Paul Brunton Daily Note
When the inner voice says what we do not like to hear, we are apt to ignore it.
| Such is the wonderful infinitude of the soul that the man who succeeds in identifying his everyday consciousness with it, succeeds also in making his influence and inspiration felt in any part of the world where there is someone who puts faith in him and gives devotion to him. His bodily presence or visitation is not essential. The soul is his real self and operates on subconscious levels. Whoever recognizes this truth and humbly, harmoniously, places himself in a passive receptive attitude towards the spiritual adept, finds a source of blessed help outside his own limited powers.
| When the ego has dwindled away into nothingness, the Overself takes over.
| There is a single Consciousness without beginning or end, ever the same in itself, beyond and behind which there is nothing else.
| The modern man suffers from a certain physical sickness and some mental ailments which are of his own making. This is because his thoughts are forever centering in his personal ego, his emotions forever revolving round his little self. He can help to free himself from the one and heal himself of the other if he will create an oasis in this desert by daily and purposely withdrawing into the impersonal atmosphere of the higher nature.
| The Overself takes over his identity not by obliterating it but by including it through its surrender.
| … Prayer and meditation lead to the cultivation of intuition and aspiration--and these, at the same time, must be accompanied by the strengthening of will, plus study and reflection. All efforts should be made side by side, so to speak, to lead to a balanced psyche--the philosophic ideal.
| If he comes to the quest with his whole being, turning every side of it to the quest's light and discipline, he may confidently expect the full insight, the full transformation…
| … We are at the end of an epoch. The old world is dying before our eyes. But death is only a transition — the joyous springtime of vital renewal always follows the freezing wintertime of outlived forms. A new epoch is indeed at hand, with fresh ideas to lead us and fresh ideals to sustain us. Only the mentally blind now fail to anticipate it…
| With one part of himself he honestly seeks truth, but with another part he tries to evade it.
| The inner work of philosophy results in liberation from the fear of death--whether the death which comes naturally through old age or that which comes violently through war.
| The beautiful in Nature, the singing of birds, the coming of Spring's colours recall the beautiful moods in ourself when glimpses revealed the soul.
| A man can look to his own knowledge and his own actions to carry him a long distance on this path, but in the end he must look to grace for final results.
| James, the brother of Jesus and an Apostle, was a vegetarian. But the theologians and historians ignore this fact which was testified to by the Judeo-Christian Hegesippus, who lived in the century following and had contact with the Palestinian circles of the Apostolic time. Moreover Hegesippus asserts that James had been brought up in this way since childhood. Does this imply that the family circle was vegetarian?.
| That man is verily ignorant who does not know that what the Overself can give him is immeasurably greater than what he can gain from any other source. For on the one side there is infinite power, on the other only limited capacity.
| The teacher can only help one to help himself. Ultimately it will be by his own efforts alone that the student uncovers the wisdom and beauty he is seeking--and which are even now within him. Such efforts, in order to be successful, must be courageous and continuous: repeated failures should serve only to stimulate deeper determination.
| … Youth cries out for romance and love. The silencing of that cry naturally and properly belongs to age. Yet it seems a pity that this early enthusiasm and tumultuous energy, which could in most cases partially and in some cases even wholly be devoted to the quest, should not be so used…
| There is something in man which does not belong to this world, something mysterious, holy, and serene. It is this that touches and holds him at certain unforgettable moments.
| … Nobody is likely to be content permanently with but a mere glimpse of reality; he wants also to live it. He is not likely, and he should not be satisfied with these transient inspirations. Constant spiritual awareness should be his distant yet attainable goal…
| One form of self-training to help acquire this inner detachment is to practise seeing and hearing no more of what is happening around one than is absolutely necessary for one's immediate purpose, duty, or activity.
| The high teachers of the human race have given us goals and taught us ways to approach them.
| The faculty of will is immeasurably more important to the progress of the inner life than that of intellect. For the passions and appetites of the body are controlled by will…
| The more developed a man is, in intelligence character and spiritual consciousness, the larger is the auric field around him.
| Constant self-effort can thin down the egoism but not eliminate it. That final act is impossible because the ego will not willingly slay itself. What self-effort does is to prepare the way for the further force which can slay it and thus makes the operation timely and its success possible. What it further does is to improve intelligence and intuition and to ameliorate the character, which also prepares the individual and attracts those forces. They are nothing else than the pardoning, healing, and, especially, the transforming powers of Grace.
| The karma is a part of himself and he cannot get away from it. But just as he may bring some changes about in himself, so there may be a corresponding echo in the karma.
| He must educate himself to recognize the first faint beginnings of the intuitive mood and train himself to drop everything else when its onset is noticed.
| If the signals show the probability of an impending glimpse, it is an error to neglect them just because he is preoccupied with something. Better to lay aside the immediate activity and wait, relaxed and receptive, to welcome the likely visitation.
| By maintaining the humility of the learner and the questing spirit of a seeker, he improves his own usefulness as a channel to help other people.
| Death is the great revealer. In that vivid but dreamlike experience which follows it, each man is shown what he has really done with his earth-life, what he should have done with it, and what he failed to do with it.
| The ideal may appeal, coming as it does from the Overself, but the ego will put up obstacles, resistances, to its realization.
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