without suitable disciplines, no such conquest is possible. This is one reason why it is not enough to travel the Short Path.
15.23.5.171The path of dealing with his shortcomings one by one is not only too long, too slow, but also incomplete and negative. It is concerned with what not to be and not to do. This is good, but it is not enough. It pertains to the little ego. He must add to it the path of remembering his higher all-self. This is a positive thing. More, it brings the Grace which finishes the work he has already started. It carries him from the ego's past into the Overself's Eternal Now.
15.23.5.173Wisdom counsels us to begin the Quest with the Long Path. When we have gone some distance on it, we may add the Short Path, changing the emphasis from one to the other by turns. This intermittent approach sets up a kind of reciprocal rhythm. The improvement of character opens the door of sensitivity a little wider to intuition, and the improved intuition helps to exalt character.
15.23.5.174To all those who come to such a teacher for lessons in philosophy, he makes it plain that unless they are willing to discipline themselves on all three levels--physical, emotional, mental--he cannot teach them; that is, unless they are willing to follow the Long Path also.
15.23.5.175The Long Path is paradoxically both a complement to the Short one and a preparation for it. It must first be practised alone. Only after some advance has been made can the time come for them to be practised conjointly.
15.23.5.176A man cannot look in two directions at one and the same time. He may look at himself, his ego, or he may turn away and look above, at his Overself. In the latter case, if he has sufficiently thinned away the obstructions to it, grace may descend and lift his ego up to unite with his Overself. Then, and then alone, he will be able to live in both.
15.23.5.177… We concentrate on the essential thing--rooting out the ego…
15.23.5.183,There is this difference when the Long Path is entered alone and when it is entered with the accompaniment of the Short one, that in the second case there is added the light of guidance, the protection of peace, the acceleration of progress, and the harmony of equilibrium.
15.23.5.185They are not really opposed to each other, but are in fact complementary. If the Long Path is a steep uphill climb, the Short Path is its sunny side.
15.23.5.186He has to keep this inner stability and peace through times of public disaster or private distress. Long Path practices will help him attain it, but only intermittently. It is the Short Path which alone can establish it durably.
15.23.5.187The twofold way is indispensable: on the one hand the way of self-effort, working to overcome the ego, and on the other the way of Grace, through constantly seeking to remember your true identity in the Overself.
15.23.5.193The two paths must not be kept separate in practice, whatever they are in theory. The beginner will naturally put his emphasis on the Long Path, the proficient on the Short Path, but neither can afford to neglect one or the other path without perils and dangers or futilities and disappointments marking his way.
15.23.5.195In theory the Long Path ought to precede the Short Path, but in actual practice such precedent endures for a limited time only, and then both paths are to be followed simultaneously.
15.23.5.196”Be still and know that I am God” is the key to the enigma of truth, for it sums up the whole of the Short Path. Paradox is the final revelation. For this is “non-doing.” Rather is it a “letting-be,” a non-interference by your egoistic will, a silencing of all the mental agitation and effort.
15.23.5.202Once we become conscious of this truth the scales fall from our eyes. We give up our bondage to the erroneous belief in limitation. We refuse to entertain this false thought that there is some lofty condition to be attained in the far future. We are resolute that the Self shall recognize itself now. For what shall we wait? Let us stack all our thoughts upon the Reality, and hold them there as with a spike; it will not elude us, and the thoughts will dissolve and vanish into air, leaving us alone with the beauty and sublimity of the Self.
15.23.5.204Just as a child has to learn the art of writing by slow degrees, so the student has to free his mind from erroneous views and to train his habitual thought to hold to the remembrance of the True and the Real little by little. But just as the single manipulation of an electric light switch instantly reveals all the objects in a room, so suddenly the maturation of insight reveals the here-and-now actuality of the True and the Real.
15.23.5.205... To summarize the entire process, the Long Path leads to the Short Path, and the Short Path leads to the Grace of an unbroken egoless consciousness.
15.23.5.206,The limitation of the Long Path is that it is concerned only with thinning down, weakening, and reducing the ego's strength. It is not concerned with totally deflating the ego...
15.23.5.206,… A third phase becomes necessary, the phase of getting rid of the ego altogether; this can be done only by the final dissolving operation of Grace, which the man has to request and to which he has to give his consent…
15.23.5.206,The sun’s warmth and beauty brings out the flower’s growth. It does not strive, struggle, or push. This is a good simile of the Short Path’s final phase, taught also in the Chinese doctrine of wu-wei (inaction) and the Indian doctrine of asparsa yoga (without-effort method).
15.23.5.207Do not lament the difficulty of bringing about this basic change in thinking. The Overself is there. Believe in it.
15.23.5.212The voice of the Overself is as clear as the voice of Jesus: Go and sin no more, thy sins are forgiven thee. Do not weigh yourself down with perpetual self-reproach and recurring feelings of guilt.
15.23.5.213With the withdrawal from all outward-directed attachments, he becomes aware of his own inner self. With the awareness of his own real Self, all outgoing attachments drop away from him. Thus by whichever of these two paths he approaches the goal, it merges in the end with the other one.
15.23.5.215The notion that the truth will be gained, that happiness will be achieved, that the Overself will be realized at the end of a long attempt must be seen as an illusory one. Truth, happiness, and the Overself must be seen in the Present, not the future, at the very beginning of his quest, not the end, here and now…
15.23.5.216,The more he practises identifying himself with the timeless Now (not the passing “now”), the more he works for true freedom from besetting passions and dragging attachments. This is the Short Path, more heroic perhaps but in the end much pleasanter than the Long Path.
15.23.5.217... Their greatest advance will be made when they cease holding the wish to make any advance at all, cease this continual looking at themselves, and instead come to a quiet rest in the simple fact that God is, until they live in this fact alone. That will transfer their attention from self to Overself and keep them seeing its presence in everyone's life and its action in every event…
15.23.5.222,The real Short Path is really the discovery that there is no path at all: only a being still and thus letting the Overself do the work needed. This is the meaning of grace.
15.23.5.223”The kingdom of God is within you.” We may rightly take the simple meaning of this sentence, its pointer towards the place and the practice of meditation. But there is a second meaning, seldom understood, its pointer towards time and immediacy: the kingdom is here and now.
15.23.5.230Why create needless frustrations by an overeager attitude, by overdoing spiritual activity? You are in the Overself's hands even now and if the fundamental aspiration is present, your development will go on without your having to be anxious about it. Let the burden go…
15.23.5.232,None of us can do more for our spiritual growth than to get out of its way! This business of trying to do something with the mind or practise some exercise with the body in order to come closer to the Overself is based on the Long Path belief that it is we who have the power to attain that desire and desirable state. But instead of trying to reach the Overself, why not let the Overself reach us? This can be done only if we will get out of its way.
15.23.5.235It may properly be said that no man ever comes to the end of this Search. But that is because he one day comes to know that the seeking attitude is itself one of the last obstacles, and must be dropped.
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