Paul Brunton Daily Note
Only when a man is dispossessed of his ego's rule and repossessed by the Overself's can he really attain that goodness about which he may have dreamed often but reflected seldom.
| This enterprise of the quest is the most serious in which a man can engage. We must treat it as such. But let this not cause anyone to lose the sense of humour.
| All rare and inspired art is to be received as the Overself's voice uttering a message and calling us back to our true homeland.
| Is there a universal truth? Is there a doctrine which does not depend on individual opinion or the peculiarities of a particular age or the level of culture of a particular land? Is there a teaching which appeals to universal experience and not to private prejudice? We reply that there is, but it has been buried underneath much metaphysical lumber, much ancient lore, and much Oriental superstition. Our work has been to rescue this doctrine from the dead past for the benefit of the living present. In these pages we explode false counterfeits and expound the genuine doctrine.
| The real heaven is a state of delightful rest which the finite human mind cannot correctly imagine and usually misconceives as a state of perpetual idleness for the ego.
| He emerges from the experience feeling surrounded by peace and protected by supernormal powers.
| The stages of the quest are fairly well defined. First — the aspiration toward spiritual growth manifests itself in a man's heart. Second — the feeling of repentance for past error and sin saddens it. Third — the submission to an ascetic or self-denying discipline follows as a reaction. Fourth — the practice of regular exercises in meditation is carried on.
| The necessity of achieving mental harmony and union of ideals in marriage counsels great caution in selecting one suited to be a life-companion. A wrong decision in this matter may be disastrous in every way, whereas a right one will be helpful in many ways.
| His ultimate aim is to enjoy the blessed presence of the Overself in his heart. But it is not, as with inferior mystics, to enjoy it alone. He ardently desires to share it with others.
| The priest and the guru, the artist and the writer have to carry a small flock or a million minds with them by means of their work. The talent if they possess it is theirs, but the inspiration comes from a higher level.
| This power to sustain concentrated attention upon a single line or objective for a long time--a power so greatly admired by Napoleon--comes in the end to those who persevere in these practices.
| … There is every reason why a man who accepts the gospel of inspired action should become a beneficent force in the world. Whatever role falls to him in the game of life, he will play it in a vital and significant way. More than ever before in its history, the world's need is for such active philosophers…
| The infinite divine life dwells within all embodied creatures, therefore in all mankind. It is the final source of his feelings and his consciousness, however limited they are here in the body itself.
| The test of spirituality is not to be found in how long a man can sit still in meditation, but in how well he has denied his ego.
| When we are brought face to face with the consequences of our wrongdoing, we would like to avoid the suffering or at least to diminish it. It is impossible to say with any precision how far this can be done for it depends partly on Grace, but it also depends partly on ourselves. We can help to modify and sometimes even to eliminate those bad consequences if we set going certain counteracting influences…
| For centuries theologians have argued about the meaning of Jesus' declaration that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Most of them have given it a historical interpretation. Only those who could approach the mind of Jesus have given it a mystical interpretation. For only they can see that he meant that the kingdom of the Overself is really as close to us as is our own hand…
| Such is the separative ego's hold on most men that although they carry the divine treasure with them they regard it not.
| The beginner usually has to go through an emotional experience in order to receive a mystical experience, but the proficient is under no necessity to do so.
| … He should refrain from giving attention to the imperfections and shortcomings of others, and he should certainly never blame them for these. He should turn his critical gaze towards himself alone--unless he is specifically asked by others to examine them--and exercise it to correct himself and improve himself and reform himself.
| If he has to meet someone who is regarded as a sage, he may quickly feel the stillness surrounding the man. If they sit down together and he feels disinclined to break the silence, it would be better not to do it but to take it as a signal to flout convention and let the initiative be taken by the sage himself.
| ”I enjoy life and try to spend it in peace, joy, and cheerfulness,” Spinoza wrote to a correspondent.
| So long as these two faculties of human mind--reason and imagination--are surrendered to its animal side, so long will they prevent the real human being from being born.
| We do not need to persuade or convert others to philosophy but we ought to offer them the material which they can investigate as and when they feel inclined to do so.
| He has learned through the experiences of many births not to cling desperately to anything, not to hold on stubbornly when life's clear indication is to let go, not to get so attached to persons or objects that all his happiness rests solely upon them.
| The extent of the peace and strength, the confidence and beneficence which lie stretched out beneath the little ego's troubled life is like unto the oceans: no other simile will suit.
| The new physics finds creation to be a continuous process, which has never had a dated beginning in the past. Its atoms and universes appear and disappear. What does this indicate? That the unspaced untimed No-Thing out of which all this comes is itself the Reality, and the Universe a showing-forth.
| Jesus is honoured in every Christian Church by name, by chanted hymn, and by carven figure. Why does it not also honour his tremendous teaching that the kingdom of heaven is within man himself…?
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| Whoever accepts the higher mission of art and comes nearer and nearer to it through his creative activity, will then go on from art to the Spirit deep within his own self.
| No ugly qualities are left in him, no vicious remnants of the beast that became man.
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