Day by day
The meditation may serve a useful or helpful or constructive purpose, but it will not serve its highest purpose unless it transforms itself into contemplation--that is to say, unless it transforms itself from an effort-making activity to an effortless experience by taking him out of himself. His own will cannot do it but divine Grace can.
4.4.1.264Listen 1 Nov 2015The Long Path developed in him through yoga-meditation the capacity to find the inner Stillness. The Short Path added to it (1) the knowledge that the Stillness is himself, and (2) the practice of continuing remembrance to be the Stillness.
15.23.4.68Listen 2 Nov 2015... ”Everything has to be paid for” is a saying which holds as true in the realm of the inner life as it does in the marketplace. The surrender of his life to the Higher Power involves the surrender of his ego. This is an almost impossible achievement if thought of in terms of a complete and instant act, but not if thought of in terms of a partial and gradual one. There are parts of the ego, such as the passions for instance, which he may attempt to deny even before he has succeeded in denying the ego itself…
12.18.4.137, ExcerptListen 3 Nov 2015The lines of the face become somewhat rigid, the eyes mostly or wholly closed, as he retires into himself and into abstraction from this world. That which draws him magnetically through noisy thoughts to the state of silent thoughtlessness is none other than the soul itself.
15.23.7.62Listen 4 Nov 2015The immediate task is to become increasingly aware of the Overself's presence…
15.23.6.238, ExcerptListen 5 Nov 2015The body is in reality an object for the mind, which is its subject; and not only the body, but also whatever the ego thinks or feels becomes an object, too. It is less easy to see and even more necessary to understand that this ego, this subject, is itself an object to a higher part of the mind.
6.8.2.67Listen 6 Nov 2015As his interest in the Overself increases in depth, so his attachment to the things of this world decreases in passion and his interest in them becomes more serene.
15.24.3.274Listen 7 Nov 2015In the world you will find only two kinds of people--the unconscious and the conscious. The first kind know only their own little egos and their own large desires. The second kind know continually that they are in the presence of the Overself, and enjoy its great peace.
16.25.2.152Listen 8 Nov 2015We need to build up an intimate inner relationship with a being whose compassion is wide enough to understand us and whose power is developed enough to help us. It does not matter that he is dead.
2.1.6.78Listen 9 Nov 2015To say that the world does not exist helps neither the cause of truth nor the seeker after truth. To admit that it does exist but to qualify the admission by adding ”but not materially, only mentally” is to describe experience accurately. The dream exists in the dreaming mind as a series of thoughts, even though its world is not physical.
13.21.3.4Listen 10 Nov 2015... We need to achieve a balanced life with a wise alternation between action and repose, work and meditation, being positive and being passive…
13.20.1.325, ExcerptListen 11 Nov 2015The basis of Short Path practices is that the mind is like a transparent crystal which takes on the colour of what is brought into propinquity with it. By turning the mind away from the ego, even from its improvement, and towards the Overself, uplift results.
15.23.1.59Listen 12 Nov 2015... The source to which we almost instinctively turn when we are in quest of spiritual light must no longer be sought outside ourselves. It must be sought within our own heart.
10.15.1.325, ExcerptListen 13 Nov 2015The sage gladly opens to all qualified and eager seekers the mysteries and treasures of his own inner experience, that they may profit by his past struggles and present success.
16.25.4.114Listen 14 Nov 2015If he can do little to bring on the advent of Grace, he can do much to remove the obstructions to it.
3.2.1.35Listen 15 Nov 2015The finite mind of man can not take possession of the Infinite Power any more than the little circle can contain the large one. At the point where the two come into contact there must be surrender, self-surrender, a willingness to let go of its own self-centre, its own instinct of self-preservation.
12.18.4.126Listen 16 Nov 2015He is an ambassador from the infinite, an envoy to all men from the higher plane of their own being.
16.25.3.12Listen 17 Nov 2015If the Overself meets with no obstructions in his mind, its manifestation will be perfect. But in the ratio that it does meet with them, its manifestation will be imperfect. The mind must not only be made sensitive enough to be guided by the Overself, it must also be made pure enough to interpret such guidance correctly and agelessly.
11.16.15.143Listen 18 Nov 2015It would be an error to believe that it is the Overself which reincarnates. It does not. But its offspring--the ego--does.
6.8.1.232Listen 19 Nov 2015He is to keep the thought of the goal itself continually before him, to give the mental consciousness as its principal occupation a meditation on the Overself. This is the basis of Short Path work and this is why, before he can hope to succeed, he must first have set himself the Long Path task of gaining some control over his thoughts.
15.23.4.20Listen 20 Nov 2015The divine presence does not leave the enlightened man when he goes to sleep and return to him when he awakes, nor does it leave him when he enters the state of dream and return to him when he leaves it; it is in truth something which is ever present…
16.25.2.175, ExcerptListen 21 Nov 2015The rays of light would enter every man's conscious mind even now, were they not prevented by the extroversion of his attention, the upheavals of his emotion and passion, the narrow rigidities of his logical intellect, and the attachments of his ego. This is why the removal of these obstructions--which is the Long Path's special work--is indispensable to his progress.
3.2.1.43Listen 22 Nov 2015Men and women were being enlightened before Gautama arose and after Jesus went. And they are being enlightened today as they will still be in ages yet unborn. Inspired teachers may come and go but the Soul in every man is eternal.
12.17.1.97Listen 23 Nov 2015As the light of Grace begins to fall upon him, he becomes aware of the tendencies and propensities, the motives and desires which obstruct or oppose the awakening into awareness of the Overself.
12.18.5.307Listen 24 Nov 2015The wandering of thoughts stopped and the consciousness held steady, the next phase is to turn it--if he has not already started with that idea--towards the diviner part of himself in aspiration, in devotion, and in love. As he continues this inward focusing, the willed effort becomes easier and easier until it seems no longer needed: at this point it is replaced by something deep within coming up to the surface and taking him OVER. He should remain perfectly still, passive, embraced.
4.4.1.274Listen 25 Nov 2015It is the paradox of the Short Path that it begins with the end, in order to arrive at the end!
15.23.1.15Listen 26 Nov 2015If the ego cannot trap him through his vices it will try to do so through his virtues. When he has made enough progress to warrant it, he will be led cunningly and insensibly into spiritual pride. Too quickly and too mistakenly he will believe himself to be set apart from other men by his attainments. When this belief is strong and sustained, that is, when his malady of conceit calls for a necessary cure, a pit will be dug unconsciously for him by other men and his own ego will lead him straight into it. Out of the suffering which will follow this downfall, he will have a chance to grow humbler.
7.11.2.55Listen 27 Nov 2015We think that this or that will bring us to the great happiness. But the fortunate few know that in meditation the mind is at its most blissful when it is most empty.
15.24.1.91Listen 28 Nov 2015If the consciousness has not previously been prepared, by competent instruction or intuitive understanding, to receive this experience, then the passage out of the body will begin with a delightful sense of dawning liberation but end with a frightful sense of dangerous catastrophe. Both knowledge and courage are needed here, otherwise there will be resistance to the process followed by an abrupt breaking away from it altogether.
15.23.7.77Listen 29 Nov 2015This condition, this entry into the Void, is a kind of death. Everything is taken away from him; he is nothing and has nothing; yet he still feels one thing which utterly compensates for this loss. He feels the presence of the Overself.
15.23.8.98Listen 30 Nov 2015
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