Paul Brunton Daily Note
Yes, your guardian angel is always present and always the secret witness and recorder of your thoughts and deeds. Whether you go down into the black depths of hell or ascend to the radiant heights of heaven, you do not walk alone.
1287 
| Because there is nothing quite like it in human experience and because there is no opposite in the entire cosmos from which it can be differentiated, the Absolute Being remains utterly incomprehensible to the human intellect.
1287 
| The personal ego of man forms itself out of the impersonal life of the universe like a wave forming itself out of the ocean. It constricts, confines, restricts, and limits that infinite life to a small finite area. The wave does just the same to the water of the ocean. The ego shuts out so much of the power and intelligence contained in the universal being that it seems to belong to an entirely different and utterly inferior order of existence. The wave, too, since it forms itself only on the surface of the water gives no indication in its tiny stature of the tremendous depth and breadth and volume of water beneath it…
1287 
| Anyone who pursued the Quest with the same zeal with which everyone pursues earthly things, would soon come within sight of its goal.
1287 
| He notes his characteristics as if they were outside him, belonging to another man and not inside him. He studies his weaknesses to understand them thoroughly. They do not dismay him for he also recognizes his strengths.
1287 
| There is really nothing to be achieved here; only something to be accepted--the fact of your own divinity.
1287 
| Because thinking is an activity within time, it cannot lead to the Timeless. For this attainment, mental quiet is necessary.
1287
| The World-Mind is the conscious Power sustaining all life, the intelligent energy sustaining all atoms, the divine being behind and within the universe.
1287
| ... Is it not logical that when a man's mind is full of his ”I” to overflowing, there can be no room for that which transcends it, the Overself?
1287
| The first important need is to separate himself in thought and outlook from the animal side of his nature--not for any moral reasons but for metaphysical ones--and part of the inner work which this calls for is to take up the observer role. He is to look at the body (and its actions, desires, and passions) as if it were apart from himself--in short, to gain a detached view…
1287
| If we could pin down this sense of I-ness which is behind all we think, say, and do, and if we could part it from the thoughts, feelings, and physical body by doing so, we would find it to be rooted in and linked with the higher Power behind the whole world.
1287
| To the extent that a man is conscious of the presence of the Overself, he becomes inspired. To the extent that he is also talented in any of the arts, his work also becomes inspired.
1287
| It is not the tyranny of the ego which is to be removed most of all--although that is a necessary part of the Great Work - nor is it that the ego must be uprooted and killed forever--although its old self must surrender to the new person it has to become. No--let it live and attend to its daily work but only as a purified being, an ennobled character or quietened mind, an enlightened man--in short, a new ego representing what is best in the human creature. He will still be an ”I” but one that is in harmony with the Overself…
1287 
| So long as thoughts remain unmastered, this present and personal experience shuts us out from reality.
1287
| We who honour philosophy so highly cannot afford to be other than honest with ourselves. We have to acknowledge that the end of all our striving is surrender. No human being can do other than this--an utterly humble prostration, where we dissolve, lose the ego, lose ourselves--the rest is paradox and mystery.
1287 
| There is a single basic principle which runs like a thread through all these higher contemplation exercises. It is this: if we can desert the thoughts of particular things, the images of particular objects raised by the senses in the field of consciousness, and if we can do this with complete and intelligent understanding of what we are doing and why we are doing it, then such desertion will be followed by the appearance of its own accord of the element of pure undifferentiated Thought itself; the latter will be identified as our innermost self.
1287
| The secret is to stop, on the instant, whatever he is doing just then, or even whatever he is saying, and reorient all his attention to the incoming intuition…
1287
| If, in his earlier days when on the Long Path, he practised daily checking his personal feelings where they were negative, hostile, or condemnatory in the relationship with others, or when they interrupted his inner calm in the relationship with himself, now on the Short Path he abandoned this training. It was no more the really important thing, for it had been just a preparation of the ego for that thing--which was to forget and transcend the ego by transferring attention to the remembrance of his divine being, his Overself.
1287
| The words spoken by this unseen but much-felt presence are not heard by the physical ears yet they are strongly impressed upon the mind. They do not come from the spirits of deceased persons but from the holy spirit of one's own diviner self, from a deep mystical source, not a shallow astral one.
1287
| ... The Overself is a descriptive name that ought to be kept and not discarded...
1287
| With the sole object of calming and clearing the mind and concentrating its power, it is a good practice to sit in meditation for a while each day before beginning to study philosophy. This helps the studies.
1287
| The discovery that our existence as well as the world's existence is like that of a dream need not alarm us, need not cause us to become impractical, inefficient, uninterested in life and half-hearted in action. For as we should prefer a pleasant dream during sleep to a horrible nightmare, so should we try to live this waking world dream of ours as pleasantly, as profitably, and as successfully as possible…
1287
| What does the coming of Overself consciousness mean to man? It means, first of all, an undivided mind.
1287
| When all action comes to an end, when the body is immobile and the consciousness stilled, there is achieved what the Chinese have called Wu Wei, meaning non-doing. This brings a wonderful peace, for tied up with it is non-desiring and non-aspiring. The quester has then come close to the end, but until this peace is thoroughly and permanently established in him, the quest must go on…
1287
| His dependence on self-effort must be balanced by his dependence on Grace. If he relies solely on his own endeavours to better his character and develop his intuition, he may find himself frustrated and unhappy with the result. Grace is to be invoked by making contact through prayer and meditation with his Overself. But the meditation should be of a special kind--what may be called the practice of nonduality. In it he should seek to identify himself with the universal and infinite power, to forget that he is an individual.
1287
| What is the hidden meaning of Saint Paul's words which are so often quoted but so little understood: ”For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace”? Do they refer only to sexual morality? Do they refer to pious feelings? ... To be carnally minded means to apprehend the flesh, that is, matter, as reality. To be spiritually minded means to take nothing else than the egoless Mind as reality. Whoever does this and seeks beyond both matter and ego, obtains the result which Paul indicates--that is, true life and unbroken peace.
1287
| The consequences of putting the contents of his own mind under observation, of becoming fully aware of their nature, origin, and effect, are immeasurably important.
1287
| In the human body there is at one and the same time a projection of the Overself and a channel for it. The wisdom and intelligence which have gone into and are hidden behind the whole universe have gone into the human body too…
1287
| When thought of the little self vanishes ... and That which is behind or beyond it in utter stillness is alone felt and known, then he is said to experience the touch of the Untouchable, as ancient sages called it.
1287
| ... Let go of all negative thoughts, especially those which concern others. Cease from condemnation and criticism…
1287
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