The 30 latest...
The 30 latest published notes
The Overself throws out a clue to its existence and presence. This comes in various ways to different persons. One form is a delicate feeling drawing him inward either to deeper thought or to no thought at all. If he goes along with it even though hardly aware and half-involuntarily, he will be led by this clue to a glimpse.
14.22.5.110Listen 1 May 2025What are the blockages which prevent the soul’s light, grace, peace, love, and healing from reaching us? There are many different kinds, but they are resolvable into the following: first, all negative; second, all egoistic; and third, all aggressive. By “aggressive” I mean that we are intruding our personality and imposing our ideas all the time. If we would stop this endless aggression and be inwardly still for a while, we would be able to hear and receive what the Soul has to say and to give us.
7.11.2.24Listen 30 Apr 2025This is the general mind behind our small personal minds, the one behind the many.
14.22.3.403Listen 29 Apr 2025The importance and emphasis which is, in the beginning, quite rightly attached to the question What Am I? will gradually be shifted to the more encompassing What is the meaning of this world-experience? and What is the object of all existence?
3.2.4.113Listen 28 Apr 2025More than four hundred years ago a Dominican monk, Louis of Granada, affirmed: “Contemplation—is the most perfect prayer.”
12.18.2.187Listen 27 Apr 2025A point is reached where the seeker must stop making a thought of the Overself, or he will defeat himself and ensure inability to go beyond the intellect into the Overself. At this point he is required to enter the Stillness.
15.23.7.233Listen 26 Apr 2025If he establishes himself first in this vital creative centre, all else will be added unto him inevitably and inescapably.
15.24.3.89Listen 25 Apr 2025The man who knows how to live in his centre and not stray away from it, frequently finds that he need not make any move towards satisfying a need. It will often come by itself at the right moment drawn by the magnetic central power.
15.24.3.96Listen 24 Apr 2025From the ordinary human point of view the Overself is the Ever-Still: yet that is our own conceptualization of it, for the fact is that all the universe’s tremendous activity is induced by its presence.
14.22.3.192Listen 23 Apr 2025During the Glimpse he feels that he has travelled close to his journey’s end, to the fulfilment of his highest purposes. The quest has suddenly become easy and pleasant. But alas! after the rainbow fades and vanishes, he is forced to recognize that he has far yet to go, that what he experienced was only a passing glimpse and not the final goal.
14.22.8.18Listen 22 Apr 2025… We must strike a healthy balance between work and retirement, activity and contemplation, pleasure and reflection, and not remain victims of prevailing conventions. A few minutes invested every day in meditation practice will more than pay for themselves. We must not only introduce it as a regular feature of the human day but also as an important one …
1.3.0.15, ExcerptListen 21 Apr 2025If the ego can keep your energies entangled in its psychical doings, or your time absorbed in developing its occult powers, it will keep you from devoting them to seeking the Overself and thus preserve its own existence.
6.8.3.44Listen 20 Apr 2025… Nearly a half of the average life is spent in recapitulating the previous incarnational development so that the work of a new incarnation does not really begin until then.
6.9.2.141, ExcerptListen 19 Apr 2025To pursue the realization of his dream—an abiding peace which would necessarily lead to the falling-away of haunting fears and negative emotions—he must gain control of thoughts.
4.4.1.48Listen 18 Apr 2025… We must reorganize our daily lives so that time can be found for the leisurely cultivation of the soul through study, reflection, and meditation. Such periodical intervals of withdrawnness from the endless preoccupation with external affairs are a spiritual necessity …
1.3.0.15, ExcerptListen 17 Apr 2025Open the door and let the Light in. It is as simple—and as hard—as that.
4.4.1.137Listen 16 Apr 2025Ernest Wood’s Yoga Dictionary defines “Overself” as follows: “A term designed by Dr. P. Brunton to indicate that the holy fount of our being and root of our consciousness is still ourselves, is indeed our true self. The Sanskrit equivalent is adhyatma as in Bhagavad Gita, Chapter VII and VIII.” To Dr. Wood’s learned definition I would like to add Kutastha, what stands above or beyond illusion, and also the Gita’s picture of the higher element in man controlling the lesser self. Further I would not leave out Buddha’s transcendent atmosphere of goodwill to all beings.
14.22.3.177Listen 15 Apr 2025In the admiration of Nature’s beauty and the appreciation of art, music, poetry, and literature, the seeker can find sources of inner help and themes for meditation.
9.14.3.35Listen 14 Apr 2025The aspirant for illumination must first lift himself out of the quagmire of desire, passion, selfishness, and materialism in which he is sunk. To achieve this purpose, he must undergo a purificatory discipline. It is true that some individuals blessed by grace or karma spontaneously receive illumination without having to undergo such a discipline. But these individuals are few. Most of us have to toil hard to extricate ourselves from the depths of the lower nature before we can see the sky shining overhead.
1.2.0.3Listen 13 Apr 2025If it begins quietly and unassumingly, it ends deeply—with the sensation of having entered briefly and memorably a higher world of being.
14.22.6.133Listen 12 Apr 2025The higher individuality is preserved, but the lower personality, with its miserable limitations, is not.
16.25.2.212Listen 11 Apr 2025When he is settled down in this final stage, his mind takes on a diamond-like quality—hard and unchangeable in its identification with its deepest layer, bright and positive in its radiation.
15.23.7.49Listen 10 Apr 2025It is the work of a lifetime to venture on such a great improvement of character as will place the lower self under our control, instead of our being controlled by it. We are likely to get disheartened at times by the seeming slowness of progress. This is partly because we are too apt to think in terms of this single incarnation only, whereas those who understand life’s actual range think of it in terms of dozens and scores …
5.6.1.415, ExcerptListen 9 Apr 2025The more successfully he can keep himself free from worldly ties, the more extensively he will be able to serve mankind.
15.24.3.83Listen 8 Apr 2025The cool detachment which he feels in the presence of temptations is a very satisfying feeling, a worthwhile reward for the struggles to attain it.
15.24.3.87Listen 7 Apr 2025Philosophy offers itself to men of the world, although monks may take to it if they wish. It ends in inspired action, not in dull reverie.
13.20.2.145Listen 6 Apr 2025He does not eat meat, not so much because he thinks it poisons the body, but more because he feels pity for slaughtered animals …
4.5.3.114, ExcerptListen 5 Apr 2025Nature is an expression of the Universal Mind. The plants are given to us for medicine or food. It is an insult to Nature to despise these remedies.
7.10.2.6Listen 4 Apr 2025Who is the seeker on this Quest? It is the ego. And who undergoes all the experiences and develops all the ideas upon it? It is also the ego. Let us not therefore be too hasty in denigrating the ego; it has its place and serves in its place.
6.8.4.432Listen 3 Apr 2025It is a consciousness where the “here” is universal and the “now” is everlasting.
14.22.3.222Listen 2 Apr 2025Because we have lost our way, these truths are once again as fresh and significant and important as if they had never before been known to humanity.
2.1.1.131Listen 1 Apr 2025
The notebooks are copyright © 1984-1989 The Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation
This site is run by Paul Brunton-stiftelsen · info@paulbruntondailynote.se