Day by day
The inner meaning of life does not readily reveal itself; it must be searched for. Such a search is the Quest.
2.1.1.10Listen 1 Jan 2020They come to this quest seeking something beyond the misery, wretchedness, and cruelty of this chaotic world, something of light, warmth, kindness, and peace.
2.1.2.203Listen 2 Jan 2020The lack of enjoyable result following the practice does not mean that it has been in vain. The belief that he is sitting in the presence of the Overself, if clung to despite the meditation's dryness, will one day bring him a Glimpse at least. But he must come to it faithfully each day.
4.4.1.391Listen 3 Jan 2020There is an infinite number of possibilities in the evolution of man and the universe. If only certain ones out of them are actually realized, this is because both follow a pattern--the World-Idea.
16.26.1.68Listen 4 Jan 2020Love is both sunshine for the seed and fruit from the tree. It is a part of the way to self-realization and also a result of reaching the goal itself.
12.18.1.81Listen 5 Jan 2020That which keeps us busy with one kind of activity after another--mental as well as physical--until we fall asleep tired, is nothing other than the ego. In that way it diverts one's attention from the need of engaging in the supremely important activity--the struggle with and destruction of the ego itself.
6.8.4.421Listen 6 Jan 2020Such periods are short and uncommon but they lift us up and draw us in. We feel then that there is peace and joy for us as ultimate possibilities…
14.22.4.128, ExcerptListen 7 Jan 2020He has raised an altar to the unknown God in his heart. Henceforth he worships there in secret and in silence. His hours of solitude are reserved for it, his moments of privacy dedicated to it.
12.18.1.36Listen 8 Jan 2020… Our senses can perceive only what they have been formed to perceive. Our reason similarly cannot grasp what it was never formed to grasp. Within their legitimate spheres of operation, the deliverances of both sense and reason should be acceptable to us, but outside those spheres we must seek for something that transcends both…
5.7.8.1, ExcerptListen 9 Jan 2020He cannot be a philosopher part of the time and an unawakened unenlightened person the remainder (or most) of the time: but he can, for the sake of this exercise, imaginatively think that he is one. In the light of his antecedent personal history, the attempt may be an audacious one; but if his present longing, determination, and self-discipline are large enough, it may become a magical transforming one.
15.23.6.141Listen 10 Jan 2020In this mysterious moment the two are one. He no longer abides with the mere images of reality. He is now in the authentic world of reality itself.
14.22.6.81Listen 11 Jan 2020Spiritual pride has rightly been listed by the Christian saints as a source of deception, and as the last of the traps into which the would-be saint can fall. A man may be quite holy and well self-controlled, but if he notices these two attainments with self-complacency, or rather self-congratulation, he at once strengthens the ego--although he transfers his excellence from worldly to spiritual matters.
12.18.3.39Listen 12 Jan 2020The great changes in human thought and society which marked the birth of the Christian epoch in the West, find their parallel in the great changes that are even now beginning to mark the coming birth of the next epoch. The labour pains have already begun…
9.13.4.190, ExcerptListen 13 Jan 2020These ideas are not really new, but they have been half-forgotten or wholly overlooked. Anyway, the time is ripe to restate them…
13.20.2.90, ExcerptListen 14 Jan 2020… The disciple who wants something for nothing, who hopes to get to the goal without being kept busy with arduous travels to the very end, will not get it. He has to move from one point of view to a higher, from many a struggle with weaknesses to their mastery. Then only, when he has done by himself what he should do, may he cease his efforts, be still, and await the influx of Grace. Then comes light and the second birth.
15.23.2.65, ExcerptListen 15 Jan 2020… Four hundred years ago Sebastian Franck, a German who had attained the full spiritual realization, wrote: ”We do not need to cross the sea to find Him--the Word is nigh thee, is in thy heart.”
2.1.5.286, ExcerptListen 16 Jan 2020Even if it only be a pose that is cultivated, it still remains a valuable discipline and exercise which gives good results. For it has much suggestive power, this ”As If” method, and is an essential part of the Short Path.
15.23.6.147Listen 17 Jan 2020Whether he is able to follow regular periods of meditation or not, he may still have the basic essential for spiritual advancement. This is the fundamental mood of aspiration, a strong yearning to gain the consciousness of his innermost being.
2.1.2.124Listen 18 Jan 2020When the opportunity to gain a glimpse of his Overself draws near, it will be foreshadowed by certain happenings, either of an inward or an outward nature, or both.
14.22.6.26Listen 19 Jan 2020The practice of mental quiet was formerly confined to the monasteries and convents and kept from the knowledge of lay folk. When Miguel de Molinos tried to alter this state of affairs, he was sternly suppressed.
4.4.1.102Listen 20 Jan 2020Those who make philosophical writings their constant study are using life profitably.
5.7.7.125Listen 21 Jan 2020The Christian grace before, the Hebrew thanksgiving before and after meals, were prescribed for the same reason that the Muhammedan's brief five-times-a-day prayer was prescribed. And this was to bring the remembrance of life's higher purpose into everyday living.
12.18.2.25Listen 22 Jan 2020Suppose you knew that this was to be your last day on earth. How would you behave towards others? Would you not sink all short-range attitudes and rise above the petty selfishness, the pitiful enmities, and the harsh discords which may have marred your past? Would you not try at least to feel goodwill toward all men? This is how philosophy bids you behave at all times and not merely on your deathbed.
5.6.5.29Listen 23 Jan 2020There is a need to develop flexibility by practising the shift of attitudes, to see why others hold their beliefs, and to be able to stretch one's own thought so as to enter sufficiently into theirs. This produces sympathetic understanding, but the opposite--critical judgement--must not be forsaken.
5.7.3.114Listen 24 Jan 2020If people are so determined to become the victims of their own egos that no words, no sage counsel, can stop them, there is no other course left except to leave them to suffer the consequences of their actions and thus learn the hard way.
13.20.2.177Listen 25 Jan 2020The higher the peak one climbs, the lonelier the trail becomes. There is a paradox here for the loneliness exists outside the body, not inside the heart, and the more it grows outside the less it is felt inside.
2.1.3.322Listen 26 Jan 2020The ”As If” exercise is not merely pretense or make-believe. It requires penetrative study and sufficient understanding of the high character and spiritual consciousness in the part to be played, the role to be enacted, the auto-suggestion to be realized.
15.23.6.113Listen 27 Jan 2020Because there is a Divine Mind back of the universe, there are Divine Wisdom and Goodness in the universe.
16.26.1.52Listen 28 Jan 2020Most 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…
1.8.0.30, ExcerptListen 29 Jan 2020The force which men spend in ungoverned sexual desire keeps them imprisoned in their lower nature. This same force can be sublimated by will, imagination, aspiration, prayer, and meditation. When this is done, the Overself can then instruct them for they will be able to hear its voice.
4.5.7.89Listen 30 Jan 2020We live in apocalyptic times, as history is already revealing. The call today is a penitential one, a solemn recall from earthliness to holiness, from frivolousness, grossness, and madness to remembrance of life's higher purpose. Those who feel in their own hearts some sort of a response, however feeble, should cling to this precious intuition and let it guide them until they are saved.
7.11.3.487Listen 31 Jan 2020
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