Day by day
... There is good hope for a man no matter how much of a beginner he is, but only if he is eager to see his mistakes, if he is his own harshest critic, and if he puts forth a continuous and persistent effort to amend his life.
3.2.6.69, ExcerptListen 1 Mar 2014Many are satisfied if they can attain just a glimpse of the Overself. But a few are not. They seek permanent abidance in the Overself, and that in the greatest possible degree.
2.1.5.109Listen 2 Mar 2014There is this difference when the Long Path is entered alone and when it is entered with the accompaniment of the Short one, that in the second case there is added the light of guidance, the protection of peace, the acceleration of progress, and the harmony of equilibrium.
15.23.5.185Listen 3 Mar 2014We can know the Overself only by being it, not by thinking it. It is beyond thoughts for it is Thought, Pure Mind, itself.
14.22.3.190Listen 4 Mar 2014If we were static beings fixed and chained by Nature, nothing would be worth the effort of trying. But we are not. We are dynamic centres of intelligence. Most of us revolve at low speeds. All of us could revolve more quickly. Some of us could even revolve at high speeds. For we can will ourselves into anything. In the silence of our heart we must will that this thing be accomplished, and lo, it is. I will carries man onward and upward, and defeat only spurs to further endeavor.
3.2.6.45Listen 5 Mar 2014Because what we seek is ours already, because the Overself is always here and now, there is in reality no quest to follow, no path to travel, and no goal to reach.
15.23.1.28Listen 6 Mar 2014The body seems far away, but I seem closer than ever. For I feel that now I am in my mind and no longer the body's captive. There is a sense of release. I am as free as Space itself.
15.23.7.89Listen 7 Mar 2014Not Descartes' formula I think, therefore I am but the mystic's The Soul is within me, therefore I am. For Descartes' I is relative and changeful, whereas the mystic's is absolute and permanent.
6.8.1.47Listen 8 Mar 2014In the end he will rely on this little inner voice which, if he listens humbly, speaks and tells him which way to turn.
14.22.1.163Listen 9 Mar 2014The true self of man is hidden in a central core of stillness, a central vacuum of silence. This core, this vacuum occupies only a pinpoint in dimension. All around it there is ring of thoughts and desires constituting the imagined self, the ego. This ring is constantly fermenting with fresh thoughts, constantly changing with fresh desires, and alternately bubbling with joy or heaving with grief. Whereas the centre is forever at rest, the ring around it is never at rest; whereas the centre bestows peace, the ring destroys it.
6.8.1.32Listen 10 Mar 2014We have to demonstrate by our lives and to exemplify in our attitudes not only the truth of the ideas which rule our minds, but also the inherent power of these ideas.
3.2.6.46Listen 11 Mar 2014... On this Quest it is needful to cultivate strength of will. The aspirant needs it to practise self-control, to overcome harmful desires, and to reject negative thoughts. He needs it to gain control of his actions which result from those desires and thoughts…
4.5.1.1, ExcerptListen 12 Mar 2014We enter into paradise when, in contemplation, we enter into awareness of the Overself.
15.23.7.96Listen 13 Mar 2014Meditation must become a daily rite, a part of the regime which is, like lunch or dinner, not to be missed, but regarded with a sacredness the body's feeding does not have.
3.3.2.139Listen 14 Mar 2014The Overself is there, but it is hidden within our conscious being. Only there, in this deep atmosphere, do we come upon the mirage-free Truth, the illusion-free Reality.
14.22.3.225Listen 15 Mar 2014The ego is a collection of thoughts circulating around a fixed but empty centre. If the habits of many, many reincarnations had not given them such strength and persistence, they could be voided. The reality--MIND--could then reveal Itself.
6.8.2.37Listen 16 Mar 2014... He must begin by putting the ego, his own ego, forward as an object of observation... With time and practice, study and reflection, help and sincerity, some sort of impersonality and neutrality can be established. When inner stillness is fully reached, the work becomes much easier until it is completed by the grace of the higher Self, Overself…
15.23.6.97, ExcerptListen 17 Mar 2014The goals of progress are but imagined ones. There is only one goal which is undeniably real, completely certain, and authentically true--and that is an unchanging one, an eternal one. Yet it is also the one that has escaped mankind!
2.1.1.162Listen 18 Mar 2014How dismal to hear a cynic's exclamation: A man cannot change himself. But how hopeful to hear Socrates' own experience that he had come into the world with many vices yet had rid himself of them with the help of reason…
8.12.4.122, ExcerptListen 19 Mar 2014Yes, your guardian angel is always present and always the secret witness and recorder of your thoughts and deeds. Whether you go down into the black depths of hell or ascend to the radiant heights of heaven, you do not walk alone.
14.22.3.229Listen 20 Mar 2014Because there is nothing quite like it in human experience and because there is no opposite in the entire cosmos from which it can be differentiated, the Absolute Being remains utterly incomprehensible to the human intellect.
16.28.2.42Listen 21 Mar 2014The personal ego of man forms itself out of the impersonal life of the universe like a wave forming itself out of the ocean. It constricts, confines, restricts, and limits that infinite life to a small finite area. The wave does just the same to the water of the ocean. The ego shuts out so much of the power and intelligence contained in the universal being that it seems to belong to an entirely different and utterly inferior order of existence. The wave, too, since it forms itself only on the surface of the water gives no indication in its tiny stature of the tremendous depth and breadth and volume of water beneath it…
6.8.1.102, ExcerptListen 22 Mar 2014Anyone who pursued the Quest with the same zeal with which everyone pursues earthly things, would soon come within sight of its goal.
3.2.6.41Listen 23 Mar 2014He notes his characteristics as if they were outside him, belonging to another man and not inside him. He studies his weaknesses to understand them thoroughly. They do not dismay him for he also recognizes his strengths.
4.4.4.146Listen 24 Mar 2014There is really nothing to be achieved here; only something to be accepted--the fact of your own divinity.
15.23.1.31Listen 25 Mar 2014Because thinking is an activity within time, it cannot lead to the Timeless. For this attainment, mental quiet is necessary.
4.4.7.52Listen 26 Mar 2014The World-Mind is the conscious Power sustaining all life, the intelligent energy sustaining all atoms, the divine being behind and within the universe.
16.27.2.56Listen 27 Mar 2014... Is it not logical that when a man's mind is full of his ”I” to overflowing, there can be no room for that which transcends it, the Overself?
6.8.1.52, ExcerptListen 28 Mar 2014The first important need is to separate himself in thought and outlook from the animal side of his nature--not for any moral reasons but for metaphysical ones--and part of the inner work which this calls for is to take up the observer role. He is to look at the body (and its actions, desires, and passions) as if it were apart from himself--in short, to gain a detached view…
15.23.6.98, ExcerptListen 29 Mar 2014If we could pin down this sense of I-ness which is behind all we think, say, and do, and if we could part it from the thoughts, feelings, and physical body by doing so, we would find it to be rooted in and linked with the higher Power behind the whole world.
6.8.1.134Listen 30 Mar 2014To the extent that a man is conscious of the presence of the Overself, he becomes inspired. To the extent that he is also talented in any of the arts, his work also becomes inspired.
14.22.2.25Listen 31 Mar 2014
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