The Library
... If the true self is found, all the qualities and attributes which pertain to it will also be found, naturally and automatically, at the same time. How could the qualities and attributes of the lower nature thrive or even exist in that rarefied air…?
15.23.2.41,Listen The Short Path tries to get round the ego by ignoring it altogether!
15.23.2.58Listen … The disciple who wants something for nothing, who hopes to get to the goal without being kept busy with arduous travels to the very end, will not get it. He has to move from one point of view to a higher, from many a struggle with weaknesses to their mastery. Then only, when he has done by himself what he should do, may he cease his efforts, be still, and await the influx of Grace. Then comes light and the second birth.
15.23.2.65,Listen ... ”Nothing for nothing” is Nature's law. They must give if they want to get--give up some of the barriers to enlightenment which exist in their own ego and to which they cling.
15.23.2.79,Listen This constant preoccupation with the ego gives a subtle power and importance to it, and draws him away from his real being in the Overself. For it is what he takes into his consciousness which affects him in character and body, in thought and conduct.
15.23.2.101Listen The Long Path, despite its magnificent ideals of self-improvement and self-control, is still egoistic. For this determination to rise spiritually is directed by willed ambition—willed by the higher part of the ego.
15.23.2.105Listen It is certainly better to remove faults and remedy weaknesses than to leave them as they are. But it is not enough to improve, refine, ennoble, and even spiritualize the ego. For all such activity takes place under the illusion that the ego possesses reality. This illusion needs to be eliminated …
15.23.2.119,Listen The ego cannot produce an egoless result. This is why the Long Path is only preparatory and cannot be a sufficient means to a successful end.
15.23.2.125Listen … Why not try the opposite course, the Short Path, which silences the ego, not by striving to do so but by ignoring it through fastening attention upon the Overself?
15.23.2.131,Listen On the Long Path the aspirant is likely to probe some of his shortcomings too pessimistically, to condemn himself for them, but to be blind altogether to the most serious shortcoming of all--that of clinging to the personal ego in all circumstances.
15.23.2.137Listen Time continues itself, and the time-bound consciousness with it. The Long Path does not liberate a man from it but only improves him, at the best, prepares him. For what? For the Short Path, which alone offers freedom.
15.23.2.141Listen The root of all his efforts in self-improvement and self-purification is still the egoistic consciousness. Since that is the very consciousness which must be given up to let in the egoless Spirit, he must abandon these efforts and turn sooner or later to the Short Path.
15.23.2.142Listen It is not enough to uncover his faults and confess his weaknesses, not even enough to correct the one and remedy the other. After all, these things concern only the stage of development he has already reached, and the ego only. He must also turn toward higher stages and also the egoless self.
15.23.2.147Listen Moral disciplines have a definite place in life to make us better human beings but they do not lift us to the Overself's level. The Long Path, to which they belong, has a humanitarian value but not a magically transcendent one.
15.23.2.150Listen If he takes an excessive clinical interest in his own moral and spiritual state, continually observing his conduct and analysing his feelings to find the flaws in them, he loses his balance and becomes inwardly unhealthy. In putting too much emphasis upon his failings, he is giving too much attention to his own ego.
15.23.2.152Listen The idea that a man's own virtue can bring him to the goal belongs to the Long Path.
15.23.2.153Listen It is not any kind of activity of the ego which brings salvation. How could that happen? How can a man lift himself up by the hair upon his own head? Just the same he cannot touch the Overself spirit by his own virtue. It is only the activity of the Overself which will save him from the ego. But this he must provoke or invoke by taking to the Short Path.
15.23.2.155Listen The Long Path gives many benefits and bestows many virtues but it does not give the vision of truth, the realization of the Overself, nor does it bestow Grace. For these things we must turn to the Short Path.
15.23.2.156Listen
13 Aug 2013
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15 Jan 2020
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6 May 2022
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6 Nov 2021
20 May 2022
24 Aug 2017
9 Feb 2018
28 Aug 2019
7 Jan 2021
11 Jan 2012
19 Oct 2013
22 Feb 2020
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2 Aug 2019
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