Day by day
First, he has a vague feeling of being attracted towards the Overself. Then he bestows more attention upon it, thinks of it frequently; at length attention grows into concentration and this, in turn, culminates in absorption. In the end, he can say, with al Hallaj: “I live not in myself, only in Thee. Last night I loved. This morning I am Love.”
2.1.5.329Listen 1 Mar 2024To look steadily at Nature’s own artwork for a while—be it mountain, valley, or moving waves—with growing deep feeling until the self is forgotten, is also a yoga practice.
3.3.6.13Listen 2 Mar 2024Such rare peace stands out in poignant contrast against the burdens and fretfulness of our ordinary lives. Such rare goodness is needed by a generation accustomed to violence, atrocity, bestiality and horror, lunacy and hatred.
16.25.3.525Listen 3 Mar 2024Those animals which have lived in the society of man can sense his intent enough to fear death when he takes them to the slaughterhouse.
4.5.3.159Listen 4 Mar 2024All things and beings flow forth from the illimitable Power, all derive their consciousness from It. Nor may we stop with this acknowledgment. For they derive whatsoever they have of intelligence from It, too. Is it not a grand thought, full of promise and hope, that in the gradual progression of this intelligence from minute cells to celestial beings, it passes upward through man, enabling him in time to attain and know his own Divinity?
16.26.4.172Listen 5 Mar 2024There are situations which may seem beyond endurance and circumstances beyond sufferance. It is then that those who have learned how to withdraw into their interior being, how to return to their source, may find some measure of help and strength.
15.24.4.112Listen 6 Mar 2024The first onset of this grace in meditation is felt in the same way the onset of sleep is felt; it is hardly perceptible. At one moment it is not there at all, but at the next it has begun to manifest.
4.4.1.318Listen 7 Mar 2024When we are wholly absorbed in watching a cinema picture to the extent that we forget ourself and our personal affairs, the ego temporarily disappears and ceases to exist for us. This too means, if it means anything at all, that the ego exists only by virtue of its existence in our consciousness. If we exercise ourself in withdrawing attention from the ego, not to bestow it upon a cinema picture but to bestow it upon our own inner being, we may succeed in getting behind the ego and discovering the Witness-self.
6.8.4.476Listen 8 Mar 2024Not by his ego’s own will can he take hold of this jewel, but only by the Grace substituting that other Consciousness for his ego’s.
15.23.4.93Listen 9 Mar 2024One man may go to the Orient and gain nothing. It is not emotional exuberance which produces a high spiritual result, nor visits to many ashrams, but the depth and concentration with which the truth is seen.
2.1.5.295Listen 10 Mar 2024The successful philosopher is no dreamer: he keeps his practicality, his interest in world affairs, his willingness to accept responsibility, thus remaining an effective servant of mankind. But all this is done within the Remembrance.
15.23.6.242Listen 11 Mar 2024Because we draw our very life from the spiritual principle within us, we can only ignore the truth that this principle exists but can never lose its reality.
14.22.3.70Listen 12 Mar 2024The woman far advanced in pregnancy may be attending to household duties—may cook, sew, or wash most of the day—yet not at any moment will her mind be completely carried away from the infant she is bearing inside.
15.23.6.223Listen 13 Mar 2024How can he adjust his vision of eternity to living prosaically in the here and now? It is hard and, like many others, he will fail. But repeated effort, undaunted practice, comprehension of the Short Path may enable him to do so at last.
15.23.6.226Listen 14 Mar 2024Such men and women are indeed the spiritual vanguard of the human race.
16.25.3.30Listen 15 Mar 2024The knowledge of someone far better than oneself shows human possibilities. The longing to become like him provides one with an ideal for living.
16.25.3.528Listen 16 Mar 2024Coaxed by pleasure in some incarnations and driven by pain in others, man slowly learns to use his faculties and powers aright.
6.9.4.94Listen 17 Mar 2024… In the Overself there is no agony or pain; these belong to the sphere of illusion.
3.2.3.129, ExcerptListen 18 Mar 2024The nature and functions of man are reflected in miniature in the cells which compose his body, while he himself reflects those of the Universal Mind in which he is similar to the cell.
16.26.4.191Listen 19 Mar 2024… Jesus said, “Except ye become as little children ye cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven.” What did he mean? Consider the minds of children in whom the ego is but little developed. How egoless they are. How spontaneous and immediate is their knowledge of the world around them …
3.2.3.29, ExcerptListen 20 Mar 2024He may ask himself whether he has any competence for such a great task. But this is to forget that he has been led to this point, to the quest, that the same higher self or power which out of its grace did this can lead him still farther.
2.1.2.117Listen 21 Mar 2024If he can develop the facility to sustain his meditation and keep off distracting thoughts, he can gain a cooler vision in worldly matters and a clearer one in spiritual matters.
4.4.1.331Listen 22 Mar 2024… The quest of the Overself must begin with a discipline of the underself.
3.2.1.81, ExcerptListen 23 Mar 2024So long as we persist in taking the ego at its own valuation as the real Self, so long are we incapable of discovering the truth about the mind or of penetrating to its mysterious depths …
6.8.4.386, ExcerptListen 24 Mar 2024The experience of being gripped and physically shaken by some extraordinary power will also occur at certain intervals along this path. This is not to be feared but rather to be welcomed. It always signifies a descent of grace and is a herald of coming progress of some kind or other.
3.2.9.27Listen 25 Mar 2024The “I” knows itself as the Overself when it ceases to limit itself to the individual entity, thereby liberating its will to the full extent at last …
6.8.1.49, ExcerptListen 26 Mar 2024Sometimes it is high wisdom to desert the world for awhile, resting in a hermitage or reposing with Nature. For a fresh point of view may be found there, what is happening within oneself may be better understood, the tired mind may gain some concentration, and the fringe of inner peace may be touched.
3.3.1.172Listen 27 Mar 2024The silent secret part of the self is forever there, forever asking a little surrender of attention. But few give it.
14.22.3.64Listen 28 Mar 2024His work is to prepare the ground and sow the seed; Nature will do the rest. That is to say, he is to arrange the favourable physical circumstances and the proper psychological concentration in which inspiration can most easily be born.
3.2.4.28Listen 29 Mar 2024The art of meditation is accomplished in two progressive stages: first, mental concentration; second, mental relaxation. The first is positive, the second is passive.
4.4.1.148Listen 30 Mar 2024To describe the wonders and benefits, the delights and beauties of these glimpses will whet the appetite of people without satisfying it. Hence they will then be led to ask how such a glimpse is to be obtained.
14.22.5.1Listen 31 Mar 2024
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