Paul Brunton Daily Note
A day may come when builders and architects will make a small room for silence and meditation a part of every structure--be it residential or business.
| ”Be still, and know that I am God,” sings the Biblical Psalmist. This simply means that the movement of thoughts and emotions is to be brought to an end by entering the deepest degree of contemplation…
| The concept of the Overself's presence among us originated with the ancients but is validated by modern experience. This experience of the Overself provides the best evidence of its existence and reality: no other is needed…
| This is the paradox: that both the capacity to think deeply and the capacity to withdraw from thinking are needed to attain this goal.
| ... Once he has committed himself to this quest, he will find that events so arrange themselves as to indicate his sincerity, examine his motives, display his weaknesses, and find out his virtues. His devotion to the philosophic ideal will be tested, his loyalty to the goal will be tried.
| It would be completely false to regard the Void as being a nothing and containing nothing. It is Being itself, and contains reality behind all things. Nor is it a kind of inertia, of paralysis. All action springs out of it, all the world-forces derive from it.
| Once he recognizes his responsibility toward the fulfilment of this higher purpose, for which the Infinite Wisdom has put him here, he will have to recognize also the obligation of devoting some time every day for study of, and meditation upon, it…
| All human beings on this planet are imperfect. Perfection is not fully attainable here. But when a man has striven for it and advanced near to it, he will attain it automatically as soon as he is freed from the body.
| Those who will take the trouble to comprehend what all this means, and who will do what they can to practise the requisite exercises, will find with increasing joy that new life opening up to them.
| There is a strange feeling that not he but somebody else is living and talking in the same body. It is somebody nobler and wiser than his own ego.
| The entity which lives in the spirit world after death is the same ego that dwelt on earth, emanating from and sustained by the same Overself. In this relationship, they are still distinct and separate entities, even though as intimately connected as parent and offspring.
| I must say at once that I do not claim to represent any teacher anywhere of any time, nor orthodox system of religion or metaphysics, mysticism or occultism...
| The fact that so few have ventured on this quest offers no indication of what will happen in the future. If mankind could take any other way to its own self-fulfilment, this situation might remain. But there is no other way.
| ... Their greatest advance will be made when they cease holding the wish to make any advance at all, cease this continual looking at themselves, and instead come to a quiet rest in the simple fact that God is, until they live in this fact alone. That will transfer their attention from self to Overself and keep them seeing its presence in everyone's life and its action in every event…
| The integral ideal of our path is threefold: (a) meditation, (b) reflection, and (c) action. The passing over from one phase of development which has been over-emphasized to another which has been neglected is necessarily a period of upheaval, depression, and unsettlement. But it draws to an end. After the storm comes peace.
| Submit yourself as an empty vessel to be filled with the intuitive leading of Overself. Do not stop short of this goal, do not be satisfied with a half-and-half sort of life.
| ... What is it that has turned man's heart towards religion, mysticism, philosophy since time immemorial? His aspiration towards the diviner life is unconscious testimony to its existence. It is the presence within him of a divine soul which has inspired this turning, the divine life itself in his heart which has prompted his aspiration…
| The glimpse is to be welcomed as a relief from the unsatisfactory limitations of ordinary existence. But because it gives enlightenment only temporarily, it is not enough. It is necessary to seek out the way of getting a permanent result…
| Concentration keeps the mind implanted on a particular thought, or line of thought, by keeping off the other ones. Meditation removes the single thought and keeps the mind quiet. This is an excellent state, but not enough for those who seek the Real. It must be complemented by knowledge of what is and is not the Real.
| What grander ideal could a man have than to live continuously in the higher part of his being?
| Nothing can ever exist outside God. Therefore, no man is bereft of the divine presence within himself. All men have the possibility of discovering this fact. And with it they will discover their real selfhood, their true individuality.
| The books were written out of passionate feeling for truths and matters higher than those which ordinarily occupy people's minds. The hope was to make the readers feel something of what the writer felt and to establish the fact that there is a Reality beyond and behind existence, of which we are a part. The books had their own particular work to do. It was to awaken interest in it, to arouse the mind to the existence of man's higher goal, and to give both the impulse to search for truth and the urge to practise what the truth requires.
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| Consciousness can exist apart from the world, from the things and creatures in it, and even from the ego, but the world exists only as a projection of consciousness. In this sense the world has no lasting reality but, by contrast, the consciousness has.
| Just as the dreamer's mind appears to split itself up into the various figures and persons of his dream, so the One has never really split itself up into the many, but it has appeared to do so.
| ”The kingdom of God is within you.” We may rightly take the simple meaning of this sentence, its pointer towards the place and the practice of meditation. But there is a second meaning, seldom understood, its pointer towards time and immediacy: the kingdom is here and now.
| If the world tires you, if the evil deeds of others torment you, you can find blessed peace and healing refuge by turning within.
| If he remains loyal to these ideals, then, through both dreary lapses and bright spurts alike, his spiritual life will grow in strong intensity and quality.
| He feels the Presence of something higher than himself, wise, noble, beautiful, and worthy of all reverence. Yet it is really himself--the best part come at last into unfoldment and expression.
| A man may travel quite a distance on the way towards this goal of self-conquest and then, as success begins to appear on the horizon, may fail and fall from it in the last few tests. His very success may begin to generate vanity, pride, self-importance, ambition, and arrogance. In this way his ego is once more stimulated instead of being subjugated. Thus he steps aside from the path although he has already gone so far along it.
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