 | Volume 1, Perspectives, includes notes from all 28 categories - 1. Overview of the Quest
1 Jun 2019 The Quest of the Overself is none other than the final stage of mankind´s long pursuit of happiness.
∫25 Feb 2020 If you feel that the principles touched on in these pages are true, then remember that the greatest homage you can pay to Truth is to use it. Spiritual peace is given as a prize to those who wisely aspire, and who will work untiringly for the realization of their aspiration.
∫16 Feb 2020 The central point of this quest is the inner opening of the ego's heart to the Overself.
∫1 Aug 2018 We are here on earth in pursuit of a sacred mission. We have to find what theologians call the soul, what philosophers call the Overself…
∫18 Aug 2018 … Because our life-energy is continuously streaming outwards through the senses, because our selfhood is continuously identified with the body, and because our consciousness never contemplates itself, the Overself necessarily eludes us utterly.
∫1 Sep 2018 Man’s main business is to become aware of his true purpose in life; all other business is secondary to this concern.
∫2 Mar 2019 Its chief enemy is indecision. The world is packed with people who suffer from this fault. So our greatest dramatist took this as his theme for his wonderful play, Hamlet. A little more decision on the part of the Prince of Denmark, and the series of tragedies which close the play would have been averted. But in that case the play would not have carried the lesson Shakespeare wanted it to give--how Hamlet was tortured by his own indecisiveness…
∫19 Dec 2019 It is not only a path to be followed but one to be followed with good humour and graciousness.
∫2 Jun 2019 … Every time he stills the restless thoughts in silent meditation he is giving up the ego; every time he puts the desires aside in a crucial decision he is giving up the ego; every time he disciplines the body, the passions, the activities, he is giving up the ego…
∫30 Apr 2017 This wrong self-identification is not only a metaphysical error but also a mental habit. We may correct the error intellectually but we shall still have to deal with the habit. So deeply ingrained is it that only a total effort can successfully alter it. That effort is called the Quest.
∫22 Oct 2018 The stages of the quest are fairly well defined. First — the aspiration toward spiritual growth manifests itself in a man's heart. Second — the feeling of repentance for past error and sin saddens it. Third — the submission to an ascetic or self-denying discipline follows as a reaction. Fourth — the practice of regular exercises in meditation is carried on.
∫1 Sep 2024 He will know what both the fullness and the fulfilment of life mean only when the consciousness that the Spirit is his own very self comes to life within him.
∫18 Dec 2019 The path requires an all-round effort. It calls for the discipline of emotions as well as the purification of character from egoism, the practice of the art of meditation as well as religious devotion and prayer, constant reflection about the experiences of life to learn the lessons behind them, and constant discrimination between the values of earthly and spiritual things. This self-development crowned by altruistic activity will in time call forth the grace of the Overself and will bring blissful glimpses occasionally to encourage his endeavours…
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- 2. Overview of Practices Involved
28 Sep 2016 It is not the world that stands in our way and must be renounced but our mental and emotional relationship with the world; and this needs only to be corrected. We may remain just where we are without flight to ashram or convent, provided we make an inner shift.
∫3 Sep 2016 He who enters upon this quest will have plenty to do, for he will have to work on the weaknesses in his character, to think impartially, to meditate regularly, and to aspire constantly. Above all, he will have to train himself in the discipline of surrendering the ego.
∫2 Nov 2019 The Quest is not to be followed by studying metaphysically alone or by sitting meditatively alone. Both are needful yet still not enough. Experience must be reflectively observed and intuition must be carefully looked for. Above all, the aspirant must be determined to strive faithfully for the ethical ideals of philosophy and to practise sincerely its moral teachings.
∫10 Sep 2024 If he begins to think of himself as the doer of this service, the helper of these people, he begins to set up the ego again. It will act as a barricade between him and the higher impersonal power. The spiritual effectiveness of his activity will begin to dwindle.
∫20 Nov 2019 … Even though he may not be able, in this incarnation, to attain the goal of union with the Overself by destroying the ego, he can certainly make some progress towards his goal by weakening the ego. Such a weakening does not depend upon grace; it is perfectly within the bounds of his own competence, his own capacity.
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- 3. Relax and Retreat
21 Jun 2023 We need to take these occasional retreats to cleanse ourselves inwardly, to find fresh strength and gather new inspiration, to study ourselves, meditate, and understand truth.
∫29 Mar 2019 There is a real need to balance our extreme tendency to activism with something of quietism, to offset our excessive doing with deeper being.
∫4 Apr 2020 … The benefits of meditation apply both to mundane life and to spiritual seeking. Think what it means to be able to give our mental apparatus a complete rest, to be able to stop all thoughts at will, and to experience the profound relief of relaxing the entire being--body, nerves, breath, emotions, and thoughts…
∫22 Apr 2020 … To know that man has a sacred soul and to know this fact with invulnerable certitude, is the first reward of right prayer and philosophic meditation. The true soul of man is hidden and concealed from his senses and from his thoughts. But it is possible for him by these methods to awaken a higher faculty--intuition--whereby he may reach, know, and be lovingly received by this soul.
∫20 Jun 2023 The ego ceaselessly invents one “duty” after another to keep him so involved in activities, often trivial, that he is never still enough to attend to the Overself’s presence and voice within. Even many so-called spiritual duties are its invention: they are not asked of him by the Overself.
∫20 Jul 2023 Because all his meditation exercises can succeed only to the extent that he succeeds in becoming utterly relaxed, the importance of this ability must be noted.
∫14 Nov 2019 The man who does not learn how to be alone with himself cannot learn how to be alone with God.
∫29 Dec 2019 They whose emotions can respond to the grandeur and sublimity of Nature in all her manifold expressions, in forest and mountain, river and lake, in sea and sky, and the beauty of flowers, are not materialists even though they may so call themselves. Unconsciously they offer their devotion to the Divine Reality, even though they may call it by some other name.
∫30 Dec 2019 … Rebirth identifies a man more with his mind than with his body…
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- 4. Elementary Meditation
6 Jul 2019 … If you will look into your heart and mind, deep enough and long enough to penetrate beneath the tumult of desires that daily distract your attention, you may then discover peace.
∫17 Dec 2019 The meditation has been successfully accomplished when all thoughts have come to an end, and when the presence of Divinity is felt within this emptiness.
∫19 Apr 2022 To sit down for meditation with the secret expectation, the half-hidden hope, or the fully conscious desire for a dramatic glimpse, a sudden transformation, or a speedy result is to introduce the ego and thus block the way to the egoless plane of the Overself.
∫3 Sep 2024 It is not enough to lull the mind: the heart’s feeling must be stimulated and directed in aspiration and devotion, warm and strong toward the Overself, which by reaction, arouses a certain force, the Spirit-Energy, which acts for a short time to prepare him for deeper, more concentrated contemplation.
∫2 Sep 2024 … Love is essential to meditation; it is a binding force comprised of devotion and reverence. The aim is to become united. Success in meditation is to become one with the Higher Self (unity). Meditation should be a yearning to come home to one’s place in the universe..
∫16 Nov 2019 It is not enough to seek stillness for the body and mind alone: the attention and intention must be directed at the same time to that Overself which transcends body and mind.
∫14 Sep 2024 A flower is as good an object to concentrate on as any other. Indeed it is better, for he may also try to make his own heart one with the flower’s heart.
∫9 Aug 2021 To hold any idea in the mind during meditation, and to hold it with faith, sympathy, and pleasure, is to make it a part of oneself. If care is taken that these ideas shall be positive, constructive, and elevating, then the profits of meditation will show themselves in the character and the personality.
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- 5. The Body
24 Nov 2019 Those who really aspire towards a higher kind of life will have no alternative than to bring about a higher quality of the body in which they have to dwell and whose nerves and brain condition their very thinking. Such aspirants will have to stop being careless about the material that is fed to the body.
∫16 Dec 2019 Just before an animal meets its death in a slaughterhouse, it finds itself surrounded by the frightening cries and fear-raising scenes of past, present, and impending murder. Its own dread then mentally permeates the body with harmful influences while the subsequent shock of its own slaying causes an involuntary passage of some urine into the body itself. This uric acid is spread by the blood and then physically permeates the body with poisonous material.
∫21 Jun 2022 The eating of flesh foods and, to a lesser degree, animal products tends to keep the human consciousness limited to an outlook which is influenced by the animal propensities. If it is to become truly human, it must free itself from dependence on such foods…
∫23 Apr 2020 They beseech the Lord with whining prayers for compassionate help or gracious mercy, yet never for a moment ever think of themselves granting mercy to the innocent creatures which are bred and slaughtered for their benefit.
∫10 Jan 2019 So long as the slaughter of animals is really unnecessary for human food, so long does it remain a moral crime, an ancient shame upon whole nations, against which prophets and saints, seers and teachers have inveighed and warned … If people find their own prayers for mercy to the Higher Power remain unanswered, let them remember how they themselves showed no mercy.
∫7 Jun 2019 … The philosophical meaning of egoism is that attitude of separateness not from another individual on the same imperfect level as ourself but from the one universal life-power which is behind all individuals on a deeper level than them all. We are separated from that infinite mind when we allow the personal ego to rule us, when we allow the personal self to prevent the one universal self from entering our field of awareness…
∫3 Jul 2019 In the properly developed person, the strength of a man will be united with the tenderness of a woman.
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- 6. Emotions and Ethics
13 Nov 2019 He may look at what has happened in five different but equally valuable and equally necessary ways: (a) as a test, (b) as opposition of adverse force, (c) as a problem to adjust himself to psychologically, (d) as a temptation or tribulation to be met and overcome morally, (e) as the outworking of past karma to be intelligently endured or impersonally negotiated.
∫25 Nov 2019 He has to find out what unwise tendencies are operative in his character without his knowledge, what wrong impulses arise from his subconscious self and lead to harmful actions.
∫17 Jun 2023 From Lord Beaconsfield’s novel: “Ah,” said Coningsby, “I should like to be a great man.” The stranger threw at him a scrutinizing glance. His countenance was serious. He said in a voice of most solemn melody, “Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.”
∫28 May 2019 The fundamental test and final measure of anyone´s spirituality is provided by his character. And his character is tested and measured by his actions.
∫29 Jun 2019 The forming of a good character is the beginning, the middle, and the end of this work.
∫22 Jun 2019 Regard, affection and friendliness, sympathy, fellow-feeling and love are not feelings to be thrown away because he has taken to the philosophic quest. On the contrary, they may become valuable stepping-stones in his progress if he treats them aright, if he evaluates them correctly, purifies them emotionally, and ennobles them morally.
∫25 Aug 2018 Compassion is the highest moral value, the noblest human feeling, the purest creature-love…
∫12 Jul 2023 The obligation is laid upon him to respond to the Overself’s demand that he shall make an endeavour to rise above the animal level of his being … He has indeed to engage in a holy war.
∫18 Jul 2023 Refinement of the way one lives, thinks, speaks, and acts is not only a positive value but in its indirect result actually contributes to the spiritual quest …
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- 7. The Intellect
10 Nov 2024 The intellect’s finest function is to point the way to this actual living awareness of the Overself that is beyond itself. This it does on the upward path. But it has a further function to perform after that awareness has been successfully gained. That is to translate that experience into its own terms, and hence into ordinarily comprehensible ones, both for its own and other people’s benefit.
∫11 May 2024 The analytical study of certain metaphysical conceptions such as God, the soul, and the ego, is necessary.
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- 8. The Ego
30 Aug 2018 Egoism, the limiting of consciousness to individual life as separate from the one infinite life, is the last barrier to the attainment of unity with the infinite life.
∫10 Jun 2019 The ego is not really killed--how without body and intellect, emotion and will, could anyone act in this world?--but the centre of being is moved out of it to the Overself.
∫29 Jan 2020 Most aspirants will submit themselves to all sorts of disciplines for the body, the passions, and the mind but they will not submit to the one discipline that really matters. They cling to their precious ego…
∫16 Jun 2019 The ego-self is the creature born out of man´s doing and thinking, slowly changing and growing. The Overself is the image of God, perfect, finished, and changeless. What he has to do, if he is to fulfill himself, is to let the one shine through the other.
∫18 Jul 2022 The ego does not rule men through their animalistic and materialistic desires only. It takes charge, and actively manages, their spiritual aspirations also!
∫12 Nov 2018 The ego worships no other God than itself.
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- 9. From Birth to Rebirth
7 Mar 2017 We think that birth is the beginning and death the end of all for us. Theologians and metaphysicians have argued and disputed over this as far back as the memory of man can go, so who are we to say ”yea” or ”nay” to them? But when the noise and din of their jarring voices fade into the distance, when the quieter hours of evening wrap us around, fold upon fold, then it is that a strange and sublime sense steals upon us, if we will but permit its coming, and says: ”My child, what they think and what they say does not really matter. I am by your side and I shall never fail you. Smile at Death if you wish, or fear it--but I am with you always.”
∫13 Jul 2019 Our habitual trend of thinking on earth will necessarily be the habitual trend of thinking with which we shall start spirit-life although we shall not end that life with it.
∫6 Jun 2019 If you want to know where you will go after you are dead, I shall tell you for I have been there. You go nowhere, no place. As awareness of this earth and the earthly body fade away, soon after dying, you will simply enter the condition of awareness to which your character entitles you.
∫7 Mar 2018 Death is the entrance to a new kind of being, a renewed form of life, another period in which old experience is assimilated and the next phase (reincarnation) prepared for.
∫15 Aug 2018 For those who have made sufficient progress with the Quest, death is not a frightening experience. Once the exit from the body has been made, the rest is pleasant and peaceful.
∫20 Aug 2018 Heredity can answer for a man´s face and form and nervous type but it cannot answer for his genius. Here it is necessary to bring in something quite different — the development of his talent through repeated earth lives.
∫22 Dec 2018 There is no need for anyone to seek to know what his previous incarnations were. If the memories should come, they represent something abnormal. Nature does not desire that we should be hampered in the present by the memory of the past, when the past itself stretches away for such a long time. You need not trouble yourself therefore about previous incarnations, but concentrate fully on your present one so as to make it as worthy as you can.
∫21 Aug 2019 We travel from one body to another, with suitable and necessary rest-periods in between them…
∫4 Jun 2020 … As long as he believes that he is the body he must reincarnate in the body.
∫26 Mar 2018 The ego´s desires, habits, and ways of thought have been established through many earth lives.
∫6 Aug 2018 The personal development and mental discoveries which have been made in past incarnations do not have to be repeated afresh in the same way with each new one. What happens however is a swift recapitulation or distillation of the whole historic previous experience during the first half of the new incarnation.
∫26 Nov 2018 The unity between our character and our destiny is inseparable; the connection between our way of thinking and the course of events is unerring.
∫22 Nov 2018 Those who are unaware of the penalties they incur by misuse of the power to think and the will to act are in urgent need of the teaching of karma.
∫8 Dec 2019 The Law of Karma makes each man responsible for his own life. The materialist who denies karma and places all the blame and burden upon the shoulders of environment and heredity denies responsibility. He begins and ends with an illusion.
∫27 Aug 2018 If he accepts this tenet of karma coupled with rebirth, then his awakening to a sense of responsibility for his life and the course it takes should lead in turn to a feeling of the need for self-discipline.
∫27 Nov 2019 … In mental attitude, in personal inward response to events, lies one's chief freedom of will. It might, however, be questioned how far such freedom is illusory, since the response, the attitude, are themselves conditioned by the past and many other things. It is quite correct to state that the past inclines us to think and act in a certain way. But it is also admitted that we can grow, can improve our lives and change in the course of time…
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- 11. The Negatives
18 Sep 2019 … He must go on with the faith and trust that obstacles are not for all time, that fluctuations on the path are inevitable, and that his own inner divine possibilities are the best guarantee of ultimate attainment. The trials of the path, as indeed the trials of life itself, are inescapable. He should endure the tribulations with the inner conviction that a brighter world awaits him; hope and faith will lead him to it.
∫19 Nov 2018 Throw out negative thoughts as they would hinder the uplift of your mind. Replace them by frequent and positive remembrance of the Overself.
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- 12. Reflections
9 Jun 2020 In this book I have considered myself to be a sensitive recording instrument, carefully and minutely registering the impressions received from these higher states of consciousness.
∫30 Apr 2022 Life remains what it is—deathless and unbound. We shall all meet again. Know what you are, and be free. The best counsel today is, keep calm, aware. Don't let the pressure of mental environment break into what you know and what is real and ultimately true. This is your magic talisman to safeguard you; cling to it. The last word is—Patience! The night is darkest before dawn. But dawn comes.
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- 13. Human Experience
28 Nov 2018 Out of suffering may come the transmutation of values, even the transfiguration of character. But these developments are possible only if the man co-operates. If he does not, then the suffering is in vain, fruitless.
∫11 Sep 2019 The failures which everyone has left behind him--whether in career, relationship, or the quest itself--do not necessarily represent wasted effort. From each of them he can salvage the tuition for a fresh start, the caution for a wiser one, and more knowledge of himself.
∫30 Oct 2018 When we are brought face to face with the consequences of our wrongdoing, we would like to avoid the suffering or at least to diminish it. It is impossible to say with any precision how far this can be done for it depends partly on Grace, but it also depends partly on ourselves. We can help to modify and sometimes even to eliminate those bad consequences if we set going certain counteracting influences…
∫24 Sep 2019 … We must forgive others their sins against us if we would be forgiven ourselves…
∫4 Sep 2018 What happens to a man is important, but not quite so important as what he makes of it.
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