Great Throughts Treasury

"Procrastination may be perilous. Later may be too late. Beware of being drawn into that vast cemetery wherein men bury their half-born aspirations and paralyzed hopes."

"Revelations come from the Overself; messages are transmitted to us and they are true enough in their beginning. But personal desires seize on them instantly, change and fashion them to suit the ego."

"Science suppresses the subject of experience and studies the object. Mysticism suppresses the object of experience and studies the subject. Philosophy suppresses nothing, studies both subject and object; indeed it embraces the study of all experience."

"Shallow thinking, superficial reasoning, is the means to bondage, but hard thinking, deep reasoning, is the means to freedom."

"Since true philosophy is also a way of life, and since no such way can become effectual unless the feelings are involved, it includes and cultivates the most refined and most devotional feelings possible to man."

"So long as the little self feels itself wise enough to make all its decisions and solve all its problems, so long will there be a barrier between it and the Higher Power."

"So what are depression and sadness but the ego pitying itself, shedding silent tears over itself, loving itself, looking at itself and enwrapped in itself? What is a happy calm but a killing of such egoism?"

"Some imaginative minds can make profitable use of the vastness of the ocean or the immensity of space as topics on which to meditate in the advanced stages."

"Some psychics are legitimate and if you know of one recommended by someone you trust, that one might be all right to see. There is no danger to an individual seeing a psychic unless he or she participates in s‚ances with that psychic in trying to contact a spirit, etc. In that case there would be a possibility of negative psychic entities contacting or entering into association with that individual."

"Such a teaching cannot indulge in propagandist methods or militant sectarianism. It must live quietly and offer itself only to those who are intellectually prepared and emotionally willing to receive it."

"Such an inspired production gives out a form of energy which makes those who can receive it with enough sympathy feel and see what its creator felt and saw. There is an actual transmission."

"Such rare peace stands out in poignant contrast against the burdens and fretfulness of our ordinary lives. Such rare goodness is needed by a generation accustomed to violence, atrocity, bestiality and horror, lunacy and hatred."

"That beautiful state wherein the mind recognizes itself for what it is, wherein all activity is stilled except that of awareness alone and even then it is an awareness without an object ? this is the heart of the experience."

"That there are perils on this path of self-guidance, is obvious. It is easy to fall into conceit, to breed arrogance, even to imagine an inner voice. Here the saving virtue of balance must be ardently sought, and the protective quality of humbleness must be gently fostered."

"That which both Greek Plato and Indian Vedantin called the ?One? did not refer to the beginning figure of a series, but to ?One-without-a-Second.?"

"That which claims to be the ?I? turns out to be only a part of it, the lesser part, and not the real ?I? at all. It is a complex of thoughts."

"The ?Void? means void of all mental activity and productivity. It means that the notions and images of the mind has been emptied out, that all perceptions of the body and conceptions of the brain have gone."

"The act must illustrate the man, the deed must picture the attitude. It is thus only that thought becomes alive."

"The actual experience alone can settle this argument. This is what I found: The ego vanished; the everyday "I" which the world knew and which knew the world, was no longer there. But a new and diviner individuality appeared in its place, a consciousness which could say "I AM" and which I recognized to have been my real self all along. It was not lost, merged, or dissolved: it was fully and vividly conscious that it was a point in universal Mind and so not apart from that Mind itself. Only the lower self, the false self, was gone but that was a loss for which to be immeasurably grateful."

"The artist has two functions: to receive through inspiration and to give through technique."

"The artist?s production may be most inspired; he may glorify art and put it on a pinnacle as the noblest and loftiest human activity when at its best. But it is still a manifestation of man?s ego, the finest and final one. He must transcend it in the end. Like yoga it prepares the way, is a step not a stop."

"The attunement of man?s mind to the Universal Mind, of his heart to the fundamental love behind things, is capable of producing various effects. One of them may be the curing of bodily ills."

"The balance needed by faith is understanding; by peacefulness, energy; by intuition, reason; by feeling, intellect; by aspiration, humility; and by zeal, discretion."

"The best thing to do is to fix your mind steadily on whatever you know or believe is your best strength. What you feel most successful with in regard to the quest. Don?t get too near the person, the farther the distance the better. If you have not been with the person you think is evil but have to see him, you can practice a bit of white magic by imagining a circle around you on the floor. Make the form of a pentagram or a five pointed star. Be very vigorous, take the first point to the northeast and go clear to the floor. Do it with your mind fully concentrated. Point your finger to the center of the pentagram and place yourself in the center. You must have faith that it has some effect. Then before you leave it you make an affirmation such as ?I am the master! It must be no longer than three or four words at the most. When you get to the place where the person is, imagine a wall of white light around him. Again you have to use your faith in the power of the higher self to protect you. If you have a teacher you can visualize him even while you are there."

"The best thing you can do is to get away from it. If you can?t do that, it depends on what experience and knowledge you have; it can?t be the same for everyone. You can practice a mantra silently, keep repeating it. Take deep breaths from the diaphragm, really deep so you feel vitalized. Hold the breath a couple of seconds and do it for a couple of times. You can clinch the palms and keep the fists clinched. If you are sitting, you can cross your arms. (He crossed his arms over his chest.)"

"The body is as much a divine projection as the planet on which it dwells. It is not demoniacal, nor even a symbol of man?s sad downfall. Every tissue cell, bone cell, nerve cell and muscle cell of which it is constructed is itself an expression of divine intelligence and purpose. It is a miniature copy of the universe."

"The central point of this quest is the inner opening of the ego?s heart to the Overself."

"The concept of the Overself is foundational. It provides meaning for life."

"The correct meaning of the word ?karma? is willed action through body, speech and mind. It does not include the results of this action, especially those which produce or influence rebirth. Such inclusion has come into popular concepts, but shows a loose use of the term. karma is cause set going by the will, not effect at all. The phrase ?the Law of Recompense? is therefore not satisfactory and a better one is needed."

"The creative faculty should be cultivated and developed as both a great aid to, and expression of, spiritual growth."

"The dark and destructive forces show themselves in Nature and life. To leave them out, unaccounted for and ignored, is to leave a weak place in oneself."

"The discipline of the self, the following of ethical conduct, the practice of mystical meditation ? all these are needed if the higher experience resulting in insight is being sought."

"The discovery of his true being is not outwardly dramatic, and for a long time no one may know of it, except himself. The world may not honor him for it; he may die as obscure as he lived. But the purpose of his life has been fulfilled; and God's will has been done."

"The ego is not really killed ? how without body and intellect, emotion and will, could anyone act in this world? ? but the center of being is moved out of it to the Overself."

"The ego lives entrenched in the seeker's inner world. If he becomes a saint, it is lost from time to time in meditation but it is found again whenever he emerges from it. If he becomes a sage, it is lost forever. That is one difference."

"The ego?s desires, habits and ways of thought have been established through many earth lives."

"The ego-self is the creature born out of man?s own doing and thinking, slowly changing and growing. The Overself is the image of God, perfect, finished and changeless. What he has to do if he is to fulfil himself, is to let the one shine through the other."

"The first and immediate consequence of perceiving philosophic truth is a mopral one. There is a strong appeal to the intellect and an equally strong appeal to the heart.. These two viewpoints are not opposed to each other."

"The first step is to discover that there is a Presence, a Power, a Life, a Mind, Being, unique, not made or begot, without shape, unseen and unheard, everywhere and always the same. The second step is to its relationship to the universe and to oneself."

"The first way of finding peace when harassed by a hard problem or situation is to turn away from the tumult of thoughts and look for the still center within."

"The function of art is different from mysticism, but both converge in the same ultimate direction. Both are expressions of the human search for something higher than the ordinary."

"The fundamental test and final measure of anyone?s spirituality is provided by his character. And his character is tested and measured by his actions."

"The gap between the finite human mind and the infinite World-Mind is absolute. A union between them is not possible unless the first merges and disappears into the second."

"The Glimpse, even at its fullest extent, as in the Hindu nirvikalpa and the Japanese satori, is only intermittent. If it becomes continuous, an established fact during the working and resting states, both, only then is it completed...The awareness of truth is constant and perennial. It cannot be merely glimpsed; one must be born into it, in Jesus' words, again and again, and receive it permanently. One must be identified with it."

"The goal of life is to be consciously united with Life."

"The greatest homage you can pay to Truth is to use it. Spiritual peace is given to those who wisely aspire, and who will work untiringly for the realization of their aspirations."

"The heart is my ashram. The higher self is the master who dwells within it."

"The hidden teaching starts and finishes with experience. Every man must begin his mental life as a seeker by noting the fact that he is conscious of an external environment. He will proceed in time to discover that it is an ordered one, that Nature is the manifestation of an orderly Mind. He discovers in the end that consciousness of this Mind becomes the profoundest fact of his internal experience."

"The highest goal of the quest is not illumination by destruction of the ego, but rather perfection of the ego. It is the function of egoism which is not to be destroyed, not with that which functions. The ego?s rulership is to go, not the ego itself."

"The humility needed must be immensely deeper than what ordinarily passes for it. He must begin with the axiom that the ego is ceaselessly deceiving him, misleading him, ruling him. He must be prepared to find its sway just as powerful amid his spiritual interests as his worldly ones. He must realize that he has been going from illusion to illusion even when he seemed to progress."