Day by day
With one part of himself he honestly seeks truth, but with another part he tries to evade it.
6.8.4.106Listen 1 May 2018The inner work of philosophy results in liberation from the fear of death--whether the death which comes naturally through old age or that which comes violently through war.
6.9.1.32Listen 2 May 2018The beautiful in Nature, the singing of birds, the coming of Spring's colours recall the beautiful moods in ourself when glimpses revealed the soul.
3.3.6.99Listen 3 May 2018A man can look to his own knowledge and his own actions to carry him a long distance on this path, but in the end he must look to grace for final results.
12.18.5.142Listen 4 May 2018James, the brother of Jesus and an Apostle, was a vegetarian. But the theologians and historians ignore this fact which was testified to by the Judeo-Christian Hegesippus, who lived in the century following and had contact with the Palestinian circles of the Apostolic time. Moreover Hegesippus asserts that James had been brought up in this way since childhood. Does this imply that the family circle was vegetarian?.
12.17.5.91Listen 5 May 2018That man is verily ignorant who does not know that what the Overself can give him is immeasurably greater than what he can gain from any other source. For on the one side there is infinite power, on the other only limited capacity.
14.22.3.112Listen 6 May 2018The teacher can only help one to help himself. Ultimately it will be by his own efforts alone that the student uncovers the wisdom and beauty he is seeking--and which are even now within him. Such efforts, in order to be successful, must be courageous and continuous: repeated failures should serve only to stimulate deeper determination.
2.1.6.717Listen 7 May 2018… Youth cries out for romance and love. The silencing of that cry naturally and properly belongs to age. Yet it seems a pity that this early enthusiasm and tumultuous energy, which could in most cases partially and in some cases even wholly be devoted to the quest, should not be so used…
9.13.3.35, ExcerptListen 8 May 2018There is something in man which does not belong to this world, something mysterious, holy, and serene. It is this that touches and holds him at certain unforgettable moments.
14.22.6.176Listen 9 May 2018… Nobody is likely to be content permanently with but a mere glimpse of reality; he wants also to live it. He is not likely, and he should not be satisfied with these transient inspirations. Constant spiritual awareness should be his distant yet attainable goal…
14.22.8.107, ExcerptListen 10 May 2018One form of self-training to help acquire this inner detachment is to practise seeing and hearing no more of what is happening around one than is absolutely necessary for one's immediate purpose, duty, or activity.
15.24.3.56Listen 11 May 2018The high teachers of the human race have given us goals and taught us ways to approach them.
2.1.1.59Listen 12 May 2018The faculty of will is immeasurably more important to the progress of the inner life than that of intellect. For the passions and appetites of the body are controlled by will…
5.6.4.35, ExcerptListen 13 May 2018The more developed a man is, in intelligence character and spiritual consciousness, the larger is the auric field around him.
11.16.14.22Listen 14 May 2018Constant self-effort can thin down the egoism but not eliminate it. That final act is impossible because the ego will not willingly slay itself. What self-effort does is to prepare the way for the further force which can slay it and thus makes the operation timely and its success possible. What it further does is to improve intelligence and intuition and to ameliorate the character, which also prepares the individual and attracts those forces. They are nothing else than the pardoning, healing, and, especially, the transforming powers of Grace.
12.18.5.135Listen 15 May 2018The karma is a part of himself and he cannot get away from it. But just as he may bring some changes about in himself, so there may be a corresponding echo in the karma.
6.9.3.516Listen 16 May 2018He must educate himself to recognize the first faint beginnings of the intuitive mood and train himself to drop everything else when its onset is noticed.
14.22.1.61Listen 17 May 2018If the signals show the probability of an impending glimpse, it is an error to neglect them just because he is preoccupied with something. Better to lay aside the immediate activity and wait, relaxed and receptive, to welcome the likely visitation.
14.22.5.158Listen 18 May 2018By maintaining the humility of the learner and the questing spirit of a seeker, he improves his own usefulness as a channel to help other people.
12.18.3.61Listen 19 May 2018Death is the great revealer. In that vivid but dreamlike experience which follows it, each man is shown what he has really done with his earth-life, what he should have done with it, and what he failed to do with it.
6.9.1.92Listen 20 May 2018The ideal may appeal, coming as it does from the Overself, but the ego will put up obstacles, resistances, to its realization.
2.1.2.419Listen 21 May 2018When your efforts have brought you to a certain point, then only do they get pushed aside or slowly drawn away by another power--your higher Self… It is strongly felt, this experience of the higher power or higher Self.
12.18.5.141, ExcerptListen 22 May 2018The kind of spiritual experience a man gets depends upon the degree of development attained by his character, intelligence, and aspiration.
11.16.15.82Listen 23 May 2018After the physical, intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual capacities of the ego have been developed, then it is the correct time to renounce, not before. But the selfishness and indiscipline of the ego may and should be renounced at any time.
6.8.1.172Listen 24 May 2018Fate hands him the opportunities and the difficulties: what he does with them is his choice, for which he is responsible.
6.9.4.92Listen 25 May 2018Everything that belongs to the ego and its desires or fears has to go. For some men it is hard to put aside pride, for others it is harder to put aside shame, but both feelings have to go.
5.6.1.455Listen 26 May 2018Sheikh Al-Alawi: ”The acts of worship were prescribed for the sake of establishing remembrance of God.” Here a Sufi teacher puts in a short pithy sentence the chief service of most religions.
12.17.5.135Listen 27 May 2018… One student asked: But how can one identify oneself with something one doesn't know? Another one replied: That is where faith in something beyond the intellect comes in! P.B. said: Yes, if that faith is intense enough it will be sufficient to lead to the desired result. If not, if one cannot have faith in the Overself, then a Teacher is necessary. It is through faith in the Teacher that the student is helped to knowledge of the Overself which he finds so difficult to reach by himself…”
5.6.3.87, ExcerptListen 28 May 2018… If his own work is fully and faithfully done, the time comes when the power to prolong a glimpse is at the disciple's command…
14.22.8.72, ExcerptListen 29 May 2018We are passing through a disheartening period of violent and unprecedented storms, but if we have learned the single lesson of hoping on and holding on, we shall win through into clear weather.
9.13.4.203Listen 30 May 2018The ego lies to itself, lies to the man who identifies himself with it, and lies to other men.
6.8.3.83Listen 31 May 2018
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