Day by day
Whatever we call it, most people feel--whether vaguely or strongly--that there must be a God and that there must be something which God has in view in letting the universe come into existence. This purpose I call the World-Idea, because to me God is the World's Mind. This is a thrilling conception. It was an ancient revelation which came to the first cultures, the first civilizations, of any importance, as it has come to all others which have appeared, and it is still coming today to our own. With this knowledge, deeply absorbed and properly applied, man comes into harmonious alignment with his Source.
16.26.1.64Listen 1 May 2020The World-Idea contains the pattern, intention, direction, and purpose of the cosmos in a single unified thought of the World-Mind. Human understanding is too cramped and too finite to comprehend how this miraculous simultaneity is possible.
16.26.1.87Listen 2 May 2020The World-Idea holds within itself the laws which rule the world, the supreme intention which dominates it, and the invisible pattern which forms it.
16.26.1.67Listen 3 May 2020We may call it evolution if we wish but the actuality is not quite the same. The universe is being guided to follow the World-Idea--this is the essence of what is happening.
16.26.4.175Listen 4 May 2020The World-Idea is what is ordained for the universe, its divine prescription.
16.26.1.124Listen 5 May 2020Immanuel Kant referred to "the hidden plan of Nature." Thus, without benefit of any mystical revelation but with that of acutely concentrated deep thinking to guide him, he sensed the presence of the World-Idea.
16.26.1.85Listen 6 May 2020When the knowledge of the soul is not merely intellectual, however convincing, not only a matter of belief, however firm, but an unchangeable awareness of its ever-present existence, it is true knowledge, authentic revelation, and blissful salvation.
16.25.2.17Listen 7 May 2020The deeper he looks into his own nature--a procedure which cannot be done without practising meditation--the nearer he will come to the truth about it. In the first stage of penetration, his external surroundings, and the whole world with them, vanish. In the second and deeper stage, the feeling I am rooted in God alone remains. In the third stage the I thought also goes. In the final stage even the ideaGod disappears. There remains then no idea of any kind--only peace beyond telling, consciousness in its pure ever-still state.
15.23.7.60, ExcerptListen 8 May 2020Even in the midst of worldly distresses, he will feel the Overself's support to such an extent and in such a way that they will seem to be someone else's, with himself as a merely continuous spectator of them.
14.22.3.116Listen 9 May 2020If a man lives in harmony with the divine World-Idea, he may also live in trust that he will receive that which belongs to him. This will be brought about either by guiding him to it or guiding it to him.
16.25.1.52Listen 10 May 2020In order to remember that we are godlike in essence we do not need to forget that we are human in existence.
13.19.2.45Listen 11 May 2020The Long Path covers all the preparatory stages leading up to but not including the decisive attempts. It is concerned with the removal of obstructions to the coming of enlightenment, whereas these attempts, which belong to the Short Path, are concerned with the conclusive formulae of enlightenment.
15.23.4.10Listen 12 May 2020If you demand freedom you must accept the responsibility which accompanies it. This is not only a human and social law but also a divine and karmic law.
6.9.4.72Listen 13 May 2020A piece of writing which expresses the illumination of the writer has the possibility of initiating the reader…
9.14.4.134, ExcerptListen 14 May 2020The idea that he has to attain mastery over the desires of the flesh is a correct one. But that this mastery will lead to reunion with a soul-mate is not the teaching of the best mystics or philosophers. What really happens is a reunion with the true Beloved, who is none other than the Soul of the individual, his higher Self. This is a real living entity, whose presence is felt, whose words are heard, and whose beauty arouses all one's love.
5.6.4.92Listen 15 May 2020The attitude of faith in another person is undoubtedly helpful to beginners, provided the faith is justified. But it is a stage necessarily inferior to the attitude of faith in one's own soul. To turn inwards rather than outwards, to overcome the tendency towards externality, is to ascend to a higher stage.
2.1.5.308Listen 16 May 2020He does not regard greatness to be in him but only behind him. Neither vain ambition nor false egoism can deceive him about the inner reality of his psychological situation. He understands and feels that a power not his own and not human is using him as its human instrument, that a larger mind is overshadowing his ego.
16.25.0.2Listen 17 May 2020… Man is intended to grow up into consciousness of his Godlike essence, and through that into joyful co-operation with God and deliberate participation with God's World-Idea.
6.9.4.136, ExcerptListen 18 May 2020When all other sources of help have been tried, there is no other source left to man than the divine Overself, by whatever name he calls it or under whatever symbol he pictures it.
14.22.3.103Listen 19 May 2020There is no situation so bad, no predicament so undesirable, no crisis so formidable that it cannot be transformed, either in its physical actuality or in our mental picture of it, into a good. But this requires a willingness to work upon it spiritually, that is, egolessly.
9.13.1.290Listen 20 May 2020What he must do is to renounce the ego with all its pride, its greed and passion, and learn to understand his dependence on the Overself.
6.8.4.223Listen 21 May 2020… The struggle against the forces of evil, aggression, violence, hatred, and selfishness may be severe, yet there is good hope for eventual triumph over these things. But in the end, humanity will not be able to evade the challenge of Jesus. There is no salvation ultimately except through the spiritual way.
9.13.4.61, ExcerptListen 22 May 2020The strength needed for sustained mystical contemplation must come at first from his own ego's persistence but will come in the end from the Overself's Grace.
12.18.5.156Listen 23 May 2020In the fully trained philosopher, intuition is the most active faculty.
14.22.1.250Listen 24 May 2020He may feel his attention being suddenly but gently drawn inwards. The moment this occurs, he should at once pay the fullest heed to this subtle whisper from the Overself, which it really is. It will pay him handsomely to drop for a few minutes whatever else he may be doing at that time. For if he does turn inwards, as he is directed to do, the whisper will grow quickly into a loud call, which will overwhelm his whole being. And as he gives himself up utterly to such listening, he will--and here we are speaking metaphorically only--be led into the sacred precincts of the Overself. The visit may be very brief, but it will also be very beautiful, finely refreshing, and greatly enlightening.
14.22.5.113Listen 25 May 2020No amount of exaggerated homage to a guru can take the place of remembering the Real.
15.23.6.156Listen 26 May 2020So long as the Overself is sought elsewhere than where It is, as apart from the seeker himself, so long will the quest for it end in failure.
14.22.3.55Listen 27 May 2020There is a vital and definite connection between every man's mind and the Universal Mind, between his individual existence and Its existence. Because of this connection he is called upon to worship It to commune with It and to love It.
16.25.1.40Listen 28 May 2020It is the strength or feebleness of his attachments and desires which largely govern his first and earlier paces in the relinquishment of ego.
5.6.4.166Listen 29 May 2020Shams Tabriz: Keep God in remembrance until the self is forgotten. Here is a whole yoga path in one short, simple sentence.
15.23.6.171Listen 30 May 2020… The ego will always strive to preserve itself, using when it must the most secret ways, full of cunning and pretense, camouflage and deceit. It takes into itself genuinely spiritual procedures and perverts or misuses them for its own advantage.
6.8.4.207, ExcerptListen 31 May 2020
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