Great Throughts Treasury

"The Void is not an absence, it is a fullness. Everything is there."

"The way to be admitted to the Overself?s presence can be summed up in a single phrase: love it. Not by breathing in very hard nor by blowing out very slow, not by standing on the head nor contorting like a frog can admission be gained. Not even by long study of things divine nor by acute analysis of them. But let the love come first, let it inspire the breathing, blowing, standing or contorting, let it draw to the study and drive to the thinking, and then these methods will become really fruitful."

"The way to use a philosophic book is not to expect to understand all of it at the first trial, and consequently not to get disheartened when failure to understand is frequent. Using this cautionary approach, he should carefully note each phrase or paragraph that brings an intuitive response in his heart's deep feeling (not to be confused with an intellectual acquiescence in the head's logical working). As soon as, and every time, this happens, he should stop his reading, put the book momentarily aside, and surrender himself to the activating words alone. Let them work upon him in their own way. He is merely to be quiet and be receptive. For it is out of such a response that he may eventually find that a door opens to his inner being and a light shines where there was none before. When he passes through that doorway and steps into that light, the rest of the book will be easy to understand."

"The world must be present in my mind or it is not present at all to me. Only as an idea does it truly exist for me."

"The World-Idea is self-existent. It is unfolded in time and by time; it is the basis of the universe and reflected in the human being. It is the fundamental pattern of both and provides the fundamental meaning of human life."

"The World-Mind is a radiation of the forever incomprehensible Mind. It is the essence of all things and all beings, from the smallest to the largest."

"The writer or artist or musician who is to stir up the intuitions in your life must be the human receptacle of divine inspiration."

"There are certain intervals of consciousness between two thoughts--such as those between waking and sleep and those between sleep and waking--which normally pass unobserved because of the rapidity and brevity associated with them. Between one moment and another there is the timeless consciousness; between one thought and another there is a thought-free consciousness. It is upon this fact that a certain exercise was included in The Wisdom of the Overself which had not previously been published in any Western book. But it is not a modern discovery. It was known to the ancient Egyptians, it was known to the Tibetan occultists, and in modern times it was probably known to Krishnamurti. The Egyptians, preoccupied as they were with the subject of death and the next world, based their celebrated Book of the Dead upon it. The Tibetan Book of the Dead contained the same theme."

"There are four goals which philosophy sets before the mind of man: (1) to know itself; (2) to know its Overself; (3) to know the Universe; (4) to know its relation to the Universe. The quest for these goals constitutes the quest."

"There are men of enlightenment who cannot throw down a bridge from where they are to where they once were, so that others too can cross over. They do not know or cannot describe in detail the way which others must follow to reach the goal. Such men are not the teaching masters, and should not be mistaken for them...The man of enlightenment who has never been a learner, who suddenly gained his state by the overwhelming good karma of previous lives, is less able to teach others than the one who slowly and laboriously worked his way into the state - who remembers the trials, pitfalls, and difficulties he had to overcome."

"There are no miracles in Nature, but there are happenings to which science possesses no key. The human consciousness, for instance, is capable of manifesting powers which contradict psychological knowledge, just as the human body is capable of manifesting phenomena which contradict medical knowledge. Both powers and phenomena may seem miraculous, but they really issue forth from the hidden laws of man?s own being. The processes take place in the dark only to us."

"There are three different strata of the finite mind. He learns to see how the self is caught and works in them in order to go beyond them and become aware of That which is infinite Mind."

"There comes a time when you try to do what you can, but if it doesn?t succeed because of the other person?s mentality, you do what you can inwardly. If there comes a point when your effort to be helpful becomes destructive or toxic to you, no matter how close that person is to you, it is time to step aside and let them go. You?ve done all you can do."

"There is a real need to balance our extreme tendency to activism with something of quietism, to offset our excessive doing with deeper being."

"There is a silence born of ignorance and another born of knowledge?mystical knowledge. The right interpretation comes only through the intuitive faculty ? not through the intellect."

"There is no need for anyone to seek to know what his previous incarnations were. If the memories should come, they represent something abnormal. Nature does not desire that we should be hampered in the present by the memory of the past, when the past itself stretches away for such a long time. You need not trouble yourself therefore about previous incarnations, but concentrate fully on your present one so as to make it as worthy as you can."

"There is not one cell in the whole organism of man which does not reflect in miniature the patterns, the proportions, and the functions of the immense cosmos itself."

"There is some confusion on this point in the minds of many students. On attaining enlightenment a man does not attain omniscience. At most, he may receive a revelation of the inner operations of life and Nature, of the higher laws governing life and man. That is, he may also become a seer and find a cosmogony presented to his gaze. But the actuality in the majority of cases is that he attains enlightenment only, not cosmogonical seership."

"There is something crazy in this idea that we were put into the world to separate ourselves from it!"

"These sinister figures seek, and often get, key positions in politics, organized groups, etc., and from there manipulate the mass and use them as blind unwitting tools."

"These three cosmic forces ? Attraction, Repulsion and Rest ? constitute the triune manifestation of the World-Idea. You will find them in every department of existence."

"This grand section of the quest deals with the right conduct of life. It seeks both the moral re-education of the individual?s character for his own benefit and the altruistic transformation of it for society?s sake."

"This I may say, that my work throughout has always been based on first-hand knowledge of what I write about and not upon hearsay and tradition."

"This identification with the best Self in us is the ideal set for all men, to be realized through long experience and much suffering or through accepting instruction, following revelation, unfolding intuition, practicing meditation, and living wisely. And this best Self is not the most virtuous part of our character--though it may be one of the sources of that virtue--but the deepest part of our being, underneath the thoughts which buzz like bees and the emotions which express our egotism. A sublime stillness reigns in it. There in that stillness, is our truest identity."

"This is the paradox that both the capacity to think deeply and the capacity to withdraw from thinking are needed to attain this goal."

"This is the ultimate solitude to which all human beings are destined."

"This perfect harmony between the various elements of his personality is not to be achieved with some in the state of half-development and others of full development. All are to be brought up to the same high level."

"This work must begin with a discipline the body because it is the servant of the ego. To the extent that we bring it to follow the Ideal, to that extent is the ego?s path impeded and obstructed."

"Those who are unaware of the penalties they incur of the misuse of the power to think and the will to act are in urgent need of the teaching of karma."

"Those who believe if you are sick it is a moral error because you were born perfect overlook reincarnation which changes what you can do by your own willpower. Mary Baker Eddy correctly saw that the world was consciousness or thought and thought that since God wants us to be good, it is our wrong thinking that causes illness."

"Those who decline to search for ultimate truth because they believe it to be unattainable, betray it."

"Those who take to the Short Path have to encounter the risk of self-deception, of falling victims to the belief in their own imaginary spiritual attainments."

"Though it seems entirely our own faculty, this thought-making power is derived from a hidden one, the Universal Mind, in which all other men?s minds lie embedded. What he does with this power is a man?s own concern, for better or worse, yielding him more knowledge or more"

"Throw out negative thoughts as they would hinder the uplift of your mind. Replace them by frequent and positive remembrance of the Overself."

"To attach oneself to a guru, an avatar, one religion, one creed, is to see the stars only. To put one?s faith in the Infinite Being and in its presence within the heart is to see the vast empty sky itself. The stars will come and go, will disintegrate and vanish, but the sky remains."

"To be the witness is the first stage; to be Witness of the witness is the next; but to BE is the final one. For consciousness let?s go of the witness in the end. Consciousness alone is itself the real experience."

"To complain that you get no answer, no result from going into the silence indicates two things; first, that you do not go far enough into it to reach the intuitive level; second, that you do not wait long enough for it to affect you."

"To gain such an inspiration in all its untarnished purity, his egoism must be totally lost and absorbed in the experience."

"To get a reasonable balance attend to the weakest side. If deficient in one of these three you should feel it; you usually prefer what you do best."

"To practice retreat in the philosophic manner is very different from the escapist manner. In the first case, the man is striving to gain greater mastery over self and life. In the second case, he is becoming an inert slacker, losing his grip on life."

"To recognize that the order of the cosmos is superbly intelligent beyond human invention, mysterious beyond human understanding, and even divinely holy is not to lapse into being sentimental. It is to accept the transcendence and self-sufficiency of THAT WHICH IS."

"To surrender a problem to the Overself is to cease worrying about it. If the worry still remains, its presence is proof that the surrender has not really been made."

"To the outside observer my declining years have been dead ones, apparently spent in inactivity and futility. But this is only one side of the picture. For they have also been spent in a hidden activity on a higher plane, as much for my own spiritual growth as for the world?s peace."

"Too much attention is too often put upon the role of meditation itself. It is a necessary practice but it is only a part of the total work to be done. Balance, reverence, knowledge, virtue and awareness despite or during activities are also parts."

"Truth lies hidden in silence. Reveal it ? and falsehood will creep in, withering the golden image. Communication by speech or paper was not necessary."

"Truth will not insult intelligence, although it soars beyond intellect. Let the religionists talk nonsense, as they do at times, but holiness is not incompatible with the use of brains, the acquisition of knowledge, and the rational faculties."

"Union with the Overself is not the ultimate end but a penultimate one. What we look up to as the Overself looks up in its own turn to another and higher entity."

"Unless he brings into his metaphysical studies a passionate appreciation of ultimate values and a profound feeling of reverence, they will not bear either a sound or afull fruit. In short, his thinking must be given a rich emotional, ethical and intuitional content."

"Unless he passes through the portals of this discipline, he cannot receive truth, but only its parodies, distortions, and imitations."

"Until such time as each member of a community, nation, or society practices sufficient self-control to bring about his own inner peace it is illusory to expect outer peace in the world. This is why history is a record of conflict."