Day by day
There is a godlike thing within us which theology calls the spirit and which, because it is also a portion of the higher power within the universe, I call the Overself. He is wise indeed who takes it as his truest guide and makes it his protective guardian.
14.22.3.235Listen 1 Mar 2013When thoughts are restless and hard to control, there is always something in us which is aware of this restlessness. This knowledge belongs to the hidden I which stands as an unruffled witness of all our efforts. We must seek therefore to feel for and identify ourself with it. If we succeed, then the restlessness passes away of itself…
4.4.3.22, ExcerptListen 2 Mar 2013... There is no room for a hopeless fatalism in this teaching. Destiny is alterable. It is made more pleasurable by our good deeds, more bearable by our wise decisions, more painful by our bad deeds, and more unbearable by our foolish decisions.
6.9.4.117, ExcerptListen 3 Mar 2013God is both outside and inside us, is everywhere around and deep within. It is there but waits to be recovered by the individual consciousness.
14.22.3.72Listen 4 Mar 2013Although the price of attainment, which is the gradual giving up of the lower self, is agonizing because the lower one is the only self we know ordinarily, there is for every such surrender a compensation equal in value at least to what is given up, and actually of more surpassing worth. This compensation is not only a theoretical one, it is a real experience; and at the last, when the whole of the lesser self is surrendered, the only description of it which mere words can give is blissful peace. Since agony of mind cannot coexist with peace, the agony falls away and only the peace remains. The warning must be given, however, that the Higher Self never yields its compensations until the requisite surrender is made. If this is done little by little, which is usually the only way it can be done, then the lovely compensation will follow also little by little.
6.8.4.443, ExcerptListen 5 Mar 2013It is because we have the Overself ever present within us that we are ever engaged in searching for it. The feeling of its absence (from consciousness) is what drives us to this search. Through ignorance we interpret the feeling wrongly and search outside, among objects, places, persons, or even ideas.
2.1.2.158Listen 6 Mar 2013If the Long Path disciplines increase his anxieties and frustrations to an insupportable point, it is probably an indication that he needs a shift to the Short Path--with its effort to shift identity into the Overself and establish him there.
15.23.4.129Listen 7 Mar 2013Such is the triple nature of man--a lower self of animal instincts, a middle self of human thoughts, a higher self of divine nature.
16.26.4.55Listen 8 Mar 2013Once you learn to recognize the intuitive voice, follow its dictates; do not hesitate to conform with them nor try to make up an excuse for failing to do so if the guidance is unpalatable.
14.22.1.140Listen 9 Mar 2013”I am not I.” These words are nonsensical to the intellect, which can make nothing of them. But to awakened intuition they are perfectly comprehensible.
6.8.1.19Listen 10 Mar 2013It is usually quite impossible for the average aspirant to determine who is a fully qualified master. But it is sometimes quite possible to determine who is not a master. He may apply this negative test to the supposed master's personal conduct and public teaching.
2.1.6.406Listen 11 Mar 2013We may well wonder how animal lust, human cunning, and angelic nobility can come to be mingled in a single entity. That indeed is the mystery of man.
16.26.4.56Listen 12 Mar 2013... The actual finding of Truth, which is the same as Nirvana, Self-Knowledge, Liberation, is really a work of brief duration--perhaps a matter of minutes--whereas the preparation and equipment of oneself to find it must take many incarnations…
3.2.9.63, ExcerptListen 13 Mar 2013The need to guide his personal life more intuitively comes home to him after every major mistake has been committed and its effects felt. He sees then that it is not enough to calculate by intellect, nor feel by impulse, nor act on emotion, for these have led him to sufferings that could have been prevented, or caused other people sufferings that bring him regrets. He learns that it is necessary to listen inwardly, to wait in mental quiet for intuitive feeling to arise and guide him.
9.13.2.212Listen 14 Mar 2013That life is a kind of dream is the hint given by religion, the experience felt in meditation, the knowledge correctly understood by philosophy.
13.21.3.22Listen 15 Mar 2013These glimpses will last longer and come more easily, hence more often, if the mind and the feelings are properly balanced, and if, at the same time, the body is purified, its organs co-operated with, and its forces regenerated.
14.22.5.33Listen 16 Mar 2013The Overself is the Higher mind in man, his divine soul as distinguished from his human-animal nature. It is the same as Plato's ”nous.”
14.22.3.372Listen 17 Mar 2013On the Short Path he fixes his mind on divine attributes, such as the all-pervading, ever-present, beginningless and endless nature of the One Life-Power, until he is lifted out of his little ego entirely.
15.23.1.127Listen 18 Mar 2013... If he looks only to the little ego for his supply, he must accept all its narrow limitations, its dependence on personal effort alone. But if he looks farther and recognizes his true source of welfare is with the Overself, with its miracle-working Grace, he knows that all things are possible to it. Hope, optimism, and high expectation make his life richer, more abundant.
15.23.1.146, ExcerptListen 19 Mar 2013When a man comes to the point when all his outer life dissolves in tragedy or calamity, he comes also to the point when this quest is all that is left to him. But he may not perceive this truth. He may miss his chance.
2.1.2.178Listen 20 Mar 2013We are not just higher animals and nothing more but are possessed of something that the other animals do not possess--a self-consciousness which can be developed until it matures into a thinking power as well as a totally superior kind of awareness--that of the Overself.
16.26.4.43Listen 21 Mar 2013He has to learn a new art--that of remaining relaxed and at ease, almost an impassive observer, while his body or his intellect does its work in the world, performs in the role set for it.
15.23.6.96Listen 22 Mar 2013A voice comes to his hearing but not with the ordinary kind of audibility. It is within him for it is only a mental voice yet it speaks with a strange authority. It says to him, ”I am the Way, the Truth, the Life.”
14.22.2.127Listen 23 Mar 2013No one can see the Real yet everyone may see the things which come from it. Although it is itself untouchable, whatever we touch enshrines its presence.
16.28.1.22Listen 24 Mar 2013When he has gone through some training in yoga or meditation, he is fit to ascertain Truth . . . emotionally and mentally fit. His mind can be held for a long time on a single theme without wandering; he can concentrate his thoughts upon the pursuit of Truth to the exclusion of everything else. His power of attention is made needle-sharp and brought under control. Thus equipped, he can begin to find Truth.
3.2.9.63, ExcerptListen 25 Mar 2013If you will take care not to become too depressed when things go wrong, nor too elated when they go right, you will gradually achieve an equilibrium which later will assist you to remain always in touch with Reality.
15.24.3.138Listen 26 Mar 2013Intellectual definitions of transcendental states merely leave us in the dark. We must practise walking on the divine path, and not merely talk about it, if we would know what these states really are.
3.2.4.75Listen 27 Mar 2013Nothing but a great and unexpected upheaval will precipitate a change in their mental habits or impel a deviation from their physical habits. If it does come, they look upon it as a disaster, although when time gives them a longer perspective they look upon it as an enlightenment.
3.2.3.148Listen 28 Mar 2013If the ego continues to perform its functions, as it needs must even after Fulfilment, it no longer does so as his master, no longer as his very self. For henceforth it obeys the Overself.
6.8.1.209Listen 29 Mar 2013What or who is seeking enlightenment? It cannot be the higher Self, for that is itself of the nature of Light. There then only remains the ego! This ego, the object of so many denunciations and denigrations, is the being that, transformed, will win truth and find Reality even though it must surrender itself utterly in the end as the price to be paid.
6.8.4.435Listen 30 Mar 2013... Nothing is more substantial than the eternal truth of man's spiritual existence. Nothing could be more real than the experiences which come to him when he can unchain the mind from the dense vibrations of the fleshly body.
8.12.3.173, ExcerptListen 31 Mar 2013
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