Day by day
Each man should be himself, not represent and copy another man. But he should be his best self, not his worst, his lower, his lesser. This calls for growth, aspiration, effort, on his part. That is to say, it calls for a quest.
2.1.5.6Listen 1 Oct 2022From this deep source, he nourishes the continuous tranquillity of the atmosphere he carries about with him; from it he gains the solid assurance that the quest is worthwhile and its goal very real.
15.24.4.113Listen 2 Oct 2022In those delicious moments where sleep trembles into waking, there is some sort of a beginning Glimpse but alas, it vanishes without fulfilling its promise as soon as the world of objects comes more fully into the circle of attention. And this is precisely where the value of such a state lies, both for the ordinary man and for the would-be yogi. It has no objects. It is “I” without a world. It is awareness-in-itself. True, it is fleeting and does not last, but a man can learn to practise holding himself to it.
15.23.6.77Listen 3 Oct 2022Normal experience leads a man to identify with his body but he fails to go farther and deeper to ask himself: “Who is present in the body?”
6.8.1.86Listen 4 Oct 2022It is often said that when the pupil is ready the Master will appear. But I have not yet read anyone's additional statement—that he may be invisible and unhearable—that is, he may be entirely within you.
2.1.6.167Listen 5 Oct 2022The victory of the spiritual nature in man is foreordained and unavoidable, but the hour of that victory no man knoweth.
6.9.3.23Listen 6 Oct 2022Not 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.
14.22.3.433Listen 7 Oct 2022Salvation does not depend on any one factor but on a balanced total of several factors. The devotional temperament is not enough. The disciplined will is not enough. The moral virtues are not enough. The trained intellect is not enough.
3.2.5.170Listen 8 Oct 2022The higher human feelings such as kindness and sympathy, patience and tolerance have to be nurtured.
5.6.2.32Listen 9 Oct 2022He should send out experimental feelers in his mental-emotional world until he recognizes an element that seems different from all the others—subtler, grander, nobler, and more divine than all the others. Then, catching firm hold of it, he should try to trace its course back to its source. The point where the personal ego establishes contact with the Overself is reached and passed only through a momentary lapse of consciousness. But this lapse is so brief—a mere fraction of a second—that it may be unnoticed. A presence enters his consciousness and comes over him, a benign feeling to which he is glad to surrender himself, a mysterious solvent of his egotism and desires.
14.22.5.8Listen 10 Oct 2022In humility the quest is to be begun: in even greater humility it is to be fulfilled.
2.1.2.83Listen 11 Oct 2022Between 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 12 Oct 2022In Nature’s solitary places, in its forests, mountains, and grasslands, it is easier to cultivate the philosopher’s trinity of goodness, truth, and beauty than in the crowded quarters of towns.
3.3.6.20Listen 13 Oct 2022Care of the physical organism will require attention to physical exercise as well as physical relaxation and to deep and abdominal breathing.
4.5.5.12Listen 14 Oct 2022The divine essence is within us, not somewhere else. This shows us the correct direction in which to look for it. The attention, with the interest and desire which move it, must be withdrawn from outside things and beings.
4.4.1.173Listen 15 Oct 2022It is often not easy—but the sooner he does so, the sooner his mind will become less resentful and more tranquil—to recognize that this happening, this position or this person is part of his fate, that his only freedom in such a case is a moral one. He can select his mental attitude.
6.9.4.23Listen 16 Oct 2022An intuition which is vague and weak in the beginning may become clear and certain in the end—if allowed to grow.
14.22.1.112Listen 17 Oct 2022However cynical and blasé may have been his attitude in earlier days, it will yield to and melt in the sunny light of this second birth.
14.22.7.209Listen 18 Oct 2022Another channel for grace’s manifestation is through circumstances. These may provide the right surroundings, the right persons, and the right happenings for it.
12.18.5.67Listen 19 Oct 2022If he cannot compel or command grace, he can at least ask, work, and prepare for it. For if he is not prepared properly by understanding he may not be willing to submit when it does come, if the form it takes is not to his liking.
12.18.5.204Listen 20 Oct 2022Both an inspired church and a qualified master have their place but it is only a limited one. Beyond those limits, nothing outside his divine soul can really help the spiritual seeker. For its grace alone saves and enlightens him ... He will have to learn to rely less and less upon other people for his spiritual and worldly advancement, more and more upon his inner self.
2.1.3.264, ExcerptListen 21 Oct 2022It becomes a communion between the human and the divine in us, an adventure in seeking and finding oneness with the Overself.
4.4.1.365Listen 22 Oct 2022The ego is cunning, subtle, insidious. Even when the aspirant has long left a grosser kind of life behind him, it inserts itself into his prayers and meditations alike, and enters most of his inner work.
6.8.4.288Listen 23 Oct 2022It 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, ExcerptListen 24 Oct 2022The ego offers bitter resistance all along the way, disputes every yard of his advance, and is not overcome without incessant struggle against its treacheries and deceptions.
6.8.4.284Listen 25 Oct 2022Do not be so rigidly closed in by your practical affairs and personal relations. Open your soul to the admiration of Nature, the high flights of art, and above all, to stillness.
3.2.4.27Listen 26 Oct 2022With the passage of well-spent time and the coming of well-deserved Grace, he will finally reach the serenity and mastery that characterize the last stages of the path.
15.24.2.197Listen 27 Oct 2022He who discovers these moral truths and reveals them to his benighted fellows is not only their educator but also their benefactor. For he saves those who heed him from much avoidable suffering.
6.9.3.92Listen 28 Oct 2022This is the divine element whose continuing presence in man confers a guarantee of eventual salvation.
14.22.3.82Listen 29 Oct 2022The end of the Long Path is frustration. This may be an emotionally disappointing blessing, since it forces the man to turn eventually to the Short Path, whose end is fulfilment.
15.23.4.112Listen 30 Oct 2022At the end of many years, after passing through many varied experiences, as we draw close to the terminus of life, we realize that we have not altered our character in fundamentals. We know then that many lifetimes may be needed to change ourselves.
9.13.3.212Listen 31 Oct 2022
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