Day by day
The average man is the victim of his own past, the slave of his personal history. He is conditioned by its thinking, molded by its disciplines, and dominated by its traditions. Its influence fades all too slowly. This is why the transition from the Long to the Short Path is so often the consequence of some unusual upheaval or some mesmeric contact.
15.23.4.114Listen 1 Aug 2016These glimpses may be looked upon as brief, minor illuminations leading to the final major illumination that will quash the ego's rule forever.
14.22.8.53Listen 2 Aug 2016He sees his personality playing its role on the world stage and, although he recognizes its connection with him, it is felt as an object, as an ”other.”
15.24.3.216Listen 3 Aug 2016Although it is quite true that much of the vaunted free will of man is quite illusory, it is equally true that most of the events in his life, which consequently seem so predetermined, grow inescapably out of the kind of moral character and mental capacity which he possesses. They are neither merely accidental nor wholly arbitrary. Choice and reaction, attitude and decision depend ultimately on his psychological make-up and influence the course of events in a certain way. ”Character is fate”--this is the simplest statement of the greatest truth. Where is freedom for man when heredity and the history and state of his family and race prearrange so many physical factors for him?
6.9.3.426Listen 4 Aug 2016The Long Path practitioner looks upon illumination as something to be attained in the future when all requirements have been fully met, whereas the Short Path devotee looks upon it as attainable here and now.
15.23.5.90Listen 5 Aug 2016When we gaze observantly and reflectively around an object--whether it be a microscope-revealed cell or a telescope-revealed star--it inescapably imposes upon us the comprehension that an infinite intelligence rules this wonderful cosmos. The purposive way in which the universe is organized betrays, if it be anything at all, the working of a Mind which understands.
16.26.1.1207Listen 6 Aug 2016It is a fact that when the mind becomes perfectly controlled and thoughts are brought to a point and stilled, there arises a clear intuitive feeling which tells him about the mind itself.
15.23.7.183Listen 7 Aug 2016... All through this quest, but especially at certain critical periods, events will so happen and situations will so arrange themselves that the aspirant's weaknesses of character will be brought out into the open. The experience may be painful and its results may be saddening, but only by thus learning to know and discriminate against his bad qualities can he set out to submit them to the formative discipline of philosophy...
3.2.3.74, ExcerptListen 8 Aug 2016The divine is actually within us and has been there all along...
15.23.1.33, ExcerptListen 9 Aug 2016There are two different ways of being detached: the ascetic's, which dissociates itself from the world and tries to live outside the world's activities; and the philosopher's, which accepts those activities but not the dependence which usually comes with them.
15.24.3.3Listen 10 Aug 2016To witness what is happening around him without being influenced by it, or what is happening to him without being concerned about it--this is part of the practice of inward detachment.
15.24.3.205Listen 11 Aug 2016The lower part of man's mind which calculates, analyses, criticizes, blames, and organizes is the part which has no understanding of divine principles, and therefore its plannings are frequently futile. Man has no business to limit himself to the lower mind, and when he understands this he will leave his future in the hands of God, and then his real needs will be met.
6.8.1.117Listen 12 Aug 2016The emotional hurts which meant so much and felt so deep when he was spiritually juvenile, will come to signify less and less as he becomes spiritually adult. For he sees increasingly that they made him unhappy only because he himself allowed them to do so, only because, from two possible attitudes, he himself chose the little ego's with its negative and petty emotionalism as against the higher mind's positive and universal rationality.
5.6.3.164Listen 13 Aug 2016The glimpse also does in part for a man what initiation did in some ancient mystical institutions. It sets him on the road of a new life, a life more earnestly and more consciously devoted to the quest of Overself. It silently bids him dedicate, or rededicate anew, the remainder of his life on earth to this undertaking. It is a baptism with inner light more far-reaching than the baptism with physical water.
14.22.7.200Listen 14 Aug 2016Although the ego claims to be engaged in a war against itself, we may be certain that it has no intention of allowing a real victory to be achieved but only a pseudo-victory...
6.8.4.316, ExcerptListen 15 Aug 2016... All meditations conducted on the philosophic ideal should end with the thoughts of others, with remembrance of their spiritual need, and with a sending-out of the light and grace received to bless individuals who need such help...
15.23.6.58, ExcerptListen 16 Aug 2016The human mind can enter into relation with--that is, become aware of--that which is of the same nature as itself, that which is correlated to it, that which is also mental. It is impossible for material things to enter directly into the immaterial consciousness of man.
13.21.2.163Listen 17 Aug 2016The soul is always with us but our sense of its presence is not.
14.22.3.12Listen 18 Aug 2016One who beholds the Light may be grateful for several reasons. First, it is the only occult experience of which it may be said that it is entirely without risk or peril. Second, it is the loftiest of all clairvoyant visions. Third, it confers the feeling of perfect felicity, not in the worldly sense, but of an ethereal unearthly kind. Fourth, it is a direct manifestation of God to man, being the first of his outpourings, hence an uncommon blessing, a grace. Fifth, if it appears in consciousness as Power, the recipient may feel a tremendous force, unknown otherwise, throbbing all around and within him, or a sudden lightning-like flash of complete comprehension...
14.22.4.168, ExcerptListen 19 Aug 2016Buddha said, ”Proclaim the Truth”; he did not say, ”Convert others to the Truth.” It is for the philosopher to make it available, to open up a way for others, but not to count the gains or weigh the harvest.
12.17.6.98Listen 20 Aug 2016He may measure progress partly by the signs of strengthened intuition and partly by the signs of strengthened will.
3.2.2.77Listen 21 Aug 2016He feels that he is gazing down at himself from a height, seeing his personal ego for the trivial thing that it is.
15.23.6.93Listen 22 Aug 2016... The Infinite Being, whose Consciousness and Power is behind the universe of history, can itself have no history, for it is beyond time, evolution, change, development, can have no purpose which is gainful to itself, cannot be made the object of human thought correctly because it utterly transcends the limitations of such thought...
16.26.4.258, ExcerptListen 23 Aug 2016Once he catches that feeling of happy stillness, he should not let himself leave it on any excuse whatever--for thoughts will invade him and try to drag him away. He should refuse to disturb his tranquillity even for thoughts about the nature, working, and effects of the stillness itself! One objective alone should be with him, and that is to become absorbed more and more deeply in this happy state, until every idea, concept, decision, or impulse is dissolved in it. Any other objective will only invite loss of the Glimpse.
14.22.5.135Listen 24 Aug 2016There is a weapon which we can place in our hands that will render us independent of external patronage and make us master of circumstance's ebb and flow. This is the power of persistent will.
3.2.6.42Listen 25 Aug 2016What man undergoes in his physical life seems so real, so lasting, and so intimate--yet it is only a brief episode in the immensely larger span of his cosmic cycle.
6.9.1.25Listen 26 Aug 2016Thoughts can be put into words, spoken and written; but the truth about Reality must remain unworded, unspoken, and unwritten. All statements about it which the intellect can grasp are merely symbolic--just clues, hints. Only in the great stillness can it be known, understood.
15.24.4.214Listen 27 Aug 2016Disgust with life, recognition of the futility of all human exertions, is one common precondition of inwardly turning away from the world. The aspirant who feels this dies to the world and consequently to the personal self which was active in that world. After that, he is attracted only to that which is deep within him--to the utter Void of the Overself.
3.2.7.3Listen 28 Aug 2016He must call in a new power, and a higher power--Grace. He needs its help. For the ego will not willingly give up its sovereignty, however much it may become preoccupied with spiritual questions and even spiritual growth.
15.23.4.59Listen 29 Aug 2016When Jesus invites men to ”cast all burdens upon me” and when Krishna invites them to ”cast off all works on me” both are suggesting that we should imagine all our troubles being borne and all our actions as being done by the higher self, if we have not yet found it, and should actually let it displace the personal ego in practical life, if we have.
15.23.6.44Listen 30 Aug 2016When the ego is brought to its knees in the dust, humiliated in its own eyes, however esteemed or feared, envied or respected in other men's eyes, the way is opened for Grace's influx. Be assured that this complete humbling of the inner man will happen again and again until he is purified of all pride.
6.8.4.430Listen 31 Aug 2016
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