Day by day
He must think as often and as intently of the Overself as an infatuated girl thinks of the next appointed meeting with her lover. His whole heart must be held captive, as it were, by this aspiration. This is to be practised not only at set formal times but also constantly throughout the day as an exercise in recollection. This yoga, done at all times and in all places, becomes a permanent life and not merely a transient exercise. This practice of constant remembrance of the Overself purifies the mind and gradually renders it naturally introverted, concentrates and eventually illumines it.
15.23.6.2171 May 2011Hidden away in every man there exists a being immeasurably superior to the ordinary person that he is.
2.1.2.4462 May 2011This stillness is the godlike part of every human being. In failing to look for it, he fails to make the most of his possibilities. If, looking, he misses it on the way, this happens because it is a vacuity: there is simply nothing there! That means no things, not even mental things, that is, thoughts.
15.24.4.43 May 2011We all think, experience, feel, and identify with the ”I.” But who really knows what it is? To do this we need to look inside the mind, not at what it contains, as psychologists do, but at what it is in itself. If we persevere, we may find the ”I” behind the ”I.”
6.8.1.734 May 2011What if the goal seems too distant or the climb too steep? Do as much or as little as you can to advance. If you lack the strength to go all the way, then go some of the way. Your spiritual longings and labours will influence the nature of your next body and the conditions of your next incarnation. Nothing will be lost. Higher capacities and more favourable circumstances will then be yours if you have deserved them. Every virtue deliberately cultivated leads to a pleasanter rebirth. Every weakness remedied leads to the cancellation of an unpleasant one.
2.1.5.1615 May 2011There are three activities which he needs to keep under frequent examination and constant discipline--his thoughts, his speech, and his actions.
5.6.1.1716 May 2011It is the presence of the Overself in us that creates the germ of our aspirations for a higher life. It is the warm sunshine and cold rain of experience that nurtures the germ. It is the influence of spiritual individuals that brings the growth through its varying stages.
14.22.3.1367 May 2011He finds that having attained this liberation of his will from the ego's domination, his freedom has travelled so far that it loses itself and ceases to be free. For it vanishes into the rule of his higher self, which takes possession of him with a completeness and a fullness that utterly hoop him around. Henceforth, its truth is his truth, its goodness is his goodness, and its guidance his obedience.
12.18.4.1848 May 2011What is the Overself waiting for, so long and so patiently? For our willingness to die in the ego that It may live in us. So soon as we make the signs of this willingness, by acceptance of each opportunity to achieve this destruction of egoism, the influx of new life begins to penetrate the vacated place.
3.2.4.69 May 2011Continuous remembrance of the Stillness, accompanied by automatic entry into it, is the sum and substance of the Short Path, the key practice to success. At all times, under all circumstances, this is to be done. That is to say, it really belongs to and is part of the daily and ordinary routine existence. Consequently, whenever it is forgotten, the practitioner must note his failure and make instant correction. The inner work is kept up until it goes on by itself.
15.23.6.21010 May 2011The unregarded feeling which first comes when an object, a person, or an event confronts one is mostly the correct intuition about it. But it must be caught on the wing or it will be gone.
14.22.1.9111 May 2011Two things have to be learned in this quest. The first is the art of mind-stilling, of emptying consciousness of every thought and form whatsoever. This is mysticism or Yoga... The second is to grasp the essential nature of the ego and of the universe and to obtain direct perception that both are nothing but a series of ideas which unfold themselves within our minds. This is the metaphysics of Truth. The combination of these two activities brings about the realization of his true Being as the ever beautiful and eternally beneficent Overself. This is philosophy.
13.20.4.134, Excerpt12 May 2011When a man comes to his real senses, he will recognize that he has only one problem: ”How can I come into awareness of, and oneness with, my true being?”...
2.1.1.130, Excerpt13 May 2011Whoever by speech or by silence, by art or by example, helps to improve mankind or increase knowledge of the higher truth, renders the best service. No other charity or philanthropy equals this upliftment of creatures struggling--unwittingly or deliberately--to a purified, disciplined, and refined consciousness.
13.20.4.27714 May 2011... Only through the pure intuition, freed from emotional egoism and transcending intellectual illusion, can he really make a contact with the Overself. And that will happen in a state of utter and perfect tranquillity; there will be none of the emotional excitement which marked the successful practice of the earlier stage of meditation exercises.
14.22.1.222, Excerpt15 May 2011The personal ego derives its own light of consciousness and power of activity from the Overself.
6.8.1.2316 May 2011...Those who understand the principle of karma aright, who do not misunderstand it as being an external independent fate but see it as a force originally set in motion by our actions, understand also the significant part played by suffering in the lives of men. It is educative rather than retributive...
6.9.3.1, Excerpt17 May 2011Today, the mission of philosophy is a planetary one, for truth is needed everywhere, and for the first time can be transmitted everywhere...
7.11.3.364, Excerpt18 May 2011The spiritual awakening can come to mankind only as it comes to individuals--after it is strongly desired by the individual himself; and it will be desired only when all other desires have been tried and found wanting.
9.13.4.4719 May 2011The Overself is a living reality. Nobody would waste his years, his endeavours, and his energies in its quest if it were merely an intellectual concept or an emotional fancy.
14.22.3.41520 May 2011The attempt to get rid of the faults and evils in oneself by using the powers of concentration and meditation belongs to the Long Path. But it is still occupied with the ego. For those who have turned to the Short Path, the object of meditation is entirely changed. It is no longer occupied with purifying, improving, or bettering the ego--it is occupied only with the transcendent self, and the thought of the ego, the remembrance of it, is left behind altogether.
15.23.5.10221 May 2011The passing from hope to certainty comes with the glimpse.
14.22.6.38722 May 2011There is no choice in the matter, ultimately, although there is immediately. The entire human race will have to traverse the course chalked out for it, will have to develop the finer feelings, the concrete intellect, the abstract intellect, the balance between the different sides. If men do not seek to do so now, it is only a question of time before they will be forced to do so later.
16.26.4.21423 May 2011He feels that he is now in the very centre of his being, that he has shifted identity there. The ego no longer covers it over and occupies his whole view. Rather is it now transparent to the light radiating from this centre. This transparency is peace.
15.24.4.4124 May 2011... A series of remarkable experiences will confirm the fact that some beneficent power has invaded his personality and is ennobling, elevating, inspiring, and guiding it. An exultant freedom takes possession of him. It displaces all his emotional forebodings and personal burdens...
3.2.9.67, Excerpt25 May 2011... To summarize the entire process, the Long Path leads to the Short Path, and the Short Path leads to the Grace of an unbroken egoless consciousness.
15.23.5.206, Excerpt26 May 2011Because the Overself is not outside a man but is his own innermost nature, full faith in its presence and power is essential to experience its healing and help.
7.10.5.10127 May 2011He has no wish to put his ego forward, makes no pretensions to spiritual superiority, yet he wishes to awaken others to the idea that enlightenment is possible, is worth seeking, and is accompanied by unparalleled felicity.
16.25.4.3728 May 2011When the decreed time comes the body is discarded but the mind remains. It passes through varied experiences and finally sleeps them off. After a while it awakes deeply refreshed. Then the old propensities slowly revive and it returns to this world, putting on a new body in new surroundings.
6.9.1.5129 May 2011The glimpses are not directly caused by his own endeavours. They are experiences of the working of Grace, gifts from the Overself, echoes from former lives on earth, or belated responses to his knocking on the door.
14.22.5.10130 May 2011The aspirant's decision to aim for the highest Goal is the governing factor: if he sticks to this decision, he is bound to succeed sooner or later. The question now arises: What is this Goal? It is the fulfilment of the Real Purpose of life, as apart from the lower purposes of earning a livelihood, rearing a family, and so forth. The aspirant will become fully Self-conscious--as aware of the divine Overself as he now is of his earthly body. And this achievement will be perpetual, not just a matter of occasional glimpses or fleeting intuitions...
2.1.5.84, Excerpt31 May 2011
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