Day by day
The past has furnished its lessons, so why need there be regrets? Drink, sex, ambition, money, travel—they were all stations on the way to understanding. If they robbed, they also gave. If they disappointed, they also trained you. If the past showed weaknesses, it also showed you could tear them out.
15.24.3.229• Listen • Mail 1 Oct 2011That element in his consciousness which enables him to understand that he exists, which causes him to pronounce the words, “I Am,” is the spiritual element, here called Overself. It is really his basic self for the three activities of thinking feeling and willing are derived from it, are ripples spreading out of it, are attributes and functions which belong to it. But as we ordinarily think feel and act, these activities do not express the Overself because they are under the control of a different entity, the personal ego.
6.8.1.1• Listen • Mail 3 Oct 2011When this turning inwards completes itself in the final state of contemplation so that thought is stilled and breath is quiet, the sense of succession is dispelled, a kind of continuous now takes its place, and a stillness of the body corresponds with a stillness of the mind.
15.24.3.255• Listen • Mail 5 Oct 2011How can he tell if inner guidance is truly intuitive or merely pseudo-intuitive? One of the ways is to consider whether it tends to the benefit of all concerned in a situation, the others as well as oneself. The word “benefit” here must be understood in a large way, must include the spiritual result along with the material one. If the guidance does not yield this result, it may be ego-prompted and will then hold the possibility of error.
14.22.1.196• Listen • Mail 7 Oct 2011By thought, the ego was made; by thought, the ego’s power can be unmade. But the thought must be directed toward a higher entity, for the ego’s willingness to attack itself is only a pretense. Direct it constantly to the Overself, be mentally devoted to the Overself, and emotionally love the Overself. Can it then refuse to help you?
12.18.1.77• Listen • Mail 8 Oct 2011... This is the Principle which forever remains what it was and will be. It is in the universe and yet the universe is in it too. It never evolves, for it is outside time. It has no shape, for it is outside space. It is beyond man’s consciousness, for it is beyond both his thoughts and sense-experience, yet all consciousness springs mysteriously out of it...
16.28.2.100, Excerpt• Listen • Mail 10 Oct 2011No one can explain what the Overself is, for it is the origin, the mysterious source, of the explaining mind, and beyond all its capacities. But what can be explained are the effects of standing consciously in its presence, the conditions under which it manifests, the ways in which it appears in human life and experience, the paths which lead to its realization.
14.22.3.203• Listen • Mail 14 Oct 2011Both the necessity and justification of meditation lie in this, that man is so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he is never aware of the mind out of which they arise and in which they vanish. The process of stilling these thoughts, or advanced meditation, makes this awareness possible.
4.4.1.36• Listen • Mail 17 Oct 2011... Each man gets his special set of experiences, which no one else gets. Each life is individual and gets from the law of recompense those which it really needs, not those which someone else needs. The way in which he reacts to the varied pleasant and unpleasant situations which develop in everyday life will be a better index to the understanding he has gained than any mystical visions painted by the imagination.
9.13.1.45, Excerpt• Listen • Mail 18 Oct 2011The way out is constantly to remember to think and to affirm that the world and all one sees and experiences in it has no other substance than Mind and gets its brief appearance of reality from Mind. When this is thoroughly understood and applied, its truth will one day stay permanently with him.
13.21.5.18• Listen • Mail 19 Oct 2011... What is the use of taking a few small sections of the past, such as childhood or adolescence, and attempting to deal with them only, when the true past of the ego contains innumerable subconscious memories of former lives on earth and numerous tendencies which arise from episodes belonging to that vanished history..?
6.8.3.34, Excerpt• Listen • Mail 20 Oct 2011To look at a man and at his life from the outside is only to see half the man. To look at them from the inside is to see the other half. Put these two fragments together and there is the whole man. Or so it would seem. But what if behind his thoughts and feelings there were still another self of an utterly different kind and quality? And this exactly is his situation. He does not know all of himself, and he understands it even less. Those who have been privileged to look behind the veil can only urge him to recognize this incompleteness and teach him what steps to take to overcome it.
14.22.3.342• Listen • Mail 23 Oct 2011The passage from black despair to healing peace begins with learning to “let go.” This can refer to the pasts crippling pictures, the present’s harsh conditions, or the future’s grim anticipations. To what then can the sufferer turn? To the Overself and its divine power.
12.18.4.29• Listen • Mail 27 Oct 2011During the gap—infinitesimal though it be—between two thoughts, the ego vanishes. Hence it may truly be said that with each thought it reincarnates anew. There is no real need to wait for the series of long-lived births to be passed through before liberation can be achieved. The series of momentary births also offers this opportunity, provided a man knows how to use it.
15.23.8.162• Listen • Mail 28 Oct 2011If a man will constantly think about these metaphysical truths, he will develop in time the capacity to perceive them by direct intuition instead of by second-remove reflection. But to do this kind of thinking properly the mind must be made steady, poised, concentrated, and easily detached from the world.
5.7.7.137• Listen • Mail 30 Oct 2011He will understand the real spirit of meditation when he understands that he has to do nothing at all, just to sit still physically, mentally, and emotionally. For the moment he attempts to do anything, he intrudes his ego. By sitting inwardly and outwardly still, he surrenders egoistic action and thereby implies that he is willing to surrender his little self to his Overself. He shows that he is willing to step aside and let himself be worked upon, acted through, and guided by a higher power.
15.23.7.238• Listen • Mail 31 Oct 2011
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