Paul Brunton Daily Note
What today is believed abnormal will, in a civilization ahead of ours, be regarded as quite natural. I refer to the transcendental experience.
1390 
| ... In the moment that a man willingly deserts his habitual standpoint under a trying situation and substitutes this higher one, in that moment he receives Grace. With this reception a miracle is performed and the evil of the lower standpoint is permanently expelled from his character. The situation itself both put him to the proof and gave him his chance…
1390 
| Ecstasies come and go outside the mystic's own will, but philosophic enlightenment is something which we win and keep because we work for and earn it.
1390 
| He who finds the Overself, loses the burdens, the miseries, and the fears of the ego.
1390 
| ”How am I to start upon this process of true self-knowledge?” The answer begins with this: first adopt the right attitude. Believe in the divinity of your deeper self. Stop looking elsewhere for light, stop wandering hither and thither for power... Engrave on your heart the high phrases: ”I possess illimitable power within me; I can create a diviner life and truer vision than I now possess.” Do this and then surrender your body, your heart and mind to the Infinite Power which sustains all. Strive to obey Its inward promptings and then declare your readiness to accept whatsoever lot it assigns you. This is your challenge to the gods and they will surely answer you. Your soul will be slowly or suddenly liberated; your body will be granted a freer pathway through conditions…
1390
| Nothing that you do can bring about this wonderful transformation, for it is not the result of effort. It does not depend on the power of your will or the strength of your desire. It is something which can only be done to you, not by you. It is the result of your absorption by another and higher Force. It depends on Grace. It is more elusive yet more satisfying than anything else in life.
1390 
| There is hope for the seeker who wishes to recapture the joys of a past mystical experience. But the experience may be regained in a different form. The emotional excitement that accompanied its earlier phases is more likely to be balanced--as it should be--by greater intellectual understanding of what is happening and how to control it.
1390
| This momentary glimpse of the Overself provides the real beginning of his quest. The uninterrupted realization of it provides the final ending.
1390
| Since meditation forms an essential part of the Quest's practices, a part of the day must be given up to it. It need not be a large part; it can be quite a small part. The attitude with which we approach it should not be one of irksome necessity but of loving eagerness. We may have to try different periods of the day so as to find the one that will best suit us and our circumstances. This, however, is only for beginners and intermediates, for one day we shall find that any time is good enough for meditation time just as every day is Sunday to the true Christian.
1390 
| The more inert the ego can be during this exercise, and the more passively it rests before the Overself, the fuller will be the latter's entry. Obviously this condition cannot be achieved during the first stage, that of conscious effort and struggle with distractions.
1390 
| There is no substitute for personal effort, no gratuitous presentation of the divine consciousness by a master, no escape from the hard necessity of unfaltering practice of the exercises, no way of being absolved from the need of patience.
1390
| Psychologists and psychoanalysts are beginning to find a minority among their ranks who put a high value upon these glimpses which they call peak-experiences. Academically qualified, professionally trained, and science-oriented just like their colleagues, they yet differ in appreciating and studying such experiences as being important to an adequate knowledge of the human being.
1390
| If the glimpse is not to remain an isolated event, he must try to put less of his mind on himself and more on the Overself, less into emotional reactions to it and more into pure contemplation of it.
1390
| There is a panacea for all troubles. It is to turn them over to the Overself. This is a daring act; it will demand all your faith and all your understanding, but its results are proven. They are not available, however, for the lazy drifters and idle dreamers, for the insincere would-be cheaters of the Overself, and for the superstitious seekers of something-for-nothing.
1390
| The Short Path is the real way! All else is mere preparation of the equipment for it. For with it he is no longer to direct his meditation upon the shortcomings and struggles of the personal self but up to the Overself, its presence and strength. For the consciousness of the Real, the True, the Beneficent and Peaceful comes by its Grace alone and by this practice he attracts the visitation.
1390
| The glimpse is a precious thing but it is not enough. The man who has had it has also a new problem: how to find it again and how to turn it into an all-time state of mind, continuing through all kinds of circumstances and experiences. And how can he bring his everyday life into harmony with it?
1390
| Every man will be forced to realize his own sacredness in the end: then only will his search for happiness find fulfillment.
1390
| The labour of discovering and realizing the soul is something no other person can vicariously take over from you. You alone must do it because it is precisely through such labour that you can grow into soul-consciousness.
1390
| When a man passes from the self-seeking motives of the multitude to the Overself-seeking aspirations of the Quest, he passes to conscious co-operation with the Divine World-Idea.
1390
| That God is present in each person's life may seem unbelievable to so large a number of us. Yet it is for those undergoing the experience certitude, not theory…
1390
| In these enchanted moments, all life takes on the shadowlike quality of a dream.
1390
| The destiny of the ego is to be lifted up into the Overself, and there end itself or, more correctly, transcend itself. But because it will not willingly bring its own life to a cessation, some power from outside must intervene to effect the lifting up. That power is Grace and this is the reason why the appearance of Grace is imperative…
1390
| There are individuals scattered here and there who have found the Overself... Therefore it is certain that the whole race will also one day find the Overself.
1390
| He has to stand aside from himself and observe the chief events of his life with philosophic detachment. Some of them may fill him with emotions of regret or shame, others with pride and satisfaction, but all should be considered with the least possible egoism and the greatest possible impartiality. In this way experience is converted into wisdom and faults are extracted from character.
1390
| Not to find the Energy of the Spirit but the Spirit itself is the ultimate goal. Not its powers or effects or qualities or attributes but the actuality of pure being. The aspirant is not to stop short with any of these but to push on.
1390
| The time will come when you will have to turn your back upon the Long Path in order to give full attention, the full energy and the full time, to the Short Path. For with this comes a new era when the whole concern is not with the ego, not with its improvement or betterment, but with the divine itself alone…
1390
| ... At this point seek only the Higher Self, live only with positive thought, stay only for as long as you can with the holy silence within, feel only that inner stillness which belongs to the essence of consciousness. Henceforth you are not to become this or that, not to gather the various virtues, but simply to be…
1390
| You have been given a glimpse of the goal. Now you must strive to attain that goal…
1390
| He should from time to time pass in analytic review the important events, the experiences, and the attitudes of his past. It is not the good but the evil emotions and deeds, their origins and consequences, that he should particularly attend to, mentally picture, and examine from the perspective of his higher self. But unless this is done with perfect honesty in an impersonal unconcerned detached and self-critical spirit, unless it is approached with a self-imposed austerity of emotion, it will not yield the desired results. It is not enough to mourn over his errors. He should carefully learn whatever lessons they teach.
1390
| He comes at last to full consciousness of his inner being, his soul…
1390
|
The notebooks are copyright © 1984-1989 The Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation
This site is run by Paul Brunton-stiftelsen · info@paulbruntondailynote.se