Day by day
Life will be very different for man when, at long last, he recovers the sense of his own divinity.
14.22.7.158Listen 1 Apr 2020I have often been asked what I thought was the secret of Buddha´s smile. It is — it can only be — that he smiled at himself for searching all those years for what he already possessed.
1.23.0.63Listen 2 Apr 2020Emerson knew this practice. By His remembrance, life becomes pervaded with nectarine bliss, he said.
15.23.6.157Listen 3 Apr 2020… The benefits of meditation apply both to mundane life and to spiritual seeking. Think what it means to be able to give our mental apparatus a complete rest, to be able to stop all thoughts at will, and to experience the profound relief of relaxing the entire being--body, nerves, breath, emotions, and thoughts…
1.3.0.15, ExcerptListen 4 Apr 2020If he fails but persists despite the failures, one day he will find himself suddenly possessed of the power to win, the power to achieve what had hitherto seemed impossible for his limited ability. This gift--for it is nothing else--is Grace.
12.18.5.149Listen 5 Apr 2020The root-thought which underlies the ego that has to be slain is not that it is separate from all other creatures but that it is separate from the one infinite life-power.
15.23.8.156Listen 6 Apr 2020To make the result dependent on Grace alone would be to deny the existence and power of the universal law of recompense. The need of effort can only be ignored by those who fail to see that it plays an indispensable part in all evolution, from the lowly physical to the lofty spiritual.
12.18.5.81Listen 7 Apr 2020Those moments when the feeling of something beyond his present existence comes to him are precious indeed. They must be eagerly welcomed and constantly nourished by dwelling upon them again and again, both in remembrance and in meditation. The loving recollection of those beautiful inspired moments and the intense concentration upon them is in itself a mystical exercise of special importance. This exercise is designed to help the learner transcend his attachment to externality, his tendency to live in the senses as though they alone reported reality.
15.23.6.188Listen 8 Apr 2020The materialist who sees only the animal side of man is usually brutal or sensual, whereas the materialist who sees also the intellectual side is immeasurably more evolved. But both miss the intuitive side.
5.7.6.151Listen 9 Apr 2020It is possible to be open to one's best inner self, aware of its presence, its beauty and peace. And this possibility can be not only realized but also naturalized. It can become one's normal condition.
14.22.8.90Listen 10 Apr 2020… Moments of utter inward stillness may come to him. The ordinary familiar ego will then desert him with a lightning-like suddenness and with hardly less brevity. Let him fix these moments firmly in his memory. They are to be used in the ensuing years as themes for meditation and goals for striving.
15.23.6.186, ExcerptListen 11 Apr 2020Since there are no negative emotions in the Overself, how can it stay in the same breast as an ego filled with them? This is why the glimpse can be only a brief one, and why it can be stretched into permanency only by first cleansing the nature of all negatives.
14.22.8.67Listen 12 Apr 2020The basis of the universe is its equilibrium. Only so can the planets revolve in harmony and without collision. The man who would likewise put himself in tune with Nature, God, must establish equilibrium as the basis of his own nature.
13.20.3.279Listen 13 Apr 2020A vivid, intense, and self-critical revelation of how ”sinful” he has been may precede, accompany, or follow the glimpse. It may shake him to his core. But it cannot be said that he feels he has betrayed his best and higher being any more than it can be said a child has betrayed the adult it has not yet grown into. He understands this at the same time and so forgives himself.
14.22.6.373Listen 14 Apr 2020This withdrawal of attention from the immediate environment which occurs when deeply immersed in thought, looking at the distant part of a landscape, or raptly listening to inspired music, is the ”I” coming closer to its innermost nature. At the deepest level of this experience, the ego-thought vanishes and ”I-myself” becomes merged in the impersonal Consciousness.
15.23.7.57Listen 15 Apr 2020It is not only needful to practise this remembrance as often as convenient or even possible, but also for as long as convenient or possible.
15.23.6.189Listen 16 Apr 2020To what better use can a man put his will than the eradication of hatreds and the subduing of passions? For out of these two sources alone come so many wrong deeds and so much consequent suffering.
5.6.4.143Listen 17 Apr 2020With this awakening he begins to relate his own purposes in life to the universal purpose.
14.22.6.371Listen 18 Apr 2020No Maharishee, no Aurobindo, no Saint Francis can save you. It is the Holy Spirit which saves man by its Grace. The ministrations of these men may kindle faith and quiet the mind, may help you to prepare the right conditions and offer a focus for your concentration — but they offer no guarantee of salvation…
12.18.5.69, ExcerptListen 19 Apr 2020That Consciousness which men seek so variously in ecstasy or despair is already there but covered up, suffocated by their own little self-consciousness…
6.8.4.193, ExcerptListen 20 Apr 2020Anger and hatred are dangerous emotions to carry about with you. Whether or not they lead to actions harmful to the person they are directed against, they are certainly harmful to you. Conquer them quickly, get these psychological poisons out of your system.
5.6.3.11Listen 21 Apr 2020… To know that man has a sacred soul and to know this fact with invulnerable certitude, is the first reward of right prayer and philosophic meditation. The true soul of man is hidden and concealed from his senses and from his thoughts. But it is possible for him by these methods to awaken a higher faculty--intuition--whereby he may reach, know, and be lovingly received by this soul.
1.3.0.15, ExcerptListen 22 Apr 2020They beseech the Lord with whining prayers for compassionate help or gracious mercy, yet never for a moment ever think of themselves granting mercy to the innocent creatures which are bred and slaughtered for their benefit.
1.5.0.21Listen 23 Apr 2020No words can re-create these moments of grace so well as music. Think of the blessed gift which mankind has received through such works as Handel's Messiah and Bach's Christmas Oratorio.
12.18.5.57Listen 24 Apr 2020It is needful to reserve a part of one's being, consciousness, or thought, for this unique remembrance, which is of a value set apart from all others.
15.23.6.167Listen 25 Apr 2020In analysing ourselves we are helping to crush the ego. But this is true only if analysis is unbiased and if it is balanced by the Short Path attitudes. Otherwise there is excessive and morbid preoccupation with oneself, which suits the ego very well!
6.8.4.178Listen 26 Apr 2020The metaphysics of truth has no recognized place in the academic world, as academic teaching is really based more or less on materialism.
5.7.7.45Listen 27 Apr 2020The search for truth becomes, for such a man, neither a spare-time hobby nor an intellectual curiosity, but a driving moral compulsion.
2.1.1.119Listen 28 Apr 2020In his upward climb he should slowly learn to drop the emotional view of life and to replace it by the intelligent view. Thus he will show his passage from a lower to a higher level. But it is to be an intelligence that is serene in activity, impersonal in judgement, warm in benevolence, and intuitive in quality…
5.6.5.125, ExcerptListen 29 Apr 2020Hitherto we have been considering the state of the man who is seeking enlightenment. But what is the state of the man who has attained it? This is also worthwhile for our closest study. For after all, he is the type we are one day destined to become, the type we are being shaped into by life itself.
16.25.2.1Listen 30 Apr 2020
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