The Library
All quests involve some travelling, the periodical shift from one point to another. The spiritual quest involves constant intellectual travelling, but only a single important shift--that from the ego's standpoint to the Overself’s.
3.2.4.5Listen What 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.
3.2.4.6Whatever helps to reduce the predominant influence of the ego helps his quest …
3.2.4.7,Listen Let him face the fact that if he is seeking the Overself with one part of his being, he is also seeking his own ego with the other. He wants his desires satisfied and also wants That which is desireless at one and the same time. He is trying to walk in two different directions. One or the other must go.
3.2.4.10Listen In the effacement of his own egoism, brought about by a double discipline--first, the constant shaping of the character and second, learning to live in the deepest silence of meditation--he will allow the Overself to act within and through him.
3.2.4.14Listen Each time he attempts to deny the responsibility he bears for his own troubles and to shift it onto other people's shoulders, he makes the repeated appearance of those troubles in his life a certainty. For the inner causes still remain.
3.2.4.16Listen Yes, the kingdom of heaven is certainly to be brought down and established on earth. But the meaning of Jesus was not social; it was individual. Each man is to establish it within his own sphere, within his own feelings thoughts and acts.
3.2.4.18Listen The vain man, the stupid man, or the lustful man cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. He must first be humble enough to silence the ego, intuitive enough to expose its deception, and strong enough to overcome its desires.
3.2.4.19Listen What does getting rid of the ego's dominance mean? Until we see this clearly, we shall not see what effort we have to make to achieve it. First, it means constant training to regard ourself and our fortunes as coolly, disinterestedly, and impartially as we regard other men and their fortunes. Second, it means constant vigilance to keep out the distorting, befogging, and perverting interference of personal habits of thought and feeling. It is the blind following of these tendencies of our nature, accumulated since a far past, that makes up most of the ego's life. Third, it means constant practice in repressing thoughts and emotions while cultivating mental stillness.
0.2.4.21Listen ... Regard your worst, most irritating trouble as the voice of your Overself. Try to hear what It says. Try to remove the obstructions It is pointing to within yourself. Look on this special ordeal, this particular trial, as having the most important significance in your own spiritual growth...
3.2.4.24,Listen ... At every point of your life, from one event, situation, contact to another, the Infinite Intelligence provides you with the means of growth, if only you will get out of the egoistic rut and take them.
3.2.4.24,Listen The place where you are, the people who surround you, the problems you encounter, and the happenings that take place just now--all have their special meaning for you. They come about under the law of recompense as well as under the particular needs of your spiritual growth. Study them well but impersonally, egolessly, and adjust your reactions accordingly. This will be hard and perhaps even unpalatable, yet it is the certain way to solving all your problems…
3.2.4.24,Listen Do not be so rigidly closed in by your practical affairs and personal relations. Open your soul to the admiration of Nature, the high flights of art, and above all, to stillness.
3.2.4.27Listen His work is to prepare the ground and sow the seed; Nature will do the rest. That is to say, he is to arrange the favourable physical circumstances and the proper psychological concentration in which inspiration can most easily be born.
3.2.4.28Listen Each man has to work on himself and leave others alone. To criticize and to condemn them is easy, but it is to fail to mind one's own business. And what is one's own business? It is to work on oneself until one is aware of the divine part of oneself.
3.2.4.34Listen His task is to discover the presence within himself of a deeper and diviner layer of the mind.
3.2.4.35Listen He is situated in measurable time and in massed form, yet is trying to understand, reach, and identify that which is timeless and formless. How can it be done unless the seeking self is transformed …?
3.2.4.38,Listen When one is working without a teacher, he must necessarily intensify his efforts. He should strive to develop a greater awareness of the meaning of all past and present experiences in the light of his new knowledge, to be more objective in his observance of himself, his thoughts and actions in every situation, and, finally, to recognize the fact that his own daily life is the material presented him to work on.
3.2.4.41Listen Each individual has quite enough to do to carry out the higher purpose of life, which is clear and definite: to attain awareness of the Overself, to surrender the heart and will to it utterly, and to overcome the ego--which, in itself, calls for the whole nature of a man or a woman.
3.2.4.45Listen Everything that helps one to become more aware of the existence of something higher than his personal self, and every experience that induces him to aspire towards a more spiritual way of life should be cultivated…
3.2.4.46,Listen … He has to let the universal life power which is already within him take full possession of his heart and mind. The thing that prevents this is the personal ego, which thinks itself to be complete and which has separated itself from the universal life power. The philosophical discipline is intended to overcome this egoism, or as Jesus said: Give up your self if you would find it.”
3.2.4.47,Listen If he asks himself: What are the ultimate values of human life?--and if he clearly answers this question--he will find himself able to answer most of the immediate questions which concern the strategic policies, tactical details, and practical problems of human life…
3.2.4.48,Listen … If he looks to final ends he will know the right means. If he finds out what is the larger purpose behind the smaller ones, it will be immensely easier to know what to do in any given situation when he has to choose between opposite courses.
3.2.4.48,Listen ... Let him remember that he cannot conquer his desires nor subdue his animal nature by his own strength alone. In the final outcome, it is divine Grace which releases him from his bondage. Grace comes only after he himself has made every possible effort, after he has practised sacrificing his desires and has offered up his whole lower nature to the Overself...
3.2.4.50,Listen Intuition, inspiration, and even grace may come directly to him through prayer, meditation, and reading.
3.2.4.62Listen Frankly, and without shame, he will acknowledge the animal within him. He knows its place in the long growth which he underwent through many an earth-birth. It served its purpose. But a higher purpose has now shown itself and must in its turn be fulfilled. The half-human must next become the fully human. For this, the control of self must be learnt, hard though it be.
3.2.4.71Listen Intellectual definitions of transcendental states merely leave us in the dark. We must practise walking on the divine path, and not merely talk about it, if we would know what these states really are.
3.2.4.75Listen He should make his mind the host to beautiful thoughts and fine moods and thus keep it ready as a place where the soul can enter untroubled.
3.2.4.81Listen There are laws of higher spiritual development, but they reveal themselves only upon their own terms. The first is that he shall apply what he already knows, and not let it rest as mere theory.
3.2.4.84Listen It is important for the study of philosophy and especially for the practice of its Short Path to avoid negative thoughts and feelings, to rebut them as soon and as often as they arise. This is not only a moral necessity but also a practical one. Such avoidance helps the mind to reach or keep the delicate condition of intuitive transcendent understanding.
3.2.4.89Listen A real understanding of the Truth can be developed in only one way, through activity on the intuitive level, as distinguished from efforts made on the intellectual or physical level.
3.2.4.97Listen The thoughts he takes into his consciousness should be of a kind to carry him farther on his quest of the Perfect.
3.2.4.105Listen It would be wrong to believe that it is sufficient for the aspirant to join right theory with self-correction and right action to secure the highest result. The fourth item needed to complete his effort is even more important. It is proper meditation.
3.2.4.119Listen … the importance of a little practice of mental quiet each day is high. It is this practice which brings definite results in time and this which gives one strength as well as understanding. Effort is required.
3.2.4.124,Listen From one point of view, the work done on the Quest is simply an uncovering of what is covered up: thoughts, emotions and passions, unceasing extroversion and never-ending egoism lie over the precious diamond like thick layers of earth. This is why the penetrative action of meditation is so necessary.
3.2.4.125Listen
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