Day by day
... If a man has conscientiously followed this fourfold path, if he has practised mystical meditation and metaphysical reflection, purification of character and unselfish service, and yet seems to be remote from the goal, what is he to do? He has then to follow the admonition of Jesus: ”Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you.” He has literally to ask for Grace out of the deep anguish of his heart...
3.2.9.67, Excerpt1 Feb 2011Whatever helps to lead him out of the ego's tyranny, be it an idea or a situation, an induced mood or a particular service, is worth trying. But it will be easier, and the result more successful, to the extent that he releases himself from his past history.
6.8.4.1552 Feb 2011He will not have to struggle as on the Long Path. There will no more be irksome effort. The mind will be glad to rest in this positive state, if he holds from the very beginning the faith that it already is accomplished, that the aspiration toward it is being fulfilled now, not at some unknown distant time. Such an attitude engenders something more than pleasant feelings of hope and optimism: it engenders subconscious power.
15.23.6.1313 Feb 2011The quest is a deliberate attempt to shorten the passage from life in the underself to life in the Overself. Therefore it involves a constant discipline of actions, feelings, thoughts, and words.
3.2.6.504 Feb 2011...Use the last few minutes in the twilight state of consciousness before falling asleep at night for constructive self-improvement. The best form this can take during your present phase of development is to relax in bed, empty the mind of the day's cares, and make definite, concrete suggestions about the good qualities desired and imaginatively visualize yourself demonstrating these desired qualities. Furthermore, you should go even farther and visualize yourself in possession of the Higher Consciousness, attuned to the Higher Will and expressing the Higher Poise. All this will be like seeds planted in the inner being and growing during sleep.
13.19.3.150, Excerpt5 Feb 2011If only he heeds its intuitive message, the higher self will not fail him. He will make his way to true balanced sanity and deep inner calm. Without searching for others, knowing that in himself God's representative resides and that this can give the right kind of help, he will depend for self-reliance on an ever-presence.
14.22.1.1376 Feb 2011If there is anything worth studying by a human being, after the necessary preliminary studies of how to exist and survive in this world healthily and wisely, it is the study of man's own consciousness - not a cataloguing of the numerous thoughts that play within it, but a deep investigation of its nature in itself, its own unadulterated pure self.
2.1.1.817 Feb 2011The ego is after all only an idea. It derives its seeming actuality from a higher source. If we make the inner effort to search for its origin we shall eventually find the Mind in which this idea originated. That mind is the Overself. This search is the Quest. The self-separation of the idea from the mind which makes its existence possible, is egoism.
6.8.1.98 Feb 2011So long as the aspirant takes the attitude that he aspires to unite with the Overself, that he wants permanent spiritual illumination, he is merely adding another desire to those which his ego already possesses. He is still turning round inside the closed circle of the little self. There is no way out except to forget himself, to turn away from the ego and regard, fixedly and constantly, the Overself.
15.23.1.249 Feb 2011When the brain is too active, its energies obstruct the gentle influx of intuitive feeling. When they are extroverted, they obstruct that listening attitude which is needed to hear the Overself's gentle voice speak to the inner silence. Mental quiet must be the goal. We must develop a new kind of hearing.
4.4.7.4010 Feb 2011The intellect is not competent to establish the existence of God, which only a higher faculty can know and consequently make any valid assertions about. But neither is it competent to disprove the existence of God since it can disprove only those finite matters which it can deal with: God, being infinite, is outside its reach in every way.
5.7.1.18811 Feb 2011Enlightenment is not equal in all mystics. With most it is only at its beginning, whatever they personally may believe to the contrary; with some it is more developed; with a few others it is perfect. In all cases it is proportionate to the extent to which the ego's influence is obliterated.
11.16.2.22412 Feb 2011As his centre moves to a profounder depth of being, peace of mind becomes increasingly a constant companion. This in turn influences the way in which he handles his share of the world's activities. Impatience and stupidity recede, wrath at malignity is disciplined; discouragement under adversity is controlled and stress under pressures relaxed.
15.24.2.9813 Feb 2011...The very fact that a man has consciously begun the quest is itself a manifestation of Grace, for he has begun to seek the Overself only because the Overself's own working has begun to make it plain to him, through the sense of unbearable separation from it, that the right moment for this has arrived. The aspirant should therefore take heart and feel hope. He is not really walking alone. The very love which has awakened within him for the Overself is a reflection of the love which is being shown towards him...
3.2.9.67, Excerpt14 Feb 2011The master expounds truth to the disciple, telling him again and again, ”You are THAT reality which you seek: give up the ego and know it.” This holy message echoes itself repeatedly within the disciple's mind and eventually he too realizes its truth in his turn.
16.25.5.8315 Feb 2011The feeling of some presence inside his heart will become so powerful at intervals, so real and so intense, that he will quite naturally enter into conversation with it. He will implore it, pray to it, express love for it, and worship it. And he will find that it will answer him in words, the sentences forming themselves spontaneously within his mind as speech without sound. It will give him pertinent didactic instruction - often at unexpected moments - and formulate higher points of view.
14.22.2.12216 Feb 2011He whose resort is solely the personal ego is constantly subject to its limitations and narrowness and, consequently, is afflicted with strains and anxieties. He who lets it go and opens himself up, whose resort is to his Higher Self, finds it infinite and boundless and, consequently, is filled with inward peace.
2.1.5.36417 Feb 2011In trying to get an intuitive answer, it is important to formulate the problem or the questions clearly and as sharply as you can.
14.22.1.12918 Feb 2011It is a state of exquisite tenderness, of love welling up from an inner centre and radiating outward in all directions. If other human beings or animal creatures come within his contact at the time, they become recipients of this love without exception. For then no enemies are recognized, none are disliked, and it is not possible to regard anyone as repulsive.
14.22.6.8319 Feb 2011If he wishes to enter the stage of contemplation, he must let go of every thought as it rises, however high or holy it seems, for it is sure to bring associated thoughts in its train. However interesting or attractive these bypaths may be at other times, they are now just that--bypaths. He must rigidly seek the Void.
15.23.7.16220 Feb 2011Just then, as thoughts themselves stop coming into his mind, he stops living in time and begins living in the eternal. He knows and feels his timelessness. And since all his sufferings belong to the world of passing time, of personal ego, he leaves them far behind as though they had never been. He finds himself in the heaven of a serene, infinite bliss. He learns that he could always have entered it; only his insistence on holding to the little egoistic values, his lack of thought-control, and his disobedience to the age-old advice of the Great Teachers prevented him from doing so.
14.22.3.2021 Feb 2011Books and discussions can, at best, serve only as guides for the individual inward search. This search for the True Self should be accompanied by efforts to impartially observe, improve, and develop that personal self which is ordinarily accepted as the be-all and end-all of existence. Constant attempts to cultivate and maintain awareness of the True Self - the Overself - together with making it the object of his deepest love and humble worship, are among the qualifications essential to progress.
15.23.6.1822 Feb 2011People should be warned that cause and effect rule in the moral realm no less than in the scientific realm. They should be trained from childhood to take this principle into their calculation. They should be made to feel responsible for setting causes into action that invite suffering or attract trouble or lead to frustration.
6.9.3.8523 Feb 2011...It is impossible for the materialist to perceive that we live and move and have our being in a universal Mind. But the sage, knowing this, knows also that this universal life will take care of his individual life to the degree that he opens himself out to it, to the extent that he takes a large and generous view of his relation to all other individual lives.
16.25.4.27, Excerpt24 Feb 2011...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, Excerpt25 Feb 2011This is the ego that we falsely think of as being our real self. This is the ego to which memory ties us. This is the illusive part of our dual personality; this is the known part of our being, a mere shadow thrown by the unknown part which is infinitely greater. This moves from one earthly body to another, from one dream to another through the phantasmagoria of existence without awakening to reality.
6.8.1.23326 Feb 2011These intuitive feelings tell us that a deeper kind of Being is at the base of our ordinary consciousness.
14.22.1.2127 Feb 2011We are told that Jesus was a man of sorrows. But was he not also a man of joys? The joy of bearing a divine message, the joy of bringing light into a darkened world, and the joy of helping men find their own soul.
16.25.3.6128 Feb 2011
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